[quote]NealRaymond2 wrote:
My understanding of the classic Christian belief regarding salvation is that good people who are not Christians through no fault of their own will burn in hell for all eternity not as punishment for not being Christian, but as punishment for some other sin or sins committed at some point during their lives. The classic Christian position is approximately:
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We have all committed one or more sins for which we deserve to suffer intensely for all eternity (or at least those of us who have reached a certain minimal level of maturity have committed one or more such sins).
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Believing and following Jesus is the only path offered by God to save us from what we truly deserve.
(Traditionalist Catholics and Fundamentalist Protestants would disagree on certain parts of exactly what constitutes “believing and following Jesus” in a way that offers the possibility of salvation, but would nonetheless agree on the basic premises of items #1 and #2 above.)
A position contrary to the combination of items #1 and #2 above would presumably have to include at least one of the following:
A) We have not all committed sins for which we deserve to suffer intensely for all eternity.
B) There is no such intense eternal suffering.
C) There is some means of obtaining God’s forgiveness or otherwise escaping one’s just punishment, other than #2 above.
The Original Post of this thread implicitly assumes propositions ‘A’ and ‘B’ to be false, and requests specifics with regards to proposition ‘C’.
Also, the question asked is not “what are your sins”, but “how will you escape the just punishment of your sins” (paraphrased).
Perhaps one could agree, disagree, respond, ignore, cheer, or ridicule based on the assumptions actually made and the question actually asked by the original post. In some but not all cases, the disagreement or ridicule seems to be based on something other than the assumptions actually made and the question actually asked by the OP.
But to give credit where credit is due, the person who said this thread belongs under “Get a Life” rather than “Politics and World Issues” is right. I would not agree that a thread on Christian faith or acceptance of Jesus would never belong under “ and World Issues”. But the original post did not address Christianity as it relates to the world or society, it only addressed Christianity as it relates to the individual. Therefore, there is no logical basis for this thread to be under “Politics and World Issues”.
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