Monty; What sin does the old testament declare as unpardonable?
Haven’t been to Deuteronomy in a while.
Well, I find it highly unjust that someone like Ghandi, or Anne Frank would burn in Hell for eternity.
None of us can know for certain where either of those two are right now… who knows for sure about their salvation and whether or not they accepted Jesus as their saviour (even at the last moment).
However, those who accept that the Bible is the inspired word of God would see things this way:
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God created us. We turned our backs on him! In spite of this he stills loves us. In spite of our sins he still loves us.
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He needs an escape route for us to return into a ‘right’ relationship with him. He sends Jesus as that escape route… ‘no one shall come to the Father except through me.’
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The escape route is freely given and is available to everyone who wishes to take it. All that it requires is the acceptance of Jesus as our saviour and a true repentance of our sins.
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It is not possible to buy your way into eternity… by good deeds or financial means. Whilst we may well applaud the ‘humanitarian’ actions of others and ourselves, they alone cannot reconcile us with God, although they may well reflect God’s original plan for us.
That’s the deal. Reject the terms and it’s the equivalent of us walking away from God, not him walking away from us. His offer is on the table. God wants us back but will not force us… it must be our free will.
Also, we can’t choose the bits we want and pass on the bits we don’t want. It’s the whole package.
Crucial to the whole thing is the acceptance of God as our creator and the belief that the Bible is the inspired word of God.
Unless, of course, you believe that the Bible is the work of MAN, not GOD. Which is what I believe.
I believe in God, and I even believe in Jesus, I suppose. But I also believe that no one religion is the True Religion. I think in a way, all of them and none of them are true.
I always assumed the suicide thing was just smart business. I mean who wouldn’t want to get to paradise and eternal life as quick as possible. However, it would be hard to spread the good word if all of your new converts committed suicide the following day to get to heaven. So you make that an unpardonable sin. And last but certainly not least, you can’t collect 10% from a dead person.
I find it quite offensive that you would cheapen others’ beliefs that way.
Opus: yes, that’s my point, God is indeed a bastard.
Kill a man.
“I’m sorry Lord, I beg forgiveness.”
“OK.”
Steal from a nun.
“I’m sorry Lord, I beg forgiveness.”
“OK.”
Rape a priest.
“I’m sorry Lord, I beg forgiveness.”
“OK.”
Don’t believe in God, and Jesus needs a haircut.
“I really like football.”
“Fuck you, go to hell.”
Isn’t that pretty much how it works?
No offense was intended nor any attempt to cheapen anyone’s beliefs. I’m not sure why you would accuse me of that?
Let me try to explain. I have lost members of my family in recent times. To my knowledge, none of them were Christian in the sense that they had repented of their sins or accepted Jesus Christ as their saviour… at least, not as far as any of the family know.
It would be easy to conclude that they have therefore been assigned to eternal damnation.
My prayer is that at the moment of judgement (in a Biblical sense), a loving God will allow them still to consider their position. I cannot know that this happens.
Also, if it did happen, I cannot know what the outcomes are, that is, did they accept Jesus and repent of their sins or not.
And so I’m left with the hope that even those who declare (publically or by default) that they are not Christian (as defined above) may still be able to achieve eternal life with a death knell repentence.
Like I said, this only makes sense to those who accept God, and accept the Bible as the inspired work of God.
My own take on things is that the world would be a much finer place in many ways if many of Ghandi’s philosophies were adopted more generally. But that doesn’t change the basis upon which eternal life is assured (Biblically).
If I offended you, I apologise. If I offended the memory of Ghandi or Anne Frank, I apologise… I would never set out to do that intentionally.
pax
Sigh.
Yeah, Walor, I understand what you’re saying, and I know you didn’t mean any offense.
I just cannot accept it.
“You’ve led a virtuous life,” says God, “and now you have died. You truly regret your trespasses against other people. Now, all you have to do is abandon everything you’ve known as true, everything that has led you in your virtuous life, and embrace another belief. Oh, and if you don’t you’re damned for all time.”
Doesn’t that sound a bit odd?
Of course, if God does allow a last chance after death, then it hardly matters if anyone dies a Christian, does it?
If the above isn’t true for you, then it would sound a bit odd to you. For someone who holds such Christian beliefs, then it is not odd… it is central.
If Jesus believed and claimed to be a deity (part of the Trinity), why would he make a statement like this. Can you speak against one and not the other?
“The Holy Spirit is great, and I suppose the Father is ok, but don’t get me started on that Jesus guy…”
Does this statement of the unpardonable sin have a basis in either in the mainstream Judaic thinking or one of the other Judaic cults at the time (such as the Essenes)?
