Do Christians really think like this and if so how can we be friends? (long sorry)

[GreatGooglyMoogly]

Following a rather heated, unplanned discussion about Christianity/ God with Christian friends of ours (we are atheists) I have gathered that they believe the following: that not believing in their God is the ultimate Sin and that no matter how you live your life otherwise, ie. if you are good, friendly, responsible, caring, law-abiding people but don't believe in their God you will still go to Hell when you die. It would seem that basically the only thing that matters is that you believe in their God, not how you otherwise live your life. Therefore non-Christian murderers/ criminals, etc are on a par with us in their eyes as none of us believe in God (the ultimate Sin) and we will all therefore go to Hell.

Surely if there is a God He would not be so awful and unwavering? And surely our friends cannot think of us as the ultimate Sinners or they wouldn't associate with us?

i express my faith through my religeon. However i recognise that other people do this too. we are all doing the same thing different ways.

It'sgenerally in the OT that the bits I find most disturbing are, harpsi. (Sorry, too tired to rewrite that sentence grammatically - think it's clearish ). I have a lot of trouble with the simplified versions of OT stories in children's Bibles - which is going to mean a minefield with dses later on. (dh has less trouble with them, thinking they're all fairy stories anyway ).

Religion can often be unintentionally hypocritcal.

dont worry about it.

We're never going to know for sure while we're alive what's true and what's not - my favourite poem that sums this up perfectly is:

Life is thus
Death is thus
Poem or no poem
What's the fuss?

[harmony]

Are we actually really here though?

Maybe we are already in hell?

I might be in hell. I have a dented shin.

Oh I am in hell for sure - there is a Paul Hogan film on the tv.

Think I may go to bed.....

I'd just consider their beliefs about their afterlife as irrelevant to whether you can be friends now, in what you believe (I presume) to be the only life. Unless, of course, they become over-zealous in trying to convert you, in which case you may wish to run a mile.

I'm training as a minister, yet I've been condemned to hell too by an evangelical - but then I believe that if there is anyone in hell, surely a goodly number of them are ministers

My attitude is "thank God its God judging me and not you".

All I can say is it takes all sorts, you're not going to get on with everyone whatever you do, and I'm not a Christian just because other people are, but because I happen to believe Christ's message. And to me, they ain't preaching his message. I leave it up to God to decide where people are going, I wouldn't presume to tell anyone what's in store for them.

As for the Old Testament God of wrath. The Old Testament has been edited and re-edited several times by various groups of people, depending on what their particular message was. Some people believed that everything came from God, good AND evil. Some believed in devils. Some believed that God would talk to people personally, some believed he would use an angel, and so it goes on. In some parts, you can almost see the "join"! I'm probably going to hell, just for telling you that much!

Only you can decide whether this has damaged your friendship. Look at it another way, they like you so much that they WANT you to be saved and care about that you might not be. If it were me, I'd tell them not to bring it up again though (unless you want to), not if they really value your friendship.

What if you just say you believe in all the clap-trap on offer, whose to know otherwise? Though if God is omniscient (sp?) then maybe you'd be booted away from the gates.
Hasn't he surely got better things to do than probe someone's mind to see if they truly believe?

Well, I've just read this thread and want to shove my oar in (or whatever!)

I am an evangelical christian, very deeply committed to following my faith. I have really struggled with the issue of who will and won't get into heaven though. The idea of people being condemned to hell is as upsetting and offensive to me as it is to anyone, esp. in view of people I've known and cared about who have died as non-christians.

This may come across as woolly-liberal but my thoughts are as follows - God is love, and His love is infintely deeper and better than any human love. He created people out of love, and it would go against that love to deliberately make it difficult to go to heaven, i.e. to be with him for all time. And He is also a much fairer judge than any human judge, so He alone can judge the hearts and minds of individuals.

(There is a strong theme of judgement in the Bible - the interesting thing is that to the Hebrews, God's judgement was always seen as a Very Good Thing because they knew that He would judge fairly and rescue them from unjust situations like being Pharoah's slaves in Egypt. Whereas to us Westerns, jugdement is seen as a Very Bad Thing because we instinctively feel that we will be condemned unfairly.)

Threfore, how can I presume to judge on God's behalf? How can I possibly say who will be in heaven? To me that is the height of theological arrogance. We just don't know who will get into heaven.

And this business about christianity only being about what you belive, not what you do, about living a good life...well to me that's just plain bad theology. The Bible goes on and on and on about living a good life! And links living a good life with going to heaven. Jesus told a story about the 'sheep and the goats' - i.e. who goes to heaven and who doesn't. He makes it clear that some won't. The ones who do, he gives ther reasons why they qualify (crude word there, sorry) - "For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink...I was sick and you looked after me...etc etc...whatever you did for the least of these brothers (or sisters) of mine, you did for me".

We have that verse framed in our kitchen and it reminds me that every drink I get for the dc, every plaster I stick on their knees, every little act of kindness and looking-after I do foor the dc, I am doing for Jesus because it is by serving others that I serve Him.

