Who Will Go to Heaven? (Page 1)

I believe everyone has the chance to go to heaven, regardless of what they did or believed before death. I think God will judge them accordingly, as it should be. And I think God is far more forgiving than some make him out to be. But since I am not God I cannot think for him. I can only share my beliefs. And as most know, I am agnostic. I am just sick of hearing I will go to hell for not accepting God. Agnostics do not accept nor do they discount God. And with all the lies other humans feed us, I believe God will understand why I needed proof before believing and that he will accept me. I believe that it takes a LOT to be sent to hell, a lot more than some Christians will scare others with. I do not believe that any religion, since most center around a single diety, any non-religion, whether athiest/agnostic or those who were never taught, or any off-religion (such as Wiccan/Pagan)will be banished to hell for their beliefs. I believe that God is more worried about how we treat EACH OTHER than what we believe, because in the end, he can prove himself to us. And he can see every deed, therefore he can weed out those who were honest and had good intentions and those who were cruel and showed no remorse. And those who had honest intentions, pure hearts, showed remorse when they had done wrong, and strived to be good people will be allowed into heaven, no matter their beliefs, because they followed God's commandments and were "like God" or "like Christ" no matter what they believed in. Hope that makes sense. Once again, these are my beliefs.

P.S. I believe that babies have a special place in heaven. I do not believe God would send them to hell just as I do not believe God would send a mentally ill person who killed a baby and didn't understand the implications to hell(Note, I said mentally ill person, not a person with hatred or pure disregard for human life). I think God loves all his children, just as we love ours. And I think he wants us to do good just as we want ours to do. And if we TRY to do good, try our hardest to do good, make a few mistakes but always try, we will go to heaven. Just like children, we will make mistakes. I do not think God expects us to be perfect.

The priniciple belief in Christianity is the belief that Christ is Lord and the only way to get into heaven is through Him (John 3:16). The exception are the very young and those who were never told the gospels

If you dont believe in God or Christ/Holy Trinity then you don't believe in hevaen in the first place and should't concern yourself with it. Heaven is a religious place, why as a non believer would a non believer want to or even consider wanting to go there? It's sorta like wanting a biological child ut not wanting any gametes to come from the opposite sex. It is not happening, you may as well call it quits and adopt or be childless.

I asked a priest that I highly respect and admire about this and he said "yes, Christ is the way, but what is Christ?"

I said, "how do you mean?"

And he quoted the bible:

'I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink'...Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?...'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.' Matthew 25:35, 37, 40

...and said, "think about it"

To me, this means that the way of Christ is more important than the name it goes by. The way of Christ is to love God and love our neighbours as ourselves:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as you love yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Matt 22:37-40)


These are the things Christ is always telling us, over and over , and, as far as I'm concerned, if you do these things and call yourself something other than a Christian, then you are still following the way of Christ.

None of us knows what will happen. We have our faith but we don't have the right to judge the faith of others. If I am wrong then I pray God will forgive me, but that is what I believe.

First of all, let me make my opinion on this heaven issue very clear. I believe people of every religion have a chance to go to heaven. God is Merciful and Forgiving.

Motherofhighspiritedones: I have to admire you for your open-mindedness. Even I believe everyone has a chance to go to heaven irrespective of whether he believes in Jesus/Muhammad/Moses. I know some so called religious Muslims/Christians/Jews are going to hate me for making this statement. In my opinion, God knows best who will attain Eternal Bliss. He is the one to decide who deserves and who doesn't to be in the Garden. I have to admit that the good thing I wanted to see in a religious person, I have seen that in an Agnostic (you). You will be in my prayers and I hope someday you will see the miracles of God. By saying that, I am not asking you to believe in God. This is what I pray for you. Keep your open-mindedness up and someday God will show you His Majesty.

God be with you!

Phenicks: If I am not wrong you are trying to say nobody can go to heaven by not believing in the Divinity of Jesus. In other words only Christians can go to heaven. I disagree.

Kaerbear: So are you trying to say someone who doesn't believe in the Divinity of Jesus (or Trinity) can still go to go to heaven if he loves God and, is kind to his neighbors, and is righteous?

To Phenicks and kaerbear: I am NOT trying to offend you or any Christians. I respect people of all religions. If a Muslim had made a post I would have definitely asked him about Muhammad or Quran. If a Jew had posted, I would have asked him about Moses or Torah. I reiterate, I love people of all religions.

