What if

[PoetPhilosopher]

I never said that humans are God's children. That is a Christian belief, not a Baha'i belief.

Yeah, I said it. The Bible seems to talk about it.

 

[Subduction Zone]

What if judaism, christianity and islam is correct about that people who do not believe in God go to hell? What if all people who do not worship the one God go to hell?

If this is reality then God is angry and jealous. But what if.. this is really true?

It is wise to believe in one God just in case?

No. It is not.

What if the believers in the Abrahamic religions were singled out by the real God for more punishment than other believers? I could make a good case for that.

Your question assumes no downside to believing in a specific God. That belief does not appear to be justified.

 

[Wildswanderer]

I don't see a problem with that.

That's what hell is.

 

[osgart]

God is not a human so God cannot write, so God outsources His message to the Messengers. The Messengers of God are both human and divine so they can understand both God and humans, so they can relay God's message to humans in a way that humans can understand God's message..

Whether the Bible is a only a human creation or the word of God is a matter of opinion. Baha'i beliefs lie along a spectrum.

"Although Bahá'ís universally share a great respect for the Bible, and acknowledge its status as sacred literature, their individual views about its authoritative status range along the full spectrum of possibilities. At one end there are those who assume the uncritical evangelical or fundamentalist-Christian view that the Bible is wholly and indisputably the word of God. At the other end are Bahá'ís attracted to the liberal, scholarly conclusion that the Bible is no more than a product of complex historical and human forces. Between these extremes is the possibility that the Bible contains the Word of God, but only in a particular sense of the phrase 'Word of God' or in particular texts. I hope to show that a Bahá'í view must lie in this middle area, and can be defined to some degree."
A Baháí View of the Bible

I do not know what the Bible mean to people thousands of years from now, but why do you think has the Bible withstood the test of time for thousands of years? To me, that is an indication that it is more than a mere book created by humans.

It's an indication that people want desperately to believe in and hope in something. People want desperately to believe in a God so the Bible met the demand for that kind of thing. There's been plenty of religions before the Bible that tried to meet that demand.

Unfortunately that oppresses people who want to base their life on reason, evidence, and curiosity about the natural world. It also oppresses freedom of thought and expression.

For many people saying I don't know is a way of life until they do know something about reality.
Religion often claims absolute truth, but they can never back that up.

Me personally, if it can't be justified by reason or discovered facts I'm more than willing to dismiss it. By reason I can discover virtues, morality, and abstract truths that apply to the real world. I'm not willing to hand over my sense of logic, and reason to a God I've never personally met nor understood. I'd rather be in total mystery than to claim faith in something I have no experience or reason with.

Apparently a lot of people throughout history have claimed to know the truth of things well beyond what they can actually demonstrate. Often people follow after those kinds of people.

Humanity is not the standard to measure truth. We need effective methods, and reliable ideas to forge the way. Humanity is very susceptible to fallibility. Many religions are still around today only because they satisfy people's need and desire for hope and justice even though they are not based on actuality.

I've made a commitment to not believe in things without a good sense of reason and understanding about those things. I've made a commitment to follow what's true and factual even if I don't enjoy the truth and what's factual.

All that's left over from my religious days is my sense that teleology is true. If someone were able to refute that, I'd have no choice but to accept the refutation. To me all powerful and omniscient is fantasy. Heaven and hell is not demonstrated to be any kind of reality. Nothing I've ever experienced meets the level of being called a God.

 

[Father Heathen]

What about a God who let's people have their way?
All good comes from God. If you don't want God, you will be removed from all that's good by your own request.

Sounds like extortion or protection racket.

 

[soulsurvivor]

What if judaism, christianity and islam is correct about that people who do not believe in God go to hell? What if all people who do not worship the one God go to hell?

If this is reality then God is angry and jealous. But what if.. this is really true?

It is wise to believe in one God just in case?

If God is indeed angry and jealous then that contradicts completely the kind of God that Jesus preached. You either believe in what Jesus said - compassion and forgiveness for everyone or you can believe in the mean, angry God who wants to throw everyone who does not believe in him into hell. You can't believe in both.

Both Christianity and Islam claim to believe in Jesus, so they cannot believe in the angry jealous God either - so we should forget about that mean-spirited God - only a few believe in him and it is their problem.

