The Problem With All That Being Forgiven For One's Sins

My error...should have said Protestant standard. The whole "salvation by faith alone" versus "salvation is faith plus acts". And naturally, excluding the Catholic idea of "Purgatory".

But by Protestant standards.....my "repentent" mass murderer would get into Heaven, while the agnosti nice little old lady would get the Permanent Hot-foot for not "accepting Christ as her savior"

 

...but you ignore Reality in that statement,... right?

Reality DOES kill kids at times.
Reality even has eliminated whole species of kids, like the Neanderthals.
Right?

That is just the truth about this almighty Reality.
Isn't it?

 

Many a confessing murderer has said his Conscience was like being in Hell, and he felt better after confessing.

You agree with that.

 

Again, it ALWAYS comes back to sex for you, cupid. Why?

It's never poverty or murder or terrorism or starvation or oppression....the ONLY "evil" for you and the blame for EVERYTHING....

is sex.

 

Yes, the big problems are sexually grounded.

The Bible is actually talking about changing sexually prudent patriarchies by the formation of matriarchies.
This is accomplished by using the Sexual Negotiation to empower the women.

Its all about Patriarchies VS Matriarchies.

 

First, you have to prove, not argue and claim, but PROVE God exists.

 

cupid, EVERYTHING to you is about sex...either the sex act or genders. You blame sex OR women for everything "evil" in the world.

That's been shown numerous times in your post.

- - - Updated - - -

Tram, I can't even prove YOU exist. You could simply be a heuristic algorithm program with access to posting anonymously on a political blog.

 

You'd be surprised.

Take a look at this:

http://www.nature.com/news/simulations-back-up-theory-that-universe-is-a-hologram-1.14328

If I was all that, I'd be a damned good simulation and possibly even true AI.

But I digress. And we are going off topic.

Anyhoo, my one big problem with forgiveness is what about justice for the victims of a Criminal?

If a criminal sincerely converts five minutes before he dies, he goes to heaven, WITHOUT being held responsible for his actions.

And there would be no justice for his crimes, and indeed, that means he got away with them.

So I can easily see, to coin a Godwin, someone like Hitler being in heaven because he believed himself to be a Catholic and a real Christian. So what if he was?

Now, I'm not saying they should be completely cut off from heaven and there should be no forgiveness, but I do want them to be held responsible for their crimes and I do want to see justice for their victims.

This forgiveness is also a loophole to be exploited.

 

Uh...yeah. But it is in accordance with Protestant Christian teaching.

 

And they shall:
"Luk 12:47 And that servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes."

Now who is going to be doing the exploiting? Non-theists?

 

OK, so you haven’t read past my first paragraph then, let alone bothered to read the article on universal salvation, that I linked you to.

You may not be aware of this, but Schleiermacher and Barth are household names in Protestant theology. Neither of them would say that your nice little old lady must be hell-bound.
Let’s throw in Moltmann for good measure – who according to the Boston Collaborative Encyclopedia
of Western Theology is “one of the world’s leading Protestant theologians”:

