also entirely unlike justice, but hilarious
good, justice, christian, jesus, god, bible, ghandi,
The fun thing about having an account at Rapture Ready is being able to see their apologetics section. I literally cackled with glee upon seeing this topic raised: Where do good people go? It's a good question. Fundagelicals happily defend a belief system in which one's past deeds, no matter how heinous or admirable, are meaningless, and indeed, one's future deeds are equally meaningless. It's all about the sincerety of one's salvation. This creates a situation wherein Hitler, if he repented and accepted Jesus as his savior one second before he died, is enjoying the pleasures of Heaven, but the 6,000,000 Jews he had tortured and killed are roasting forever in hell.
This is entirely unlike justice.
If I were to create a list of things that are entirely unlike justice, this notion of justice would be no. 1 on the list. (Peanut butter would be no. 2.)
Which is why the idea of a defense for this extremely offensive bit of theology ("you molested 37 little kids? find by me! you worked your entire life to abolish oppression and inequality? fuck you and your many-handed gods!") is so terribly amusing.
How does one respond when someone says: "Well where do good people who aren't
Christian go? Like Gandhi or Mother Theresa or my atheist friend John who will
literally give you the shirt off his back and is the most kind person you'll
ever met. Do you expect me to believe that good people like them are all in
Hell?" (This is an excerpt from an email a co-worker sent me)
This comes off to me like the original poster is experiencing a bit of cognitive dissonance. A true fundy knows exactly what to say to this, thusly:
I would say.....as good as people think others may be, or themselves, there is
none good but God. Every man must do the will of God, there are no exceptions.I
would then wait to see what they'd say. If they would agree with God, or not.
So in other words, you wouldn't really answer the question at all.
If they had a chance to know G-d and Jesus... Hell. Period. End of story.If they
were somehow remotely held away from society and any and all information about
their savior, then He will be the judge.It doesnt matter what Ghandi did, he was
hindu. It doesnt matter what any person does on this planet for the greater
good. If they are not saved by the blood of the lamb, then Hell is their
destination.We are not saved through acts or deeds, but through faith in Jesus
Christ. His blood covering and attoning for our sins.
You would answer the question with "Fuck yeah, Ghandi and holocaust victims are burning! Isn't that great?" Um, no, not so much.
It doesnt matter if the man is an athiest, agnostic, asatryu, bahai, buddhist,
zoroaster, hedonist, hellenist, follower of any number of pagan religions,
hindu, shiek, Jain, or any number of eastern religions... He will go to hell at
death, and the final judgement be cast into the lake of fire. No exceptions.He
could donate all his worldy goods to the poor. He could help anybody anywhere at
anytime. He could become a police officer and fight for victims rights. He could
become a politicians and strive to end poverty. He could litterally feed the
worlds homeless.... Acts don't mean he will be saved at the end.
Entirely unlike justice.
Look, if you happen to be the "atheist" in question (and fundys will qualify anyone outside their group as an atheist, so who knows), I would tell her that her belief is heinous, and her god, if he is real, does not deserve worship, but only condemnation. I would tell her that she has no idea what good is or what justice is, and that you don't want lose sight of those things yourself. Because I sure don't want to be that kind of evil.
This is what has confused me for quite some time. If that notion of god is real then why the hell would I ever worship that sick bastard? I'd rather serve Cthulu since he at least is open about the whole ultimate evil thing.
ReplyDelete"You worship a monster."
ReplyDeleteI guess I’d say something to the likes of …
ReplyDelete“Whatever happened to your Savior’s message of love for all? Do you honestly think he would be pleased that you believe any and all good people who simply don’t believe in your God, are going to suffer for all eternity?”
Of course, I’d expect the only answer I’d receive is akin to “That’s how it is” or something. You honestly just can’t reason with these people.
The fact that Jesus was willing to die for sins is the proof He is love and he demonstrates his love for us through the cross.
ReplyDeleteIt is important to look at your own life instead of other people's lives before you judge the motive of Christians in preaching the gospel. Before you can pick out the speck in others' eyes you need to look at the plank in yours. That is true for everyone including me.
