Calling all religious people!!!!

[SodaFountain]

I have a question that I'm really struggling with.

Do you believe that every religion other than you own is wrong and does not really worship God, do you believe these people will go to hell?

I asked the minister at our local Baptist Church and he said yes, anyone other than Christian's are not really worshiping God and they will go to hell unless they accept Jesus. I find this hard to accept.

Baptists do seem to be quite blinkered about such things.
If God is going to turn away all good people who just happen to have been born in a different place and time and/or have never had the opportunity to know Jesus - or indeed God - then I think I'd rather not be with that concept of God.

God is bigger than ANY idea that we might have of God - even your Baptist minister!

Oh I just go to the toddlers at the Baptist Church, I'm not a Baptist! Personally I feel that God presents himslef in different ways to different people and that really people are all worshiping the same thing, does this mean I could never fit in with the Christian faith?

I thought Baptists were quite 'liberal'?!

Baptists are not "liberal" on the whole, although most I know would feel that "some" non-Christians will be going to heaven (based on a verse in Roman's). They don't tend to be as hard line as some Presbyterians eg. Those who believe the Pope is the anti-Christ and all Catholics are going to hell.

Different groups of Christians have different views. I think you would fit in quite well with some liberals parts,of the Cof E.

I'd recommend a book called Love Wins by Rob Bell on this subject - it has a pretty interesting and refreshing view on something a lot of Christians can get quite uptight about.

Sodafountain - follow your own faith and stay true to your own feelings.

Personally, I believe that everyone with a religious faith is responding to the same basic human desire, and to the same basic underlying truth -the existence of something powerful and loving, something beyond ourselves, that we label 'God'.

People do that in different ways, and pick up on different aspects of that, and over time their beliefs have been codified into different organised religions.

I think it's pretty arrogant to believe that one specific religion, which you happen to have joined or been born into, is the one single right answer and everyone who believes anything different is totally wrong.

But, at the same time, you have to consider what would happen to a religion which taught "Hey everything is basically cool, go with whichever you like" - it would almost certainly die out, if it got to the point of being organised enough to 'exist' in the first place. Whereas ones which say "You have to join us or you'll go to Hell. And if you join then leave you'll burn even more". People will tend to want to believe that they are "safe" with the choice they have made, and have that certainty that they are right and they shouldn't go looking for anything else. So 'exclusivity' tend to work, from an organisational point of view.

Oh and FWIW I label myself as 'Christian' because I believe in the basic teachings of Christianity (more or less), but I recognise that if I had been born in a different country or to a different family in the UK then I would probably label myself as something else.

Personally my mind boggles at all the unrest and hostility caused by this. To me, it's great if a person has faith and believes in God, but surely anyone who does is believing in the same thing. Humans have assigned different names and characteristics to God but logically we are all worshipping the same thing at the end of the day. We choose different ways to do it and different stories to believe in but surely there's just the one thing that we are actually worshipping. That's what makes sense to me anyway.

Personally I was brought up catholic but never really identified with it - apart from the core values of it. Now im an adult and have learnt about other religions I am interested in the teachings of Buddhism and the religion which most marries with my personal views on the world would be Wicca. I love that in that religion generally people believe in some creative force (God) and they pray to a number of deities but recognise that these are representing different facets of the creative force. Also i really like that it is very accepting of other religious views - and seems to share my opinion that even though we may have different ways of doing it were all humans here on Earth praying to (or however you want to describe it) the same thing really.