If I become a Christian tomorrow and knowingly commit sins do I still get to go to heaven?
The New Testament in the Christian bible is the catch-all for forgiveness. It essentially wipes out all the ‘No-No’s’ of the old Testament with a ‘ask your savior for forgivness…’ line. so in answer: Sure! Why not?
So I could lie, cheat, steal, commit adultery and murder, and as long as I ask forgiveness I still get to go to heaven? Whereas I can be a decent person who doesn’t do these things, and if I don’t ask forgiveness, I’m damned?
Bingo.
Well, this pretty well explains why I couldn’t ever be a Christian. What an affront to my poor heathen brain.
Christianity does not have a uniform answer on these topics.
There are groups who belive that if you truly repent and profess your belief in Jesus, you are saved and cannot be damned. If you then go out and become a serial rapist-killer, they simply note that you did not “truly” repent and believe–even if your salvation experience happened when you were 15 and you did not turn to a life of evil until you were 45.
Other groups believe that salvation is always yours to lose. That if you do not maintain a relationship with Jesus and fall into a sinful state, you may still bring about your own damnation.
There are many variations on that theme as well.
As to the person who does not believe but who does not live a morally corrupt life, Christian groups do not agree on that issue, either. Some take the second chapter of Paul’s Letter to the Romans to mean that those who have not heard the word of God will be judged on their actions as they understood morality. Others take phrases from later in Romans and say that anyone who does not believe in Jesus is damned.
My take on it is this:
As a Christian, Jesus took the punishment for all my sins, past and present. God wants us to do the right thing, because its the right thing, not because we fear eternal damnation. Because I love God, I try avoid sin, as best I can, even though technically, I could do what ever I want. I am imperfect, and do sin occasionally, and I ask for forgivness. I let God worry about what happens to everybody else.
I think that this whole matter could be cleared up if God would stop behaving like a Mason and just come out an say what he/she/it wants from us. Face it: the Bible (while having many great ideas on how we should treat each other-after the old Testament, that is) was written by Men. It has mans flawed perception of things and to top this off, its a 2-4 thousand year old document thats been first handed down by word of mouth, then transcribed, translated from dead languages (and this was first done by Churches who had typically one goal in mind:control the masses), and re-translated so that the message it delivers is the on the ‘Church’ approves of. How are we supposed to know what God wants from us.
Amen, Erasticity. There are so many religions out there all claiming to be the answer, that if I wanted to pick one my brain would explode. Especially if just being a decent person who doesn’t like hurting other folks ain’t enough.
Cite?
Much of the bible was written down from the start, not orally passed down. and we have very old copies of it that match what we have today. The idea that it has been changed to control people is bunk.
From the Old Testament:
“Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.”* – Leviticus 19:18
“Do not oppress an alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt.” – Exodus 23:9
From the New Testament:
“The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” – Matthew 13:41-42
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters–yes, even his own life–he cannot be my disciple.” – Luke 14:26
Of course there are plenty of counter-examples in both directions from both the Old and the New Testaments.
bdgr- Do you have a cite? I’m pokin’ around and can’t seem to come up with a good one either.
Everything I have is on treeware, but I will see what I can find online, but you made the initial statement.
This seemed to describe it pretty well, although I am unfamiliar with the site, it seems to be preety much the same as what I have read elsewhere.
would of helped if I included the link…Doh…
Well, Erasticty and Ooner, with all due respect, aren’t really telling you the whole story.
- The concept of “forgiveness” in Christianity (and, I would imagine, other monotheistic faiths) is somewhat more difficult than just producing a Get Out Of Hell Free Card by saying on your deathbed “Sorry” and heading straight for Heaven. In most Christian faiths, it is assumed that genuine repentance for one’s sins is necessary for forgiveness. You can’t just say the magic word and be forgien; you have to be legitimately, truly asking for forgiveness. Someone who says “I’m sorry” and then goes out and does the same shit again is probably not legitimately repentful. Of course, any good Christian will tell you that’s between him and God, but lets be honest; if you say you’re sorry for stealing money from old ladies, and then you go out and keep stealing money from old ladies, you weren’t all that sorry in the first place.
The notion that you can, in your words, just “Ask forgiveness” and head straight to heaven is not, so far as I know, held by ANY major Christian faith. Just because you ask doesn’t mean you’ll get it. The key isn’t that you ASK forgiveness, it’s that you actually REPENT. Which is different.
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In some faiths, there’s the added element of sacramental blessing.
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What constitutes “sin” differs from church to church, too. Some fundamentalist churches have a very simplistic view of what constitute good and evil acts; some, like the Roman Catholic church, have put a pretty substantial amount of effort into defining what is and isn’t sin, and what types of sin there are.
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As tomndebb points out, different churches have different attitudes with respect to one’s exposure to the Christian word and your chances of getting into heaven.
No! Well… maybe.
This is a bit of an odd question. It all depends wat you believe is wrong and right. In my opinion, if you believe something is wrong and you do it anyway, then you probably won’t (depending on what you believe) get into heaven. You can always repent though, and IF its sincere, you are forgiven, according to mainstream Christianity. (I am basing what I say on the last time I read the bible, which was over a year ago. If I say anything wrong, you are welcome to correct me.) So if you willingly affront on God’s Law and are unrepentant, then you will probably go to hell. If you are decent, and/or if you are truly sorry for the sins that you have done, you should go to heaven. This is a pretty vague subject.
Purgatory, we mustn’t forget purgatory!
The idea of “forgiveness”, isn’t the only issue. Depending on what specific brand of christianity you subscribe to, you may automatically get into heaven, or automatically be excluded. Calvanism, a religion that is none too popular these days, puts forth the idea that only a certain, predestined, group of people will ever get into heaven. Ever. So, if you ain’t one of 'em, watch out! Catholocism, on the other hand, says that just about everyone gets into heaven … eventually. It’s been a while, so I may not remember the details correctly, but when you die (as a catholic) you go to purgatory; a place which is pretty much exactly like hell, except that it’s not permanent. After a while (read: after you’ve paid for your sins via suffering) you go to heaven. It may be a long wait, but better late than never. The idea here is that even though you’re forgiven, you must be ‘cleansed’ of the sins you committed (or something like that). You must do something extremely bad (in the eyes of the church) in order to be eternally damned. (I should point out that purgatory, and, as far as I know, predestination, are NOT part of the bible. Purgatory is a catholic invention, and predestination, although not exclusively calvanist, was invented around the time of the Reformation in Europe.)
Most forms of protestantism, as alluded to above, are considerably more lenient.
There was a discussion on this point several months ago that ties in to the OP of this thread:
What’s the Catholic Church’s position on this?