And if it’s hearing the call and not responding, what if you heard it, responded, lived the life for a while, realized it wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be and no longer had faith in Christianity? And which hell would I then be headed to, the eternal hell of Christianity or the 12 month hell of Judaism? I just want to know how I should pack.
walor:
Gandhi “turned his back on God”? What type of nonsens is that? You do realize that many people worship and love God, even if they are not Christians?
Hell, most people on this planet grow up in non-Christian environments where they hear very little (if anything) about Christian dogma or beliefs. They are hardly turning their backs on God. Instead, they choose to practice the religious tradition in which they were raised. Imagine if a Muslim were to write:
as justification for damning non-Muslims to Hell? Would it be at all persuasive, or would you immediately protest that you haven’t turned your back on God at all?
If the evidence for Jesus being the son of God were completely unequivocable, then this might be closer to fair. But as it is, this is a matter of faith. Hell, even if it were proven by the evidence, you’d still be in the position of damning people for being irrational. How fair would it be for God to condemn people who believe that the Earth is flat to hell?
Again, you must realize how silly this sounds to a non-Christian. The escape route is not freely given for those who are not default Christians. How easy would it be for you to convert to Islam or Hinduism? What if a Hindu were to write:
You wouldn’t be very impressed, would you? You’d realize that he was just spouting age old dogma from his religious tradition, which has virtually no meaning to a non-Hindu. For non-Christians, the claim that the path to Heaven is “freely given” is as absurd as the parallel Hindu claim stated above.
I think it’s sad that you think of good deeds as an attempt to “buy one’s way into eternity.”
Again, this makes sense only if one accepts the truth of Christianity, but rejects it. Very, very few people fall into this category. In the Christian tradition, the demons mentioned in Jas. 2:19 would qualify.
But among people, the vast majority disbelieve Christian dogma. There’s hardly anyone going around saying “Yes, I believe that YHWH created the entire universe, the Bible is the inspired word of God, and that Jesus is the son of God sent to vicariously atone for our sins, but I still reject it all and voluntarily choose to condemn myself to hell.” Rather, most non-Christians disagree with the basic premises of Christianity, and therefore, according to Christian dogma, earn their damnation solely through innocently incorrect beliefs.
The clear injustice of such a belief system is why many Christians such as walor go out of their way to deny it, instead believing that everyone really knows that Christianity is true, but that some reject it. This way, the damned bear full responsibility for their fate, rather than being the victims of circumstance by being born into the wrong faith.
Then I suppose Martin Luther King Jr. is in Hell right now, because he ignored Paul’s clear teachings that a good Christian should “submit himself to the governing authorities,” and that “he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted” (Rom. 13:1-2).
And of course, women who braid their hair, or wear pearls or gold are damned as well, for “passing on the bits they don’t want.” (1 Tim. 2:9)
Ditto for all those slaves who tried to escape their good Christian masters (1 Tim. 6:1-2).
Or do those “bits” not really mean what I think them to mean?
And those who fail to accept these premises are damned. Sounds fair to me.
Vanilla: The Old Testament says in Exodus 20:7, “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.”
This is repeated in Deuteronomy 5:11, “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain: for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.”
This is clearly not the rather more broad “sin against the Holy Ghost” of the New Testament, and thus indicates a different unpardonable sin, a contradiction between the Old and New Testaments.
Opus: A Muslim conversant with the Quran would not condemn all non-Muslims to Hell. After all, the Quran, enjoins the Muslims to honor the People of the Book. (I’ll post the actual cites shortly–my electronic copy of the Quran is a new program.)
I wonder if it’s possible to “believe” without having to verbally acknowledge belief in the form that more enlightened believers follow. I remember C.S. Lewis seemed to address this in The Last Battle, when a young Calormen nobleman spent his whole life desiring to see Tash, a deity worshipped by his society and which was clearly a parallel to Satan. The followers of Aslan (Christ) were surprised to see this guy inhabiting the same paradise that they did after they died in the last battle. The Calormen then told him that Aslan had talked with him and told him that the lifelong passion and devotion he had mistakenly given to Tash really added up in Aslan’s column, because it was clear that Aslan was the kind of god that he was hoping to see.
I think Lewis based this on Jesus’ parable concerning the people on Judgement day who were welcomed by the Son of Man, who said that they had clothed and sheltered and comforted him. They were confused, and claimed that they had never seen him in life (which I read to mean that they were not “Christian”), and he responded that whenever they had clothed and sheltered and comforted the “least” of the people he loved on earth, then they were effectively doing the same for Him. And it’s important to note that Jesus said he would avow no knowledge of some people who had loudly proclaimed their affiliation with Him in life, based on the same formula.
