Can I be saved by Jesus?

Great Debates
1

This thread made me think. I’m asked to say a prayer to save my soul. I don’t believe in a god and praying to an invisible man who lives in the sky makes as much sense to me as praying to a roll of toilet paper to take my soul to a magical Disney Land in the clouds when I die.

No amount of prayer will ever convince me God is real. No amount of reading the bible will convince me Adam and Eve were real people. The logic center in my brain will not allow me to believe Jesus rose from the dead. I have this funny belief that once you’re dead for three days, you’re dead. The body just can’t get back up.

Does this mean I am forever dammed in the eyes of the Christian God?

2

Short answer, Yes.

From a Christian persepctive if you died now with those feelings then you would be forever damned.

I may get slammed for that later but I was just answering the question.

3

It depends on which Christian you talk to.

There are Christians who believe that you must make a conscious and willing affirmation that Jesus saved you in order to be saved.

There are Christians who believe that living your life in accordance with the precepts of Christianity (loving your neighbor, etc.) is equal to an affirmation, whethr or not you actually say “I believe.”

There are Christians who believe that you are automatically saved unless you actually do something to screw it up.

But since you have clearly stated you don’t believe in the Christian concept of God, why do you even ask the question?

4

There is no single “Christian” answer to that question. Many Christians would disagree with START.

Just bear in mind that if God exists and God is good then Hell cannot exist and salvation cannot be contingent on belief.

5

I speak solely as an individual here, and I’m confident that it would be very easy to “disprove” my statements from Scripture. But this is what I believe.

Presuming God exists (and I’m confident of that, but I can’t expect you to be), He is all-loving and does not expect the impossible of those He loves – including you. Do what you can to conform to what He expects of you (see the recent thread I started on what Jesus said to do), and trust Him (on the assumption He exists) to take care of what you can’t do.

Nowhere does it say that you’re obliged to believe that Adam and Eve were real, that Joshua stopped the Sun in its tracks, that the whole world flooded and eight people and 2-7 animals of every species were saved on a big ship, or any of the rest of the stuff that people assume is required. Trusting in God’s love for you (“faith”) seems to be the one key requirement – and living out what He said was the way humans are supposed to live.

As for Jesus rising from the dead, the traditional story suggested to people that, and the traditional belief is, by a special miracle, the body of Jesus that had been crucified came back to life. But that’s not what Paul says (see I Corinthians 15 for details), and I think that there’s enough evidence to indicate that something strange happened to convince His followers that the man they’d known and seen killed was somehow alive and kicking in some way again. The answers to this get pretty mystical – but I stick to the bottom-line item that something they saw, heard, or felt gave them this peculiar idea.

(For an interesting take on a non-religious way to look at the ideas of everlasting life, resurrection, and the communion of saints, take a look at Spider Robinson’s SF novel Deathkiller, which has absolutely nothing to do with Jesus or the Bible – it all takes place in Nova Scotia and (probably New York) City.)

My experience is that one need not do “bootstraps” faith – where you will yourself to have a faith you don’t feel – but rather, all that’s needed is to be open to the possibility, and proof sufficient to suit you will be provided. (However, a full-disclosure caveat: two Dopers who’ve tested this, at my and Lib’s request, did not have any such clearcut results. But I still report my own experience FWIW.)

6

Yeah many Christians would disagree, I’m just going on what I have been taught since I was a lower case start.
I have my beliefs but I don’t like getting into who is going to Hell and who isn’t. It’s just that for me personally I consider accepting Jesus Christ as my Savior the safe way to live. If people do get in to Heaven just for being nice then I wouldn’t have a problem with that because many of my best friends are not Christians but just really nice people.

7

I feel the same way, and I’m a Christian who goes to church pretty much every week. Fortunately, I don’t think that God is an “invisible man in the sky,” and the people I worship with, at least those I know well, don’t either. And given that I’ve heard the head preist denounce the “man in the sky” conceptualization of God in a sermon, I don’t think my friends and I are all that exceptional in not holding that belief…

8

Would you have a problem with it if really nice people who weren’t Christians went to Hell? Would that be a very nice God?

And how do you know that accepting Jesus Christ is safe?

9

If getting into Heaven is decided on who is “good” or “nice” then I am in big trouble.

I have 2 cars, a house, a playstation 2 and a computer for my spare time, my livelyhood comes from helping wealthy people become more wealthy, I pass several homeless people a day without so much as a glance, I secretly desire to sleep with several of my friends’ wives, I am prone to laziness and I also flipped a guy off after he gave me a dirty look for cutting him off on the highway this week. I think all of this is standard fare for those who would be honest.

If I were “good” enough" or “nice” enough to get into a place as spectacular and glorious as Heaven when I die, I certainly would not have these sins to account for. I would not have wasted my money and time on a PS2 and games when there are homeless hungry near my home. I would bike or carpool instead of having 2 pollution creating cars. I would dedicate my life’s work to helping the poor instead of enriching the wealthy. I would never covet my friends’wives. The hours prone on the sofa in front of the TV would be spent in service to my fellow man and I would be more considerate of others than to cut them off in traffic and then flip them off.

