Is it fair to send people to hell for being mistaken?

How would that prevent free choice? People would still have the free choice to not worship this being right? Knowledge of the existence of something does not hinder free choice of what to do with that knowledge.

You do not go to hell because you fail to hear the Quran. You have a conscience, the quran, and millions of muslims around the world telling you what's up. allah wants you to be a muslim and love him. He cannot force you to do so, you must choose to do so..

(Hopefully by now you've realised the absolute and utter worthlessness of your statement).

 

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Body of evidence:

At the Faith- and Character-Based Institutions of Lawtey, Wakulla and Hillsborough CI, inmate religious affiliations are diverse and, as of March 19, 2007, break down as follows:

* 67% of inmates identify a religious orientation of Christian non-Roman Catholic;
* 10% of inmates identify a religious orientation of Roman Catholic;
* 4% of inmates identify a religious orientation of Muslim;
* 1% of inmates identify a religious orientation of Jewish;
* 13% of inmates identify a religious orientation of none or unknown; and
* 5% of inmates belong to one of 10 other religious orientations (including Odinist, Wiccan, Rastafarians, etc.)
http://www.dc.state.fl.us/oth/faith/stats.html
And the above is only one state!

The Federal Bureau of Prisons does have statistics on religious affiliations of inmates. The following are total number of inmates per religion category: Response Number % ---------------------------- -------- Catholic 29267 39.164% Protestant 26162 35.008% Muslim 5435 7.273% American Indian 2408 3.222% Nation 1734 2.320% Rasta 1485 1.987% Jewish 1325 1.773% Church of Christ 1303 1.744% Pentecostal 1093 1.463% Moorish 1066 1.426% Buddhist 882 1.180% Jehovah Witness 665 0.890% Adventist 621 0.831% Orthodox 375 0.502% Mormon 298 0.399% Scientology 190 0.254% Atheist 156 0.209% Hindu 119 0.159% Santeria 117 0.157% Sikh 14 0.019% Bahai 9 0.012% Krishna 7 0.009% ---------------------------- -------- Total Known Responses 74731 100.001% (rounding to 3 digits does this)

Unknown/No Answer 18381 ---------------------------- Total Convicted 93112 80.259% (74731) prisoners' religion is known.
http://www.holysmoke.org/icr-pri.htm

The above is national! Go ahead and argue with the Justice Department!

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No, nobody would choose to go to hell. People simply don't believe in god/Jesus/the bible. There's a big difference. You can't choose to go to hell if you don't even believe that hell exists. If a person honestly believed in Jesus and the bible but chose to go to hell anyway, I suppose that would be fair enough. But you are suggesting that god would send people to hell not because they chose to go there, but simply because they made an honest mistake about what to believe.

 

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I consider it justifiable to send such a person to hell if that is the nature of his gameplan, the poor fool was a sucker. If he commands and order that can be taken out on a non immmediate basis that involves killing, that is also acceptable in the sense that he is saying Do this or I will have it done by plucking out individual hairs.
In the end, the mental sensation of reincarnating someone to hell or heaven decreases over time. So the guilt that god lives with when is a controlled emotion not spontaneous.

 

True.

False.

False.

True.

... "Hopefully by now you've realised the absolute and utter worthlessness of your statement."

 

How do you figure them out to be false? Please, do tell..

Oh and kindly dispense with any bias you might have, (lol).

 

False.

 

Very mature. When you're quite finished kindly answer the question.

 

IS IT FAIR FOR THE FARMER.... to compost and destroy the worst of his fruit??

or should he cherish even the rotting fungus covered ones?


IF GOD IS OUR FATHER.... CREATOR... then we are his fruit.

-MT

 

The question is: "How do you figure them out to be false?"

By employing Reason.

 

I can't accept for a second that you actually believe there is any reasoning in what you've said. However, if we must go through it, let's look briefly at what you said false to:

- you have a conscience (you do have a conscience right?)

- the quran (you said false - which is to indicate the quran does not exist)

- millions of muslims (there are millions of muslims)

So much for "reason".. :bugeye: Seems you said false to everything that isn't false..

Then the next one:

- allah (again you said false. Are you stating that allah doesn't want love or for people to be muslims)? The quran would probably suggest otherwise thus you are wrong once again.

It seems you wouldn't know the first thing about "employing reason".

 

"I can't accept for a second that you actually believe there is any reasoning in what you've said."

"It seems you wouldn't know the first thing about "employing reason"."

:sleep:

 

LOL...LMAO, and this coming from an Id*ot who believes in sky daddy! LOL, LOL, please stop with the jokes! LOL, making me pee!!!