Regarding Jesus as being the only way to obtain salvation: If we were driving through upper Hooterville on our way to Petticoat Junction, would you call me a “bastard” for pointing out that I believed that the only way to get there was through the town of Bugtussle? We might have a difference of opinion; indeed, you might try to enlighten me regarding some other routes you would prefer to follow. But am I a bastard for telling you what I believe to be a fact of geography?
And as far as I understand, a Hindu or a Buddhist would not be trying to get to Petticoat Junction at all. As far as I can figure, these Eastern religions are not trying to obtain the eternal life sought after by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Indeed, it seems that a Hindu or Buddhist feels that eternal life already a fact, and is a curse from which any sensible being would want to escape. This renders rather nonsensical Opus1’s recent attempt at satire. Though do note that different sects of Buddhism, at least, do proclaim themselves to be a superior way to all of the others (witness Mahayana, “great vehicle”, and Hinayana, “lesser vehicle”).
Nice idea, but not true. If not believing in Jesus was an unforgiveable sin, then we’d all be condemned, since no one was a Christian from conception.
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6
And if Jesus lied, then obviously he wasn’t the perfect Son of God like he said he was.
Hi Opus1
I think that Doghouse Reilly and Super Gnat have addressed your main points but I’d just like to add the following.
I don’t think that I said that. My point was, that we cannot know for sure what relationship he had with God.
Absolutely
Maybe, but not to Christains.
I don’t. But you can’t use them to do that!
Not sure what it is that you claim I deny. And by the way, I don’t believe that ‘everyone really knows that Christianity is true, but that some reject it’.
No. Eternal life is achieved by repenting of our sins and accepting Jesus Christ as our saviour… being ‘Born again’.
The acceptance of God and his inspired word are then basis of Christian beliefs from which everything else then flows (for a Christian).
pax
Thanks for bringing that up-that was one of my favorite quotes from the Bible-Whatsoever you do to the least of my brother, that you do unto me.
I wonder about people who live and die in remote areas of the world-who never even HEARD of Christianity-would they die as well?
No, but perhaps John was mistaken that Jesus said this-remember, contrary to popular belief, none of the Gospel authors knew Christ personally.
So walor-if someone has been raised a Hindu their entire lives, and rejects the Bible, because they believe THEIR religion is true, they go to Hell for making a mistake?
I don’t believe that. How do you know that Ghandi was not sent from Jesus? Or that God sent Buddha, or Muhammed, or whoever? Or that God sends us back in different lives?
I mean, he’s GOD? Can’t he do all that if he wants to?
What a great subject. One I’ve long been troubled by and one I’m sure has been the subject of innumerable threads. This thread has evolved into a discussion of the “logic” behind faith, and the obvious fact that there is none.
The existence of God, or the proof thereof, is outside the scope of this list and I would wager (IMO) out of the scope of science. Faith, obviosuly, comes from the inside, not the real world. Which leads me to my point. I would LOVE to believe in God. I would love to believe that I will live for eternity in heaven. I would love to believe that there is an all-knowing father up there to look over my life and loved ones. The problem is…I can’t. I’m logical. It’s my nature. It’s the overriding nature of man to be logical. Mark Twain’s “Letter’s From the Earth” is a great book, and directly relevant to this discussion. Why would God instill in man a need for logic, then demand that he go against his nature to believe in an Almightly?
In this light, I need also reply to Super Gnat’s comment
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If I am born into a family of criminals, and am taught to glorify crime, and am caught and convicted for stealing or armed robbery, then am I guilty?
Let’s compare apples to apples. Who is the judge that I stand before? What if my life is full of good deeds and the stealing is to help the starving and poor? Is it not the responsibility of the judge to review the facts of my life and judge me fairly? Especially since my eternal life hangs in the balance. Shouldn’t I be judged on what I am? Is it right that a child born into a criminal family be judged a criminal immediately? Which is exactly what has happened to each of us. Whatever man did to God or Jesus was done by other men than myself, yet I am guilty of their sins? Even if the answer is yes…I am still shackled by the burden of logic, all of this…given to me by a creator
There was a famous short story published many years ago called “The Lady or the Tiger.” A key plot point was that in a certain country, the king passed all accused criminals through a peculiar trial by ordeal. Each would be led into a large arena with two identical doors. Behind one door, a hungry tiger which would maul and eat the man. Behind the other, a beautiful lady who would marry him. The man must open one door, whose occupant determines his fate.
