I hear people who belive and honor God go to Heaven, people who do evil and do not repent go to hell, and people who just simply don't believe in God and reject him or live a life giving more importance to materials or other weak things just simply DIE FOR EVER, becouse is been warned:\nTHOSE WHO LOVE LIFE WILL LOOSE IT AND THOSE WHO HATE LIFE WILL EARN IT FOR EVER IN HEAVEN. Anyone has something to tell me that i got wrong ?
206855
This is a very important question because understanding what happens to us at death determines how we live our lives.\n\nThe bible teaches us that when we die we cease to exsist. Gen 3:19 says that we came from dust and we return to dust when we die.  Ecclesiastes 9:10 says that there is no work nor devising nor knowledge nor wisdom in Sheol (the grave) the place to which we are all going.  Ecclesiastes 9:5 tells us that the dead are conscious of nothing at all.  Ezekiel 18:4 tells us that the soul that is sinning dies.\n\nSo there is no life after death.  Heaven is not the destination of all good people and Hell is not the destination for all bad people and unbelievers don't pass on to eternal death.\n\nHell is simply the grave, a state of non-exsistence.  It is also called Hades and Sheol.  Did you know that the bible speaks of Jesus as being in hell? Read Acts 2:22-28\n\nOur hope is found in the Sacrifice Jesus made in our behalf.  He gave his perfect life in exchange for the perfect life that Adam lost. Jesus will apply his sacrifice in our behalf in the future.  He will also bring about Armageddon to cleanse the earth of all who refuse to obey God and Jesus will destroy all other Governments.  As King of God's Kingdom he will be able to restore the earth to the paradise that Adam lost. \n\n1 Corinthians 15:20-28 says, "However, now Christ has been raised up from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep [in death]. For since death is through a man, resurrection of the dead is also through a man. For just as in Adam all are dying, so also in the Christ all will be made alive. But each one in his own rank: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who belong to the Christ during his presence. Next, the end, when he hands over the kingdom to his God and Father, when he has brought to nothing all government and all authority and power. For he must rule as king until [God] has put all enemies under his feet. As the last enemy, death is to be brought to nothing. For [God] “subjected all things under his feet.” But when he says that ‘all things have been subjected,’ it is evident that it is with the exception of the one who subjected all things to him. But when all things will have been subjected to him, then the Son himself will also subject himself to the One who subjected all things to him, that God may be all things to everyone. \n\nAlso read Revelation 21:3-4, Psalm 37:29, 37\n\nI hope this helps.
247472
long time ago in a far away land someone decided that people were living freely, doing just what they wanted, when they wanted and the government had to find a way to put\nthese people in place, so they thought of a story....lets make two places people can go when they die - the place for the good ones (who follow all the rules al the time) and the place for the bad ones (who don't follow the rules), then we threaten them with the bad place and they'll start following the rules, cause they wouldn't want to go there...you see, heaven and hell does not really exist. Come on our loving God put his own children in burning flame for eternity? Does that sound like the God you want to serve? Sounds a bit freeky to me. Truth is God loves everybody, every single one of us and there is only one destination for all of us, which is heaven, but if we were to know that - we'll stop following the "rules". Do you honestly think any one of us "deserve" to go to heaven? Nope...but ALL of us will be there one day and ALL of us will be happy! That's the real truth if you were wondering ; )\nTake care!
418562
People who continually sin, without a conscious..need to check their salvation. If they don't turn there life around they will go to Hell BUT if you ask for forgiveness and mean it, (and turn from your wicked ways)..he will save you..
327339
yes, they are going to hell for not believing this: you can go to heaven if you get saved and the way that you get saved is if you believe that Jesus died on the cross from your sins, rose on the third day, and then you have to confess to God in prayer that you are a sinner and that you believe He died on the cross for your sins and ask for His forgiveness on your sins and it is THAT simple, salvation is a free gift, we can't earn it. I am a baptist who believes (let me rephrase that, I KNOW) that this stuff I said is true. Dont be shy to contact me on this by going to my profile.
