As a Catholic I just want to give our OFFICIAL view (Check the catechism):
Yes, non-Christians CAN go to heaven, and when (if) they do, they’ll find out it was Jesus who opened the door.
Of course, this means they CAN go to hell too.
We Catholics believe in Eternal Hell. The news of that belief having disappeared are WRONG.
It is all a question of guilty or non-guilty ignorance (the level of which God only will finally decide)
No, not being in the Torah doesn’t make it false. (And being in the Torah doesn’t make it true either.) But hell could hardly be considered a minor thing, could it?
All I know is that in all my years of going to shul, I never remember my rabbi talking about hell. The Yom Kippur service talks of being written in the Book of Life, not of hell if you do not atone. (Which you would think would be a great incentive.) Anyone claiming that someone else might go to hell had better show a lot more evidence than anyone has shown so far. It’s a shame that anyone is concerned enough about this nonsense to even post.
Voyager as far as I know, and I’ve heard a couple of Rabbis saying it (I don’t claim any special knowledge on their behalf, they were regular Rabbis, not super-Torah-specialists) that in Judaism, reward and punishment after death is indicated by “proximity” to G-d, i.e. the closer yor get to be the better you were; really bad people are very “far” away. Of course it was an analogy, but they made it clear their were no separate places for good and bad people.
As to evidence, Jesus talks about “the fire that never dies”. He talked more about Hell than Heaven. Feel free not to believe Him , but YOU will need to show evidence that Hell was an add-on to the New Testament, and not an integral part of it.
Are you sure Rodrigo? I studied in Catholic schools all my life and as far as I can remember, we were taught that hell=eternal fire is merely a metaphor for the eternal suffering that one feels from being totally outside the presence of God. I don’t believe this either, but I think this is the Catholic doctrine as far as hell is concerned.
I suggest people have a good read at the following:
http://www.stnectariospress.com/parish/river_of_fire.htm
It nicely lays out an alternative to some of the more extreme forms of Western determinism. Note that it tends to take these extreme forms and tar them all with the brush of “Western”, but the value of this work is not as much in what it rejects as what it propounds.
So why would a Calvinist bother going to church, or doing anything other than having a good time? I asked someone this once, and the answer seemed to be that if they went to church and behaved well, that would prove they were one of the predestined elect. The amount of self-deception involved here was unnerving …
Also, slight hijiack, has there ever been a documented case of a convinced Calvinist who believed he/she was one of the damned?
Not something my Rabbi ever told me, but I’m sure that view is somewhere in the Talmud. It is not universally held. As the Jewish culture interacted with others with beliefs about survival after death, it is reasonable to suppose some of those beliefs migrated in.
I agree that hell is integral, in the sense that it was one of the beliefs of those who wrote the gospels. What Jesus really said is unknown. I don’t know if hell was a blatant marketing ploy (the way the relaxation of the dietary laws was) or something the church fathers believed in which caught on. (Hell basically boils down to a very early version of Pascal’s Wager, after all.)
Looked at in evolutionary terms, Christianity out-competed other religions because it gave incentives to join - like Hell - and reduced barriers to joining, like the elimination of circumcision and the dietary laws. Christianity was not successful right after Jesus, but only after the marketing types took over.
How can avoiding Hell be an “incentive to join” if one does not believe in it in the first place?
Many of the recruits were Greek and Roman pagans. So, they already believed in hell, they just didn’t believe that it was a bad place. Along comes this really persuasive guy saying that it is really nasty, but that all you have to do to get out of it, and to a really nice place, is to believe in their god man. The Greek gods didn’t care much, so why not? I’m sure the miracle tales didn’t hurt either.
originally posted by mrsface
I hope that a real Calvinist will come along shortly to answer this question. I’m not a true Calvinist, but got curious and read about it when I got a few aqaintances who are. And Dutch general culture has some lingering traces and remnants of this belief.
To me, the religion feels like downright psychological child abuse, only perpetuated hundreds of years.
“Damn you, you no good kid of mine! You will never be as good as your Ideal Brother. Why can’t you get straight A’s like him and always have neat hair, like him? Because you are rotten to the core, thats why. Now go do your homework, even if you’ll just get another D tomorrow, and maybe, maybe I’ll let you watch some TV when you’re ready. Even if you don’t deserve it, but I know, I’m just too soft on you”.
Okay, I’m going to use a broad tar brush here, but I’m in the modd for it.
Most Christian sects have said, more or less clear, that if you want to avoid hell, you have to admit you:
A. believe in their way of avoiding Hell, and
B. will remain a loyal paying, lifelong customer to their brand of hell-avoidance-products. Be those rattling bones, deathbedprayers, or baptism.
