Raymond Luxury Yacht, on May 5 2009, 04:59 PM, said:
HoosierDaddy, on May 5 2009, 01:50 PM, said:
Raymond Luxury Yacht, on May 5 2009, 04:45 PM, said:
What i was sayiing got a little muddled. It's my understanding that all the christian religions believe that you can still get to heaven if you've never heard of jesus. Catholics believe those people go to purgatory. Other christians would think they would get directly in. I think.
Actually, my last girlfriend, was a pretty hard-core Scot-Presbyterian (read, ex Calvanists), and in a pique of interest I asked her. She told me that God would have made his way known to them. And, if they didn't believe that Christ was the lord and savior, they went to Hell. Pretty-hardcore, actually. Eventually broke up with her because of our fundamentally different viewpoints on this sort of thing.
I suppose that it wouldn't have helped for you to explain to her that no, in fact we know that isolated cultures did not have any idea of the christian God before they met any Christians?
Which is how I broached the question. I had to ask in a way that wouldn't put her instantly on the defensive. So, I asked her to explain it for me, why these people who could have never have heard of God, would get blamed for their ignorance and not their disbelief/sinning ways. That was the answer I got. Kind of hard to argue the point when she takes it on faith that it happened.
Illuyankas, on May 5 2009, 05:00 PM, said:
Sucks to be an Amazonian native, then. Or an Inuit/other variety of Eskimo.
Certainly. Most of the world's population was in China and India then, right? They certainly weren't Christians at the time.
Obdigore, on May 5 2009, 05:01 PM, said:
HoosierDaddy, on May 5 2009, 03:50 PM, said:
Raymond Luxury Yacht, on May 5 2009, 04:45 PM, said:
What i was sayiing got a little muddled. It's my understanding that all the christian religions believe that you can still get to heaven if you've never heard of jesus. Catholics believe those people go to purgatory. Other christians would think they would get directly in. I think.
Actually, my last girlfriend, was a pretty hard-core Scot-Presbyterian (read, ex Calvanists), and in a pique of interest I asked her. She told me that God would have made his way known to them. And, if they didn't believe that Christ was the lord and savior, they went to Hell. Pretty-hardcore, actually. Eventually broke up with her because of our fundamentally different viewpoints on this sort of thing.
Jehovah's Witnesses (yes they are christians, despite many christians claiming they are not) claim that eventually 'judgement day' will come. At that time 144,000 of the 'most holy' believers will ascend to heaven to dwell with god and the angels. Meanwhile any other believers will stay alive on earth, become immortal (so long as they believe), and help Jesus transform the world into a paradise where all those that did not hear about 'the truth' will be ressurected and taught the truth, and if they accept it they are allowed immortality, if they do not, they face the final death.
No hell or purgatory, they believe the 'judgement day' will come about after every person alive in the world has been given the chance to learn 'the truth', which is why they preach door to door.
Well, at least they get the chance. That's a positive. Speaking of, I had a SDA at my door today. Handed me literature and moved right along before I had to tell her I wasn't interested.
Trouble arrives when the opponents to such a system institute its extreme opposite, where individualism becomes godlike and sacrosanct, and no greater service to any other ideal (including community) is possible. In such a system rapacious greed thrives behind the guise of freedom, and the worst aspects of human nature come to the fore....
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