Because they think that if you don’t convert you’ll go to hell. They’re trying to help you. You might not believe it (I don’t either) but the door-to-door types are quite sincere in their belief that they’re doing you as big a favour as anyone could possibly do.
Is it a Christian requirement to go to Heaven?
There isn’t any wider context. If you want to assert that there is, please cite it. Where does Jesus say that there are any other requirements? Where does the New Testament say that Jesus was lying when he cited Rabbi Hillel’s formula as being sufficient for salvation. “Do this, and you shall live.” There is no equivocation there. No greater context.
Or how about Galatians 5:14?
For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’
Is that verse true or is it false?
Keep on waving those hands. It’s a pretty simple question, though. Can God be wrong?
That is a great answer – it makes sense and chimes well with my own experience.
That’s pretty consistent with how I felt. Any doctrine of infinite reward/punishment for our faith and/or actions during a finite lifetime is at odds with intuitive human justice. Mormons (my ex-religion) rationalize this by saying hardly anyone born will go to an endless Hell; they’ll just go to a lesser Heaven. Also, there will be a second chance to receive the Mormon gospel posthumously in the spirit prison prior to the final judgement, so they can try to be optimistic that the non-believers may even repent and make it to one of the really neat Heavens. So faithful Mormons have an obligation to bring souls to the One True Church, but they don’t despair too much if they can’t convert everyone they meet.
Again, we have a fundamental disagreement on what it means to love God and to love your neighbor. Aren’t these circles fun?
Jesus resolves that question in the Parable of the Good Samaritan (the Samaritan was not a Christian and did not proselytize), and in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats
Maybe the responsibility should be to shut the fuck up and don’t annoy people.
I can go one better. It’s pointless to discuss Christianity with someone who is not actually interested in what I believe, but is actually trying to convert me into believing what they believe. If you really cared about what I believe, you wouldn’t argue with me. You would address me with an attitude of ignorance rather than an attitude of you knowing everything and getting all defensive when someone offers evidence that you are wrong.
But, I’m a sucker, so I’ll do it anyway: loving God is not a debatable point in Christianity. It’s defined straight out.
[ul][li]John 14:15: “If you love me [Jesus], you will obey what I [Jesus] command.”[/li][li] John 14:21: “[Jesus said] 'Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.”[/li][li]John 14:23: “Jesus replied, 'If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”[/li][li]John 15:10: “'Jesus said]'If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.”[/li][li]1 John 2:3: “We know that we have come to know him if we obey his [Jesus’] commands.”[/li][li]1 John 5:3 “This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome.”[/li][li]2 John 1:6 “And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his [God’s] commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.”[/ul][/li]
So you cannot claim that loving God and/or Jesus does not include obeying all of His commands.
All Scripture portions are from the New International Version (NIV). Used with permission.
This is so true. I have several very religious friends and they know I am a fairly strong atheist. The fact that none of them ever tries to ‘save’ me from the eternal torment they generally feel atheists deserve makes me seriously doubt how much they really believe.
Jesus said there are only two commands and defines them as essentially equivalent. Galatians says there is only one command. So yes, you should follow all one of God’s commands.
Didn’t Jesus said that the two greatest commandments were to love God and to love your neighbor and that “all the rest of the law hangs on” those two?
There was a recent study done to test how doubt affects advocacy.
I was about to post “Huh. I stand corrected.” But then I read your cite. Proselyting about the benefits of Mac versus PC is not a good comparison to proselyting about the benefits of The Religion That Has All The Answers versus All Those Other Poor Damned Souls. As has been explained by others, fervent believers often feel that your eternal soul and theirs are at stake. The more someone believes this, the more he is compelled to act on it. Of course individual results may vary, even within belief systems.
Reminds me of an old comedic exchange I heard once:
“I was strung out on booze; I was strung out on drugs; but now I’ve found Jesus, and I want to share him with you!”
"WTF, dude, you didn’t share your booze and drugs … "
I’m glad to see that your experience as a believer showed you the two sides to the coin, most unbelievers don’t want to hear the proselytizing of the believer, and most believers don’t want to hear the proselytizing of the unbelievers.
Myself (who is, by the way, a Christian, full disclosure and all), I don’t even like being hassled by salesmen in stores. I remind myself sometimes of the story of Moses - God chose him to present his case to Pharoah, to which Moses basically said “hey, you got the wrong guy here, Yah. I mean, I’m a terrible public speaker, he ain’t gonna be convinced to do nothing if you get me to do the talking!” To which God just threw up his hands and got someone else who could actually do the job to carry out his plan. I know that if I was forced to proselytize, well, the religion would die out pretty quickly. Heck, most Christian Dopers have made their points better than I could in this thread, I’ll leave the talking to them. But, God can’t expect everyone to proselytize when there are Moses in the population. He would get the Aarons to proselytize and use Moe’s talents for leadership where they are needed.
Do you imagine they don’t comprehend that trying to ‘save you’ would not only fail, but could break the friendship too? What would you have them do?
In fact only a few thousand in all were killed by the Spanish Inquisition. A small number of which were Jews. Courts of the Spanish Inquisition sentenced a smaller percentage of indicted people to death than secular Spanish courts of the time. People like for instance Communists are much more efficient killers in the name of an idea. But Christians and other religious people, or Communists for that matter, are not really a species aside, they are driven by much the same feelings and reasons like for instance you or a dude like Richard Dawkin, who seems to going to absurd lengths to convince others of his point of view or that guy over there who think the Apple iPad is the best thing ever.
I would ask the person how they know that is the truth, did some one tell them that was the case, and they believed that person?
Also what kind of a cruel father would have some of His children that he could have prevented from such torture, by not creating them in the first place, since He knew they wouldn’t believe one of His other children! And keeps Himself from being known except to a very few. This father should know and care more than a human father!
In number one you state" God said so", to be honest you should say, some other human said God said so, and I believe that person! First you have to know God told that person something, but didn’t care about the others to talk to them. I could say God told me he didn’t have any religion, that doesn’t make it true.
Why do some people knickers get in such a monumental twist because a random Mormon guy approach them on the street or a Jehovah Witnesses chick ring their door bell or Harah Krishna dopeheads makes a general fool of themselves in the street? It’s not like it takes all of two seconds to say: not interested. Sure it would be a problem if Jehovah Witnesses were a major and dominant political force, but not really any chance of that before the apocalypse. It seems to me that it is the political aspiration of religious groups one should be vary of, not the individual person’s faith.
This is not necessarily Jesus who said this, but what someone wrote He said after the fact. It is belief in the author not Jesus or God! Too many of the Bible’s writings, conflit with other passages. One can just pick and choose what they want, and many, many do…hence many religions or sects of Christianity!