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

What if judaism, christianity and islam is correct about that people who do not believe in God go to hell? What if all people who do not worship the one God go to hell?

If this is reality then God is angry and jealous. But what if.. this is really true?

It is wise to believe in one God just in case?

Speaking as an ex-Christian, I no longer fear being judged by God or being sent to hell. I've let go of these fear-based tactics, and I no longer allow these beliefs to control my thoughts or my life. The fearmongering tactics that I was exposed to as a Christian had an emotionally devastating impact on my life, and being a Christian was a never-ending waking nightmare. I used to be deeply terrified of the wrath of God to the point of making myself physically sick, and I lived in constant fear that God would kill me at any moment if I committed sin and didn't immediately repent. Not only was I scared of God's wrath, but I felt shame and guilt for sinning against him.

I was constantly afraid of losing my salvation if I sinned against God and then died without repenting, and I truly feared going to hell even though I accepted Jesus as my lord and savior (Matthew 7:21–23). There was absolutely no peace and joy in my life that was promised in the Bible to the followers of Jesus. To be honest, being a Christian was extremely detrimental to my mental health and emotional well-being, and I never want to be a Christian again. It was difficult for me to let go of my faith because I had believed in God and had been a Christian for the majority of my life. It was a very painful experience, and I never want to be a Christian again.

I realize and understand that all the years of negative experiences I've had with Christianity are only anecdotal evidence, just as when Christians share their positive stories about having God in their lives. My point is that, after realizing that my faith, hope, and trust in God were emotional crutches and detrimental to my mental health, I finally made the decision to let it all go in order to emotionally heal and better my life. I've healed emotionally and have significantly improved my life without believing in and having faith in God.

It was the best decision that I've ever made for my mental health and emotional well-being. It was, without a doubt, the best decision that I've ever made for myself. It took some time for me to let go of my faith in God and heal, but forsaking my faith turned my life around for the better. I have peace and joy in my heart, and I feel content with my life. That's something that I never felt during the thirty years I was a Christian and during the years before when I prayed to God, asking him to protect me from being abused and bullied. I think my experience of letting go of my Christian beliefs is analogous to being imprisoned, except that my cell door was always open and I was unaware that I could leave whenever I wanted to. Christianity was a prison for me and now I'm free from it.

Now that I'm no longer a Christian, I reject the Christian teachings that we transgress against God as well as the associated scare tactics, such as the fear of God's wrath, the shame and guilt trips connected with allegedly doing so, and the fear of hell for allegedly doing so and not receiving his forgiveness for these sins before we die. I was a Christian for 30 years, and as far as I'm concerned, Christianity is mainly a religion of fear, shame, and guilt trips. It's normally based on the fear of God's wrath against sin, the fear of going to hell for disobeying and sinning against God, and guilt trips and personal shame for sinning against God. There is no amount of shaming or threats of God's wrath and hellfire that Christians can hurl at me that will ever convince me to be a Christian again.

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

What if judaism, christianity and islam is correct about that people who do not believe in God go to hell?

First it'd have to be ignored that the views on this Perdition are fundamentally different. So which manner of Perdition are we talking about here? Separation from god? Absence of god? Fiery torture and brimstone born from Middle Eastern pre-Abrahamic religions and heavily leaned upon for Dante's poem?

When one knows how "Hell" was built, it loses all fear factor.

 

[blü 2]

What if judaism, christianity and islam is correct about that people who do not believe in God go to hell? What if all people who do not worship the one God go to hell?

That, of course, is the basis of "Pascal's Wager" ─ why take a chance when the price of being wrong is so high?\

But on the technical side, on the one hand I'm not familiar with the 21st century teachings of Judaism or of Islam on hell, but on the other hand having done some homework on the Christian position at one stage I can report it's ambiguous. On the one hand you have Mark mentioning ‘to go to hell [Gehenna], to the unquenchable fire’': Matthew's Jesus speaks of destroying ‘both soul and body in hell’ [Gehenna] and of ‘the eternal fire’ and ‘the outer darkness’. Revelation speaks of ‘the lake that burns with fire and sulphur’ but seems to confine it to Satan, though It would be no surprise to find Patmos Jack sending souls to hell.

