Christian religious question

[Valhalla1]

alright, I've often asked this of strong faith Christian friends, and never have been satisfied with the answers. basically it goes like this -

Scenario #1:
a person rapes and kills multiple women, molests children, kills, steals, robs banks, and shows no remorse, sentenced to death and put in prison until his time comes. while on death row he "finds god" miraculously a week before he is executed, and asks for God's forgiveness. Now, all of the devout Christians I have asked this of agree, that he will be forgiven and accepted into heaven.

Scenario #2:
a man leads an honest life, minds his own business, doesn't break the law, yields for school busses, helps old ladies cross the road, is a good little boy scout his whole life, never cheats on his wife and is regarded as a good decent man. he dies, yet my Christian friends explain to me that he will be eternally damned to hell while his rapist/murderer/molester counterpart kicks back in good ol' heaven. simply because he didn't accept God and didn't go to church on sunday.


now.. can someone explain to me, why this is? why the Christian faith allows for this to happen, for the worst sinner in the world to be accepted with God as long as he "says he's sorry" but a great man like #2 will be damned to hell ?


thank you for your time, and lets not start a flame war.

 

[Regine]

Valhalla, thank you so much for asking these questions. I don't have the answer for it, and to be true, this question has turned me away from Christianity. I just don't see how the first one can be "saved", yet the second one goes to hell....

 

[shiner]

2 answers...

1. The Catholic faith would not allow for the man in scenario #1 to go to Heaven since that reward is based both on beliefs and worldy works. Most of the Protestant religions however would say that yes he gets in.

2. The second man cannot be accepted into heaven due to his never professing his faith or accepting Christ as his savior. This is pretty much a truism of all Christian faiths.

 

[Czar]

This is one of the reasons I find Christianity stupid. There is no logic, just some realy old book.

 

[Valhalla1]

So.. in order for me to get into heaven, I can rape and kill to my hearts content as long as I say I'm sorry before I die?

but if I lead a good life but don't go to church or pray, I'm eternally damned?



and how is that not wrong?

 

[shiner]

It's more than just saying that you are sorry. According to the Christian faiths you must accept Christ as your savior.

Czar....religion is not based on logic, it is based on faith.

 

[Stark]

Here's some scripture that explains both situations:

LUKE 23

32 There were also two others, criminals, led with Him to be put to death. 33 And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left. 34 Then Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do." And they divided His garments and cast lots. 35 And the people stood looking on. But even the rulers with them sneered, saying, "He saved others; let Him save Himself if He is the Christ, the chosen of God." 36 The soldiers also mocked Him, coming and offering Him sour wine, 37 and saying, "If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself." 38 And an inscription also was written over Him in letters of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS. 39 Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed Him, saying, "If You are the Christ, save Yourself and us." 40 But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, "Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? 41 And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong." 42 Then he said to Jesus, "Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom." 43 And Jesus said to him, "Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise."

The criminal hanging on the cross recognized that Jesus was Lord and his savior from all his previous crimes and sins.

No matter how good a "good man" is, he is not perfect. The only way to enter God's perfect kingdom is to have all sins washed away through the sacrifice of the fully innocent Christ on the cross. Any man can recieve this assurance of eternal life in His kingdom, but he must see Jesus for what his is: Lord and savior.

 

[IamDavid]

I've always wondered the same things. Here's the one that bothers me.......

Say there are two people. Both whom love each other more than anything else. One lives life by the rule of god and the other commits sins at every step of life and believes in no god and would have no chance of entering through the gates of heaven... Now what happens? Are they kept apart for all eternity? Does the one who lived a good life get punished for the sins of the other? If being in heaven is being with the ones you have loved, then how could this be? If one goes to heaven and the other hell than wouldn't this be a type hell for the good one? Never to see there one true love again, and knowing that he is burning for all of eternity??

Just my thoughts on religion..