“‘The Logic of Hell’ by Jürgen Moltmann
(...)
The logic of hell is nothing other than the logic of human free will, in so far as this is identical with freedom of choice. The theological argument runs as follows: ‘God whose being is love preserves our human freedom, for freedom is the condition of love. Although God’s love goes, and has gone, to the uttermost, plumbing the depth of hell, the possibility remains for each human being of a final rejection of God, and so of eternal life’. Does God’s love preserve our free will, or does it free our enslaved will which has become unfree though the power of sin? Does God love free men and women, or does he seek the men and women who have become lost. It is apparently not Augustine who is the father of Anglo-Saxon Christianity; the Church Father who secretly presides over it is his opponent Pelagius.
The first conclusion, it seems to me, is that it is inhumane, for there are not many people who can enjoy free will where their eternal fate in heaven or hell is concerned. What happens to the people who never had the choice, or never had the power to decide? The children who died early, the severely handicapped, the people suffering from geriatric diseases? Are they in heaven, in total non being, or somewhere between, in a limbo? What happens to the billions of people whom the gospel has never reached and who were never faced with the choice? What happens to God’s chosen people Israel, the Jews, who are unable to believe in Christ? Are all the adherents of other religions destined for annihilation? And not least: how firm must our own decision of faith be if it is to preserve us from total non being? Anyone who faces men and women with the choice of heaven or hell, does not merely expect too much of them. It leaves them in a state of uncertainty, because we cannot base the assurance of our salvation on the shaky ground of our own decisions. If we think about these questions, we have to come to the conclusion that in the end not many are going to be with God in heaven; most people are going to be in total non being. Or is the presupposition of this logic of hell perhaps an illusion the presupposition that it all depends on the human being’s free will?
If ultimately, after God’s final judgment on human decisions of will, all that is left is ‘heaven’ and ‘hell’, we still have to ask ourselves: what is going to happen to the earth, and all the earthly creatures, which the Creator after all found to be ‘very good’? If they too are to disappear into ‘total non being’, because they are no longer required, how can there then be a new earth’?
The logic of hell seems to me not merely inhumane but also extremely atheistic: here the human being in his freedom of choice is his own lord and god. His own will is his heaven or his hell. God is merely the accessory who puts that will into effect. If I decide for heaven, God must put me there; if I decide for hell, he has to leave me there. If God has to abide by our free decision, then we can do with him what we like. Is that ‘the love of God’? Free human beings forge their own happiness and are their own executioners. They do not just dispose over their lives here; they decide on their eternal destinies as well. So they have no need of any God at all. After a God has perhaps created us free as we are, he leaves us to our fate. Carried to this ultimate conclusion, the logic of hell is secular humanism, as Feuerbach, Marx and Nietzsche already perceived a long time ago.
The Christian doctrine of hell is to be found in the gospel of Christ’s descent into hell, not in a modernisation of hell into total non being. Our century has produced more infernos than all the centuries before us: The gas ovens of Auschwitz and the atomizing of Hiroshima heralded an age of potential mass annihilation through ABC weapons. So many people have experienced hells! It is pointless to deny hell. It is a possibility that is constantly round about us and within us. In this situation, the gospel about Christ’s descent into hell is particularly relevant: Christ suffered the ‘inescapable remoteness from God’ and the ‘God forsakenness’ that knows no way out, so that he could bring God to the God forsaken. He comes ‘to seek that which is lost’. He
suffered the torments of hell so that for us they are not hopeless and without escape. Christ brought hope to the place where according to Dante all who enter must ‘abandon hope’. ‘If I make my bed in hell thou art there’ (Ps 139:. Through his sufferings Christ has destroyed hell. Hell is open: “Hell where is thy victory?’ (I Cor 15:55).
For Luther, hell is not a place in the next world, the underworld; it is an experience of God. For him, Christ’s descent into hell was his experience of God forsakenness from Gethsemane to Golgotha. In the crucified Christ we see what hell is, because through him it has been overcome. The true universalitv of God’s grace is not grounded in ‘secular humanism’. It is on that humanism, rather as the logic of free will shows that the double end is based: heaven hell, being non being. But the universality of God’s grace is grounded on the theology of the cross. This is the way it was presented by all the Christian theologians who were criticized for preaching ‘universal reconciliation’, most recently Karl Barth. In his ‘confession of hope’ the Swabian revivalist preacher Christoph Blumhardt (who profoundly influenced modern Protestant theology in Germany) put it this way: ‘There can be no question of God’s giving up anything or anyone in the whole world, either today or in all eternity. The end has to be: Behold, everything is God’s! Jesus comes as the one who has borne the sins of the world. Jesus can judge but not condemn. My desire is to have preached this as far as the deepest depths of hell, and I shall never be confounded.’
Judgment is not God’s last word. Judgment establishes in the world the divine righteousness on which the new creation is to be built. But God’s last word is ‘Behold, I make all things new’ (Rev 21:5). From this no one is excepted. Love is God’s compassion with the lost. Transforming grace is God’s punishment for sinners. It is not the right to choose that defines the reality of human freedom. It is the doing of the good.”

http://jasongoroncy.com/2006/03/06/the-logic-of-hell-by-jurgen-moltmann/

 

Consider alternatives to the theme of last-minute repentance of a gross sinner producing total forgiveness at no cost, as well as the simplistic view of the afterlife fate being either an admission to heaven/nirvana or a fast track to purgatory.

There are a number of sources that suggest a self-critique of one’s life occurs upon death (or NDE, hence the cliché “the story of my entire life flashed before my eyes&#8221. That’s nothing new, but it ought to be enough to warrant dismissal of the other judgmental fairytale versions.

In the works of Ken Wilber, Arthur Powell, and Robert Monroe, the suggestion/ observation is that deceased individuals may almost cocoon themselves in a state of torpor for many hundreds or even a few thousand years between incarnations, sometimes depending on the extent of shock that suppresses re-awakening.

There’s that persistent issue of mandatory subscription to the salvation theme (and an example of its neglect sealing the fate of a decent old lady). That theme is pounded home too much. How can anyone not suspect that it is an artificial invention in line with the depowerment agenda of the establishment? I’ll go with George Green and associated works saying that we have been duped.

On the same subject, there’s the debate over faith vs. works, with the Paulinists championing faith. I read somewhere that Jesus favored works, but I don’t have time to research it again. Buyer beware.

 

James 2:14-26


14 What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? 17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

18 But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! 20 But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? 22 Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? 23 And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” And he was called the friend of God. 24 You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.

25 Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way?

26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

 

Nope, the lucky ones only end up in prisons until later.

True, the consequences will always come bite you in the end.

Nothing of this having to do with sin, of couse, but with social heritage (which the social heritage of the subject of sin is a result of).

 

well said.

 

That may be good to the kid who mowed down his high school, but may not be good for one mowed down who may not have had the chance to be in good grace.