I can certainly respect your disagreement, you have every right to believe as you wish as does each and every single human being on this planet. I have said before I , nor any any other human being, can not banish anyone to hell neither can anyone gurantee themselves or another human being a spot in heaven. Nor would I try to because in the end, only God can judge but I certainly beleive that He will judge. Heaven is His home and just as you chose who enters your place, so does He. No one has an inherent right to heaven just as no one has an inherent right to enter into someone else's home.

As a Christian I believe that Christ is the way to heaven, it is the principle belief in Christianity, otherwise you believe in Jesus existence but not the Christian belief. You are free to do every sin imagineable and still believe you will go to heaven just as you are free to never commit a single sin other than blasphemy and still believe you are going to heaven. There are plenty of good Christ-like people who refuse to believe in Christ's existence because of the flaws of human beings, they too are free to believe they will enter Heaven. I however believe it is blasphemous for me to even question Christ's existence and that he is the way into Heaven, at the very least for ME. We are responsible for our own souls, the only thing we could do is spread the word, force is unacceptable. Therefore, once you have been exposed to the gospels a chrsitian's work/responsibility is done and your free will to choose to believe or not is upon you and you alone.

I just wish to be a little more specific on this topic. According to my religion, Christians, Jews, and anyone who has faith in God, The Last Day, and leads a righteous life stand a strong chance to make it to heaven. This isn't my own invention. My Book says so and that's why I believe everybody has an opportunity to be blessed in the Garden.

"Those who believe (in the Qur'an), and those who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the Christians and the Sabians,- any who believe in God and the Last Day, and work righteousness, shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve." [Quran 2:62]

"Those who believe (in the Qur'an), those who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the Sabians and the Christians,- any who believe in God and the Last Day, and work righteousness,- on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve." [Quran 5:69]

God is extremely Merciful and Forgiving. He definitely won't leave the good people of other faiths stranded on the Day of Judgment. That's my opinion though. You people can always disagree.

How Great is God!

You can't be taught to believe. You can't be taught to have faith in something. It is something you yourself develop through your own personal musings and experiences. Why else would we have so many different religions? I don't prefer the systematic and organized religious path, but I believe that there is something bigger out there, and I look forward to my journey towards discovering what exactly that 'something bigger' is.

Even if we're members of a church, mosque, temple, synagogue, mandir... whatever... our journeys in faith and belief are immensely personal. How then can WE decide, based on something so subjective and personal, who is going to enjoy an afterlife in a heaven-like realm? Sure, we have texts that we believe tell us... but telling and experiencing are totally different, not just in form, but in how they are interpreted. Faith and the afterlife are such complex and personal notions that generalizing them into categories of "right" and "wrong" does them such grave injustice considering our range of experiences as human beings.

Maybe that's the impasse that faith has with reason? Reason always asserts a 'yes' or a 'no'. Faith, in my humble opinion, does not, because it's continually developing and doesn't simply end at that 'yes' or 'no'.

So who gets into heaven? Why answer it. What's important is if you think you are as long you respect other people's journeys.

I have respect for other people journeys with or without your post. I am NOT proving my religion to be superior to others NOR have I ever said mine is the right one. I respect your journey and that's why I say even you can attain happiness. Fair deal?

You can even consider me going to hell or even curse me in the Name of God. May be your curse will be on me if indeed I am that bad a person. Ya curse me, no problem.

Sorry, I wasn't offering that as a critique, just my two cents. We can all be happy together haha. Fair Deal!

in some form or other the mere fact that we acknowlege God would be a variance of agreeance that He does exist.
So do we know why we are all hear on this sinfull planet, why did God create earth knowing that it would eventuate in sin? was there sin before this creation? the Bible tells us this in the old testament.
The two greatest Commandments encompass the whole of the original Ten Commandments given by God from the beginning of time even before the creation?

Jesus said "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no one comes to the Father except through me."

Jesus is either Lord, liar, or a lunatic.

I believe that He is in fact Lord.

The Christian faith is historical and evidential. God does not ask us to blindly believe. He provides us with evidence.
We can also believe that the Bible is divine rather than human in origin.
We can demonstrate this by examining the following evidence.


Manuscripts



Manuscripts relates to the tests used to determine the reliability of the extant manuscript copies of the original documents penned by the Scripture writers (we do not possess these originals). In determining manuscript reliability, we deal with the question: How can we test to see that the text we possess in the manuscript copies is an accurate rendition of the original? There are three main manuscript tests: the Bibliographic, Eyewitness, and External (a second acronym — BEE — will help you remember these).



