At lunch today. a kid told me that he didn't believe in God. "I'm an agnostic atheist. I doubt that God exists. It's ok, though. God is benevolent, so if I'm wrong, he'll still let me go to Heaven."
Lord forgive me, but this makes me so angry. The worst thing is, it's one of the most common misconceptions among my atheist friends. It's like saying, "The police keep us safe, so the policeman won't hurt me if I start shooting at him". Or, "My parents love me, so they won't mind if I start killing people".
Don't get me wrong. I know that God is more loving and full of grace than any human out there. But one of the biggest misconceptions about Christianity is that God will give us all the rewards we want, even if we have nothing to do with him in our lives. It's a sense of entitlement.
Here's the deal. Everybody has sinned (Romans 3:23). The penalty for our sin is death (Romans 6:23). Jesus died for our sin (Romans 5:8). To be forgiven for our sin, we must believe and confess that Jesus is Lord. Salvation comes through Jesus Christ (Romans 10:8-10). Let's take a look at the verses below, Romans 1:18-20.
"The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualitites - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."
God has revealed himself to all people, and yet people still reject the truth of Him. The Bible says that every human on earth has the opportunity to learn of God. There is no excuse for those that reject the good news.
I'm still amazed at the idea of God's love. I know that by me accepting Him, he will always forgive me. I know that I'm not supposed to sin and I continue to do it, but the grace of God is endless.
Praise the Lord.
being an atheist isn't the automatic equivalent to "shooting a police officer -" i.e. God. You can be an atheist and still live just as moral and ethical a life as a Christian and God would recognize that. self-professed Christians that kill people aren't any better than atheists who kill people, just the same as Christians who live good lives are no better in God's eyes than atheists who live good lives.
ReplyDeleteI refuse to believe in a God who is not above accepting the highest caliber of people into Heaven even if they have their doubts.
Your thoughts?
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteYou misinterpreted my simile. It was not a statement on the morals of atheist verse Christians. My simile was to demonstrate a logical fallacy that follows the same thought and reasoning process.
As to what you refuse to believe, that is your choice. I won't argue with you because I just wrote a whole blog post on that topic and anything else I said would be repetitive.Best of luck.
"I'm still amazed at the idea of God's love. I know that by me accepting Him, he will always forgive me. I know that I'm not supposed to sin and I continue to do it, but the grace of God is endless."
ReplyDeleteSo basically, the only sin he REALLY doesn't/won't forgive is not accepting Him? As long as you believe in him, he'll forgive you for whatever sins you commit, even though you know you're not supposed to do them?
“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”
ReplyDelete― Marcus Aurelius
Is your god a god of justice, or one that will send Gandhi to hell while accepting, say, Eric Robert Rudolph (who bombed an abortion clinic and killed 2 people for his anti-abortion and anti-gay agenda).
I didn't believe in the above even when I was a Christian.
Anonymous - You've pretty much got it! God forgives serial killers, rapists, and all sorts of bad guys - if they repent and accept Jesus. The problem is, you can't really decieve an all powerful God. He knows if you are genuine in your remorse or not. You have to make a genuine attempt to stop sinning - you cannot just keep sinning because "oh, it's ok, God will forgive me". That is wrong.
ReplyDeleteTim - Your quote by Aurelius is a quote by a human, who is not near the level of God. The problem is that you (and Gandhi) are associating Heaven with "being good". That's wrong. This would work except no human that has EVER lived or ever WILL live has ever been free from sin. Sorry to say, but that includes Gandhi. Every single human is a sad and sinful creature. No human DESERVES to go Heaven - God's love and compassion accepts any that come to Him and ask for His forgiveness. You can't just bank on the hope that God will give you all rewards, for no committment to Him. There has to be a choice to follow God.
Btw - "If there are gods and they are just, they will not care how devout you have been". I found this paradoxical - the very word justice means to give just reward. The thing about justice, not everybody is "not guilty". There is a part of justice that involves the conviction of the guilty.
And we are all guilty.
The thing is, there are different levels of what you call sin. While Gandhi may not have been "free from sin", he gets sent to hell? Because he was born in India to Hindu parents? Gandhi probably coveted his friend's things as a kid as everyone does. But in the meantime, you think that after you die you'll be hanging with Timothy McVeigh, Eric Robert Rudolph and Hitler just because they "accepted Jesus" and in some cases used Christianity as a (faulty) justification for their actions?
ReplyDeleteThere is a huge difference between the Dalai Lama and Lawrence Brewer (the guy who was executed a month and a half ago for dragging a black man to his death for being black). To act like all actions are equal and there is no difference between wanting someone's video game council and bombing an abortion clinic is being disingenuous.
Dearest Bdaws,
ReplyDeleteI believe that if you were really making a genuine effort to stop sinning, that you could, and the fact that "[you] know that [you're] not supposed to sin and [you] continue to do it" wouldn't exist.
