| Quakers |
Can't help but wonder if this is a joke post from someone who once believed, who does no longer, but still remembers the Christian explanation for how god can be loving and merciful, but still send people to hell. |
| God doesn’t send people to hell. |
But he knows they are going there before they are born, so yes, technically he does. |
God does not decide who goes to heaven and hell. Each individual person decides whether they receive Jesus and go to heaven or spend eternity in hell. God is constantly pursuing humanity with his love and kindness. ... God provided salvation as a gift through the crucifixion and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ. |
But does god know what they will do before they are born? By your definition, yes he does. So there is no free will and he sends them to damnation on purpose. You can't have it both ways. |
Again, this is such standard, rote, non-thinking Christian doctrine that it seems like a joke post. This reasoning does not consider all the people in the world who never even hear about this particular "loving" god. And those who DO hear about him and conclude his offer of "love and kindness" is bogus, supposedly go to hell. |
Free will means God knows what people will chose before they are born; not that he makes the choice for each person before they are born. God gives us the freedom to make a choice; we aren’t a rock or a tree. Our freedom of choice is never revoked. It is always left up to the individual to make their choices and decisions in their life. Free will also means God cannot demand our love. God seeks our love and affection, but our love and affection for God is left completely up to us to decide upon. We decide. Without this free will and independent decision making process, we would have no personal relationship with God. So God doesn’t decide if we go to heaven or hell. He doesn’t send us to either place. We decide as agents of our own lives and through the exercise of our free will. |
| Chose above on the first sentence should be “choose.” |
So by your account: - He knows what "choices" they will make before they are born - He knows this will lead to their damnation under rules he created - He is completely capable of changing the rules or the nature of the person making the damning "choices" - He allows them to be born anyway and does nothing, ensuring their eternal torment! Oh yeah, that makes perfect sense! Such love! |
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None. There is no 'Heaven'.
Come on, already! It's the 21st century outside, even out there in Frederick. |
And I bet you're set to go to heaven, because with the free will that God gave you, you have given your love and affection to God. What a good feeling that must be! You are no fool. You know if you didn't give God your love and affection, then you'd go to hell -- of your own free will. Who would make a choice like that? No one. Then there are all the people who never heard of this God and his offer, and those who heard of it and think it's BS. |
Love and affection to and from God does not grant one a place in heaven. The only way one can attain that is through the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Himself says in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” He is not a way, as in one of many; He is the way, as in the one and only. No one, regardless of reputation, achievement, special knowledge, or personal holiness, can come to God the Father except through Jesus. Eternal life in heaven is made possible only through Christ. Jesus prayed, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3). To receive God’s free gift of salvation, we must look to Jesus and Jesus alone. We must trust in Jesus’ death on the cross as our payment for sin and in His resurrection. “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe” (Romans 3:22). |
God doesn’t want to “make” us love Him and “make” us have a personal relationship with Him. We aren’t His robots or hostages. He doesn’t require perfection from us; he knows we are incapable of that. He doesn’t demand anything but our love and that we accept the gift His Son so graciously has offered us. |
So God would rather that we choose him and if we don't choose him and his gracious gift of his son, whom he sent here to be crucified for our sins, then we go to hell -- our choice. but God set up the whole system -- if you believe it. Lots of children do, because they are taught it by their parents. But many people reject this at some point as they mature. Some people don't accept it even as children. |