104156
I have to totally agree with this quote. I have a relative that thinks if you don't go to HIS church (whichever one it is at the time) then you aren't serving God. I believe exactly what the Bible says about having eternal life; and it DON'T say that only the Baptists, or Catholics, or Methodists, or Pentecostals..etc are going to receive this gift of eternal life. God is God and he isn't any of these RELIGIONS...my opinion
366693
Thank you. I'm with YOU. Even among people who love and try to please GOD, they still struggle with it. It is because of our sin nature. We don't REALLY believe that "the wages of sin is death." I take this literally to mean "sin is death." SOMETHING dies. The world makes it seem okay.  We know it is wrong.  Its the age old world vs. WORD scenario Teen Queen.  It's sad. I was a "secondary" virgin before I got married. I was a Mom at age 21 and did not let God be first in my life. I claimed to love Him more than anything but I didn't.  When I realized what the Word of God said about it all and how it really does apply to ME as an individual, I tried to get things in order.  Many don't realize their own blindness and are more offended by you telling them right from wrong than by sin.  Well, I'm sure I'll get lots of thumbs down because I mentioned God and sin and all that, but oh well.  Only God can judge me and I love ANSWERS no matter what!! \nPeace
187551
I love this question.  Talk about your Hobson's Choice!  The number of "Christians" [I infer that from specific answers they have given on this and other topics] who are suddenly ready, willing, and able to cease loving others based on the consequences of their actions is astounding.  What happened to "love the sinner, hate the sin?"\n\nI'm not saying there is no God, but the fire and brimstone model just doesn't hold up to scrutiny.  The all loving God has no need for Hell.  If we receive His grace at death, then we will recognise and understand our sins, and realise [as in "achieve"] all we are suppose to be.\n\nThen there's the weak argument that God will remove the pain they'd feel.  Sounds like a lack of free will to me.  So then everything must be predestined?  I guess it doesn't really matter what I do, since God already has it decided.  My stealing your car/wife/lunch money isn't a crime, it's an act of God!  And since it's His will, I won't have to suffer for it.\n\nThe biblical version of God did not provide salvation for abject sinners.  Sort of like today's "three strike" rule.  Once you know you're on your way to Hell, why would you care about what you do?  This is why the Church invented purgatory.  By offering a here-to-fore unavailable path to salvation they were able to extend their control over others' lives.  Clever, no?  And it was also a great way to raise money...\n\nBe good to yourself.  Be good to others.  Don't try telling anyone else what this means for them.  If that ain't enough, we're screwed.
236742
Some Christians actually believe that burning in hell is God's idea. They have accepted a perversion of the scriptures without ever wondering if the translations have been mis-translated.I have been a Christian 32 years and this year I actually researched the horrible untruth "Hell." The Holy Spirit will bring us into more and more truth and expose lies and false doctrines.As with lots of Christian stuff we forget parts of the Bible whilst emphasising others. This gospel is good news! I believe all die. All rise from the grave when Jesus returns and everyones life is opened up and bare before God.. Those who have a relationship with God are resurrected and receive new bodies that will never die. And those who have decided to ignore salvation and deliberately continue to do wrong things are forever lost. Unbelievers simply pass from existence. They perish. The dead know nothing. Jesus and God would never punish forever with unquenchable fire and torment. That's a pagan, heathan, wicked perversion. However upon saying that it is very hard to change your beliefs. Especially when people go years believing a doctrine and millions of others disagree and threaten curses etc.upon those who declare hell is a false doctrine. Little by little people will come to know the truth and be set free. Seek the truth and you will find it.
423034
Ps. 37:29: “The righteous themselves will possess the earth, and they will reside forever upon it.” (Why People wants to go to Heaven?)\n\nEccl. 9:5, 10: “The living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all . . . All that your hand finds to do, do with your very power, for there is no work nor devising nor knowledge nor wisdom in Sheol,* the place to which you are going.” (If they are conscious of nothing, they obviously feel no pain.)(A bucket of water has turn off the firing hell.)\n\nEzek. 18:4: “The soul* that is sinning—it itself will die.” (*“Soul,” KJ, Dy, RS, NE, Kx; “the man,” JB; “the person,” TEV.)(No immortality here)\n\nJob 14:13, Dy: “[Job prayed:] Who will grant me this, that thou mayst protect me in hell,* and hide me till thy wrath pass, and appoint me a time when thou wilt remember me?” (Why did Job wanted to be protected in hell? (Is not that place a horrendous, tormenting, despicable, give me pain for I deserve it?)\n\nJesus Christ said: “You should pray like this: ‘Our Father in heaven . . . ’” He also said: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one can come to the Father except through me. . . . If you ask for anything in my name, I will do it.”—Matt. 6:9; John 14:6, 14, JB; (Many Christians are praying to saints, icons, and objects, thus completely nullifying  these Scriptures.)\n\nA note to Softfuzzy.. For what I Know JW are the only one that are not ignoring the Scripture like 2 Tim. 3:16 states. You are!\n(Ex. 6:3; Rev. 19:6) Neither expression is ever applied to either the Son or the holy spirit. (Almighty)
290563
Those people who are in Hell deserve it. Those who don't believe in [Insert you Religion] does not mean they will go to Hell. Only if they refuse to believe, and therefore are accepting Satan.
