I was raised in a Christian home, but what happens to the millions who die every week of different faiths, religions, and beliefs? Was I raised wrong?

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9 Answers

otis campbell Profile
otis campbell answered

Its heaven and hell for everyone. For the child molesters and animal beaters its hell. You do good you give back to society you go to heaven unless your a politician

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Didge Doo
Didge Doo commented
Hey, cut it out, Otis. I'm planning on attending the Devil's BBQ and it's not going to be much fun if he let's the politicians in. That would be inhumane punishment for the rest of us.
Didge Doo
Didge Doo commented
Hey, cut it out, Otis. I'm planning on attending the Devil's BBQ and it's not going to be much fun if he let's the politicians in. That would be inhumane punishment for the rest of us.
otis campbell
otis campbell commented
Hey too bad
John Doe Profile
John Doe answered

I was also raised in a Christian home....I have since took a step back and looked at what I've been taught. My conclusion.....a bunch of hokey baloney. Depending on where you or your ancestors were born is what you were taught about religion. Each religion claims to be "correct" in their beliefs and everyone else is just wrong. To me, it's a great way to control massive populations and line the pockets of a few.

Call me Z Profile
Call me Z answered

You were programmed to believe. This was likely well-intentioned, but presents many issues with reality. Belief exists where reason and fact aren't engaged, and freethinking is discouraged. Look seriously into the tenets of your religion (even other faiths if you care to, all are very similar) with an objective eye, examine whatever evidence you can find, decide for yourself what is or is not worth believing.

To be candid, organized religion serves only the interests and propagation of the clergy, nothing more. 

Tom  Jackson Profile
Tom Jackson answered

I find it always pertinent to identify what we are talking about.

I assume you are talking about religion defined as:  a particular system of faith and worship.

I'll get back to that in a minute.

There is a second definition:  The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.

OK, I'm a Catholic; just so you know where I'm coming from.

Here's how I look at it.

If you believe in Christianity, you have a leg up on truth---conformity of the mind to that which exists---thanks to the efforts of your parents in thinking that the existence of a God was not a matter of flipping a coin and then finding reasons to support the result when you got older.

And that's the added value of being raised in a Christian home.

For everyone else---atheists of all persuasions, various other particular systems of faith and worship---if in honestly seeking Truth do not find what they consider to be what for us believers is "God"---I suspect that they have been seeking God all along.

And since God knows everything, He knew that they were still seeking Him and I suspect that will have found Him.

You should know that such opinions as I have just offered tend to get me characterized as a "rabid Catholic" and "delusional" by some (I stress it's only some) atheists on this site.

My only comment on that is that if it pleases them to think of me in that way, then they should feel free to use me thusly---whatever.

thanked the writer.
Ray Dart
Ray Dart commented
I know that you are consistent in your faith and your explanation of "how it is for you" (and in an odd, agnostic way, I quite admire that) - but, again, this is a rather bad answer (in fact, not actually an answer to the question posed at all.)
Tom  Jackson
Tom Jackson commented
Ray, for purposes of ":argument" I will consider you in some sense to be a "flatlander." You require proof to exist in one of two dimensions only.

The problem with that is you are asking that a 3 dimensional object leave tracks that you can interpret within the limits of your 2 dimensional guidelines.

It's as if you are a mathematician who only has heard of plane geometry and not "Non-Euclidian" geometry.

If a sphere happens to gently touch and then pass through the intellectual plane in which you live, you will notice it first as a point and then as a series of expanding and then shrinking concentric circles until it leaves you seeing only another point.

It is not your intelligence or reasoning that fails you, it is instead the assumptions upon which your build your philosophy.

Perhaps I was too obtuse in my answer. I was giving my answer in response to a Christian from an apparently Christian environment. To restate it; I maintain that "What happens depends on the integrity of those deciding that that God does not exist." And whatever happens is most assuredly not the second part of the typical "if-then" answer.

(Continued below)
Tom  Jackson
Tom Jackson commented
If God does not exist (an issue not at all affected either pro or con by an individual's belief), then you and I are essentially in the same boat.

I strongly suspect that we are both "good", "honest," and "decent" people

If I do things in my life with regard to my fellow man, belief in God is not much of a motivator for me; so if it were somehow true that God did not exist, my life would not change.

I live in the "now," not the "maybe."
Walt O'Reagun Profile
Walt O'Reagun answered

If you believe in the teachings of the Bible (New Testament) ... Then since the only way to Heaven is through following Jesus, everyone of any other religion goes to Hell.  No matter how good they were.


Didge Doo Profile
Didge Doo answered

According to Christian teaching, they are lost. (Jesus said, "No man cometh to the father but by me." -- John 14:6). Don't fret about it. They all think their religion is the right one, too, and wonder how Christians get off on being so confident.

But it's a good question and perhaps a step on the road to wisdom. Once you begin to question the beliefs you were fed in your Christian upbringing, you're on the way to knowledge. Whether that knowledge leads to a deeper conviction or total rejection will depend on how you assess what you learn.

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Tom  Jackson
Tom Jackson commented
It's not a question of "pick and choose" it's a question of fitting everything that Jesus said into an appropriate hierarchy.

Try matching up the reality of John 14:6 with the parable of the Good Shepherd. Trying to avoid Him in that personal or that of "the Hound of Heaven" is probably a losing battle. That is why I think that "going to Hell" is (hopefully) much more difficult that we think.

Beyond that, you and I are both fathers. I wanted to have children and I assume you did too. If one of them became murderers, would you vote for the death penalty or would you hope that they would eventually come to embrace the values that you know are correct?

And I'm just a human father. If in fact there is a "father" who created you and me, when precisely do you think He would finally "give up" on us.

I remember another group that was considered an "odd majority." I think you have heard of the 12 apostles.

You probably will get your barbecue---but I fancy it will have roasted apples along with pizza. And you will be far enough away from the fire to just find comfort in the warmth.
Didge Doo
Didge Doo commented
There are lots of mismatches, Tom, and it's not my purview to try to cobble them all together into a seamless whole. That's your territory. I can see the Bible for what it is -- a mishmash of ancient mythology and superstition that has little relevance in the modern world.
Tom  Jackson
Tom Jackson commented
That's interesting Didge---because I also claim to see it for what it is.

And if you see it as " a mishmash of ancient mythology and superstition that has little relevance in the modern world," I'm thinking you're not actually looking at the Bible.

At least it is statistically unlikely that you and I will have to wonder about which of us has the more accurate world view for much longer.

Regards...
Ferdaus Hasan Profile
Ferdaus Hasan , I am muslim, answered

Your thinking is good. Try to research every religion. Which gives you mental pleasure that is right.

Ray Dart Profile
Ray Dart answered

Try to find, and read "Small Gods" by Terry Pratchett. You'll get some thought-provoking insight into how man created gods and not vice-versa. To some extent, he also explains why.

There is nothing wrong with having a faith, but if, as "Jesus of the bible" says, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.", then there are billions of lost souls out there (and in some versions of Christian thinking, they are all roasting in hell).

Believe what you want to believe, and take comfort in your faith if that works for you.

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