Real questions for religion

These are some scenarios i thought on top of my head, would like them answered
Say a kid was born into a Buddhist Lifestyle, he never encountered anything associated with Christ, he spent all his life worshiping Buddha and trying to achieve Nirvana, but when he dies, he encounters Jesus Christ, how does he become saved? Even if Jesus offered him a second chance, what is the possibility of him accepting Christ if he was raised in a Buddhist lifestyle, what makes you think he'll accept Christ based on a person claiming to give him another chance..

 

**Assuming most of Christianity is true, which is a real fucking hefty assumption

You're asking the same question most atheists ask while trying to disprove religion. If there is a God and He is good and loves all His children, would complete forgiveness regardless of religion not be something He should practice? Otherwise he'd be a judgmental prick "derr derr believe in me or you go to hell". Sure, that could exist, but all scripture suggests that he's all forgiving and loving *but only if you're part of his cult*. Doesn't make much sense.

So let's say for a minute, for the sake of argument, that God is not all forgiving and loving, and as the scripture suggests he only shows lenience toward those who practiced Christianity. Should Christ/God give this Buddhist a second chance, the Buddhist, depending on his level of devotion, would turn to the ideals of his own religion to deal with the problem. Where one religion may demand that the man create conflict to get his way, another may ask that he do whatever it takes to enter paradise, so yeah he'd totally accept Christ.

But, unless he's a monk or extremely devout, he'll likely think like any other man. When faced with a choice between paradise and damnation, which would you pick? I think it's a pretty easy choice. So, chances are the man would convince himself that Christ is the way to go and be happily ever after, the end.

tl;dr yeah he'd devote himself to Christ, probably

 

Let's just say I hope this buddhist doesn't encounter Yahweh. As Jesus Chirst might be a little less harsh on his mistake of choosing the wrong God.

The logical answer would be that he would convert as opposed to fire, burning, pain, crying, screaming, torture for which hell provides an adequate facility to fulfil punishment for all the infidels who refuse to convert.

 

Well, it is a tricky situation. In the 10 commandments, the first one is that "You shall have no other Gods before Me" What that basically means is that God is stating law and he is demanding you to only believe in Him, the Father Almighty. Every human being on earth is a sinner and it is impossible to follow all of the ten commandments. Fear, Love and trust is what makes a God and sometimes people do not realize it. By saying accept Chirst, it means that you accept his teachings and he shall accept you. Some examples of other gods can be money, work, school, video games, sports, health, death, sex, and even laziness. God sent his only begotten son, Jesus Christ to die for our sins. In nature, we sin and we need to beg for the Lords forgiveness and accept his ways. We shouldn't think of God as a light being. We should fear him of what he can do, we should love him and we should trust him. Every moment, every man is judged and god judges the living and the dead. He judges you to see if you are fit for heaven. If you're not, you will suffer in damnation. Sure, I do not believe in the Buddist religion but I know that God wants me to love and respect those who do. I also know that he wants us to share his word and help the people who are lost in sin. You are forgiven by Christ and I don't want to say "no matter what" but he did in fact die for every single sin.

By stating what I have, please do not go on a rant saying that I'm a Bible thumper or apart of Westbro Baptist Church. Those are my beliefs and I would appreciate if everyone could respect them. Sure some peoples beliefs are crazy and I understand that you do not have to agree with me... Thanks

 

In Matthew we have this "37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” You can focus on the first half, but the second is just as important.

And in John we have this "7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love."

Essentially, what can you derive from this? You will be judged according to the content of your heart rather than whether you were raised in a Christian or Buddhist home.

 

I really like the way you worded this.

It's phenomenal how people can be brainwashed into following a specific religion. The thoughts the OP is having are not without merit, but they do bring up a much deeper issue, being that a lot of religious folk follow a specific religion simply because it's what they grew up with.

 

It's probably my best argument against religious folk when they ask why I'm an atheist, I say. Well you're an atheist of X religion, as I am an atheist of yours.

 

That's a nice way of countering that question, another would be that you simply do not believe in fables fabricated by humans.

At its core, religion is blind faith. If you refuse to blindly believe you are an athiest. That's all there is to it I think

 

Well complete blind faith means suggests there wasn't anything valuable or authentic to lead a religion. Most thoughtful religious people, those that don't just listen or don't question their forefather's passed down religions, actually do some self reflection and look into multiple religions or belief bases to try to understand, and if that's not the case then become an athiest.

Having the attitude of being an athiest just because you can't see God or miracles at will literally doesn't justify that all religions are false. I don't doubt that fact that religion definitely involves believing in the Unseen, precisely why its a test in our lives.

I have a different way to put it, for you is your religion (or the lack thereof) and for me is mine.

 

I don't think anyone can ever be a true atheist.. I feel like that is just a label so people feel good about themselves because they do not have faith in a religion... However there could be "gods"/idols in everyday life.. money, work, school, sex, laziness, friends, leisure, sports, status, health, death and power.. if you devote your life to any of these... or even put these above anything else, you believe in something... to make a "god", you need trust, love and fear.. so I believe that no one can be an atheist because they have to believe in something.. there are thousands, maybe millions of "gods" out there.. but they can believe whatever they want to believe in

 

Dan you're the fuckin' man

Regarding your first post, you're completely missing the point. If someone has no knowledge of the bible, or Jesus, or God, or anything involving Christianity, are they going to go to hell?

Saying what you believe and it being true are two incredibly different things.

Using this "you believe in something so you're not Atheist" doesn't work. I believe that I have a dog and that I'm currently corresponding on a form, but this in no way, shape, or form the same thing as believing in a religion. I also have aspirations to make X amount of dollars, but money is not my God. You can be Atheist, you do not need to believe in something.

Some people are perfectly happy knowing that life ends and not singing gospel songs wishing it didn't.

 

You're right in one respect, but you never mentioned it.

Nobody as of right now can be a true atheist as that would be taking a leap of faith in it self. As, Atheism is as good as Theism in that respect.

I.e, Theist "I absolutely believe there is a God", Atheist "I absolutely believe there is no God". However, neither can be proved nor disproved. Where as I more or less fall into the absolute extreme limit of Agnosticism towards Atheism. Because I cannot prove there is no God, so therefore I cannot believe it. But Atheism can be toned down a few levels for an easier passage of beliefs.

But what you said is we believe in X based on Y. However, where you pitfall is where X and Y have evidence for existence. For such as money, if I believe in working hard to make money, then it's evidence and or trial/error to achieve that. And believing it would be based on evidence. Love, love it self has evidence for existence so therefore we can believe it as we have evidence.

It almost seems like your questions will more relate to "our purpose" here as opposed to "why" we are here, and unfortunately only one of them is a genuine question for evidence. The other is based on fabrications invented by minds many years ago, and or manipulated between them times.

I think your main question up for debate has been answered logically, and defending it illogically seems, illogical.

Don't turn it into a debate about what Theists and Atheists share in our beliefs because it's not really debatable and you'll just get opinions thrown left, right and centre.