Do you believe that only YOUR religion gets to go to heaven?

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joyfulgirl said:


My interpretation is that he was the way, the truth, the life for the people in his sphere at that time and that there is always a living son of god present serving different cultures at different times. Hence, the great masters of all religions. Sadly, they are often not recognized by the masses until they are long dead.

Then why didn't Jesus just tell it that way? I don't get the guy. Why didn't he just say, "look, I'm the way the truth and the life, no one in this culture at this time gets to the Father, except through me." For goodness sake, he said this less than 24 hours before he was killed. "His time" only had a day left. I mean, he had to know that people were gonna write this stuff down, and it would get heard by people in other cultures and other times. His own disciples started telling people from other cultures this stuff within a couple weeks of his death. It sure seems like he meant this for everyone.

And in the verse we all know thanks to the signs at every public event, John 3:16, Jesus said he was the ONLY Son of God.

I think Jesus was totally intolerant of other religions. And yet, he claimed to be all about love.

Again I ask, what's up with that?
 
and joyfulgirl, let me be clear that if I sound a little frustrated, it's only with the enigma of Jesus, not with you or your interpretation. It's all good. :)
 
Too Much Asleep said:
and joyfulgirl, let me be clear that if I sound a little frustrated, it's only with the enigma of Jesus, not with you or your interpretation. It's all good. :)

I hear ya.
 
Too Much Asleep said:


Then why didn't Jesus just tell it that way? I don't get the guy. Why didn't he just say, "look, I'm the way the truth and the life, no one in this culture at this time gets to the Father, except through me." For goodness sake, he said this less than 24 hours before he was killed. "His time" only had a day left. I mean, he had to know that people were gonna write this stuff down, and it would get heard by people in other cultures and other times. His own disciples started telling people from other cultures this stuff within a couple weeks of his death. It sure seems like he meant this for everyone.

And in the verse we all know thanks to the signs at every public event, John 3:16, Jesus said he was the ONLY Son of God.

I think Jesus was totally intolerant of other religions. And yet, he claimed to be all about love.

Again I ask, what's up with that?

Maybe he did say all that. The Bible is incomplete as the Council of Nicea determined which books would be included. Many were deleted. Not to mention all its translations, etc. I can't answer your question and I feel your pain. ;)
 
Too Much Asleep said:


And yet there are many that do.

Jesus himself said "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

What's up with that?

Well, we Christians believe that Jesus was the Son of God. A better translation of "Son of God" might be "of the same nature as God." He was literally God incarnate. So it would make complete sense for Jesus to say something like that.

So while I believe it might be possible for persons who do not profess Christianity or profess a different religion to enter heaven, it won't be their religion that gets them in. It will be Jesus who gets them in, whether or not they recognize it.
 
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I am the way, the truth, and the light. No one gets to the Father except through me.

...that being the very first thing that came to mind upon reading this thread title.

I personally don't really understand how all religions, who all worship different gods, are all "right." If they're all "right," then don't all of these gods exist? And if all of these gods exist...oh no i've gone cross eyed.
 
Se7en said:
I am the way, the truth, and the light. No one gets to the Father except through me.

...that being the very first thing that came to mind upon reading this thread title.

I personally don't really understand how all religions, who all worship different gods, are all "right." If they're all "right," then don't all of these gods exist? And if all of these gods exist...oh no i've gone cross eyed.

I believe there is one ubiquitous God expressing Itself in all languages, in all cultures, through different sons of God (masters, saints, teachers etc.) Devotees of many different teachers have exactly the same kinds of experiences today and throughout history with their teachers as the disciples did with Jesus.
 
joyfulgirl said:


I believe there is one ubiquitous God expressing Itself in all languages, in all cultures, through different sons of God (masters, saints, teachers etc.) Devotees of many different teachers have exactly the same kinds of experiences today and throughout history with their teachers as the disciples did with Jesus.

Are you sure about that?

People these days are seeing their teachers use a picnic basket to feed over 5,000 people? People are seeing their teachers walk on water? People are watching their teachers die, and then watching them walk around a few days later?

We aren't seeing those things everyday.
 
KingPin said:


Are you sure about that?

People these days are seeing their teachers use a picnic basket to feed over 5,000 people? People are seeing their teachers walk on water? People are watching their teachers die, and then watching them walk around a few days later?

We aren't seeing those things everyday.

