You Are Going To Hell

[dwaxe]

I recently had the misfortune of having to speak with a pastor from my mother's church. I'm quite vocal about my atheism to my parents, and although my father's religious leanings can most accurately be described as deist, my mother (thinks she) is Christian.

She asked the pastor of her church to come speak to me (i.e. to futilely attempt proselytizing me).

In response to my questions, the pastor told me the following:

Premises:
1. There are only two possibilities after death - Heaven and Hell.
2. There is only one way to get to Heaven.
3. That one way to get to Heaven is to accept Jesus as your lord and savior.
and here's the kicker...
4. There are no unforgivable sins. The only unforgivable sin is not accepting Jesus as your lord and savior, or not believing in god.
however...
5. If one has no knowledge of the god's word (bible), then they are exempt from having to believe in Jesus.

Pastor's Conclusion:
1. All people who accept Jesus are going to heaven, even if they commit other sins. Stealing is forgivable as long as the perpetrator accepts Jesus. Murder is forgivable as long as the perpetrator accepts Jesus. Rape is forgivable as long as the perpetrator accepts Jesus.
2. The thieves, murderers, rapists, and all other sinners are going to heaven if they accept Jesus as their savior.
3. If the criminal has never heard of Jesus, Christianity, or the Holy Trinity, then they need not accept Jesus.
4. Even the Jews and Muslims who do good, who know about Christianity are going to hell. This is because they do not accept Jesus, even if they only know vague, generalized ideas.

In the past week, I have articulated this to my Christian friends, most of whom go to the same church as the pastor and my mother. Some were agreeing wholeheartedly, some ambivalent (to the conclusions), and others disparaging the pastor for his idiocy (focusing on Premise 4).

All my other religious friends had variations of the belief that one had to do good to get to heaven. My atheist and agnostic friends mostly pointed out the argument that if ignorance of god grants you a higher chance of getting to heaven, the best way to get people to heaven is to let Christianity die out.

I was able to get a full response from my mother. She "didn't know" that all one had to do to get to Heaven was accept Jesus. She thought you actually had to take action or do something good to gain eternal salvation (as I believed when I was still in the process of invalidating religion's circular logic as a kid). She now has some questions for her pastor...

My conclusions from this episode:
1. Christianity, even within a single community of one of its various sects, is not nearly as homogeneous in its basic tenets as it suspects.
2. The same can likely be applied to other religions, especially Islam.
3. If people of the same religion articulate their understandings to one another, the differences they find will lead them to skepticism.
4. Not only religious v. non-religious debate should be encouraged, but also debates which show more than one side of a religion (moderates v. fundamentalists, with an atheist thrown in to spice things up). This will lead to less blind faith and more logic.

For those of you who did not feel like reading the entire spell-checked and well formatted text above,, read just my conclusions and respond to those.

 

[amadeus]

Mentsch tracht, Gott lacht.

 

[emzie]

I agree with your pastor. The follow through of a thought process is clearly sending you to hell.

 

[Ecofarm]

My atheist and agnostic friends mostly pointed out the argument that if ignorance of god grants you a higher chance of getting to heaven, the best way to get people to heaven is to let Christianity die out.

Christians should destroy all evidence of Christianity's existence for the greater good. Magnificent

I can see the bumper stickers now: "No Jesus, no Hell".

 

[Rashiminos]

No offense, but the pastor is somewhat clueless. Forgivable is not equivalent to forgiven, and belief in Jesus is more than a trivial statement.

(poster was raised Catholic)

 

[damnation]

What an idiot your moms pasture is. Gahndi in hell is impossible. It's people like him that give christians and all religious people a bad name.

 

[tycoonist]

i wish i had your mother. i could do with yelling at a priest right now...

 

[Mark1031]

I know. See you there.

 

[eastsidebagel]

Well, I know for sure that not accepting Jesus is not the only unforgivable sin. It is slandering and abusing the name of the Holy Spirit, or worse, denouncing its existence altogether. This is the only sin which will always draw you down into hell after you die, no matter how much repentance you'll show. So only a truly brave and self-certain atheist () will ever dare to do that, for in case Christianity is really the truth, your fate were already sealed the second when you idly spoke out that the Holy Spirit is nothing more than a hoax.

 

[emzie]

Christians should destroy all evidence of Christianity's existence for the greater good. Magnificent

I can see the bumper stickers now: "No Jesus, no Hell".

I want that bumper sticker.

 

[Lay_Lay]

This will lead to less blind faith and more logic.

Christianity depends on faith, but not at all on logic. To introduce logic, is to attempt to destroy Him.

 

[eastsidebagel]

I can see the bumper stickers now: "No Jesus, no Hell".

As more as you come to think about it, it makes more and more sense!

 

[warpus]

Well, I know for sure that not accepting Jesus is not the only unforgivable sin. It is slandering and abusing the name of the Holy Spirit, or worse, denouncing its existence altogether. This is the only sin which will always draw you down into hell after you die, no matter how much repentance you'll show. So only a truly brave and self-certain atheist () will ever dare to do that, for in case Christianity is really the truth, your fate were already sealed the second when you idly spoke out that the Holy Spirit is nothing more than a hoax.

