[Flipside]

I was just wondering on this, and, since I've only a general education in religion, so I was wondering this..

Say, for example, a Sikh devotes his entire life to orphaned children, takes in waifs and strays and helps them build a life for themselves. Say this man was good and kind to those around him, never offered violence to another man, was an honourable and devoted husband etc..

Now, one day, this man dies. If he was wrong about his religion, and, say, another religion is right, he stands before the wrong God, but is a good and honest man.

It seems to me that there are two options, Man can only really be judged by his actions, not his thoughts, since strength is the ability to resist temptation.

1 : The man gets allowed into Heaven for being a 'Good Man', but it is neither the Heaven nor the God he believed in.
2 : The man goes to whatever form of heaven he thinks he goes to, and it's different for all of us.
3 : The man goes to Hell for being a Heathen, which seems a bit unfair from any 'Wise and Powerful' God.

Thoughts anyone?

[Ford Prefect]

4. His consciousness ceases to exist.

[Flipside]

LOL Thank you Capt. Optimistic

[Grug]

I'm an aetheist these days.

I put all religeons under the catagory of 'cults'.

I have more faith in humanity and good will than imaginary beings.

[Flipside]

Hmmmmmm.. I'm more spiritual, I suppose.. I'd like to believe option 2, but the artist in me is always at War with the scientist

[NGTM-1R]

That's a good question, really, one I've pondered several times myself.

I don't know the official answers, yet I personally believe that some exceptional people will make it to Heaven/Paradise/what-have-you regardless of their denomination or lack thereof.

Drifting into heresy now, it is also possible that in the end we were all worshipping the same God/dess and didn't know it, so we'd end up in a single non-denominational version anyways. Or that we are all worshipping different Gods/desses who all exist and so we all will go to our own version of The Happy Place.

But really, it's hard to know without actually having been there...

[Rictor]

I think the question is moot.Or at best, unknowable.

However, from a Christian point of view, its probably C. Dante's Inferno is filled with so called "enlightened non-Christians" (or something like that), which are virtuous people born before Christ, so that they could not have been Christians, but are not the same as regular sinners since they were expectional men, like Plato. So, no Heaven for them, but not the very deepest pits of Hells either.

[Setekh]

Christianity would say:

No one gets into Heaven by virtue of being a good man, because the standard they are measured against is God's own perfection. Even those who we would say are 'good' by human standards are just that - measured only according to a (thoroughly depraved, if we are honest about ourselves) human standard.

So if anyone gets into Heaven, it is by God's grace. Thus, the Sikh would not get into Heaven, because he has not asked God for the grace that is needed for him to enter Heaven.

Totally fair from the 'wise and powerful' God - because in the end, no one deserves to get into Heaven by their own merit.

[Ford Prefect]

But why would god create people without clarifying for them how to reach heaven? Allowing people to stumble blindly through uncertainty when they have so much at stake in their afterlife seems... sadistic.

[Grug]

There is so many alternatives its just not applicable to have a singular religeon.

There is also suggestions that Jesus wasn't the real Christ. The whole John the baptist story.

2000 years ago, you could say something, send it halfway across the known world, and people would believe almost anything.
Communication these days significantly changes that, allowing people to see for themselves and draw their own conclusions.

In third world countries its quite evident, where they have minimum technology. So misionaries are sent to brainwash yes brainwash them to believe a religeon.

[Flipside]

I see your point, but that suggests that what religion you are is actually more important than how good you are to your fellow man?

[Turambar]

i dont like religion as a whole.
just be good and good things will happen.

my version of the afterlive is awesome, its a cross between the Norse afterlife and the Muslim afterlife.  Eat drink beat the snot out of someone, then chill with my 70 brown haired virgins, lol

but yeah, i think the Sikh would go to paradise, whatever it is for him

[Grug]

I don't really believe in an afterlife.

I believe in the possibility of something remaining after the physical being is decayed or incinerated etc.

[Setekh]

Great opinions there, Grug. I'd appreciate, though, even just as a favour to me, if you held back on your conclusions until perhaps you'd met a real missionary and talked to them about their work.

Originally posted by Flipside
I see your point, but that suggests that what religion you are is actually more important than how good you are to your fellow man?

Oh, to be certain, how good you are to your fellow man is vital. In fact, it is chiefly important because how good you act demonstrates with clarity how good you are. The difference from the Christian viewpoint is that our conclusion about how good we are is: we are not good at all.

Therefore, according to Christianity, how good we are to our fellow man is important; but we have already failed by that standard. So, the only basis that remains for us 'getting into Heaven' (which, as a Christian, I would replace with the phrase 'being in relationship with God') is God's grace rather than our goodness.

[Flipside]

I see, so from the Christian point of view, simply to exist is to sin, therefore joining God is a question of God forgiving those Sins.

It makes me wonder, actually, whether it is even 'possible' for there to be different Heavens, if Heaven is a state of unreachable Euphoria, surely all religions must be speaking of the same Heaven?

Nyaaarg! The next time this happens, I start posting Rocky Horror picture show images

[Nuke]

i think confucious once said something about it being unwise to concern yourself with the workings of the spiritual realm.  afterall we are in the physical realm, we should do our best here, we can councern ourselves with what happens after death when we get there.

as for inferno, i dont think hell even existed untill that little work came out. i think its more to do with the catholic church trying to increase conversions. the church used all kinds of dirty tricks to convert people back in the middle ages. like modeling satan after pagan gods, or telling jews to either convert or leave the country. if you worshiped any other god in the middle ages you wera a 'satan worshiper'.

as for what i believe happens, i dont care. its all a fabrication anyway.

[Grug]

Officially I could be counted as Christian, Catholic and aetheist.

And I have spoken to missionaries in the past.
I'm all for the helping of people and communities, I just find it dis-heartening that it takes a religeon to motivate people to do so. And why some have to press their views on others...

Religeon has changed so much over the decades, which adds further disbelief to me. It just comes across as keeping up with the times, rather than the old days where religeon had a highly significant part in saying what goes.

Edit: That's three posts that have appeared before mine now! 3!
Damn gamespy!

[Black Wolf]

Originally posted by Setekh
So if anyone gets into Heaven, it is by God's grace. Thus, the Sikh would not get into Heaven, because he has not asked God for the grace that is needed for him to enter Heaven.

OK, so what about Jews? They worship the same God, but not the complete, christian God, since they reject Christ. Firey pits of damnation for them too? Or Muslims? Again, same god, but they follow a different prophet. Long time burnies?

[Ford Prefect]

I'm pretty sure that the idea of hell predates Dante by quite a bit.

[Setekh]

Originally posted by Flipside
I see, so from the Christian point of view, simply to exist is to sin, therefore joining God is a question of God forgiving those Sins.

It makes me wonder, actually, whether it is even 'possible' for there to be different Heavens, if Heaven is a state of unreachable Euphoria, surely all religions must be speaking of the same Heaven?

That's a pretty good summary, though I would add to that slightly. Since the Fall, it has indeed been true that to exist is to sin; but coupled with this is the fact that we genuinely choose to sin simultaneously. So the image is slightly more complex than 'we sin and have no choice in the matter'. But you're right in identifying that to the Christian, the issue is God forgiving us for what we've done.

Good question. To be sure, Christianity would describe Heaven first (as I mentioned before) as being perfectly in relationship with God. Whether or not that exactly translates to a state of unreachable euphoria is difficult to say or not, though if anything did, this would. However, whilst Heaven as described by different religions often bears many similarities, I would be so bold as to say that if we look very closely, they are in fact describing quite different things. That's my impression on the matter.