I would think that most people who know me would say I was both a nice and a good guy. But God knows all of me, even my thoughts. He knows the missed opportunities I have had to serve Him and others. He knows my capacity for apathy to the suffering of others.

No I am not nice enough, nor good enough to get into Heaven. I will trust Jesus, and rely on His sacrafice to get me there.

10

Why do you have to be perfect to go to Heaven?

Why would God require a “sacrifice?” Why couldn’t he just decide not to fry people?

If God was going to require a specific belief in a fantastic event as being the way to avoid eternal torture (and SCREW whatever kind of person you are) then why doesn’t he offer some kind of proof instead of just requiring people to correctly guess which religious mythology is the true one without a shred of evidence?

How can a God who is good torture good people eternally for not believing something he has given them no REASON to believe?

11

I wouldn’t have a problem with really nice people who are not “Born Again” going to Hell because the Bible says you must be Born Again but if going to Heaven was based on being nice then that would be great because all my nice agnostic friends could go there too. We discussed this in youth bible study and the consensus is that hopefully everybody who is simply a good person will not go to Hell but we are not betting on it.
I wouldn’t bet my life on just being a good person is what I am trying to say, I wouldn’t do that because I do believe that you must be born-again to be guaranteed to escape Hell. God gives us all opportunities to accept or reject him and it’s your choice so I think the fact that we have opportunities makes him a “very nice God”.
** I say agnostic because I don’t know that many full on athiest people, most people I know believe in some type of God and afterlife.

12

The Biblical answer is: If you never got the Good News, but were pious and good according to the rules and regs. prescribed by your particular faith, then you’ll get a chance in the afterlife to take Jesus as your Lord and Savior. If you do, you’re in. If you don’t, you’re out.

Now, if you did get the Good News in this life, and believe, you’re saved, and you’re in. If you don’t, you’re out. Faith in Christ requires one to live according to the values Jesus espoused, and that’s a constant battle with the human tendency to sin, and a constant process of renewal of the vows of faith and prayers for forgiveness for those sins; but if you reject him as your Lord and Savior, even if you’re a good doobie in every other respect (e.g. you live in a manner consistent with Christian values in every other respect besides worship), you’re still out. Faith is absolutely key.

So, yeah, be grateful for global warming, as it’s a nice primer for the fires of Hell.

13

Hmmph…I just had a conversation about what it means to be “saved by Jesus” with my shrink (who happens to be a gay Catholic friar) this week. Explaining myself, I said to him that I feel I’d be an exemplary Christian if it weren’t for that I can’t manabe to believe in one little detail of the Christian faith: that Jesus is the son of God (any more than the rest of us, daughters included) and that he bore “our” sins, was crucified, buried, resurrected, and so on.

I strongly believe that, were we humans to adhere to the teachings of Jesus as they’re given in Matthew and other gospels, including that of Thomas, there would be salvation in that we’d live in a far better world than we do now; maybe this would be the kingdom of “Heaven”, which Jesus is said to have said is “within us”. But I also believe that if we were to adhere to the teachings of the Buddha, or even of Asoka, who certainly had no claim to anything like divinity, the same results would obtain.

Too much of “Christianity” is dependent on the idea of salvation in the form of escape from eternal damnation. Others in this thread have pointed out what a runt God would have to be to hinge the whole deal on whether or not he decides, in the long run, to toss you into hell, based on faith and acceptance of the fact that he has an exceptionally needy ego, for a Supreme Being.

I think that you can be saved by Jesus among others. His message, if you can separate it from the legalism that’s been attached to it, is universal and it’s echoed by each and every speaker on the subject of attaining a peaceful “immortality”: Treat other people as you’d have the slightest, fondest, hope that they’d treat you in similar circumstances. To do so requires a willingness to compromise, to collaborate, all the time. Understanding others, and caring about their well-being would be imperative, not optional. In Christ, or Buddha, perhaps, or even Baha’ullah, this would become the source of eternal pleasure (“heaven”) – to leave this world knowing that you’ve left it, by your living, a place more inclined toward collaboration than competition, and that’s something you can only do by example, not by telling other people what to do. And certainly not by saying a dismal, empty prayer.

PS: polycarp, you don’t know me, but I sure do <3 U!

14

What “opportunities” are you referring to? I’ve never been given one. When do I get one?

Why does God care what people believe?

If God does care then when why doesn’t he provide some evidence for his own existence?
Do you seriously think that a good person who does not believe in Jesus deserves to be tortured forever?

15

You already have been. Quit worrying about it and try to be a nice little number, not because it will get you into Heaven but because it’s the right thing to do, be you Christian, Buddhist, atheist, or whatever. Everything’s been taken care of and your ticket’s been paid for.

And lemme tell ya, it feels great to say that since I was raised in fire and brimstone Catholicism, with the likelihood of damnation hanging over me unless I reached some level of inhuman perfection.