 

JimHR, have you ever read the entire Bible?

You said, and I quote, that "these Books have perfect agreement". Does reason tell you this after many years of your own extensive research and study, or is it that you just believe this to be true as an article of faith, merely because someone else told that this was the case?

How do you personally know that this is a statement of fact and truth?

Regards

 

Hey SetiAlpha6!!

Well I'm trying to get to that point--I have read most of it. I do study it often--As the Bible says to "study to show thyself approved unto God." (2 Tim 3:15) And it also says that "But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night." (Psalm 1:2)

No, no one tells me to read my Bible--I choose to read it. To understand the Bible you need to be born again. This was the clear teaching of Jesus. A person born into a Chinese family cannot understand English. But a person born into an English speaking family can. Its kinda like that in the spirtual life as well. You need to be born again to understand the things of God. Do you know the story of Nicodemus?

The Bible contains universal truths. Truths that are and will be relevant no matter what generation or era. The United States was founded on universal truths of the Bible and it is no accident that our country remains strong. We have that foundation that many other countries don't. And people wonder why we are such a great nation.

Nevertheless the Bible writers claimed repeatedly that they were transmitting the very Word of God, infallible and authoritative in the highest degree. This is an amazing thing for any writer to say, and if the forty or so men who wrote the Scriptures were wrong in these claims, then they must have been lying, or insane, or both.

Most people today, unfortunately, have not read any of these books. In fact, few have even read the Bible itself! Thus, many people tend to go along with the popular delusion that the Bible is full of mistakes and is no longer relevant to our modern world.

 

Hey Nasor!! What's up. Well actually believing in God and the Bible is not what saves you either.(But it is required.) For you see even Satan and demons believe in God. It is a choice every person on the face of the earth makes. Every person knows if they are going to heaven or hell without even really needing to read the Bible.

To know if you are going to heaven or hell, judge yourself simply by a few of the Ten Commandments: Ask yourself have I ever told a lie? If the answer is yes, you are a liar. Have I ever stole something? If yes you are a thief. Have I ever looked at a person with lust? The Bible calls this adultery of the heart. So if God who is just, righteous and pure were to judge you according to the Law in His holy presence, would you be innocent or guilty? If you are found guilty, where will you go? Does that concern you?

You do have a choice to believe in yourself, religion or the Bible about the destiny of your soul when you die. Do you have something against God? I wonder in the way you intentionally lower case His name. He is the central figure in Christianity and is Jesus and I think it is grammatically correct to capitalize His name. What have you experienced with God?

"The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance." 2 Peter 3:9

 

Hey what's up!!

Well I'm referring to the choice of belief. If God was sitting in the sky with all His glory it would pretty much be hard to deny His existence. He gave us a choice to believe and a choice to seek Him. You did make a good observation in that many people believe in God but don't worship Him. Belief alone does not save--as Satan and his demons believe.

Yeah but then we go back to the issue of the risen Savior and the credibility of the Bible. Muslims, Christians and Jews (Judaism Jews) hold Abraham to be a central figure. Muslims believe Abraham was going to sacrifice his son Ishmael. Christians and Jews believe Abraham was going to sacrifice his son Isaac as this is what the Old Testament reveals. Judaism does not believe Jesus was the Christ.

It is sad to say but Muslims depend their souls upon a book written by one man (Mohammad) who is said to have been inspired. And he is considered a dead prophet! They don't have a Savior! Muslims believe in Jesus as the son of Mary, but nothing more.

The Bible, on the other hand, was written by over 40 different inspired authors and these authors were eyewitnesses to these historical events. They each spoke different languages and lived on different continents. Some were kings others shepherds and doctors. It was written over a time span of 1500 years! And it is interesting to note that Jesus never penned any of these books.

"so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us." Acts 17:27

 

Hey M*W! Thanks for taking the time to tell me about yourself. I appreciate your sincerity.

I would just like to begin by saying my life was not controlled by the Spirit in the beginning. I became convinced without a shadow of a doubt that I needed a Savior of my soul. I will die that is a fact. Something or nothing happens to you after you die, but why would I risk my destiny with myself? I don't know what will happen to me in a week, or a month, or a year, how am I to guess the destiny of my soul? No science can provide observable, measurable or empirical evidence for that. I will not rely on myself or religion (Muslims, Judaism, Catholics, Hindu) as this is a bunch of rituals invented by man. But I will trust the universal Truths of the Bible. It has been proven throughout history. Jesus gave us the Bible so we could have eternal life. I'd rather be a believer than a doubter. It isn't going to hurt you to believe. It is better to believe than to doubt.