Chris (y'know, assuming you're not a drive-by), the question is, what do you make of Romans 5:8:
ReplyDeleteBut God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
in light of Matthew 25:31-46:
But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.
Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
'For (AG)I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.'
Then the righteous will answer Him, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?'
The King will answer and say to them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.'
Then He will also say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.'
Then they themselves also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?'
Then He will answer them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.'
These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
The words in the Bible attributed to Jesus hisownself seem to indicate that the righteous don't know that they're righteous and the unrighteous don't know they're unrighteous. And it sets up that horrible works-based salvation that's so antithetical to the Evangelical mind.
So what's the case? Is the idea that only people who have prayed the Sinner's Prayer will get to Heaven wrong, or is Jesus wrong?
...Mother Teresa?
ReplyDeleteAdd to that: it's not the motives in preaching the gospel that are being questioned, here. It's the content of the gospel itself.
ReplyDeleteIf this is true:
"It doesnt matter what any person does on this planet for the greater good. If they are not saved by the blood of the lamb, then Hell is their destination."
...Then G-d has designed and created a world that is guaranteed to send a large percentage of His creations into eternal suffering. This is supposed to be "Good News"?
Personal Failure, I don't mean to be infiltrating your blog with the gospel if you don't want it here, but I will just answer their questions if you don't mind.
ReplyDeleteMichael Mock and Geds,
I struggled with the issue of "If God knew people will go to Hell then He is a murderer so I should give up on christianity"
However, If I know someone is going to lose in a checkers game and I choose not to play because I know someone will lose, that is pretty silly.
I could use that reasoning and choose not to go to any football games because I know someone is going to lose the game while the other is going to enjoy the glory of winning. It is not a reasonable mentality.
A better analogy would be "If I can make this person win a checkers game without making the other person lose, am I mean for not letting them both win?"
ReplyDeleteExcept, of course, we're talking about eternal damnation, not checkers.
So, this alleged son od a deity comes to earth, is "sacrificed" for the "sins" of the world: job done... but wait! There's more!
ReplyDeleteOnly people who follow a certain ritual and have "faith" are actually to be saved!
Nope, not good enough, add on other rituals, obligations, and of course, being a member of the "right" congregation. Then...we'll see. Who knows? maybe you didn't do one of the rituals right? Believed the wrong sect?
Chris: However, If I know someone is going to lose in a checkers game and I choose not to play because I know someone will lose, that is pretty silly.
ReplyDelete...Right...
Let's just trivialize the hell out of the value of human life.
Let me improve that analogy for you.
"If a close family member I know and love is about to sit down to checkers game where the winner gets everything the loser owns, then gets to force the loser in to a lifetime of homelessness and I know that the person I love will lose without a doubt, should I really let them sit down and play the game?"
No, wait, that doesn't quite do the scenario justice, either. Let me try again.
"Barack Obama is about to sit down to a game of checkers against Vladimir Putin. If Putin wins he gets to choose one person to have everything taken away from them, get locked in a Soviet-style gulag, and then eventually get executed in a grisly fashion. These are rules that were decided before what was supposed to be a friendly game by Obama and Putin when one said, 'You wanna make this interesting?' You know Vladimir Putin will pick the person you love most in the world to kill if he wins. You also happen to know that Barack Obama has publicly stated he's not even going to show up for the game because he's got other things to do and will, therefore, be automatically forfeiting and Putin can do whatever he wants."
Assume for a moment that you voted for Barack Obama. Hell, you walked door-to-door on a GOTV campaign for Barack Obama. You were there in Grant Park when he accepted his party's nomination. You spent your last dime to travel to Washington D.C. in January 2009 to stand on the Mall for his Inauguration. Your efforts were so noticed, in fact, that Barack Obama personally called you to thank you. And he knows that the person whose life hangs in the balance is the person you love more than anyone else in the world.
You call Barack Obama on his Blackberry and say, "Hey, what's the deal? Can't you stop this?"
