A vision of hell was given to the children at Fatima by the Virgin Mary. The Catholic church regards the Fatima apparition as being legitimate.
You could convert to Christianity without actually believing in God. You just lie about it, and the people converting you have no way of knowing.
Some Christians believe those who aren’t exposed to Christianity get what’s essentially a “free pass.” It’s only people who explicitly reject Jesus as Savior who get thrown into the bowels of hell.
If this is a case, shouldn’t those Christians do their damndest to make sure as few people as possible find out about Jesus? Most people not already converted will not convert on hearing about the Good News. By throwing it in their faces, then, you’re personally tossing people into the hellfire.
Interesting. So some Christians don’t believe in God? A conversion doesn’t require a belief in God? What exactly is a conversion then? What am I converting from? Atheism? I would still be an atheist, right?
What difference does it make whether the people “converting” me know if I am lying? Wouldn’t God know? Am I only a Christian because someone else says I am? What if they don’t believe in God either?
This honestly makes no sense to me. If being a Christian doesn’t require a belief in God, then it just a meaningless distinction. Especially considering that Jesus pretty much said the opposite.
I’m not here to save your soul :D. At any rate, if you cannot choose to be a christian then, as far as christians are concerned, you are damned and they can do nothing about it.
What does it matter? Either way you are screwed.
Ted, you know I like you and all, so please don’t take this as critical…
How is Skammer’s advice any different from advising someone to study the Quran, and to take its lessons to heart without thinking about them critically?
Not to derail your thread but, having witnessed a crowd’s reaction to a person in distress on several occasions, I think you’re vastly overestimating the number of people who would take action.
That’s a great point and I agree. Most of us would hope/wish/pray that another person would step in to save the day.
-Greg
If you go to a church this Sunday, not everyone who’s a member of that church necessarily believes in God. I’m sure most of them do, but some people are members of the church to keep their families happy, or for the social standing, or because they like the social services the church provides, or they just like the social network.
It makes a difference because if they knew you didn’t believe in God, they probably wouldn’t let you convert.
Look, there are beliefs, which you don’t have much control over, and then there’s organizational membership, which is an action and which you can control.
That’ll be the Church of England, then. 
Ever considered that some of those guys may actually want you to go to Hell? 
If you actually need a warning about going to hell, there is a good chance you are already going. 
And these people are Christians?
They wouldn’t *let *me convert? So my conversion is contingent upon what other people do, and not what I do?
Beliefs are exactly what I am talking about. It was stated plainly in the post of mine you quoted. It now appears that you have chosen to equivocate “belief” with “conversion,” with the latter being essentially some kind of bookkeeping procedure.
It seems to me that to you at least, being a Christian is no more significant than joining the Boy Scouts. At any rate, my original question was about believing in God, and since such belief apparently has nothing to do with being a Christian, I don’t know why that is relevant.
Jesus didn’t tell me to preach to you. What He said to do (to all us Christians) is to go make disciples… Methodology is up to us, but we’d be wise if we use ones that work.
“Believing in God”, IMO, is not like “believing in the Loch ness Monster”, i.e., a matter of holding an opinion about His existence. It’s a personal relationship, deciding to put one’s trust in Him. (Obviously you can’t do that at someone you don’t think objectively exists – very few people put their trust in Gandalf or V.M. Smith – but the idea is that you don’t have to have conclusive proof, only evidence suggestive of His possible existence and enough suggestion of His trustworthiness and compassionateness to make it appropriate to trust Him. One believes in God as a Person much as one believes in a beloved spouse or family member who can be trusted in anything, come what may.
Some people feel that the way to go about instilling this sort of belief is to guilt people into it via sermons about sin and evangelical crusades.
Others feel that the most effective witness is to be the sort of person that shows what a Christian is supposed to be – at least to the best of one’s ability.
And, as I noted over in GQ, it’s not a case of God (or Jesus) consigning people to Hell after trial – if consciousness persists beyond death, what is perceived may well be painful torment. The whole idea is that God can save those who choose to accept His gift of salvation from that – and if that is indeed the case, conditioning the soul/spirit into something that will deal well with the afterlife by living a Christian life and practicing a spiritual discipline that improves one’s mortal happiness in the long term, makes sense.
Doesn’t it make sense anyway? I mean from a societal viewpoint. If it makes you happy and fits into society then you will get quite a few people doing it.
I can’t help feeling like the OP is kinda trolling here. What Christians do you hang out with that don’t feel the need to tell you how they are going to heaven and you are going to hell because you don’t do exactly what they say? Sure many Christians aren’t that “in your face” about it but many of them are; to the point that I just don’t let them know that I don’t believe the same as them. I appreciate that some of them really do believe they are saving me from a terrible folly but I’m always surprised that so many otherwise nice people can be so opinionated and pushy about something they really know little or nothing about.
IF (that’s a big if) there really were a god and he was as much of a vindictive bastard as Christians claim to believe then yes, they should then use any means necessary to convert the unbelievers, even if it required force. Whew, good thing that isn’t the case.
I’m dismayed that this has been your experience with Christians, but isn’t it at least possible that you know plenty of Christians who don’t do this, and therefore, you haven’t flagged them as “Christian”? In other words, the obnoxious ones that tell you that you are going to hell are easy to pick out, but you don’t notice all the ones who are just nice to you.
ETA: I hang out with a lot of Christians – I’m very active in my church – and I’ve never witnessed (pardon the pun) the behavior you describe, at least not since I was in college twenty years ago.
For what it’s worth, the Catholic church holds very few beliefs about Hell. Basically, it exists, and it’s possible, at least in principle, for a soul to go there, but it’s never proper for any mortal to conclude that anyone in particular is going to Hell or has gone to Hell, since God’s mercy is infinite, and his ways mysterious, so we can never rule out the possibility of anyone being saved. In Catholic teaching, if one is asked if Hitler is in Hell, or Judas Iscariot, or Nero, the correct answer is “We don’t know”.
I’m certainly not a troll- the point I’m making is that eternal fire is a punishment that is barely comprehensible in its degree of horror, so why aren’t the people who believe in Hell freaking out more that many of their fellow citizens are going there eventually?
That’s all!
-Greg
***As you can see, my “quote” skills are lacking. It’s not formatting properly.
Because it lost much of it’s popularity as a selling point. Go back far enough, and threatening people with Hell was common. I recall a quote from a story told to children about white hot kids screaming in Hell - but wait, that’s not screaming, that’s steam escaping from their mouths like a teakettle, they’re so hot!
But as the grip of religion has weakened in the West, it has needed to sell itself with sugar instead of force and terror; so now you hear talk about forgiveness and love and burning forever is de-emphasized.
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