People are experiencing miracles with their teachers everyday, yes, and always have. I doubt Buddhism would exist were it not for the miracles Buddha's students experienced, and the same for the masters in India today and elsewhere. But no, you won't see it on TV. It's sacred.
 
joyfulgirl said:


People are experiencing miracles with their teachers everyday, yes, and always have. I doubt Buddhism would exist were it not for the miracles Buddha's students experienced, and the same for the masters in India today and elsewhere. But no, you won't see it on TV. It's sacred.

Well, Buddha never claimed divinity and never said that his death and resurrection would be the sole means by which humankind could be saved from sin. Jesus did. So Jesus can't possibly be one of many equal avatars. Either he was who he said he was--The Son of God--or he was something incredibly terrible, either a liar or a lunatic.
 
speedracer said:


Well, Buddha never claimed divinity and never said that his death and resurrection would be the sole means by which humankind could be saved from sin. Jesus did. So Jesus can't possibly be one of many equal avatars. Either he was who he said he was--The Son of God--or he was something incredibly terrible, either a liar or a lunatic.

Buddha pointed the way to enlightenment and demonstrated by example. Masters/avatars/saints/sons of god have their own unique way of teaching Truth within their own culture and time period. We won't agree on this, my friend, so I don't think there's any point in going back and forth on it. I respect your views and in fact used to share them, but I don't anymore.
 
joyfulgirl said:


Buddha pointed the way to enlightenment and demonstrated by example. Masters/avatars/saints/sons of god have their own unique way of teaching Truth within their own culture and time period. We won't agree on this, my friend, so I don't think there's any point in going back and forth on it. I respect your views and in fact used to share them, but I don't anymore.

Oh no, you can't weasel out of an argument that easily. :)

At the very least you have to let me continue to communicate with everyone else, even if you don't read my next post.

No matter whose doctrine happens to be "right" at any particular time, Jesus and Buddha can't be simultaneously right.

Jesus taught that our sins have fundamentally estranged us from God, that only his death upon the cross could reconcile us to God, and that after our bodies die we go either to heaven (with God for eternity) or to hell (estranged from God for eternity).

If I understand Buddhism correctly, sin is a foreign concept in Buddhism, there is no God against whom we have sinned (if there is a God, he is nothing like the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition), and our path in life is to die and be reincarnated over and over again until we reach Nirvana--total enlightenment.

And the ultimate reason Christanity and Buddhism can't both be correct? Because Phil Jackson thinks that they are.
 
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With me...

I'm staying out of the little discussion over Buddha and Jesus and all that other stuff for now.

As far as just comments on religion in general, what I get a kick out of is when religious people tell atheists that they're going to hell.

It's like, um...if someone doesn't believe in God, they don't believe in heaven or hell, either, so how can they be condemned by a god they do not feel exists to a place they don't believe exists?

I have no problem with someone wanting to be religious, I just wish that some religious people would show respect for those who aren't religious or who have religions that are different from theirs. And vice versa, 'cause this respect does go both ways.

As for me, I'm not overly religious in the first place. I believe in God, but that's really about it as far as religion goes for me. I'm not fond of organized religion, either, because I don't like what it can turn some people into. Religious differences have been a part of many a war, and I think it's stupid to start a war and kill someone just because their religious views differ from someone else's.

And I have dealt with people on this teen message board I go to who feel it is their job to tell others if they are or aren't going to heaven. And it bugs me. According to their religion, that's God's job to figure that out, not theirs, and anyway, some of the people that their God banishes to hell...I don't understand why they should go there in the first place-I don't feel they are doing anything wrong that would be worth going to hell for.

I also do not feel any one religion is right and every other one is wrong. What's right for someone isn't right for everyone.

That's just kinda how I feel.

Angela
 
I agree 100% with AM.

There is a wonderful quote by Mother Teresa, where she says that the most important thing is to help a Catholic be a good Catholic, a Hindu be a good Hindu, etc. She was as good a Christian as you can get, and I feel privileged to share this view with her.
 
Re: With me...

Moonlit_Angel said:
It's like, um...if someone doesn't believe in God, they don't believe in heaven or hell, either, so how can they be condemned by a god they do not feel exists to a place they don't believe exists?