Leading an ethical life usually had nothing to do with it. Yes, you should try to live ethically, but the hell-avoidance-products are final. And they can compensate for a whole lot of unethical living. Sin your whole life, repent five minutes before you die, as long as you got absolution from an oficial dealer!
The pay-off was simple and straightforward.
Of course, to the modern eye the blatant injustice of this payoff is painfully clear.
So in modern mixed fuzzy friendly sweet Christianity, this pay-off is obscured. Many modern Christians simply refuse to admit there are highly ethical people outside their religion, or inside other religions. And they won’t admit that according to their bible, non christians do go to hell.
Wiser Chrisians focus instead on other aspects of their religious belief, such as the personal bond they feel with God. This latter type would probably deny that hell extists. Their POV poses, imho, no logical problems to the matter of “ethicality outside religion”.
But when it comes to the matter of hell, as in the OP, basically **the letter of the Christan law clashes with modern ethics, pure and simple. ** Anyone trying to reconcile them has either to resort to contradictory teksts in and outside the Bible, or to illogical contortions.
A. No, it’s not about your belief in hell.
B. A father and son go on a fishing trip. There is an area around the lake that is fenced off, with warning signs everywhere not to cross the fence. The father warns his son not to cross the area, as it’s dangerous. A short time later, while the father is taking a nap, the son looks at the nice water that is all fenced off and thinks it’d be nice to swim in it. So, despite all the warnings, the son crosses the fence, and jumps in. The father hears the screams of his son as a group of alligators is swimming towards him, jumps out of bed, and goes and jumps into the water to save his son. The son, after being thrown clear by his dad, looks back and sees his dad’s body that is all torn and bloody. Now if the son understands the sacrifice his dad just made, will it be hard for him to stay away from the water? If the son decided that he wants to swim there again, he really hasn’t understood either the danger nor the sacrifice. Would that make the son a ‘loyal, lifelong customer’ or in other words, make the son listen to the warning signs, appreciate the sacrifice, and avoid future warning signs? I’d hope so, but not out of fear, but gratefulness.
A: Svt4him, how is that a response to what I said? for a very long time, untill just decades ago, catholism was about receiving absolution on your deadbed.
B: That is a touching and wise story, very fitting in the kind of modern, sweet, fuzzy kind of Christianity I described. But parables obscure sharp theoretical debate. In answer to your parable I can only say, yes, the son should appreciate the sacrifice, listen to future warning signs, and he should pull his hair out in shame that he has not trusted/listenened to his father, and to his own common sense. He should also, in the future, imho, either refrain from bringing his own stupid kid to that particular lake, (as boys will be boys) or refrain from taking a nap while they’re fishing there together.
In answer to the debate, I think it’s time to bring out some Biblical quotes I had been to lazy to bring up earlier. I’ll be back with them.
torie, having lost my mother when I was 14, I’m well aware of what a devastating event it was in your life and the subsequent influence which in my case still affects me damn near 40 years later.
The loss of my mother, resulted in my father leaving a Calvinist religion for a rigorous baptist style sect. Later on when my extremely religious father who was unable to control the wayward lives of his children and was faced with the abject failure of his parenthood to deliver us up to salvation, questioned his own salvation with the knowledge that his beloved children would be tormented forever and ever in his sight.
My dad studies the bible maybe 4 hours a day. He came across the message of universal salvation which he embraced and subsequently convinced me that there can be no other way and that the notion could be supported biblically.
I now look back and see my calvinist cousins locked in their faith with their 6 children each all still properly Dutch in the style of the 50’s and thank God I escaped . I am well aware that it was the loss of my beloved mother that facilitated it.
Our lives on earth are so brief and such a small part of our existence. I could belabour you with bible verses supporting the notion that all men will be saved and will do so if requested.
Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you said “Most Christian sects” and I didn’t realize that was just RCC.
greinspace, i request those cites.
I’d be interested in hearing the case for all will be saved.
Vanilla, I’ve brought it up a few times, but try John 3:17 for openers, and, while it does speak of people being condemned, Matthew 25 to me contradicts the notion of who some people think will burn in hell.
CJ
No, the actual analogy is a place full of signs warning of alligators, and a stand selling alligator replellant - in the middle of the desert. There are no alligators in the desert, and there is no hell in this universe, and you are welcome to believe what you will, but please don’t peddle your papers unless you have some evidence.
And I’m still waiting for your defense of that creationist crap you posted. It seems very rude to post it and not take responsibility.
thank you for this thoughtful post. i would like to see those cites as well…
new aspect of Christianity here…
Apparently my posts are invisible now. I gave some cites on page 1 of this thread, citing Christ, Himself.
CJ
(Did anyone read that post?)