Do ALL non christians go to hell?

Great Debates
41

tsk tsk…such blatantly inflammatory language outside the pit? How will you atone for these sins? My religious sentiments are hurt. Boo Hoo.

But more to the point, I would like to clarify some matters about the statements you made about Hinduism. (Note here that I am no religious expert, so anyone with more knowledge is welcome to add on to my comments).

In hinduism, all your past lives contribute to the one you have right now. You don’t seriously think it would be a good idea to have all those memories? But seriously, you specifically don’t have memories of past lives because they don’t have any bearing on your current life. It is to save the indvidual from the pain and trauma that comes along with it. As you pointed out, individuality itself comes from memory, but you fail to understand that each life is a different body, with a different mind and a different era…ergo a different individual, and hence cannot carry baggage from a past life.

The fact that you are a Hindu inherently means that you must do good to achieve heaven upon death. What you have lived in your past life has no bearing on it, only your Karma from all your past lives does. Your entire life is balanced upon your death and you go to heaven or hell depending upon your Karma. The time spent in either place is directly related to the amount of good or bad deeds you have done in your life.

Neither hell, nor heaven is eternal. After your time is up your soul reincarnates, i.e…takes on a new body. The station of your body in society is directly a result of your past life’s Karma. So it makes sense to do good no matter what you have done in the past lives.
It also explains why bad things happen to good people. It might be because you were a bad person in your past life, but if you live like a model citizen in this one, no matter how crappy your life is, you will end up in heaven.

This of course sounds good in theory, but in practise gives rise to a rigid caste system.

Having said that, I think the only way to achieve permanent oneness of your soul with the Cosmic Order (or Divine Truth or whatever) is to completely renounce all things material and live like an ascetic.

Not for me.

I figure, I’ll just do two good deeds for every bad one and i’ll get to spend at least a bit of quality time with them thar dancing gals in heaven. Seems like a foolproof plan.

All this knowledge I espouse is what I learnt from elders when I was growing up, so anyone with more intimate knowledge of the scriptures is welcome to correct any mistakes.

Anyway, I figure our system is better than eternal hell…any converts?? :wink:

BTW svt4him, you didn’t answer the question in the OP…am I going to hell for being a non-christian?

Oh, and how did you do that D-oh smiley?

42

Hawkeyejo,

I am actually a professional ironist, (although atheist/agnostic usually describe my personal belief system), but I highly enjoy playing the part of the contrarion devil’s advocate.

My language was meant to be taken as glibly sarcastic and ironic, (i.e. the idea of someone actually saying that they would rather suffer eternal damnation in the pits of hell than face other consequences is humorous because usually the individuals who most people would agree are the most likely to end up in hell, are the people who believe they have the least chance of ending up there!) Unfortunately, irony does not carry over very well over the ether-net, and most language is accepted at face value, when it’s true meaning is often quite the opposite.

I did not realize that melodramatic language is taboo outside of the pit, and I will

(Although most days I am pretty well contentedly assured that I am sure to end up someday in the fiery pits of hell, as that is just the kind of world this seems to be to me:)
And, actually, if that is God’s perogative to cast me into the fiery bowels and brimstone’s of beezlebub’s kitchen then I have such faith in God that I will rest easy in the flickering flames knowing that my atheism deservedly places me there, and rejoicing in the unquenching justice of an almighty God!

Try to figure that paradox of reasoning out, why don’t you?

:stuck_out_tongue:

43

No. But if you’ve sinned, then you will have to pay the price for it.

44

I swear, it’s like trying to nail Jello to the wall, but I’ll do it anyway.

Svt4Him, do you think it is possible for a non-Christian to be a non-sinner and therefore gain entrance into Heaven?

45

Torie,

People can’t tell you who is going to hell. Well, they can tell you, but they are just telling you their opinion.

I am a Christian.

Here is my opinion.

Jesus is Lord. He is both man and God. He lives as a man lives, He died as a man dies, and yet, He lives still.

He loves each of us. He wants each of us to love Him, and to love each other. As we love each other, by that same act, we love Him, and He knows us. He has forever to save us, and He can do anything. So, if we ever show love to anyone, we can be reached. The Lord can love us in return. That’s what immortality is about. Without Him, we are mortal. We die. We are destroyed forever by the mortal world. With Him, we become immortal. And our love for Him and His love for us join us to Him.

So, love your father. Love the Lord.

Be loved.

Tris

46

If you don’t believe in Hell, how can you go there?

As far as I’m concerned, when I die I’m going to a place with a lot of doughnuts and beer. If you’re going to create a fantasy after-life place it might as well be fun.

47

Don’t worry ** myles**, your irony is not lost on me. I just grabbed a chance to espouse a religion other than Christianity on this forum ;).

As far as I am concerned, no way am I going to heaven, I eat too much meat (and beef sometimes, the gods must be tearing their hair out).

Oh well, maybe I’ll know better in my next life. Hey, who knows, I might just come back as a stiff, humourless Christian fundamentalist (i don’t know many Hindu fundamentalists I am afraid, they are probably just as humourless)

And I figured out the D-oh smiley by myself, so here goes…
:smack:
:smack:
:smack:

48

If I don’t believe there are days in northern Canada that the sun shines all night, does that mean it doesn’t happen?