"These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God." 1 John 5:13

Sincerity doesn't determine truth, however. One can be sincerely convinced of the truth—and be sincerely wrong. For example, many evil men such as Hitler were very sincere in their beliefs. God judges people based on truth, not opinions—and that truth is Jesus Christ.

May I ask what evidence you have that Jesus does not exist? Most scientists would even argue that Jesus did in fact exist from the overwhelming evidence--but people just say He was a good man. I guess at one point in your statement you said that you were grateful for believing what you did, but then you say that it was the worst mistake of your life.

I hope you forgive me for being completely open and honest, but the Bible does speak of false conversion, in which a stony ground hearer receives the Word with joy and gladness. Then in time of tribulation, temptation, and persecution, falls away. Did you know the Lord?

"Atheism—the belief that there is no God—can become a crutch for those addicted to a lifestyle contrary to God's standards of morality."

Seeming contradictions are in the Bible only to confound the proud. Would you mind giving me some examples?

I have only wanted to give up my beliefs to allow myself to indulge in wickedness. But when I am patient I see that it was better that I didn't give it up for that. I would have to die and be resurrected to recant my beliefs. What we do have, interestingly enough, is the historical accounts of the eyewitness to Christ's resurrection. He experienced death and resurrected and the apostles wrote about it.

Can truth be discovered outside of Christianity? God gave us universal truths in the Bible to live our lives. He is so fair these truths apply to anyone--rich or poor, beautiful and ugly, smart and dumb, black and white, living in any culture or time period! He is so fair.

Because the Bible is God's Word and God cannot lie (Isaiah 55:10-11; John 17:17; Titus 1:2; Hebrews 4:12), it's totally trustworthy, free from any error. God's Word is described as "the word of truth" (2 Corinthians 6:7; Colossians 1:5; 2 Timothy 2:15; James 1:18). Inerrancy isn't a theory about the Bible; it's the teaching of the Bible itself.

What most people claim as errors in the Bible aren't errors but difficulties. People think they've stumbled upon apparent inconsistencies when they haven't taken the time to find out all the facts, or made an in-depth study of the passage. Many Bible questions have been answered as new discoveries have been made in fields such as language, history, archeology, and other sciences.

Regardless of the kind of difficulty found, not a single irreconcilable error can be found in the Bible's pages.

God has given us a whole life of Bible to gain wisdom of His character. I must tell you it is completely amazing for God to reveal truths to you! I still have so much to discover and I just can't wait!

When people say I wanted so much to believe, it really saddens me. Because the promise of God is "so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;" Acts 17:27

Let me remind you of the Law of God. Remember the Ten Commandments? Judge yourself according to these commandments. Ask yourself, Have I ever told a lie? If you have that makes you a liar. Have I ever stolen something? That would make you a thief. Have you ever looked at someone with lust? The Bible says this is adultery of the heart. Now if God were to judge you according to these commandments, would you be found innocent or guilty?

You know, as do most people in the world, if you were to die tonight where you would go if you were judged by God. Christians simply act as witnesses to these truths and remind the world to repent.

Jesus is saving lives today as He has throughout all of history. It was the perfect plan of redemption. He was the ultimate sacrifice and paid for the sin of humanity. This is why we don't sacrifice animals as they did in the Old Testament. Jesus paid the complete sacrifice.

"So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit." John 19:30

Thanks for the invite!! I believe it was of a divine nature for me to be in this forum. I guess I would just like to ask you if you would stake your life on the beliefs you hold now, because in reality you are.

I will be answering some of your questions on your other post I believe as well. Thanks for taking the time to talk--I hope that I haven't written so much as to overwhelm you. Would you mind talking more via private messages? It would be easier to discuss that way. ttyl

 

thats the point - percentages do not establish your claims as fact since percentages suggest practically over 95% of the population would identify as theistic in some shape or form

 

Well, most religions do share similiar core teachings, One God(in many pagan religions the one God is represented by a host of Gods/Goddesses),a God that represents unconditional love and selfless service,teachings on how to treat others as you would have yourself treated. The God being "within" concept that even the NT refers to in many instances. But these are not exclusive to christianity as many christians like to think.
Beyond this point much of the same religions obsess themselves with a lot of man created dogma that reflects the cultural habits and nature of the people trying to "interpret" God. Hence the difference between the nature of the God of the OT(very harsh and cruel at times,crazy behaviour) being different from the NT God ( much more toned down)
I have read the bible several times and although there are many great teachings there are also many,many acts attributed to God that are downright un-spiritual in the extreme!
All the contradictions,often bizzarre behaviour by God and other violent actions tell me this is NOT the inerrant,flawless word of God.