276125
Well I'm agnostic but will answer this anyways...\n\nI find this one of Christianity's few logical points.  All people carry some form of greed, arrogance, conflict, etc. in them.  No matter how good a person you are, you WILL sin...its bound to happen.  What the concept of being a sinner means is that Christianity is admitting that its followers will not lead a sinless life (which is realistically true).  Basically, we're imperfect and we know it...but God loves us anyways.\n\nFor non-Christians, its an excuse for Christians to admit they're imperfect while still maintaining that their beliefs are.
596284
It's an interesting story. Although, I believe that heaven and hell is much different. I believe that to get to either one or the other, we choose. Now this is where people get lost. Obviously no one chooses to go to hell (not that they know of). I believe that hell is a place where we are separated from God. Therefore our soul burns with grief and we gnash our teeth. Heaven is a place where we are connected with God. We are designed to be with God and that is why it burns to be separated. You see, people choose all their lives to live without God. God simply gives them what they have always wanted. Separation.
550868
Hello, \n\nGod is very loving, why would God who is loving and forgiving send us to burn in hell? That goes against everything God stands for, doesn't it? But when we sin he wants to forgive us, in fact 2 Peter 3:8, 9 says, "However, let this one fact not be escaping YOUR notice, beloved ones, that one day is with Jehovah as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. Jehovah is not slow respecting his promise, as some people consider slowness, but he is patient with YOU because he does not desire any to be destroyed but desires all to attain to repentance." (I welcome you all to look this up in your own personal copy of the Bible) \n\nSo you see, not only does He want us to repent, He is also patent with us. How loving! Don't you think? It goes with His personality in fact we have the scripture at 1 John 4:16 that say "God is Love" which is very straight forward. So again, this would go against God’s personality. But back to your original question on Hell, do you know that after you die you are conscious of NOTHING of at all. Ecclesiastes 9:5 tells us that "For the living know that they shall die; but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten." So if all bad people were going to be burning in hell, this would go against what the Bible says, and we know God can not lie. Titus 1:2 says "In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began." Then we have the scripture in 2 Timothy 3:16 that says all scriptures is inspired by God.\n\n\nPsalms 146:4 "His spirit goes out, he goes back to his ground; in that day his thought do perish." So again, here we see that our thoughts are gone. If we were going to burn in hell, don't you think it would make sense that we would be aware of it. \n\n\nEzekiel 18:4 "The soul that is sinning it itself will die." Notice that it doesn't say that it will burn in hell, just that it will die. And as we learned above in Ecclesiastes 9:5 the dead are aware of NOTHING. \n\n\nHell is nothing more than the common grave of mankind. Webster’s Dictionary says that the English word "hell" is equal to the Hebrew word Sheol and the Greek word Hades. In German Bibles Hoelle is the word used instead of "hell"; in Portuguese the word used is inferno, in Spanish infierno, and in French Enfer. The English translators of the Authorized Version, or King James Version, translated Sheol 31 times as "hell," 31 times as "grave," and 3 times as "pit." The Catholic Douay Version translated Sheol 64 times as "hell." In the Christian Greek Scriptures (commonly called the "New Testament"), the King James Version translated Hades as "hell" each of the 10 times it occurs.—Matthew 11:23; 16:18; Luke 10:15; 16:23; Acts 2:27, 31; Revelation 1:18; 6:8; 20:13, 14.\n\n\nThe question is: What kind of place is Sheol, or Hades? The fact that the King James Version translates the one Hebrew word Sheol three different ways shows that hell, grave and pit mean one and the same thing. And if hell means the common grave of mankind, it could not at the same time mean a place of fiery torture. Well, then, do Sheol and Hades mean the grave, or do they mean a place of torture?\n\nBefore answering this question, let us make clear that the Hebrew word Sheol and the Greek word Hades mean the same thing. This is shown by looking at Psalm 16:10 in the Hebrew Scriptures and Acts 2:31 in the Christian Greek Scriptures. Notice that in quoting from Psalm 16:10 where Sheol occurs, Acts 2:31 uses Hades. Notice, too, that Jesus Christ was in Hades, or hell. Are we to believe that God tormented Christ in a fiery hell? Of course not! Jesus was simply in his grave.\n\nWhen Jacob was mourning for his beloved son Joseph, who he thought had been killed, he said: "I shall go down mourning to my son into Sheo
436435