49

Sorry, missed this post. I believe that you know what I am going to say in this matter, so why are you asking? But to answer you, as we don’t really want jello nailed to any wall, yes. A child, IMO, does not sin. Therefore a child will gain entrance into Heaven.

50

The standard Christian answer to this is that because of original sin (or the fall) everyone is a sinner. A sinner cannot earn the right to go to Heaven. So the only way to get there is through the Grace of God. The Grace of God comes from Jesus (“only through me”), so one must accept Jesus as the Savior in order to go to Heaven. That’s it and even that little baby will probably end up in Limbo.

As a liberal Christian I do not believe in original sin, so I believe that non-Christians go to Heaven. Each and everyone of them.

Take your pick. :wink:

51

I can prove that there are days in northern Canada that the sun shines all night.

Can you prove that Hell exists?

52

Quadgop, its gets even worse. True Calvinists, a split-off-branch from the Protestants (Presbyterans, Reformed church, from the Dutch "Gereformeerde Kerk’) believe firmly in Predestination according to John Calvin. It boils down to the belief that before your birth it has already been decided if you will be one of the very, very few people who have been selected to go to heaven. All other people, Christians or not, Reformed or not, are condemned, period.
To the Reformed Christians, it really doesn’t matter how “ethical” your life has been, because humans sin anyway, only the degree varies. Predestination is the only thing that counts. Calvinists hope God will have mercy on them anyway, but they don’t count on it. It’s a very depressing religion. Alas, most people don’t get to choose their religion. :frowning:

The link with the OP is that these people are Christians and even they themselves believe they’re going to hell. Sad, isn’t it?

53

Let’s try duct-taping the Jello to the wall, then.
Svt4Him, is it at all possible for an adult non-Christian to make it into Heaven?
And no, I don’t mean an adult with severve brain damage, or an adult on another planet who hasn’t heard of Christ, just your average human.

54

Human adults on other planets? Cool!

55

Oh, I know. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=174711

My dad grew up in that tradition, and did not remember the Predikant of his church real fondly. Fortunately he shed most of his baggage about it, and I wasn’t brought up in that tradition.

56

I get to go to heaven.

John 14:2 quotes Jesus speaking the familiar, “In my father’s house are many abodes; … I go to prepare a place for you.”

This points out how many ways you can be divine. For some people John 3:16 et seq. must be followed literally. For most of the others on the planet other means will serve.

I am a godly man. I seek truth. I love unconditionally. I laugh whenever possible and appropriate. I’m in. And so is everyone else.

57

I had thought about starting a GD thread on this subject.

My boyfriend of 5 years died suddenly in August. He and I have known the same group of friends since we were in high school (about 15 years). We’re a pretty tight-knit group, and it hit us all hard, not just me.

T was not particullarly religious, though he did seem to have some overall belief in karma, etc. He and I both have problems with organized religion, seeing it as a political machine more than a spiritual refuge.

We have a friend R, who’s mother is a complete fundie nutjob. I remember a tale of T and some of the guys over at R’s house watching “A Fish Called Wanda” and R’s mother threw them out for watching pornography. She must have confused John Cleese with Ron Jeremy.

This story set a precedent for what behavior/attitutes I could expect from R’s mother (hereafter known as “G”). Nonetheless, I’m still appalled at what happened after T died.

G was too upset to come to the funeral, so I haven’t seen her at all. This has probably been a good thing.

But G came a-proselytizing into my life by proxy a couple of weeks after the funeral. A group of us were helping T’s mom clean up his condo. R comes with “gifts” from his mother: religious tracts, one for me, one for T’s mom.

The tracts (as you may expect) explained that the only way to heaven was to accept Jesus Christ as your savior.

The not-so-subtext: Your son/best friend is in Hell. But, hey, YOU can be saved!!!

Please, please tell me that this type of witnessing is not mainstream Christian. I can’t understand taking advantage of a person’s horrible, tragic, too-young death to frighten someone into joining your church is a loving, Christian act.

Sorry if this is a hijack.

58

You know, Christians can be such assholes.

It’s a sad fact, but it is absolutely true.

And of course that also applies to various subsets of Christians, as well. Methodist assholes, Baptist assholes, Seventh Day Adventist assholes, the list goes on and on.

Believe it or not, even Unitarians can be assholes.

And the one thing that makes it hardest to overcome the public impression of Christianity itself is that we are absolutely required to love these assholes!

Because, you see, God loves me, too. And I am just another asshole.

Tris

59

Hell doesn’t exist, and you don’t have to be an atheist to think that. If you believe in god, you must acknowledge that god never mentioned hell until the NT was written. Now, either god was withholding an important fact from his chosen people, or the gospel writers just made up hell (borrowed, of course, from the Greeks) in order to scare the ignorant into buying into their religion. It is just a heathen concept, like so much of Christianity. After all, where do gods and mortals have children: Judaism or Greek myths?

60

Voyager, there is a vast body of Jewish religious and mystical material that was not put into the Torah. That doesn’t automatically make it false. (Not in “Bible”=“false” is a Protestant thing, not Jewish.)