Moonlit Angel, I hope you'd agree with me that just because you don't believe in something, it doesn't mean that it does not exist. If you don't believe in gravity and fell off a tall building, you would still be smashed to bits, yes? :)

foray
 
Sorry to be contrary fors, but just because you DO believe in something doesn't mean its fact either. Religion is all about faith after all. None of us will know until the end what is really going on so to condemn (as a figure of speech) someone to something based on faith is a tough call. But still, you are right that belief aside, if you are denying the existance of something that is indeed true, makes no difference in the end.
 
I've reached a conclusion concerning religious speculation. It's a conclusion that each and every one of us have contemplated before, yet tried to ignored due to our hopes that heaven and hell actually exist.
Since no one has proof that their is a heaven or hell, we can't have a debate on the subject. It's THAT simple.
Can we move on, and stop wasting our time on earth. I based this assumption on life ending on earth and our time being limited, because we KNOW this to be true. We know that life ends, but what happens afterward is out of our hands, and depending on what "man-made" doctrine you profess to believe in, you'll never know what will happen until that day when you cease to exist.
 
Danospano said:
I've reached a conclusion concerning religious speculation. It's a conclusion that each and every one of us have contemplated before, yet tried to ignored due to our hopes that heaven and hell actually exist.
Since no one has proof that their is a heaven or hell, we can't have a debate on the subject. It's THAT simple.
Can we move on, and stop wasting our time on earth. I based this assumption on life ending on earth and our time being limited, because we KNOW this to be true. We know that life ends, but what happens afterward is out of our hands, and depending on what "man-made" doctrine you profess to believe in, you'll never know what will happen until that day when you cease to exist.
Danospano, I can't argue anything you've said here, in a literal sense, but you've contradicted yourself by including your last sentence. At the beginning of your post, you imply that we don't "know" what happens after death because there is no proof either way. However, in your last sentence you state that there is a dependency factor (based on which "'man-made' doctrine you profess to believe in") that determines whether you know what will happen after death -- and that's contradicting your earlier implication. Now, I think I do know what you mean, but I had to point that out!:)
 
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Michael,
There was a touch of sarcasm in the final sentence of my last post. "Man-made" religion. Beliefs based on speculations rather than hard facts. It is a fact that humans cease to exist in their current state when they die. All faith's expectation of the "afterworld" are mere speculation, and that's the point I was trying to make.

:) Cheers
 
Danospano said:
Michael,
There was a touch of sarcasm in the final sentence of my last post. "Man-made" religion. Beliefs based on speculations rather than hard facts. It is a fact that humans cease to exist in their current state when they die. All faith's expectation of the "afterworld" are mere speculation, and that's the point I was trying to make.

:) Cheers
I completely understood! It's just that, quite often, the term "know" seems to be used when we really mean "believe" -- which I guess is what we were both actually saying!
 
Angela Harlem said:
Sorry to be contrary fors, but just because you DO believe in something doesn't mean its fact either. Religion is all about faith after all. None of us will know until the end what is really going on so to condemn (as a figure of speech) someone to something based on faith is a tough call. But still, you are right that belief aside, if you are denying the existance of something that is indeed true, makes no difference in the end.

I agree with what you're saying, boondox, though it didn't really have much to do with my original post. Also, religion is about faith, that is correct; but faith is the flipside of rationale, you can't have one without the other and they reinforce each other.

foray
 
religion...I am not decided who i relly am-a christian or an atheist. So, I have many view points.My christian self tells me that IF there is a GOD, he's the same for all the people and 1.he's kind and so on and every person goes to heaven despite he's a christian or non-christian.2.most the religions only call and imagine him different-however, GOD is the same for all of them. All those words, that "only" christians go to heaven or smthng like that came from early beginning of the religions, when people HAD not to LOVE GOD (as we should do now), but to FEAR.that's were all the threatening about not going to heaven came from.
MY non-christian self tells me, that there is no God and that people made it up a long long time ago when they had to explain things they didn't understand (such as lightening, storms) and wanted an easyer life (they had someone to blame, someone to call for).Because God changes with people's mind:when they were cruel-god was cruel, when in their life appeared Love-God wanted Love.
Religion is a very complicated.However-if God is somewhere-he must be kind and generous, maby not almighty, but loving-who else, but God tought about remission-so he should forgive all the sins and take every child, every man, every woman to heaven
FOR EVERYONE TO BE HAPPY THERE!!!
THE HAPPY END
 
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