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?

godzillabumcheek - re the how do i know i'm not muslim......

religeon is the means to express ones faith and belief system.

I believe in one God,the Father the Almighty,maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is seen and unseen.
i believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,eternally begotten of the Father,God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God.begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.

through him all things were made.For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven,
was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and was made man.For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures.he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

i believe in the Holy Spirit,the Lord, the giver of life,who proceeds from the Father and the Son,who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified,who has spoken through the prophets.

i believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. i acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. i look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.

other people believe different things. I believe that my belief in the church necessitates my faith in god. the church is my way to express it. I dont think other kinds of christians are better or worse and i dont think other religeons are better or worse.

I believe my faith is paramount - about the mortal shackles of religeon. and if the church fell tomorrow - it wouldnt matter.

I am a catholic and belive in god..........but i like to think that his love and the prospect of heaven is not conditional.I do not go to church every week like my faith says i should(i belive i can pray as much at my bedside as i can in a church) and i am not married and have concieved 2 children out of wedlock therefore i am not eligible to take holy communion.and i certainly wouldnt go round telling ppl theyre going to hell for their beliefs.....because everybody has their own personal beliefs and who are we to say that they're wrong???????

dya think god will hate me if i dont tidy up and languish in a slovely way at the computer?

Custardo. Nah! he'd have to hate me too an I'm far too nice []

I am a baptised Catholic and so is my dh and dd. We did not have her baptised until she was 6 months because then me and dh were not married

I was divorced from my first and met my 2nd who i knew as a friend. We were desperate for a child and as I was 36 started to try and concieved straight away! We wanted to remarry but we thought it would be out of question as I was divorced but they granted an annulment which was a long process and took till my dd was 6 moths old. The priest then married us and baptised dd on same day. My 1st marriage ended through domestic violence I think thats why the church allowed this as its very rare for Catholics to remarry.

But I tell my story to show that the church is not as rigid as people think and we certainly was not told we would go to hell for having a child outside of marriage.

I am having another child now and I wont be rushing to have him baptised by 6 weeks which is the old tradition but he will be blessed by hospital priest when born as I know him and like the extra support at that time

Ah custardo, i was attempting humour. Is religion (another) thing i should not joke about??

By the way did you copy your post directly off the missilette (or whatever the piece of paper is called that they give you in church) or are you so devout that you know it off by heart I seem to remember hearing those words you see, rather often!

When you go to church every week as a child, the words stick...

ChocPeanut - I am Catholic too and have Catholic friends who have had their LO baptised without being married. Guess it depends on the church/priest?

Yes i think it does.It was a big help for me though as I was not comfortable being unmarried and for me the only way to get married was through my church

godzillabumcheek - copy it i have it tattood on mi arse

Some Christians think that, yes. A great number of different gods throughout religious history have demanded subservience.

In my mind, God is a lot more laid-back than that.

Worship is something that slaves do. If worship, in any religion, stems from fear rather than joy, then I think the path and the message have been left behind.

Thanks girls - am feeling much calmer about the whole christening thing - great to hear of your experiences muppet and chocolate. Fiddle, your reassurance about Catholics not believing in limbo any more is really uselful. I'll have that up my sleeve to bring out if the in-laws start talking about timing. I'll wait to see how I feel when the little one comes, but think the most important thing is time for us to get used to the new arrival before worrying too much about ceremonies for other people. Out of interest - what made you convert to catholicism ?

Seabiscuit, you may find the following link useful, particularly the second question on the page:

Catholics and Limbo

Mary B That is a great link and put much better than I did. It is true that limbo was never part of the doctrine of the Catholic church. It was "invented" by Augustus to try and anwer an unaswerable question. What I meant Seabiscuit was that in our parents' generation it was a generally accepted belief held by Catholics which it is no longer.

I converted to Catholicism because I had got married in a Roman Catholic church (to please MIL) as DHs family is Catholic. In order to do this I had to get a special dispensation from the Bishop as I was a practising Anglican. In order to get the dispensation I had to promise that any children of the union would be brought up RC.

We didn't have kids for the first 12 years we were married and when they started coming along tbh I had almost forgotten about it so the kids were a baptised Cof E. (I am and always have been practising. DH lapsed, only goes on and off. He'll come at Christmas, Easter etc)

When DD1 got to 6 years old MIL started asking about when she would take her first Holy Communion. Then my concience started to prick as I really do take promises made before God seriously so I went to talk to the local RC priest. I did a short course and found very little difference between the two churches , especially as I had always been brought up Anglo Catholic or "High Church" as they call it. (When we met, DH used to joke that I was "more catholic than the Catholics!) I was received into the RC church 10 years ago a few months before DD1 took her 1st HC.

Mind you, we did have a ruch over the christenings 'cos MIL wanted lo christened in the family christening robes which wer made several generations ago when the limbo nonsense was rife (esp in Ireland which is whereDH's faimily hail from) and they were tiny.

My babies were 8lb 12oz, 10lb 10oz and 12lb 3oz so we had to rush or it would have been impossible! It was touch and go with DS as it was!

GreatGooglyMoogly - someone dh works with believes the same. but she still chats to him, even though a lot of it is god-related and she lent him some book about how everything that is good happens because of god. anyway, i am looking forward to going to hell if my friends are going to be there. we can have a good old knees-up.

I'm an evangelical Christian and have watched most of these religious threads with terror. I do have a number of non-believing friends and family. They are great people and I treasure them.

If pushed I would say that my personal belief is that only those who believe in and follow Jesus Christ are the saved (and going to heaven) because I believe in the New Testament. I have a niggly feeling that God may well be a lot bigger than all this so I am not ruling out there will be a whole lot more people in heaven that we expect. But I am not pinning my own life on that.

I just wanted to reassure OP that I for one don't by any means look down on friends as sinners or some sort of second class citizens. I care for them very much as people not from any secret plan to convert them.

They don't believe in God or any kind of religion, so what difference does it make if I believe they are not going to "my" God's heaven. They don't believe in heaven! I'm sure that they think I'm a sadly misguided old-fashioned religious nutter but thankfully we can remain friends and respect each other.

to answer op.
the views your friends express are not limited to their form of christianity, but are open to all sorts of groups within different religions. i've heard muslims spout the same stuff, and jews, and idont know any jains, but perhaps they would too?

i think its just people wanting to be part of the chosenfew. very negative , but that's people for you.

May I put my two-penneth in too ?

May I also suggest you read the Chronicles of Narnia if you haven't already

In the end story (which could be related to - although not all together a mirror image of the "end times" according to the bible) there is a soldier for the "other side" (IE not narnians - ie, not good people) who did not know tht he was "not good".

This soldier took care of people and lived life as best he could. At the end, when the characters get seperated into those that go into the "new Narnia" (IE heaven or hell) - this soldier is allowed in, even though he professed to not know who Aslan was (modelled on Jesus).

Aslan's answer for letting him in was simply that he lived a good life - it wasn't necessarily his "fault" that he didn't realise who Aslan was

I feel this can be related to this question and answers it quite concisely in that if you really struggle with the idea of God or religion or whatever, but live a "good" life (I guess I mean lawfull) then I rekon there may be grace and mercy shown on "judgement day"

Well, I hope I made some sort of sense - feel free to ignore me!