 

Apparently you missed some previous posts of mine that already address this concern:

http://www.politicalforum.com/showthread.php?t=368414&p=1064148292#post1064148292
http://www.politicalforum.com/showthread.php?t=368414&p=1064151918#post1064151918
http://www.politicalforum.com/showthread.php?t=368414&p=1064156228#post1064156228

Maybe it is vain of me to expect you to remember one day, that I already repeatedly told you that I don’t believe in unbelievers being condemned to hell or annihilation, and that my hope for universal salvation is not at all unusual for 21th century Christians.

 

That is your belief. One I tend to agree with. But that is not the major christian belief. In fact, very few christians believe in universal salvation. To the majority, if you don't know jesus, you won't see eternal bliss.

 

That may be the major Christian belief in your native Missouri Synod, but I have an inkling you may be surprised if you did a world-wide poll asking Christians from all denominations. Many Eastern Orthodox ones may not even understand what you are driving at.

 

Whoever said that being forgiven for sins erases history? ^_-

 

Perhaps.
Here is what seems to be the RC view.

But Christ(jesus?) is needed. I doubt the RC's believe in universal salvation. I could be wrong.

And the reason for protestant religions, is the belief they strayed away from the original message and created their own way to salvation. Things not mentioned in the bible.

 

Whether a Catholic believes that everybody will be saved or whether he/she believes that some will not be saved, depends very much on the Catholic you ask. It is certainly not a possibility that’s completely ruled out by the Catholic Church. In fact it’s gotten quite popular and has been explicitly ruled in. From “Gaudium et Spes”:

“While helping the world and receiving many benefits from it, the Church has a single intention: that God’s kingdom may come, and that the salvation of the whole human race may come to pass. For every benefit which the People of God during its earthly pilgrimage can offer to the human family stems from the fact that the Church is ‘the universal sacrament of salvation’ simultaneously manifesting and actualising the mystery of God’s love.

For God’s Word, by whom all things were made, was Himself made flesh so that as perfect man He might save all men and sum up all things in Himself.” http://www.romancatholicism.org/universal-salvation.html


As for the possibility of being saved if you’re not a Catholic or even not a Christian this summarizes the official Catholic position:

"Salvation of non-Catholics
In Catholicism, Christ provides the Church with "'the fullness of the means of salvation' which he has willed: correct and complete confession of faith, full sacramental life, and ordained ministry in apostolic succession."[29] Although the Catholic Church upholds the doctrine of extra ecclesiam nulla salus (that the Catholic Church is necessary for salvation) this does not mean that all the elect were in visible communion of the Catholic Church during their life, for "Jesus, the Son of God, freely suffered death for us in complete and free submission to the will of God, his Father. By his death he has conquered death, and so opened the possibility of salvation to all men."[30] As Pope John Paul II stated in his encyclical Redemptoris Missio,
"The universality of salvation means that it is granted not only to those who explicitly believe in Christ and have entered the Church. Since salvation is offered to all, it must be made concretely available to all. But it is clear that today, as in the past, many people do not have an opportunity to come to know or accept the Gospel revelation or to enter the Church. The social and cultural conditions in which they live do not permit this, and frequently they have been brought up in other religious traditions. For such people salvation in Christ is accessible by virtue of a grace which, while having a mysterious relationship to the Church, does not make them formally part of the Church but enlightens them in a way which is accommodated to their spiritual and material situation. This grace comes from Christ; it is the result of his Sacrifice and is communicated by the Holy Spirit. It enables each person to attain salvation through his or her free cooperation."[31]
This encyclical echoes what the Church solemnly declared in the documents of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) and is thus binding on all Catholics. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvation_(Christianity)

??? It would be very surprising if the Bible had talked about the Roman Catholic Church. It’s an organization that did not exist yet in Biblical times. These days even conservative Catholics will admit that Luther had a point when criticizing the excessive sale of indulgences. The reason that this criticism led to a split of churches was probably more political than it was theological. The German Princes saw Luther’s ideas as a means to emancipate themselves from Papal influence. Since then Lutherans and Catholics have long reached a broad consensus concerning their teaching on justification: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/p..._31101999_cath-luth-joint-declaration_en.html

As for universal salvation: of course the notion can be found in the Bible.

"For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2:3-4)

"The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Pet. 3:9).

 

Tried to give you a 'rep' on your posting, but the system said I have to spread the reps before I can give you another one.
If the information you just posted was made available to other Christian (non-Catholic) people, there would probably be seen a greater empathy between the two classes of Christians. I commend you highly for posting that information. Thank you.

 

I wasn't referring to the bible mentioning catholic chruch. I meant the RC believing things not of the bible. Purgatory, limbo, etc. Efforts to extort money of the living family members of a dead loved one.

 

Hmmm,...
Here, I do speak a lot about the feminist sexual promiscuity and male Gayness in America because it hurts the kids.
And you guys ignore that evil.

But the Old testament is about the prudent Hebrew patriarchs on the one hand, how God made them, and what they think.
And then the sexually promiscuous Gentiles are also explained.

Then the New testament teaches the middle road.
Equality and sexual prudence is taught as the Truth.

This is the way and the life if people will act wisely.