The Holy Spirit is so fat that it's fatter than yo momma.

 

[eastsidebagel]

The Holy Spirit is so fat that it's fatter than yo momma.

Good sir, I hereby inform you that, in case that Jesus were in fact really telling the truth, your future afterlife will be spent in hell for all eternity until time will swallow itself!
Baby, I gotcha now!

 

[Lay_Lay]

As more as you come to think about it, it makes more and more sense!

Actually, the more I think about it the less sense it makes. No Jesus, no Hell.

If you believe in Hell, you should be believing that Hell has been collecting evil souls since time began. Jesus came much much later. I believe that Hell will last until the end of time, whereas I doubt Jesus' religion will last until time ends.

So I think Hell will always exist, in man's consciousness - if not the consciousness of every being in the universe.

 

[warpus]

Good sir, I hereby inform you that, in case that Jesus were in fact really telling the truth, your future afterlife will be spent in hell for all eternity until time will swallow itself!
Baby, I gotcha now!

Well, you never know, God could actually exist but be totally different from the trinity, as described in the Bible.

Heck, chances are that if God exists, he's so totally different from any of the Gods that people worship, that he's really really annoyed and sends Christians, Muslims, etc. to hell after they die for worshipping false Gods.

Call it Warpus' wager: I'm getting in God's good books by denouncing all false gods.

You hear that Allah? You smell.

 

[uppi]

1. Christianity, even within a single community of one of its various sects, is not nearly as homogeneous in its basic tenets as it suspects.

Yes. But it depends a bit on the "dogmatic control" the leadership has. There are churches that have their "one true way" pretty much codified. There are other churches that are held together by a common creed, but anything else is up to your own interpretation. And then there are churches where pretty much anything goes, from almost fundamentalist to "atheistic christianity"

2. The same can likely be applied to other religions, especially Islam.

I don't know much about that, but I think Islam is way more homogeneous than Christianity. Liberal Islamic theology seems to be pretty much nonexistant in comparison.

3. If people of the same religion articulate their understandings to one another, the differences they find will lead them to skepticism.

Such a discussion will lead them to reflection, clarification and questioning of their beliefs. But I don't think skepticism is the only result of such a process. There is also the possibilty that this will cause a strengthening of the beliefs.

4. Not only religious v. non-religious debate should be encouraged, but also debates which show more than one side of a religion (moderates v. fundamentalists, with an atheist thrown in to spice things up). This will lead to less blind faith and more logic.
[/QUOT]

I also think that debates like this should be encouraged, even if only to actually get people to formulate their beliefs. However I question that this will generally lead to less blind faith and more logic. The losers might be those, who don't have blind faith and are open to logic, as those who have blind faith won't be convinced by the "ramblings of an unbeliver/heretic/religious nut" and might even be reinforced in their beliefs.

 

[dwaxe]

I also think that debates like this should be encouraged, even if only to actually get people to formulate their beliefs. However I question that this will generally lead to less blind faith and more logic. The losers might be those, who don't have blind faith and are open to logic, as those who have blind faith won't be convinced by the "ramblings of an unbeliver/heretic/religious nut" and might even be reinforced in their beliefs.

All religious people have some blind faith. If you continually bombard a Christian or Muslim with questions about their religion (I've done this and angered some friends in the process ), the heart of the matter is "you just gotta have faith".

 

[Formaldehyde]

A friend of mine has this sticker on the back of his race car trailer:

Jesus is coming. And he is pissed.

I'm guessing that you are a teenager who is still living at home. My advice would be to tolerate it as well as you can until you move out. Until then, there is not much you can do about well-meaning Christian busybodies that doesn't involve the repeated use of firearms.

When I got married, my wife wanted the ceremony to be in one particular church because she liked the way it looked. As part of the process, we had to go to 'religious traning' with the church minister who was to perform the ceremony. After listening to his spiel for a couple of Saturday afternoons, he gave us a "take home test" that had to be completed before the ceremony could take place. I told my wife-to-be that she would be better off answering the questions instead of me, but she didn't think it would matter what I wrote. So I wrote the truth...

Upon reading my 'exam', the minister called and stated he could not marry us. My future mother-in-law flew into a rage because the ceremony would likely have to be postponed at the last minute, and all of the out-of-town guests would be hugely inconvenienced. Fortunately, we worked out a compromise. Instead of using his ceremony we wrote our own, and he agreed to marry us under that arrangement.

 

[eastsidebagel]

All religious people have some blind faith. If you continually bombard a Christian or Muslim with questions about their religion (I've done this and angered some friends in the process ), the heart of the matter is "you just gotta have faith".

Buggering beliefers with uncomfortable questions all the time might be amusing for a time, I admit that, but soon you'll see that their answers will become more and more monotonous and monosyllabic.