Hell is just a literary idea that got way outta hand.  Many religions have a "hell"-type place, but it's just when people lead bad lives and they get themselves into trouble because they don't want to be happy.  When they work out their karmic debts, they realize that they can be happy and they go to heaven or get reincarnated or whatever.  I guess if you chose to be evil and unhappy, you could do it for the rest of time, but I don't think God punishes you.  More like you punish yourself through bad karma.\n\nReligions have a lot in common in most cases, but somehow, every one of them says, "We're the only one."  How can that be?  I think Christ is a great example, but I'd never say it's his way or hell.  There are good people out there who do good things based on many good ideas, not just Christianity.  \n\nIf you take out the idea of hell, a lot of the "Christian" stuff falls away.  You don't have to witness or persecute those of other faiths.  You don't have to worry about spreading the doctrines of Jesus around the world.  You can just focus on what Christ was all about--love, helping the poor and sick and downtrodden, fighting the Man.  Jesus was a revolutionary, a visionary, a magic man.  Plus, he told cool stories.  Nothing wrong with that.  \n\nJesus wasn't about, "follow me or burn in hell."  No siree, Bob!  He wanted people to be good because it makes the world a better place and it makes you happy in the long run.  No condemnation there.  Hell (and heaven, and purgatory, and the Rapture...all that crap) came up long after Jesus died.  Look into the history of that stuff (or watch the History Channel specials--that helps, too) and you'll see that that garbage was perpetuated by church leaders much later in the game.  They were all about social control and wealth and political power.  So they twisted "Christianity" to suit their needs and slapped a cross on it to justify what they did.  Evil, evil, evil.\n\nChristianity just doesn't always work for people, especially the way it's been going lately.  Pick what works and go with it.  If you're good, God's not going to nitpick over what you did in your life.
171004
I agree. i think that they are mad at us christians b/c we preach to them, they get mad at me for saying this sometimes: I know that you can go to heaven if you get saved and the way that you get saved is if you believe that Jesus died on the cross from your sins, rose on the third day, and then you have to confess to God in prayer that you are a sinner and that you believe He died on the cross for your sins and ask for His forgiveness on your sins and it is THAT simple, salvation is a free gift, we can't earn it. I am a baptist who believes (let me rephrase that, I KNOW) that this stuff I said is true. My name is Matthew James Needham and don't be shy to contact me on this. my email address is im_proud2b_a_christian@yahoo.c...
67934
Awesome! I respect you, alot, because of this statement. I agree that God should not be brought into alot of things. Alot of these people make such statements blindly as they've yet to receive any ACTUAL experience in the type of situation of which the person you're talking to has gone through, but they feel it necessary to enforce (selfishly, I might add.) that they are a Christian and that by saying this they gain points with God. It doesnt. Why would god want to enstill so much trauma on a person? Common sense doesnt react well with fear, and in this case it is the fear that God is abit shakey about their loyalty to him (Which if they were a true Christian then they would probably come to the conclusion that as long as you build good karma selflessly, then their diety would be happy.).\n\nNow the subject about people preaching their beliefs and then sinning out their asses, I believe you're right. In the Bible, it says that God'll cleanse your sins (NOTE: I am an Athiest and do not believe this, but this is for the sake of argument) but that doesnt mean you should rack up as much negative points while you can. A quote from an AWESOME Scream Christian Band (Hardcore True Christians, mind you.)-\n\n"...Christ is not a Fashion..." - Memphis Will Be Layed To Waste by Norma Jean.
604201
It is very sad. Anyone who does a good amount of reading on ethics will know better. Christians tend to not read good books. They just accept the beliefs they were raised with and stick to them out of loyalty, fear, and familiarity. A lot of people don't like to think that what their parents taught them was wrong. A lot of people also have a very hard time dealing with mortality without a belief in a Heaven and benevolent god waiting for them. The truth is, we really just do not know what happens. There could be a deeper purpose to our being here. There could of been an intelligence behind what is. I would never say there definitely is or is not. On the same token though I can see the works or man from a mile away. The Bible wreaks of man, and all his fears. It's far too obvious that a god had nothing to do with what's in that book. I can can spot it just like I can spot the hand writing of a three year old. It's a shame others have such a hard time seeing this. I think this goes beyond their intelligence or lack thereof. It comes from a much deeper emotional issue. To lose faith in God would be akin to losing meaning to everything and that would leave them horribly broken and lost. It's too bad they can't see the other alternatives. One can lead a very spiritual life without placing belief in ridiculous claims.