If you were honestly making a genuine effort to stop sinning, simply, you would.
While 'looking to god for strength' may be a part of it, all it really requires is self-discipline and true will--internal strength.
Sincerely,
One Cell in the Sea
Cell - Frankly, without any disrespect, I just completely disagree. All humans are inherently sinful, and all humans will always be sinful. That' is part of what made Jesus so special - because he was the only human to not be sinful. I don't believe any human can "will themselves" to stop sinning.
ReplyDeleteCell - I must apologize in terms of your last comment - while attempting to publish it, I pushed "delete" on my iPhone. My bad. Wanna repeat it?
ReplyDeleteBradley, what happens to babies who die? Are they condemned to eternal death if their parents are Hindi or Buddhist, but saved if they were born in a country where the majority of people are Christians?
ReplyDeleteI think condemning every person as horrible human beings and sinners for simply existing is pretty abhorrent, personally.
...So the 66% of non-christians on this earth are NOT going to heaven. all of them. who's to say they're going to nirvana or whatever their religion says and you're not because you don't believe what they believe? i think you're being a bit close-minded and wayyy too literally-interpreting of the bible. your logic makes no sense at all and i don't like your god if he's so egotistical he only accepts those who worship him, including the psychopaths and excluding gandhi etc
ReplyDeletei actually want to know what you think about this and if you don't respond i'm just going to assume that you agree with me
Hindu and Muslims and the Jews all believe in God. Are they going to hell because they don't believe in the precise, exact same god you do?
ReplyDeletei'm not bashing you or christianity; i'm christian myself. I'm bashing the way you swagger around like everyone's going to hell except you and the other 1/3 of the world who believe in jesus (or say they do).
ReplyDeletesee you in Heaven, then you'll see.
I don't understand how you justify that your your belief is more right than anyone else's.
you say that babies are saved anyway because they don't know any better. what about the people of other religions who just don't know about christianity? i know people here in the united states who don't know anything about christianity. Are they going to hell just because they don't know? how is that worse than babies
ReplyDeleteHi, I'm a different anonymous than those who have commented thus far. Humans have inhabited the Earth long before Jesus came around. Based off your beliefs, will these humans be sentenced to eternal punishment because they were born before Jesus and never received his message? Will they, like the infants that die, be granted paradise because they were never given an opportunity to know Jesus, and thus, had no chance to accept him? What about people that are alive today, but live in unique circumstances in which they have never heard about Jesus (i.e. some isolated place tribe in Africa or New Guinea)? It seems as though the accident of someone's birth has a lot to do with whether or not they will go to heaven. People born in a Christian family at a young age have more of an advantage than those born in families that teach a different religion. Imagine, if you will, that you were born in India, were brought up by Hindu parents, the vast majority of people around you were Hindu, and your exposure to Christianity was negligible. You would probably remain a devote Hindu for the rest of you life and you would believe, as you adamantly do now, that your religion was without a doubt the truth. Would you, in this situation, deserve to go to hell?
ReplyDeleteMy point is this: People are subject to their experiences and circumstances, something that is out of their hands. Who you are as a person, your personality, beliefs, morals, etc., are shaped by your environment, and the environment is a powerful and influential thing indeed. Like the example mentioned above, would a "just" god send a Hindu to hell because his circumstance was different than a Christians, purely based off of the accident of his birth?
I guess this is just confusing for me because I'm an atheist, but I'd still like to understand your opinions.
looooool Hindus made up their own god? Hinduism has been around a lot longer than Christianity. And that's the closed-mindedness that the first anonymous poster was speaking of before. Have you actually studied their religions through any other lens than "they're all going to hell for making **** up"?
ReplyDeleteAs for your response to my last post,
Do you see how choosing psychopaths over (we'll switch the example this time) the Dalai Lama makes your deity look egotistical and irrational? The former bomb abortion clinics, and the latter actually preaches TOLERANCE.
I don't "cling to my parent's faith", or I'd be a Catholic.
And back to your response to the anonymous users, they're not being close-minded. Neither of them said that your god "couldn't exist", they made no statement at all about the reasonability of your claim. Unlike saying "they made it up", as you did. In fact, the later anonymous is a Christian as well.
Nobody even got into asking you to prove any of your assertions, but you go straight into accusing others. What are your opinions on say, Mormons or the infamous Westboro Baptist Church? By yours and BDaw's standards, WBC members are going to be chilling in heaven with their cousins/siblings in a few years. Also, are Mormons Christians? Most conservatives don't seem to think so, but I was interested in your opinion.
How are Mormons not Christians based on your standards? They believe in Jesus, I thought that was your only criterion before. Are Catholics Christians? They also preach works.
ReplyDeleteMaybe at some other point, Bradley...I don't think I can express it as clearly at the moment
ReplyDelete