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My understanding is that the beauty of Christianity is that all sins (except that one sin about blaspheming against the holy spirit) are forgiven. Any man will be forgiven, no matter how evil, if he genuinely seeks forgiveness. So John will go to heaven, so long as he repents before he dies. And in itself that's a beautiful idea, it just doesn't really jive with the concept of a just god.

Jesus said "the only way to the Father is through me", but I don't know enough about the context of that statement to know precisely what was meant. I'm also vaguely familiar with a story about a Roman Pagan who was a good man that Jesus said was worthy of heaven, but I may have gotten the wrong end of the stick there entirely. Now a god you don't worship, one can appreciate, has no reason to welcome you into his hall, so I don't think not letting yon non-Christian into heaven is unmerciful.... unless the only alternative is exceedingly unpleasant. In that situation shutting them out in the cold (or the burning hot) would be.... unkind.

To be honest, I think most good Christians would welcome any stranger into their home if outside their home was on fire. It is the job of Christians to love, not to judge, but...

Now I think about it, I'm sure there was one of those apocryphal texts wherein Jesus was all sly and whispered to someone "it's OK, everyone's going to get into heaven in the end, but don't tell anyone because they'll just sin and that's not cool" but I can't remember which one it was.

If we use Calvinist theology, it's all decided before they're born anyway so it essentially doesn't matter what they do once they're alive. Theoretically god would know in advance, but if it's already been decided, then no good you do will take away from the fact that you're going to hell and no bad you do will take away your spot in heaven so you may as well sin your heart out.

I think there's enough space within Christian theology to encompass pretty much all views here. At least if you count the heretics.

This is another impossible hypothetical: anyone who sincerely believes in what Jesus said, and gets regenerated in their spirit, will not be a Hitler or a Stalin. If he doesn't believe that merely wishing someone dead is the same as committing murder, then he never actually believed in Jesus, and no one indwelled with the Holy Spirit would crave to kill millions of Jews. Not even God wants any of us to perish (Ezekiel 33:11; 2 Peter 3:9), but he honors our choice to not be reconciled to him and stay in our sin. "John Doe" does not believe Jesus when he says "salvation comes from the Jews" (John 4:22), why would you want to kill God's chosen people? nor does "John Doe" believe that us Gentiles are being grafted into their tree (Romans 11:17-21, 25; 9:6), like the prophets also said would happen (Micah 4:2-4; Isaiah 14:1; Zechariah 8:20-23), and how only that set apart group will be saved, that group is called "Israel" but like those verses say, not all Israel is descended from Israel. "John Doe" never believed in the Jesus saying "repent or perish" (Luke 13:1-5), or that salvation comes from the Jews. Even demons believe he existed and came to die for the descendants of Adam, but do demons follow Jesus? the Jesus who believed in the law and the prophets, who agreed with following the Father's will 100% even if it led to his death, not everyone follows that Jesus—the biblical Jesus. Most are not willing to obey God unto death (like the apostles, martyrs, and Jesus did)—death at the hands of others, not like some radicals have in their mind of strapping bombs to their chest (though technically they aren't Christians, but still so-called believers in the Most High God).

Despite that, however, John still has a greater chance because at least he believes in the supernatural, he just has to be shown scripture, the truth of who Jesus was, and Jesus' actual words and receive regeneration (no one operating the way "John Doe" is, has any genuine familiarity with the teachings of Jesus nor what the Jesus of the bible said—and does not have the Holy Spirit in them).

Richard, if he needs a sign from God (evidence) like Thomas in order to believe, I don't know if he'll get it. But his chances are slimmer. It's impossible to please God without faith in him / trust in him; some things don't leave behind physical evidence of their existence, though of what can leave behind physical evidence, God has provided such physical evidence, like of the events documented in Chronicles, Kings, Numbers and Exodus, archaeology has uncovered a lot, evidence of those Kings' reigns, the red sea crossing, and Sodom and Gomorrah's uninhabitable state and the sulfur of its remains. But even when he doesn't give a full explanation of something, we're suppose to trust him.



Though if both men, "John Doe" and "Richard Roe", were to die now, I highly doubt any of them would make it. No regenerated Christian can become a Hitler. Jesus told us we must be born-again to see the Kingdom of God (John 3:3,7). You can become a religious Christian, sure, but not a regenerated, born-again Christian, who's been taught radical non-violent resistance by Jesus' example, who is led by the Holy Spirit to do the same, whom reminds you of Jesus words, including Jesus' correction to not defend him by physical force (John 18:11, 36) and the example of the apostles in the book of Acts, persecuted by the world, but they never fought back, they received stonings, never threw a stone themselves. The "stoning" will be given to them at Jesus' return after they're been given this lengthy period of time to repent—and that's not an entirely new concept seeing as God did the same thing with the pagans (Genesis 15:16), given them 400 years to repent in that one case.

I think where people get confused is this: Christians are suppose declare God's judgment against humanity, and correct/reprove each other when they're acting in disaccord with God's will, but to actually carry out stonings under the New Covenant, under the spirit of the law, would be hypocritical because none of us can perfectly keep the spirit of the law in full, our flesh gets in the way, and thus a sinner stoning a sinner would not be real justice. Under the Old Covenant, when we were only held accountable for letter of the law (sure, you may have lusted after a woman who wasn't your spouse, but you didn't actually sleep with her), it would've been just. Not so now, where you're guilty of adultery just as much as the next guy for merely looking with lust. Ultimately though, what stoning represents, will come to pass: being cast out of God's presence, God's holy dwelling, apart from God's holy people as well, aka out of the camp, if you remain in your sin and the guilt of your sin. That will literally be fulfilled at Jesus return.



On a related note about stonings/Old Testament: whoever denies Jesus, is also denying Moses and the Prophets; whoever denies Moses and the Prophets is denying Jesus, they speak of each other. You can't have one without the other. The prophets spoke of a suffering servant, rejected by his own people, who would atone for others (Isaiah 53), the law of Moses gave us the whole system of scapegoating to atone for sins (Jesus being that scapegoat) on the Day of Atonement, they speak of the resurrection and of God himself standing on earth to come redeem us (Job 19:25-27), a child being born who would be God, the everlasting Father (Isaiah 9:6), a new earth with new heavens (Isaiah 65:17), and the people coming into relationship with God under the new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-33; Ezekiel 36:25-27). Basically, the same thing the Gospels, Epistles and the Book of Revelation convey. It's impossible to accept the New Testament while denying the Old; it's impossible to sincerely accept the Old Testament while ignoring the New. They agree in matters of morality, justice, and prophecy, though the New Testament is even stricter because of the spirit of the law, and the condemnation that comes from that more serious than a physical stoning. Those are the gospels/new testament books that should be considered as truth: whatever agrees with the Law of Moses and the Prophets, any other Jesus is false, you can't be regenerated by any other Jesus, or any other person but God.

altruistic atheist