The king defended this methodology’s fairness by saying that the accused chooses his own fate: no one forces him to open the door with the tiger behind it; he could have just as easily chosen the beautiful woman.
Of course, we all realize the flaw in the king’s logic. While the men could indeed choose their own fate, they did so based upon insufficient evidence, and in a manner that was totally unrelated to their guilt or innocence. Those who chose the tiger and ended up eaten did not do so voluntarily, but because they were unfortunate enough to choose the wrong door.
A similar problem confronts Christianity. Very few people voluntarily choose the door to Hell. I imagine there are some who believe in the Bible and believe Jesus to be the path to salvation, but walk down the primrose path of damnation anyway, but they are rare. For the overwhelming majority on non-Christians, the reason for their paganism is one of simple circumstance: they were not raised that way. The formative age for the formation of beliefs is before age six. This is especially so for religious convictions, whose extremely complex and uncertain nature makes them notoriously difficult to change. A child raised in a cave and told his whole life that the sun is purple can easily be convinced that that is not so simply by looking at it for the first time. But the truth claims of most religions are couched in either the distant past or in personal experience, and can not be as easily proven or disproven.
I see this as an insurmountable obstacle to the fairness of traditional Christian dogma. Billions of people are condemned to hell for harboring sincere but mistaken beliefs. Of course, some Christians try to recast this troublesome fact by contending that those who are damned are damned not because they believe incorrectly, but rather because all deserve damnation, because all sin to some extent. It is only through the undeserved grace of God through the atoning death of Jesus that any are saved at all. Needless to say, I find the doctrine that all deserve eternal punishment for sin monstrous.
Another attempt to eliminate the troubling problem of damnation for wrong beliefs is to argue for the obvious truth of Christianity. If the veracity of Christianity is as obvious as that of the blueness of the sky, then the only reason one could possibly have to reject it are complete unfamiliarity or a continued desire to do evil. Those in the latter camp deserve their damnation; those in the former can be saved through missionary work. This is the position familiar to fans of Jack Chick comics: characters accept Christianity upon first exposure; the only obstacle to them having done so previously appears to be pure ignorance.
I find two problems with this “solution.” The first, as alluded to earlier, is that the truth of Christianity is far from clear. The issues involved are extraordinarily vast and complex, and–without getting too far sidetracked–it suffices to say that the evidence is not entirely on the side of Christianity.
The second problem is that even if the truth of Christianity is obvious, it does not follow that it is fair to punish those who reject something out of pure illogic and stupidity. These people (along with the “unfamiliars” and the “evils”) would be a third category of non-Christians. As clear as it may be to us that 2+2=4, would it be just (even for God) to punish someone who insists that 2+2=5? I do not think that it is.
A final solution is to simply state that God’s ways are beyond human understanding, or that we are not in a position to question God, or that we cannot know for certain whether certain people did what was necessary to receive eternal life in their last moments on earth. Again, as a nonbeliever, I find such defenses seriously lacking.
That, in short, is a summary of my position. Certain types of Christianity preach that non-Christians are destined for eternal torture. This is a belief that I find immoral. I have found no satisfactory solutions to my objections, although I invite submissions for my consideration.
I had been informed according to common knowledge as well as the little summary thing at the beginning of the book that John was the only gospel written by a disciple. Where did you hear otherwise? In addition to this scripture:
Romans 3:22-24
1 Corinthians 15:1-8 (especially v.2)
Ephesians 4:4-6
Philippians 3:3
1 Timothy 2:5
Mark 13:5-6 and Matthew 24:24(not direct proof, but at least proof that not all religions lead to heaven)
John 15:5
1 Corinthians 22-24 (Jesus holds the reigns from the crucifixion until the end of dominion, authority, power, not until the Great And Mystical Oz comes to give further instructions.)
Okay. Let’s assume for a moment that the Bible is God’s Revelation to us. Everything that we can concretely know about God we learn from the Bible. So what does the Bible say?
It is appointed to every man to die once. Therefore we will not be coming back.
Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law. He puts right what Adam put wrong. Therefore there is no need for further revelation. The problem has been rectified.(Romans 5:12-21)
We know if people are sent from God by what they say. If their message doesn’t jibe with the Bible, then they are not from God. (Luke 4:43-45)
I mean, yeah God can do whatever He wants to. But what He wants to do is stand by his promises.
Well, I’m tired out of my mind and have to get up in 7 hours, so for this reason I must bid you all adieu.