His response is, "Hey, those are the rules, there's nothing I can do about it. Now I've got to go, there's a lot of important Presidenting that needs to be done."
Would this change your opinion of Barack Obama?
Now replace "Barack Obama" with "god" and "Vladimir Putin" with "satan" and you pretty much have the Book of Job.
Think about it.
Just scanning over your site, it looks like you are fairly intelligent and well researched. It appears you have spent a great deal of time studying your issues and coming up with arguements. Why? Why would you waste your time trying to refute something you claim not to believe in and clash against those who do believe. It seems like a waste of time. Or it seems that there might be a deeper issue within you. Just seems odd to me.
ReplyDeleteGeds,
ReplyDeleteOK, bad illustration on my part. I would love it if God would just let everyone into heaven no matter what. But the Bible doesn't teach that.
It seems unfair but it really isn't, think about it. God deserves all the service of everyone because He created them. Yet, His creation denies He exists.
It really seems cold-hearted to say some people will go to hell, but it is their own free will that puts them there. It is their fault. They are all guilty and they need forgiveness.
So I am doing my part as a christian and warning you of the wrath to come and Jesus' forgiveness. Without Jesus people do not go to heaven, but Hell because of their sins.
PersFail, you say:
ReplyDeleteThis creates a situation wherein Hitler, if he repented and accepted Jesus as his savior one second before he died, is enjoying the pleasures of Heaven, but the 6,000,000 Jews he had tortured and killed are roasting forever in hell.
This is entirely unlike justice.
Your problem (or at least one of your problems) is that you just don't understand the situation. God created the world, so just like Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking Glass, He gets to define what words mean, not you. And if your idea of "justice" (or love, etc.) is at odds with God's, then you have one guess Whose definition wins out, with a vengeance.
Chris, you say:
The fact that Jesus was willing to die for sins is the proof He is love and he demonstrates his love for us through the cross.
As Julia Sweeney says, "Jesus had a really bad weekend for your sins". Where is He now? At the right hand of the Father in Heaven. Where are all the "good" (in the godforsaken pagan/atheist/rationalist meaning of the word, that is, the kind, the generous, the loving) people who listened to reason or other gods and died without believing in Jesus? Burning in eternal torment in Hell. Given that contrast, I can't say that I'm very impressed by Jesus' sacrifice. If anyone made a sacrifice in the Bible, it was rather Judas, who must have known that Jesus was Lord, and committed himself to Hell to make the Crucifixion, and thus our redemption, possible.
But in any case, it's clear that the words "justice" and "love" have rather different meanings for God than for me. I'll stick with mine, thanks.
Chris: It seems unfair but it really isn't, think about it. God deserves all the service of everyone because He created them. Yet, His creation denies He exists.
ReplyDeleteIt really seems cold-hearted to say some people will go to hell, but it is their own free will that puts them there. It is their fault. They are all guilty and they need forgiveness.
I hope you realize that these two paragraphs represent mutually exclusive thoughts. I mean, let's say that there was a woman I loved more than anything in the world. She, however, didn't love me. Were I to follow god's example the proper response to this situation would be to put a gun to her head and threaten I'd kill her unless she said she loved me.
Now, let's say this happens and ten years down the road the police come in to my house for some other, unrelated issue and find the woman I love chained in my basement. I get arrested, go to court in a highly publicized trial, and claim over and over again that I did the right thing because I loved her. I lose the case, both in court and the court of public opinion. The courts conclude that I have kidnapped and falsely imprisoned someone, thereby violating her free will. The judge also seriously questions my mental health, possibly even sending me to a mental, not a penal, institution. The court of public opinion calls me a monster and claims I'm sick in the head.
Another five years down the road the woman I'd locked in my basement writes a book. At the very end there's a bombshell: she admits that she did, in fact, come to love me. On the very next page she says that when she was released she realized that I was a sick, sick man, and she's been in therapy and now knows that she has experienced what is called Stockholm Syndrome, where a captive comes to identify and sympathize with the captor.