The bibliographic test considers the quantity of manuscripts and manuscript fragments, and also the time span between the original documents and our earliest copies. The more copies, the better able we are to work back to the original. The closer the time span between the copies and the original, the less likely it is that serious textual error would creep in. The Bible has stronger bibliographic support than any classical literature — including Homer, Tacitus, Pliny, and Aristotle.



We have more than 14,000 manuscripts and fragments of the Old Testament of three main types: (a) approximately 10,000 from the Cairo Geniza (storeroom) find of 1897, dating back as far as about AD. 800; (b) about 190 from the Dead Sea Scrolls find of 1947-1955, the oldest dating back to 250-200 B.C.; and (c) at least 4,314 assorted other copies. The short time between the original Old Testament manuscripts (completed around 400 B.C.) and the first extensive copies (about 250 B.C.) — coupled with the more than 14,000 copies that have been discovered — ensures the trustworthiness of the Old Testament text. The earliest quoted verses (Num. 6:24-26) date from 800-700 B.C.



The same is true of the New Testament text. The abundance of textual witnesses is amazing. We possess over 5,300 manuscripts or portions of the (Greek) New Testament — almost 800 copied before A.D. 1000. The time between the original composition and our earliest copies is an unbelievably short 60 years or so. The overwhelming bibliographic reliability of the Bible is clearly evident.



The eyewitness document test (“E”), sometimes referred to as the internal test, focuses on the eyewitness credentials of the authors. The Old and New Testament authors were eyewitnesses of — or interviewed eyewitnesses of — the majority of the events they described. Moses participated in and was an eyewitness of the remarkable events of the Egyptian captivity, the Exodus, the forty years in the desert, and Israel’s final encampment before entering the Promised Land. These events he chronicled in the first five books of the Old Testament.



The New Testament writers had the same eyewitness authenticity. Luke, who wrote the Books of Luke and Acts, says that he gathered eyewitness testimony and “carefully investigated everything” (Luke 1:1-3). Peter reminded his readers that the disciples “were eyewitnesses of [Jesus’] majesty” and “did not follow cleverly invented stories” (2 Pet. 1:16). Truly, the Bible affirms the eyewitness credibility of its writers.



The external evidence test looks outside the texts themselves to ascertain the historical reliability of the historical events, geographical locations, and cultural consistency of the biblical texts. Unlike writings from other world religions which make no historical references or which fabricate histories, the Bible refers to historical events and assumes its historical accuracy. The Bible is not only the inspired Word of God, it is also a history book — and the historical assertions it makes have been proven time and again.



Many of the events, people, places, and customs in the New Testament are confirmed by secular historians who were almost contemporaries with New Testament writers. Secular historians like the Jewish Josephus (before A.D. 100), the Roman Tacitus (around A.D. 120), the Roman Suetonius (A.D. 110), and the Roman governor Pliny Secundus (A.D. 100-110) make direct reference to Jesus or affirm one or more historical New Testament references. Early church leaders such as Irenaeus, Tertullian, Julius Africanus, and Clement of Rome — all writing before A.D. 250 — shed light on New Testament historical accuracy. Even skeptical historians agree that the New Testament is a remarkable historical document. Hence, it is clear that there is strong external evidence to support the Bible’s manuscript reliability.

Returning to our MAPS acronym, we have established ,the first principle, manuscript reliability. Let us consider our second principle, archaeological evidence. Over and over again, comprehensive field work (archaeology) and careful biblical interpretation affirms the reliability of the Bible. It is telling when a secular scholar must revise his biblical criticism in light of solid archaeological evidence.



For years critics dismissed the Book of Daniel, partly because there was no evidence that a king named Belshazzar ruled in Babylon during that time period. However, later archaeological research confirmed that the reigning monarch, Nabonidus, appointed Belshazzar as his co-regent whi1e he was away from Babylon.



One of the most well-known New Testament examples concerns the Books of Luke and Acts. A biblical skeptic, Sir William Ramsay, trained as an archaeologist and then set out to disprove the historical reliability of this portion of the New Testament. However, through his painstaking Mediterranean archaeological trips, he became converted as — one after another — of the historical statements of Luke were proved accurate. Archaeological evidence thus confirms the trustworthiness of the Bible.



Prophecy

The third principle of Bible reliability is Prophecy, or predictive ability. The Bible records predictions of events that could not be known or predicted by chance or common sense. Surprisingly, the predictive nature of many Bible passages was once a popular argument (by liberals) against the reliability of the Bible. Critics argued that the prophecies actually were written after the events and that editors had merely dressed up the Bible text to look like they contained predictions made before the events. Nothing could be further from the truth, however. The many predictions of Christ’s birth, life and death (see below) were indisputably rendered more than a century before they occurred as proven by the Dead Sea Scrolls of Isaiah and other prophetic books as well as by the Septuagint translation, all dating from earlier than 100 B.C.