16

Ooo, I forgot, per the Bible: Are you Jewish? You’re in luck! You don’t need Jesus. Just be a good Jew (follow all of G-d’s laws faithfully, etc.). You get a special pass, your people being the bearers of G-d’s old covenant for millennia, and all. Now, you may have some pretty different ideas about what this whole “afterlife” thing, and you may think that Jesus was a seriously wayward heretic, but don’t sweat it. The joke’s on you when you reach the Pearly Gates, but the wonderful thing is you’ll be in on the last laugh with all the others up there.

17

Bangiadore, when you said “among others”, I thought immediately of suggesting that you might find the teachings of Baha’ullah of interest. I have a great respect for that faith.

But I also identify with newcrasher. I know how much I leave undone. Some people seem to be more enabled to act upon their feelings of empathy. It is a mystery to me and it is something about myself that I am not comfortable with.

Straight Dope seems to have become my main outlet for caring for others.

I haven’t worried about being “saved” for decades. I can’t be deserving of it. I don’t even think about life-everlasting that much. I do think about seeing my Dad again someday. I wonder if I will experience a sense of Oneness with everything. I’m not afraid much of dying. (I was when I was younger.) I just can’t imagine that the Master that I’ve trusted in all these years would turn on me even though I have been a lazy servant. He has the patience of Job.

18

Well, just the fact that you know about Jesus Christ means you have an opportunity to be saved, I’m sure you have heard the Gospel message at some point, even on this message board. That means that you have the opportunity to accept God’s word, nothing would stop you if you wanted to be born again.

God said he is a jealous God and that’s why he cares what you believe.

God does provide evidence of his existence people just don’t look for it. I have seen people healed but it is really hard to tell you that because I have no proof or any cites for this but I saw these things because I opened my mind to God. If you pray to God and seek him out you will see the evidence that he exists in whatever form he chooses to show you.

I don’t think that a good person deserves to be tortured forever and that’s why I feel so good when people accept Christ. I’m not the type of person who would say for sure that a person is hell bound based on what they do or do not believe but I think that when somebody really accepts Christ, at that point Heaven is a sure thing for them. I also don’t think any bad things should happen period but it is a result of sin and now because of that bad things are a part of life unfortunately, including events like the deadly Tsunami.
God knows how long we have on to live on the Earth and will give us all an opportunity to hear his Word and accept or reject it and those who never hear his Word will be saved by God’s grace.

You got me feeling like a preacher, Diogenes.

19

I’m sorry but yammering at somebody about “Jesus Christ” means absolutely nothing. When I talk about “opportunity.” I’m talking about proof. Words are worthless. If God is not willing to provide proof for this stuff then he has no moral right to demand that anybody believe it.

That’s just begging the question. What is he jealous of? Why is he so weak and pathetic, so insecure, narcissitic and egotistical that he needs to be worshipped. I’m sorry but I have zero respect for a “jealous” God. Jealousy is a punk emotion.

But even so, if its so important to God’s fragile ego that people believe in him, then why has he never provided any proof in the history of the universe that he exists?

Where is it? I’ve looked for it and I’ve never seen it. What’s more, nobody ELSE has ever seen it. At least not in a way that they can demonstrate to science.

Those cheap revival show/Bible camp “healings” are commonplace in every religion. It’s purely psychosomatic. It’s a temporary placebo effect.

Except for the outright fraud of course.

Take my word for it when I tell you that none of these “healers” can perform under laboratory conditions and none of these little anecdotes ever demonstrate anything genuine. You admit that you can’t cite anything but I’ve heard it a million times before. It doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

By the way, what do you have to say about the “healings” that are performed by Hindus or Muslims? Does it it count as a miracle if Krishna does it?

Then you admit that God tortures people who don’t deserve it?

How very kind of Christ not to torture them for not being able to guess without evidence what they are supposed to believe.

Hpw do you know that? What if the Muslims are right? In that case you’re worshipping an idol. What better proof do you have than a Muslim?

What is “sin?”

You think the tsunami some sort of punishment from God? Coame on, dude, you’re brighter than that. I’ve read a lot of your posts. I think think you’re a pretty sharp kid with a good sense of humor. Don’t allow yourself to buy into this kind of poisonous thinking.

As long as he offers no proof then he has no moral right to demand any belief.

20

Proof, What exactly do you mean when you say that? I mean it’s kind of hard to tell somebody that has been around church services all his life that God doesn’t “show up” during these services and heal people and fill them with his Spirit. I can tell you about these things that I accept as proof but it would not be good enough for you because I am sure that anything I could think of you could easily pick apart, so what can I say? I pray that God shows himself to you in a ball of light suspended in mid air so that you will believe because I think that is the type of proof you want.
If you mean scientific proof I know atleast one guy who is a Doctor and Scientist who accepted Christ after studying Creation and Evolution with an open mind.
God created us to worship him and that is why he is a Jealous God.
Jesus went through the torture of dying on the cross so good people wouldn’t have to be tortured.
OK, I want to answer all your questions but first of all I am only a student not a preacher for goodnes sakes and second I have a headache and a fever but don’t worry I will come back and answer all your questions from my perspective as soon as I get some rest.

Diogenes, how do you do that thing where your broke my quotes up so you could respond to each one? Because I tried it and when I looked at the preview it didn’t look right.