She's now engaged to a man who fully understands her weird need to have her car constantly gassed up, a bank account he has no access to, and live in a house without a basement. She can't imagine ever leaving him because he's so great, but she still knows she has to have an out to feel safe.
In case you're wondering, I my little analogy god ain't that second guy...
Also, it seems to me that you completely sidestepped my original query about Matthew 25, choosing instead take a rabbit trail in to non sequiturville. So I'll ask again: which is wrong, the idea of the Sinner's Prayer being the way to heaven, or Jesus?
Geds, it is about being sorry for sins and repenting of sins and trusting Jesus, the sinner's prayer isn't a magic prayer. It is a matter of attitude. Check out http://www.needgod.com
ReplyDeleteJesus is the way to heaven, the sinner's prayer is what compliments a broken heart from sis committed.
Chris, seriously, I grew up an Evangelical. I went to various Bible churches and a couple Baptist churches with occasional interludes with the Covenanters and Presbyterians for 26 years. I was accepted at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and offered scholarships. You're giving me introductory apologetics and that dog ain't gonna hunt.
ReplyDeleteI'm not asking you to tell me how to find Jesus. I'm not asking you to tell me how much I need Jesus.
I'm saying that the version of Christianity you're advancing says that only the people who pray this one particular prayer make it in to heaven. And I'm saying that according to Jesus's words in the Bible you build your faith around that the deciding factor involves attitudes towards the poor and helpless.
And I'm asking you to reconcile that. Not for my benefit, but for yours.
Arlee Bird says: "Or it seems that there might be a deeper issue within you."
ReplyDeleteHeh. He he. Muwahahahaha... ahem.
I love that sly little implication: the fact that you think so much about this must mean that you secretly know you need Jesus.
Nope.
There are a number of reasons why PF might choose to discuss, in detail, something that she doesn't actually believe exists. (For an example of similar behavior, listen to a pair of roleplayers talk about their hobby.) I won't speak for her.
I will say, however, that some people - and I am one of them - simply enjoy playing with ideas: exploring their content, following out their implications, seeing how the fit together and where the jam the gears. And, quite frankly, I enjoy mocking things that (I think) deserve to be mocked.
That's not all of Christianity; far from it. It's not even particular denominations or sects. But there are certain themes within modern Christian thought which are mean-spirited, ugly, and sometimes actively harmful - and I see a positive value in mocking those.
And then, of course, there's the fact that those beliefs don't just affect the believers. They have implications for (and effects on) the rest of us.
@ Chris - the problem with your analogies is that God is supposed to be all-knowing and all-powerful. If that's the case, then Humans are the way we are because God made us that way. If His creation ignores Him, it's because that's the way He made it. If he doesn't like having His creation ignore Him, then He can change His creation into something that doesn't ignore him. That's what "all-powerful" means.
You also said, "I struggled with the issue of 'If God knew people will go to Hell then He is a murderer so I should give up on christianity'."
Just to be perfectly clear, that has nothing to do with why I'm not (or no longer am) a Christian. I'm not a Christian because Christian beliefs don't work for me. My experience of the Divine, such as it is, is very different; and on a fundamental level, Christian teachings do not make sense to me.
I'm not concerned about the afterlife. If God exists, and if He is anything like His advertising, then He won't begrudge me my doubts. I come by them honestly.
the sinner's prayer is what compliments a broken heart from sis committed.
ReplyDeleteYes, when someone is heartbroken because their sister has been put into a mental hospital, we should give them a compliment by reciting the sinner's prayer: “I really admire how bad you feel.”
“God deserves all the service of everyone because He created them.” and “he demonstrates his love for us through the cross”
Yes, I expect a lifetime of servitude from my son, whom I created, and rather than forgiving the little bastard for anything he does wrong I demonstrate my love for him by punishing myself. Yesterday he threw his food on the floor so I stabbed a fork in my eye. Hurt like a mutherfucker, but how else could a loving parent demonstrate justice and goodness?