 

[abacus]

Valhala, This is difficult to explain. You see, Person #1 "accepted" Jesus as his Lord and savior. Now person #1 did commit those crimes, he is willing to accept his punishment (even the death sentence).
Person #2 may have never committed adultry, rape or any crime. He may even love his wife and family. But person #2 has committed the only crime he was charged with at birth, seperation from GOD. Does this mean he will suffer eternal death while person #1 receives eternal love from GOD? Yes. Is this fair? No. God never wanted anyone to suffer eternal judgement. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life." I hope this helps you. I wouldn't mind discussing this via email, Valhala. You can email me at sparky1434@onebox.com.

 

[shiner]

IAMDAVID

No the person in Heaven who is seperated from his/her love one would not be going through a type of hell due to the seperation. Why? There is no sadness in Heaven. One would hope that if this person truly loved the other than he/she would do everything they could to get the non believing person to change their ways.

I am what sould be called a "young Christian" even though I am 30 years old. It wasn't until last January that I was saved and accepted Christ. Before that I was pretty much a hard core agnostic that thought I knew it all and didn't need God. Boy was I wrong!!! I won't go into details here about my conversion but let me tell you that until you have expereinced the feeling that comes over you at the point where you admit your sins and accept Christ you have no idea how truly wonderful it feels. I hope some day all of you who don't believe or have not been saved will do so. I am not the type to try to push religion on anyone since I feel that it is something you must come to on your own. Do know that I will be praying for you.

 

[Tominator]

If good is not done 'To The Glory of God' it is not acceptable. True good only is done in his name.

It is not up to the Catholic Church or you name the church to 'allow' anything! In my belief, the so-called Christian that breaks God's Law is much more guilty of wrong than any murderer that does not know God's Laws..

To answer the first Scenario.....according to God's Law, the murderer that accepts Jesus into his heart and is baptised and has asked for God's forgiveness and is truely repentant, he will go to heaven. Of course only God knows the intent of this person. It does not change what Society might do.

In number two Scenario....We are all Sinners! The Pope is as well as the murderer. 'All fall short of the Glory of God.'
This so-called good man did all the good to his own purpose and not God's! God demands our obedience! Close, but no cigar!


....You shalt not forsake the gathering together of the Saints in my name...


None of us can read the future and in the Bible we are warned to be prepared as we do not know if we will be dead or alive tomorrow.



<< Any man can recieve this assurance of eternal life in His kingdom, but he must see Jesus for what his is: Lord and savior. >>


The steps to salvation are outlined in the Bible. Faith is not enough.

We are commanded to love God more than ourselves or others. The joy of eternal life would far outweigh anything we leave behind in this world.

 

[Valhalla1]

hrm.. once again it is shown that #1 will be accepted and #2 will be damned.

I just don't get it.. its like practically saying its okay to do whatever you want your whole life, why have the commandments, they do no good! who cares, sin all you want! rape and kill! plunder and molest! have a grand old time, just be sure you find god before you die!

 

[shiner]

Are you not reading the posts? You can do all the good you want but if you DO NOT accept Christ as your savior it doesn't matter. As long as you ask forgiveness for your sins and accept Christ you will get into Heaven if your change of heart is real. God does however frown upon people who accept baptism under false pretences and I'm sure there is a special place in hell of them.

 

[fir3wir3]

yeah, most religions are full of hypocracy

sad it is

 

[Valhalla1]

of course I read the posts, and it affirmed what I just said, you can do whatever the hell you want you're whole life as long as you repent

 

[Zucchini]

Just think religion = advanced cult

It becomes more clear

 

[raptor13]

Valhalla:

I think a major thing you're missing is this - if you plan to spend your life raping and killing and plan to &quot;accept&quot; God in the end, then you aren't actually accepting Him. You can say you're sorry and that's fine in court. However, God Himself knows the truth. If you are only saying you're sorry and that you repent all your sins, then you're still going to Hell because God will know you're lying to yourself and others.

I know that it seems unfair and stupid that man #1 can go the heaven if he accepts God (that is, if he truly accepts God) and that man #2 can still go to hell. But, by Jesus dying for all of man's sins, man #1's sins are cleansed. Therefore, by accepting Jesus and God, man #1 goes to heaven. It comes down to one thing: Not accepting God is the biggest sin. Period. If you can't/won't/don't accept that, then you won't ever be satisfied by an answer. The answer to your question requires that you believe in God and therefore have faith that God's plan for man #1 and man #2 is correct, even if it seems odd to you.