Anyway, the bottom line as I see it, is that christainity is all about responding to God, getting to know Him better and experiencing His love more, and showing His love to others more and more through the way I live. There are tricky bits in the Bible that I find difficult but my MO is "Everything I know of God gives me the confidence to trust Him for the bits that I don't know, or dislike". And that includes heaven.

Cross-posted with ya Mary! Great minds!

Well, I don't think like that, but I am a very bad Catholic, albeit still a Catholic...

I'm probably going to sound quite snotty here, but i would find it really offensive to be thought of as believing in God. Good job all the Christians i know are quite clear on where i stand .

Custardo...if you don't believe the Bible is true as a basis of Christianity, but you believe in God, how do you know you are not a Muslim? Are you sure you're a Christian?

She's a Catholic. We're not huge on the Bible really.

Catholics do believe the Bible is truth. At least, the ones i know do, and i used to be one.

haven't read all 92 messages ! but am Catholic and don't believe what your friends have said in your OP. Good people go to Heaven, full stop.
Your friends sound odd imo.

oh and I don't take the Bible as 100% "truth". I take it as a bunch of men wrote down a bunch of stuff to help people live their lives. A lot of it is no longer relevant to us in this country at this time..

I was a Christian all my life until comparitively recently. I've received a lot of support on here so don't want to offend anyone, and I apologise now if I do.

I did the woolly liberal anglo-catholic thing, until I realised I didn't believe any longe rin the Virgin Birth, the divinity of Christ or the Resurrection. Then I did the the 'radical' thing, believing in the social/moral teachings of Jesus but none of the rest, and intellectually understanding most of the Gospels to be made up. Eventually it was obvious I wasn't a Christian.

Part of how I ended up here is the realisation that you can either be an evangelical, Bible-believing Christian, or you can be a 'radical' - thsoe who doubt everything but somehow manage to hold on, like John Spong or Hilary Wakeman. Anything else is taking the parts of the Bible that you like and discarding the ones you don't. I had so many debates when I was a liberal when I would be accused of a pic'n'mix approach to the Bible - but it was true, in many ways.

I'm now a fledging Buddhist/Taosit. I think. I still believe in God, but as something within, not external.

Anyway, on of the most bizaare things for me is that anyone thinks they can call who 'goes to heaven'. As I am not yet dead I cannot say whether there even is an afterlife, let alone what form it takes. I am with John Spong in that I live in the hope of an afterlife. Nothing more.

I let my dd1 still read her childrens' Bible, she can take from it what she wants as she grows. But now when she reads the story of Noah, instead of tying myself in knots trying to explain why God is so horrid I just say, 'it's only a story, there was once a big flood and the people who lived a long time ago didn't understand how it happened so this is the story they made up.'

GGM, only you can decide if you want continue with your friendship. It is true that most Christians don't think as they do. I also agree that I don't believe they are judging any aspect of your behaviour or morality, just your non-belief. I suspect that rather than look down on you they pity you.

Well I certainly pick and choose friends according to how they behae rather than what they believe. THose of you on here who do go in for imaginary friends andHigher Powers and all the rest of the pyschological comfort blankets of superstition: doy you find it impossible to be friends with people who a)chuckle benignly at your delusions and getyou another drink or
b) shove Richard Dawkings book at you and rant
or c) anyone who doesn't wholeheartedly share your beliefs?
Or do you keep/ditch yoru friends for quite diffrent reasons?

i don't discuss religion/beliefs with my friends actually. never seems relevant, don't think any of them would be very interested and i'm not really interested in discussing it!

Im a Christian (I am a Catholic) and for me the most important thing is that you do your best to be a good person.

There are lots of non believers that actually live a life closer to jesus than those that proclaim to be believers.

Your friends should respect you.

I think that faith is fundamental to belief, and if it isn't then really what's the point? As an aetheist I don't have it (don't have any desire to have it either!) but my sister who is a vicar has lots of it. I still love her and she still loves me, there are just some things I really prefer not to talk to her about, but yes I know that she hopes that one day I will return to the fold, be saved and go to heaven. Faith can drive a great wedge between people (I have lost friends when our views differed too much), but I just accept it as part of who my sister is (and in most ways she is a pretty special person). I just don't talk to her about homosexuality, or other religions, because I know that some of her views are pretty unsavory to me. I also avoid telling her I think that she is subject to a strange delusion that some one is talking to her, as clearly it is very important to her.

I think that God wants a relationship with us. However he does not force himselves into our lives. If someone actively rejects God then God respects their decision because he gave them free will. I would be surprised if an atheist wanted to be with God after they die.

Its a bit like you can't make your adult child come and visit you. They have to choose to have a relationship with their parents.

What happens to unbelievers and those born before Jesus came I have no idea. I am sure that God is fair. The bible makes it clear that God loves everyone.

Prehaps the difference is that accepting Jesus into your life you KNOW that you will go to heaven whereas non believers are leaving it a bit to chance.

Well, no, non-believers aren't leaving "it" to chance, but rather go beyond the idea of there being any "it" to leave.

It's impossible to enter into the idea of a relationship with something you don't believe in. It would be like asking a Christian to consider a relationship with the Great Green Arklesizure, or Apollo.