Originally posted by Universal Mind
Nobody would "choose" to be tortured forever. *My lack of belief in God is not by choice, and I in all honesty don't think I will burn forever for it. *Therefore, I have not chosen not to go to Heaven or much less to go to Hell. *I believe what makes sense to me. *Could you choose to believe that 2 + 2 = 5? *If so, do it for a week and tell us what it was like.
You indirectly asked for a Christian viewpoint in a later post, I believe, though I lost that part of the quote in sparratic back-spacing.
So, I think this is what my Grandfather would put forth as a rebuttal to that statement.
"It isn't some conscious decision of "Hey, going to Hell would suck pretty hard, I guess I'll go to Heaven instead!" It depends totally upon your actions. Religious beliefs, social beliefs, or even a belief in God in general shouldn't effect where you end up in the afterlife. I really think that all God is worried about is how you live your life, a nice balance between intent and actual action. Will God penalize someone because they can't bring themselves to believe in an omnipresent and omnipotent being that looms behind your shoulder, and is actually controlling all of your actions, thereby making all of your decisions null and void? No, I myself don't even believe this. It's how you live your life that matters, how you influenced the lives of other people. So, if you're a good person (and I know good is a super relative term) you don't have much to worry about, regardless of your spiritual beliefs."
He's a Methodist minister, and my viewpoints are pretty similar to his. I personally am not a Christian, but believe in God as a creator of life. The Omni* personification of him?... not quite so sure. I would only add one clause to the statement that I believe my Grandfather would not. It is that all of this applies only if you believe in Hell at all. The concept of a God making a pit of eternal fiery chaos and damnation for things that he created seems pretty odd to me. Why not try to rehabilitate people? Or, if God *really* feels like inflicting pain upon the souls of people, why would it have to be permanent? Why not a temporary visit that allows you to atone for your sins?
Yup.
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