Hope that helps.

 

[mechBgon]

With these kinds of questions, short answers are better so here is the thing in a nutshell, as brief as I can get

Val, you're making one critical error: you're thinking that the two people in your scenario are different in the eyes of God. They're not. Both have the inherent human imperfection that separates people from God, just to different degrees, and both need to acknowledge that their debts have been cancelled at the cross, if possible. To reject the free gift of grace is bad. To not know of it at all is not as bad. Read C.S. Lewis' &quot;The Chronicles of Narnia&quot; and specifically &quot;The Last Battle.&quot; Lewis addresses the issue brilliantly.

I also think that you should edit your thread's title, since this has nothing to do with religion. It's an issue of faith, and calling faith &quot;religion&quot; is like calling a marriage &quot;sex.&quot; Faith is more than going to a building on Sunday and saying some words and making some motions and remembering what the Seven Deadly Sins are... it's a relationship, and it gives a foundation and a meaning to those words and motions, etc.

Dang, look at me ramble on... sorry

 

[Valhalla1]

okay, you're telling me that if some horrible man kidnapped your children, molested and raped them for days on end, tortured them and giving them a slow horrible death, and found god and repented, you'd want him to go to heaven?

but you'd want to see the man who saved your childrens life because he jumped in front of a moving semi truck to knock your kids away and gets killed, who lived a straight arrow life but just never accepted religion, that you'd want to see him burn in hell for eternity?


thats just fuc#ing WRONG

 

[Netopia]

<< I just don't get it.. its like practically saying its okay to do whatever you want your whole life, why have the commandments, they do no good! who cares, sin all you want! rape and kill! plunder and molest! have a grand old time, just be sure you find god before you die! >>



Valhalla1,

First thing is understanding why people go to hell:

John 3
17 For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.
18 He who believes in him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

It's not about what WE do. Christ did the work on the Cross. In the &quot;Game of Life&quot; by your rules, you add up the good and bad and if you have enough good, you should go to Heaven. By God's standards, everyone is to do nothing BUT good... ONE SIN and you have fallen short. Unfortunatly, you have nothing with which to make up for it. If you say you did good the rest of your life, what does that matter? It's like saying if you shoplift for a while and then are a paying customer, being a paying customer makes up for the shoplifting.

God knows that we are incapable of paying the &quot;price&quot; for sin... we are all condemned. Therefore, He humbled Himself and became flesh an allowed Himself to pay the price, the death penalty, for our wrong doing. With out His work on the Cross, none would be saved. He offers salvation as a TOTALLY free gift, all one must do is acknowledge the gift and TRULY receive it.

And that brings us to the crux of the matter. BOTH of the people in your example are sinners, neither lived an ABSOLUTLY sinless life and therefore BOTH are fit for Hell. If the one WE would label &quot;evil&quot; TRULY with TOTAL SINCERITY turns to God through faith in Christ... yes, he would be saved... not because he led a better life, because he didn't, he deserved to go to Hell... but because someone already got the Death Penalty for that man's sins.... Jesus got the death penalty in that man's place.

Your confusion with the situation comes because you want to measure things from a human perspective of adding up right and wrong. From God's point of view, one sin and we are totally unfit and filthy. The real miracle is God's mercy. Have you ever thought of God's patience? The fact that he would give each of us until our dying breath to decide for ourselves? Both of the men in your example would have thier entire life to decided.... isn't it rather amazing that God doesn't simply write us off as a loss and turn His back on us?

How about this... Let's put it in financial terms:

The first man runs up tens... maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars in credit card debt from a certain bank and is certain to declare bankrupcy. The other man pays his credit cards on time and regularly but keeps a couple of thousand dollars on his cards. One day the bank announces that they have information that a great depression is coming and that a rich man has made an offer through the bank... anyone who comes and signs a paper saying that they acknowledge that they have a debt, but that they are willing accept a free payoff from the rich man will instantly become debt free; anyone who doesn't will have to pay the debt themselves, just like normal.

The first man (with the TON of debt) realizes he has a problem, goes to the bank, acknowledges his endebtedness and thankfully signs the paper to receive the free payoff. The other man figures that he's always paid his bills on time and why should he believe that the bank knows about some coming depression. He decided NOT to accept the free payoff.

