Maximilian
Energetic proclaimer of Jehovah God's Kingdom.
Not reliable?Notes & references: Caste system in India - Wikipedia
Yes, not reliable: "Wikipedia is not a reliable source." -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Academic_use
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Must you believe in Jesus to avoid hell?
- Thread starter Jeremiah Ames
- Start date
Yes, not reliable: "Wikipedia is not a reliable source." -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Academic_use
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
What we read in the OT is what different people said Jesus said, and at least most of them didn't actually know Jesus. Plus the writings were decades after Jesus was crucified, and who knows what was added or forgotten in between. Also, we have to remember that all scriptures tend to be subjective, thus not objective.
What I personally do is to treat all scriptures as being allegorical, most of the time avoiding the "Did this really happen?" question (except here at RF whereas I all so often play devil's advocate), and then take the lessons taught and see which makes sense to me and then use what's applicable.
Imperfect, but it's the best I can do.
So, do I believe all who don't believe in Jesus go to hell? Nah.
What I personally do is to treat all scriptures as being allegorical, most of the time avoiding the "Did this really happen?" question (except here at RF whereas I all so often play devil's advocate
), and then take the lessons taught and see which makes sense to me and then use what's applicable. Imperfect, but it's the best I can do.
So, do I believe all who don't believe in Jesus go to hell? Nah.
This is not an academic endeavor.
Maximilian
Energetic proclaimer of Jehovah God's Kingdom.
If you wish to persuade you're best served by constructing your arguments by academic standards.
I do.
I'm not trying to persuade or convince anyone of anything. I'm simply pointing out that
- The church started that hell fire nonsense as a weapon of mass control.
- You know nothing of Hinduism.
- These are statements of fact.
ManSinha
Well-Known Member
He quotes out of a book that accepts that one man and woman spawned the entire population - and then asks others to adhere to academic standards!!
But the question is ' go to what hell ' ?_________
I find there is a BIG difference between the Bible's hell and the religious-myth hell just being taught as being Scripture.
When the King James translated the word Gehenna into English as hell fire that put flames in biblical hell.
Gehenna was just a garbage pit where things were destroyed forever and Not kept burning forever.
Thus, Gehenna was a fitting word, a place, where things were destroyed forever, Not burning forever.
This is what is in harmony with Scripture that says the wicked will be 'destroyed forever ' as per Psalms 92:7
As far as biblical hell goes, biblical hell is just mankind's temporary stone-cold grave for the sleeping dead.
That is why Jesus and the OT both teach the dead are in a unconscious sleeping state:
Such as found at - Psalms 6:5; Psalms 13:3; Psalms 115:17 Psalms 146:4; Isaiah 38:18; Ecclesiastes 9:5.
If the Bible's hell was a permanent place then Jesus would still be in hell because dead Jesus went to biblical hell on the day he died as per Acts of the Apostles 2:27.
Jesus now has keys to unlock biblical hell - Revelation 1:18.
Plus, we can read that the Bible's hell comes to a final end. A final end for mankind's grave.
At Revelation 20:13-14 we read that everyone in the Bible's hell is ' delivered up ' (<- that means resurrected out of the Bible's hell ), then emptied-out hell is cast vacant into that symbolic ' second death ' for vacated hell.
To avoid hell, person must be righteous, because:
These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
Mat. 25:46
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6:23
lukethethird
unknown member
Superstitions are false no matter what Jesus never said.
I can't see where it would do any good to pray to Satan because Satan never was in biblical hell and Satan will never be in the Bible's hell. Jesus will ' destroy ' Satan as per Hebrews 2:14 B.
Satan ends up, Not in any hell, but in that symbolic ' second death ' of Revelation 21:8.
I don't have a problem with that so much... after all, Hindu stories are nothing if not "colorful". But we realize and accept that they're largely metaphors and allegories to teach moral lessons. I mean, does anyone take it literally that Parvati's mother fainted because she saw Shiva come riding up to his wedding on a bull, half naked, covered in ashes, surrounded by ghouls? Of course not (I should hope not
) but one of the lessons, if not the lesson is that you can't judge by appearances. That God can appear in any form, anywhere, anytime.Can anyone think of anyone righteous that went to hell _______
I find that on the day righteous Jesus died he went to hell according to Acts of the Apostles 2:27.
So, biblical hell is Not eternal punishment because the dead know nothing, thus biblical hell is just the grave.
Dead people go to biblical hell and the dead know nothing while they are in the grave aka biblical hell.
That is why both Jesus and the OT teach unconscious sleep in death:
(Psalms 6:5; Psalms 13:3;Psalms 115:17; Psalms 146:4; Isaiah 38:18; Ecclesiastes 9:5)
So, 'eternal punishment' is Not any hell but being 'destroyed forever' because of being wicked- Psalms 92:7.
The wicked being punished with 'everlasting destruction' as per 2 Thessalonians 1:9.
Destruction is annihilation and Not any burning forever. Destruction is only for the wicked.
Romans 6:23,7 does Not say the wages of sin is death plus a post-mortem penalty or any double jeopardy.
Rather ' death ' itself is the price tag that sin pays. Death stamps the price tag of sin as Paid in Full.
So, unless wicked, there will be a resurrection for both the righteous and unrighteous - Acts of the Apostles 24:15.
Jeremiah Ames
Well-Known Member
I can't find any Scripture where Jesus said superstitions are true.
Whether one chooses to believe what Jesus never said or said does Not change the fact we have the Scriptures.
Jeremiah Ames
Well-Known Member
Great comments.
First, you located the verse that everyone uses to justify their belief. But you also did what they all do as well. You didn’t continue with verses 19-21. So let me.
And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God
You see that Jesus is not talking about people who merely don’t believe.
But about people who “hate the light and do not come to the light” “because their works were evil.”
Merely believing, or not believing, in Jesus is not sufficient to save or damn a person. Check out Matthew 7:21.
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Nothing about belief. Those who enter the kingdom must DO something.
So, to interpret John 3:16–21 as meaning that those who merely believe in Jesus are saved, whereas those who merely don’t believe in Jesus are damned, is to read only two of the verses, and not the rest of the verses where Jesus explains what he means by “not believing in him.”
In answer to your final question: YES
If one believes the Bible is true then notice these verses:
John 1:1 1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The Word is The Word, or the Bible.
John 14:6 6Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Jesus says here that He IS the truth.
Audie
Veteran Member
Can "god" tell if you say you believe but cannot make yourself really believe
MJFlores
Well-Known Member
Let find the answers in the Bible, which should be the basis of faith and doctrines of true Christians.
John 3:36 New International Version (NIV)
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.
With that statement by John the Baptist recorded in the Bible, it would be enough to answer emphatically your question and doubts.
Now let us find out what Jesus said:
John 3:10-18 New International Version (NIV)
“You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
John 5:24-30 New International Version (NIV)
“Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.
“Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned. By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.
John 6:28-29 New International Version (NIV)
Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”
Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
John 6:35-40 New International Version (NIV)
Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
CONCLUSION:
It is in the Bible that one must believe in Jesus to be saved.
It is in the Bible that those who do not believe will go to hell.
Both of these beliefs absolutely MUST be TRUE, since Jesus said, answered and declared those things.
It does not matter whether such claims exist in the Bible, nor whether Jesus (if he did exist) ever made them.
Logically, they can't hold their own weight and are therefore false, if not entirely irrelevant.
Desert Snake
Veteran Member
Luke 11:18
Satan does have a kingdom, this verse is just one example of this traditional belief.