If Josef Stalin had "truly repented & accepted Christ" on his death bed...

Most do.

 

Most do not actually....there are so many versions it is split a thousand ways.

 

Maybe you think it is because you don't know what the real Ten Commandments are. You need to dump your false beliefs and learn what the fairy tale really says. I can point you in the right direction if you want.

 

Most do worship a god. Your views are not 'most'.

 

I'm good.

 

I always like to look at the reasons behind acts. If one has to accept Jesus death on the Cross as redemption for our sins, then why? What change is there in a person's heart and soul when they accept Jesus' redemption? Couldn't that change also occur among people that do not know Jesus, after all the OT prophets did not know Him?

Of course accepting Jesus' redemption does facilitate people towards heaven, but it doesn't mean that everyone who doesn't know Jesus will not go to heaven. It will be rarer though since they don't have the same background and knowledge of a Christian.

My mother said the Greeks freaked when seeing the Pope blessing Mussolini's army before they attacked Greece. I hate to tell you what happened to them. Anyway this is what I found on the Catholic Herald:

The Catholic Church teaches that self-defense against an unjust aggressor is morally permitted and the defense of others to protect them from the threat of an aggressor is permitted. But the church also teaches the deliberate killing of the aggressor can be permitted only when no other solution is possible.


Poor Mussolini
​

 

Interesting points.

It does seem the acts of contrition and supplication in recognition of a higher power are present in most religions - and, seem more serious in some.

Praying 5 times a day is no joke - it makes religion a central part of one's life, a constant reminder of a higher power deserving of devotion. Others include meditation and other forms of worship and contrition.

 

No!


Ref.: above

You kill the enemy.
You murder your neighbor.

 

To assume the Stalin repented remains something on paper. 99% cases murderers won't repent or he wouldn't have committed murdering in the first place.
That being said. Christianity is about when objective laws are applied then no human can live. What Jesus won by His own sacrifice is a subjective judgment by God Himself. God/Jesus knows how to judge fairly but subjectively.

As a side note:
By my own speculation, if one day those unbelievers truly wind up in a kind of hell it's all because they think they are intelligent but actually stupid. They think that they are relying on their intelligence to make a right choice, but it may turn out they have relied on their stupidity to make a decision. No offense, just a speculation.

 

To me God consists of Pure Creation/Love so He cannot condemn or punish since it would be against His very nature. Every destruction that happens is not from God, but is a failure on our part as the participants of His Love. When one dies, it isn't God that judges them, but their own failure in reaching a higher existence.

Will there be experiences and enlightenment to facilitate a person so they can reach a higher existence when they die? We Orthodox have prayers to help them, which means we're all interconnected in some way, even after death. When the Russian Saint John of Kronstadt was give a vision of all the lost souls he asked; 'but who will pray for them', and he was told the angels in heaven.

It's hubris! I have seen some who are so full of themselves that their eyes are literally popping out of their heads. Humility is a perquisite in Christianity and pride is its antithesis.

 

Humans have no real evidence of the supernatural. We're left to work it out - mostly by following our parents, our culture, what seems to work for some community of people, those who are experts in some religious variant, etc.

With religious belief that includes a god, that god is a root assumption taken as a foundation rather than as a result of other evidence.

Comparing different religious views and proposing that one is the result of greater intelligence on the part of the believer is no more than arrogance.

We need to have some humility as human beings. In fact, one could interpret Genesis 1 to indicate that original sin IS arrogance.

 

Lucifer fell because of arrogance as did 1/3 of the angels.

 

Since heaven itself is a matter of faith then one can have faith in any rules surrounding it.

 

I don't know what you mean by no evidence of the supernatural? My experience and the experiences of my family has told me differently. Anyway without the supernatural Christianity wouldn't exist today. It's the Resurrection that verified Christ as the Son of God. The Orthodox greeting for 40 days after Easter is: 'He has risen', and the response is: 'Yes he has risen'.

Last year was quite interesting. Israel said it was closing Christ's tomb because it needed repairs - and then lo and behold, the miracle happened. The Franciscans, Orthodox, Armenians and Copts actually stopped fighting long enough to repair it.

Archeologists came from Greece and began the work, and watching over them were Protestant ministers who never accepted it as being Christ's tomb, as well as Rabbis and Imams. When the work was almost completed and they were ready to give up on finding anything, they hit a marble slab with a Cross - probably placed there by the Crusaders. Underneath it, the spot was exactly as mentioned in the Bible. I read that the machine they were using would stop whenever it touched the spot where Christ's body had lain.

Anyway the Resurrection is reaffirmed every Easter with the Holy Fire that appears on Christ's tomb. It has different properties than actual fire for the first 30 minutes and doesn't burn.

Here's an interesting video. At the beginning one can see the Patriarch who has direct succession from Christ's Apostle changing his clothes to show that he has nothing on him before entering the tomb area. There are Israeli guards watching over everything, as well as the Turkish guards with their red fezes, and whose families held the keys for centuries.

In about the middle of the video, the Patriarch comes out with the fire and passes the flame to the crowd. As I said the flame doesn't burn for about 30 minutes, and you can see people passing their hands over it, and washing their faces as well. It will then be flown to different cities like Moscow and Athens.

 

It's great to see people working together despite different beliefs.

I wish we could see more of that.

Today we see far too much xenophobia, white supremacy, hate against specific religions, etc., right here in America.

If you can help with that, more power to you!

 

You are in love with lies.

 

Why is the God critter unable to create perfect angels?

 

How can your Creator be a critter? Think again daemon?

 

Do you think you were made from a guy's rib? My parents created me.

There are countless creator deities. Is this one yours? = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptah

 

Your argument might have had credence 100 years ago, but now with cloning don't you find it a little foolish?

 

You are a clone? That is amazing.

 

I'm not a clone, I'm a descendant of a clone.

Pseudo deities were formed from our own fears and lusts. This is why they have no set rules or ethics. Instead they become and react to whatever a person wants and according to what that person's needs are.

Making an image of what one desires and idolizes above their Creator opens it up to a malevolent entity. The Greeks gave them human form - which explains the oracles and their predictions.

You call them deities, I call them demons. I know, I know today it's not politically correct, so they're called 'aliens'.

 

And those versions do believe in God, and no matter how many denominations they for the most part agree on the essentials of the faith, as expressed in the creeds for instance.

There are varieties of unbelief, I guess that means none are right, correct?

 

Pot, meet kettle.