Six months later, the world is thrown into the worst depression every experienced. Both men are laid off and can find no work. The first man manages to survive from small amounts of money he's saved over the previous six months, while the other man now cannot even make the payments on his credit cards. The bank sues him and has him thrown in prison.

Now let me ask you... is it unfair that that man who more regularly paid his bills but refused a free payoff be held accountable for his own actions? Is it unfair that the man who owed so much was wise enough to accept the free gift? It's no different in God's Kingdom. He's got a &quot;PAID IN FULL&quot; voucher waiting for each and every one of us... all He asks is that we accept the free gift and not return to our sinful ways. He knows what's ahead, and He loves us enough that He is willing to pay EVERYBODY'S spiritual debt off... if we'll just come down to the bank and accept.

If you still don't understand, I'm not sure if you're really listening to what we're telling you.

I hope you are listening though... then we can talk it over in eternity!

Joe

 

[Netopia]

mechBgon,

Eloquent answer. You posted while I was typing.

Valhalla1,

You miss the point. If a man did all sorts of things to my children, and then TRULY accepted Christ, justice would be served... Chirst died a HORRIBLE death for the things that man did. Chirst took the guilty charge and accepted the punishment in that man's place. Would I want that man to burn in Hell? I probably would... because I'm a parent. Would it be RIGHT for me to wish that on him? NO! I deserve Hell and have been forgiven it... who am I then to deny forgiveness to another?

Christianity isn't some easy &quot;Get Out Of Jail Free&quot; card. Reflect on that some... in God's perfect mercy, we are to hate NO ONE and forgive all.... including one who would do that to our children. God takes care of vengence... even if it means He Himself being the object of the the vengence.

Joe

 

[Valhalla1]

okay, that was an interesting example.
but I have to say, I don't agree with the results. I don't see how its better for an honest man who pays his debts himself to be punished, but someone who just forgets all the millions he owes and he gets rewarded. I don't see it.

 

[raptor13]

Wait, Netopia. Are you telling me that the ticket to heaven is to not pay my credit card bills? Hot damn! I'll start doing that right away!

 

[Eowyn]

Most Christians find the very idea of hell difficult to accept. I would love to believe in Universalism, but it is not possible to believe the authority of the Bible and also believe that all souls will be saved. Sure I find that objectionable. I've been asked about hell many times by unbelievers, and I can't justify its existence by my human standards. I think hell sucks. So why does it exist, and why does God's perfect justice function in the way that the Bible says it does? Dunno.

So why doesn't God make all His ways perfectly clear to Man so that we could see the wisdom and necessity of some of the things that we find puzzling, like the deaths of infants, the suffering of the righteous, the forgiveness of the wicked, and such?

Why doesn't God explain everything to us? Hmm. I sat down this morning and tried to tell my cat why I won't let her eat the thin, splintery chicken bones that she found in the trash. I went into detailed and lengthy expostulation on the friability of the avian fibula, and drew diagrams of feline esophageal anatomy, and my cat sat and listened very nicely, but she still thinks I am just a very mean person for taking her away her chicken drumstick.

 

[Netopia]

<< . I don't see how its better for an honest man who pays his debts himself to be punished, but someone who just forgets all the millions he owes and he gets rewarded. I don't see it. >>



You miss part of the point. Those of us who have been forgive our &quot;millions&quot; don't just &quot;forget all the millions (we) owe&quot;. We spend the rest of our lives being thankful to the one who fogave our debt. We spend our time trying to tell everyone that &quot;there's a rich guy at the bank who will pay your bills... hurry down before it's too late&quot;. We even tell the guy who only has a coupld of credit cards and seemingly very little debt... because we know how bad the &quot;depression&quot; is going to be and we don't want him to suffer. Heck... we tell him again and again... he get's SICK of us telling him! He yells at us. We knock at his door trying to warn him, but he slams it in our face. We do everything we can to get him to accept that free bank payoff and warn him of the upcoming finacial doom... but he steadily refuses and just gets angry at us for caring...... get the drift?

Joe