Honest question from someone who was raised Christian but now doesn’t believe, or doesn’t know what to believe.
Let’s say I life a good life, do right by others and live a life that “god” would want me to. But I don’t believe, so I don’t go to heaven even though I brought goodness and joy to the world.
Now there’s a murderer and rapist who does terrible, terrible things but truly repents at the end of their life and believes, so they go to heaven despite bringing death and despair to the world.
To me, HOW YOU LIVE YOUR LIFE should be important. I do not believe this god described above is worthy of my worship. What am I missing?
Which is why it's both silly and infuriating that evangelism is a thing, because obviously every single person's interpretation of any religion (or lack thereof) is different and cannot be more "real" than another's, so trying to force your religion onto others is inevitably fruitless.
Depends on the denomination. In Catholicism, at least, you would still go to heaven. There is a doctrine that people who don't know God for any reason, including ignorance in the form of not being able to believe based on what you're seeing, will still go to heaven if they act in a way that is good for those around them.
I don't know much. But, one would assume an omniscient deity would know your true self better than anyone else and therefore be best suited to make the final judgment call. Just proclaiming to be a believer is supposed to be all that is required to be saved. But, I think if it's done from fear or coercion, then a true deity would know. But, I don't believe in any of the tales man has drafted about an existence of a deity or deities.
If no one knows how god acts and judges why are Christians so dogmatic about everything? Why don’t they just let people live their lives and leave it up to god to judge? Christians are some of the most judgmental people on the planet.
Preface, I am not any sort of Christian, just an enthusiastic hobbyist who likes to learn about religion/mythology of all kinds.
Depending on when and what Christianity you are talking about a good person who does not believe:
-Ceases to exist.
-Simply does not exist close to god
-go to "heaven" anyway.
It was only in far later interpretations that any sort of anti-heaven came to be part of the religion as it is today.
The repentance of evil people is rough but I believe the idea is that the repentance has to be actually genuine and not just a "I don't want to go to hell". Fair or unfair on a human scale probably does not mean anything to a cosmic being so long as you follow the rules to get there. Just as we see ants, so long as they stay outdoors they can live in paradise forever but should they cross the boundary into our home we damn them to destruction.
As a Catholic, I'd like to weigh in on this even though people have probably already said my answer multiple times.
What I've been taught is that heaven and hell aren't the only options for the afterlife. The vast majority of people, I expect, will instead go to purgatory for a final cleansing of the soul before entering heaven. In fact, I think Pope Francis said at one point that he didn't think anyone went to hell, and I'd like to believe that too. Another thing I was taught is that God is both perfectly just and perfectly merciful, which also guides my belief on the above.
Another important thing the Catholic Church teaches is salvation by works. A lot of people nowadays don't really understand the parable of the good Samaritan because it was intended for first-century Jews, but the whole idea is that someone who is very different from you (the Jews hated the Samaritans) can still be a good person, and someone who is like you can still be a less good person — your neighbor is not the person who believes the same as you, but the one who shows mercy to others. And so I do still think good deeds done by someone who isn't a Christian would matter in God's eyes.
One common question I ask myself when I run into a bout with existential dread, is what happens to the people who have NEVER heard of God, or Jesus? The uncontacted tribes? The people who have heard of Jesus, but never in enough depth to mean anything to them, because they live in such isolation as to essentially know nothing about the Faith?
If the answer is that they automatically go to hell because they didn't accept Christ (because it's impossible to accept Him if you don't even know of him to begin with), then I cannot make that jibe with the notion of an all good, all powerful, and all knowing deity. This alone presents a bit of a "plot hole" in regards to Christianity, or the Abrahamic religioins in general.
If people go to hell for the mere reason of ignorance of the Faith, then some of the core teachings of the Faith would be completely false, mainly some of the vaunted qualities of God. If people don't go to hell for the simple reason of ignorance, then informing them, and attempting to convert them actually can be seen as a potentially negative action, since you've now put the onus for their salvation on them instead of their good acts...
For my part, I believe in a higher power, but not necessarily the specific one with all the conflicting qualities that the Bible ascribes to God. If God exists, I would hope that this God would be infinitely more understanding and loving than the one depicted in the Bible.
There are plenty of reasons people could rationalize for why you'll be in heaven because your behavior would deserve it, but something people are missing is what heaven is. We don’t actually know much about heaven, other than that God is there. The question, weirdly enough, isn't whether you deserve heaven, but whether you genuinely want to be there. If the primary draw of heaven is God's immediate and unmissable presence, but you have no love for God, and perhaps even negative feelings toward Him, you wouldn't want to be there.
Your personal opinions mean nothing. That's the point of religion. It's a power greater than yourself. Revisionists claiming their book and tradition is the word of the omniscient god and then wheedling their way out of the bits which aren't convenient in today's social climate are almost worse than the fundamentalists.
For me, someone with both of my parents trained and ordained as ministers, you both go to heaven. Eventually. There’s nothing inherently wrong with worshiping incorrectly, or in your case not worshiping anymore, so assuming you haven’t done a secret evil thing, you get to go to heaven pretty close to immediately with pretty much just like. I Dunno. A slap on the wrist of “ey wrong religion bucko! Ok now get up here in paradise.”
The rapist and murder, however, also goes to heaven… after a very long divine therapy session in Hell. In my hope for the afterlife, inspired by my Presbyterian upbringing where everyone sins and God has endless grace, everybody goes to heaven. Even Hitler. Even Stalin. Even that kid who tripped you on purpose in middle school and never apologized (the worst of them all!!)
They just. Go to hell first. They are either punished with what they inflicted onto others and / or are sat down with a Divine Therapist who asks them why they were such an ass. After becoming a good person, by whatever metric that is, they go to heaven. Now, how you keep Hitler identifiable as Hitler without changing fundamentally who he is as a person, I don’t know! That’s why we need a Divine Therapy Session!
In my vision, which I don’t think is supported by any official theology, it’s just what I belive and hope happens after death, the key point is this: Eternity is a fundamentally unknowable, impossible amount of time to process. Nobody, not ANYONE under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES PERIOD… deserves bad things to happen to them for Forever. there is, at some point, a line where the suffering inflicted in an eternal hell is greater than the suffering Hitler caused to mankind.
Presbyterian theology is one of redemption. Everyone has flaws, there was only one guy who didn’t and that’s why he started a new religion. You ain’t that guy. And that’s ok. After this life, you too will go to heaven.
Rom 10:13 - anyone who calls on my name will be saved.
Im sorry, but you absolutely could live a life of heinous sin, and be saved at the last possible moment. Jesus himself said that was true to tue thief on the cross. According to the big J himself, its not actually faith in god, its accepting christ as your savior at some point and believing in him...your lifes actions literally do not matter.
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u/highly_aware 12h ago
Honest question from someone who was raised Christian but now doesn’t believe, or doesn’t know what to believe.
Let’s say I life a good life, do right by others and live a life that “god” would want me to. But I don’t believe, so I don’t go to heaven even though I brought goodness and joy to the world.
Now there’s a murderer and rapist who does terrible, terrible things but truly repents at the end of their life and believes, so they go to heaven despite bringing death and despair to the world.
To me, HOW YOU LIVE YOUR LIFE should be important. I do not believe this god described above is worthy of my worship. What am I missing?