Old Testament prophecies concerning the Phoenician city of Tyre were fulfilled in ancient times, including prophecies that the city would be opposed by many nations (Ezek. 26:3); its walls would be destroyed and towers broken down (26:4); and its stones, timbers, and debris would be thrown into the water (26:12). Similar prophecies were fulfilled concerning Sidon (Ezek. 28:23; Isa. 23; Jer. 27:3-6; 47:4) and Babylon (Jer. 50:13, 39; 51:26, 42-43, 58; Isa. 13:20-21).



Since Christ is the culminating theme of the Old Testament and the Living Word of the New Testament, it should not surprise us that prophecies regarding Him outnumber any others. Many of these prophecies would have been impossible for Jesus to deliberately conspire to fulfill — such as His descent from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Gen. 12:3; 17:19; Num. 24:21-24); His birth in Bethlehem (Mic. 5:2); His crucifixion with criminals (Isa. 53:12); the piercing of His hands and feet at the crucifixion (Ps. 22:16); the soldiers’ gambling for His clothes (Ps. 22:1; the piercing of His side and the fact that His bones were not broken at His death (Zech. 12:10; Ps. 34:20); and His burial among the rich (Isa. 53:9). Jesus also predicted His own death and resurrection (John 2:19-22). Predictive Prophecy is a principle of Bible reliability that often reaches even the hard-boiled skeptic!







Statistics

Our fourth MAPS principle works well with predictive prophecy, because it is Statistically preposterous that any or all of the Bible’s very specific, detailed prophecies could have been fulfilled through chance, good guessing, or deliberate deceit. When you look at some of the improbable prophecies of the Old and New Testaments, it seems incredible that skeptics — knowing the authenticity and historicity of the texts — could reject the statistical verdict: the Bible is the Word of God, and Jesus Christ is the Son of God, just as Scripture predicted many times and in many ways.



The Bible was written over a span of 1500 years by forty different human authors in three different languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek), on hundreds of subjects. And yet there is one consistent, noncontradictory theme that runs through it all: God’s redemption of humankind. Clearly, Statistical probability is a powerful indicator of the trustworthiness of Scripture.



The next time someone denies the reliability of Scripture, just remember the acronym MAPS, and you will be equipped to give an answer and a reason for the hope that lies within you (1 Pet. 3:15). Manuscripts, Archaeology, Prophecy, and Statistics not only chart a secure course on the turnpikes of skepticism but also demonstrate definitively that the Bible is indeed divine rather than human in origin.

-Hank Hanegraaff

what is it that you are claiming to be untrue munnar? & are you baseing all your argument on these two books by four people who as wonderful as they may be don't have the power & ability to be controlled by the Greatest of all superiority, for if it is not true, will not be supported by the power of God but of a lesser being!
What are the texts you claim are corrupt?

the qur-an only has 3/4 of the Bible in it & not all of religious society would agree on your statements as to the verification of this book.
Anyone claiming that God would make mistakes Has little Faith in The creator Of all things,i guess you are big on the evolution theory too which doesn't leave much self respect for ones own self to exist with no purpose. To save your theory's from imploding on them self you would gain respect by providing textual reference regarding those you claim as faults.

I welcome any disagreement with what I have said.

I hav no theory. I was just answering on the comment that
"We can also believe that the Bible is divine rather than human in origin."

After having a good reading of that testament,anybody can see that what i said is correct; and the quoted statement is wrong!

you may take an oppourtunity to study that Testament.
I havn't denied either Jesus or 'real'Testament.

If we believe that availble Bible has devine origin,
we will be constrained to believe that those contradictions
and mistakes are committed by God! Is it fair?

munnar, there is no contradiction or mistake. It's amazing how sinners & unperfect,those lacking all knowledge (as God has), make the false assumption that it is God who got it wrong & not their own missunderstanding causing the problem.
It is the lack of knowledge & understanding that has caused all this intercesory focus instead of people focusing on Christ & the completion of the true trinity (God ,Jesus, & the Holy Spirit)John 10:30. Jesus told us no one comes to the Father except through Him. This means that no one or establishment can be an intercesor Except Jesus, which straight away counts out half of the world & it's religions because they focus everyone on their own organiseation & not the power & ability of Christ.