On the other hand Paul, John and 1 John seem to think the natural end is extinction eg Romans 6:9, John 3:16, though perhaps extinction through burning (john 15:6).

Of course, this reeks of snake oil salesmanship ─ "Listen, people, you have a TERRIBLE problem that you don't even know about, BUT FORTUNATELY I (and I alone) can fix it ─ and for a very reasonable price."

 

[ChristineM]

Very true, but the converse also applies. If there is a heaven and hell, or only a heaven and no hell, and you worked to get to heaven, then you have not wasted your life.

I look for the evidence, many people do not.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

What if judaism, christianity and islam is correct about that people who do not believe in God go to hell? What if all people who do not worship the one God go to hell?

If this is reality then God is angry and jealous. But what if.. this is really true?

It is wise to believe in one God just in case?

The problem is if God is the Abrahamic God or not. Pascal's wager has the problem of we can't know objectively which God it is or even if there is a God. Further for the psychological benefits of believing in God, they have a downside for how it can influence the idea of objective authority.

 

[Mock Turtle]

What if judaism, christianity and islam is correct about that people who do not believe in God go to hell? What if all people who do not worship the one God go to hell?

If this is reality then God is angry and jealous. But what if.. this is really true?

It is wise to believe in one God just in case?

Is it wise to be dishonest - as in forcing a belief? Not in my world belief. I'm willing to take the risk of going to Hell, if such exists, given that I would probably be going there if I believed or didn't believe. And Hell will probably be a much more interesting place to be than any Heaven - judging by those who seem to believe in such and expect to go there. Forget sanctity and think more like sanctimonious.

 

[1213]

What if judaism, christianity and islam is correct about that people who do not believe in God go to hell? What if all people who do not worship the one God go to hell?

If this is reality then God is angry and jealous. But what if.. this is really true?

It is wise to believe in one God just in case?

Bible tells eternal life is for righteous. Believing that God exists doesn't necessary mean person is righteous, because even demons believe.

You believe that God is one. You do well. The demons also believe, and shudder.
James 2:19

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

 

[Gargovic Malkav]

Then I'll have a good time in hell with a fair number of my friends here on RF.

It'll be great!

Reminds me of a Frisian king who, according to legend, changed his mind when he was about to be baptized and asked about the fate of his ancestors.
He was told they were in hell.
This caused him to change his mind because he'd rather be in hell with those close and familiar to him, than be in heaven with a bunch of strangers.

 

[Colt]

What if judaism, christianity and islam is correct about that people who do not believe in God go to hell? What if all people who do not worship the one God go to hell?

If this is reality then God is angry and jealous. But what if.. this is really true?

It is wise to believe in one God just in case?

What if Hell is a fictional place but people just pretend to Love God becuse they fear being sent to Hell if they don't mouth the words of faith?

Hell is a fictional place invented by Shamans who didn't have any better truth to teach. Unrepentant Sin, which is deliberate disloyalty to deity, eventually ends in death. "The wages of sin is death"....not an eternal torment in a hell place. IMOP

 

[syo]

But what if.. this is really true?

It's not.

 

[stvdv]

What if judaism, christianity and islam is correct about that people who do not believe in God go to hell?

Easy to prove that Hell believe is not true...using the same Scriptures
Hence Hell is just an invention of humans...humans create inconsistency...God not

 

[JustGeorge]

Reminds me of a Frisian king who, according to legend, changed his mind when he was about to be baptized and asked about the fate of his ancestors.
He was told they were in hell.
This caused him to change his mind because he'd rather be in hell with those close and familiar to him, than be in heaven with a bunch of strangers.

He seems like a sensible man to me.

Maybe I'll make friends with him and his ancestors in hell.

 

[Gargovic Malkav]

He seems like a sensible man to me.

Maybe I'll make friends with him and his ancestors in hell.

My idea of "hell" is that it's a place that is by definition terrible.
I understand the sentiment of your opinion, though.
We might end up in the same place.
We can't do better than our best using the common sense God has given us and live up according to it.

 

[Alien826]

This is Pascal's Wager, isn't it?

The problems, among others, are ...

You can't make yourself believe (he did address this though).

Which god are you going to believe in? It might be a sensible god that sees through your little plan!