Do you believe that you are being judged by God?

NO GOD, no jesus, no sin, no guilt,
no heaven, no hell, no worry about eternity,
no apocalypse, and no beginning.
I am one happy camper.

Kropotkin

Hi Bessy,

This is an interesting question. I’m very very underdeveloped in my theism, so I’d expect someone like Uccisore to provide a much better answer. I also suspect he will disagree though.

But anyway - I was pondering this a while back, and came up with this argument? What do you and the other ILPers think of it?

1. It is unethical to punish someone for an act which was not immoral
2. Belief is not a volition - one cannot “choose” to believe something in the same way that one can choose to commit an action
3. If free will is not applicable to an action, moral judgements are not applicable to that action (in other words, morality necessitates choice)
   4 (from 2 and 3). Therefore a “belief” cannot be immoral in itself
4. Atheism is a belief
   6 (from 4 and 5). Therefore, atheism cannot be immoral in itself
   7 (from 1 and 6). Therefore, it would be unethical to punish someone for SIMPLY being an atheist
5. God is not unethical
   9 (from 7 and . Therefore, God would not punish someone SIMPLY for being an atheist

Dan, Dan Dan squiggle squiggle…

You didn’t read my post! I said I was raised that way and have given up any thoughts of it. I thought it was interesting to get some viewpoints, but you aren’t listening to me, lovey!

The only thing I know I am being judge is my father.
By looking at my charts of results in my report cards, stating if you have earn the amount of income it is passing grade. If not, what you are studying is a fraud.

IF God was a good judge, and the defendant says you are merciful and forgivable God, please forgive my wrong doing; but if God is a good judge he must judge accordingly to your doings. Like in a courtroom you can not say forgive me, if so, the judge would not be a good one.

This example was taken by spreadingthe good news channel.
IF you question about jesus, then you do not have faith. Therefore, you do not believe in JEsus.

I will say this much.

Remember a couple days ago we were talking about worst songs and I mentioned MeatLoaf? Well the following day I heard like three MeatLoaf songs on two different stations while at work, when usually I don’t hear any and only one on a rare occasion.

détrop: I will say this much.
Remember a couple days ago we were talking about worst songs and I mentioned MeatLoaf? Well the following day I heard like three MeatLoaf songs on two different stations while at work, when usually I don’t hear any and only one on a rare occasion."

K: it is quite clearly a sign from god he is a meatloaf fan and
you have pissed off the big guy. Your punishment will
be to hear meatloaf everywhere you go.
Repent or be faced with meatloaf for the rest of your life.

Kropotkin

“The problem of synchronicity has puzzled me for a long time, ever since the middle twenties, when I was investigating the phenomena of the collective unconscious and kept on coming across connections which I simply could not explain as chance groupings or ‘runs.’ What I found were ‘coincidences’ which were connected so meaningfully that their ‘chance’ concurrence would represent a degree of improbability that would have to be expressed by an astronomical figure.”

– Carl Jung, Collected Works vol. 8

I know, but I still said what I said, it was a generalization also.

Dan

A generalization? Every Christian I have ever known has been raised with the notion of Judgement Day, so that couldn’t be referring to my OP, right?

phawkins says

Some good thoughts here. The belief can lead to immoral action, so it can be dangerous as it is manifested towards others, right? I agree with most of this tho’.

I am constantly being judged by men, using God as their alibi.

And when I am not, I am constantly judged by men using other men as their alibi.

The answer to your first question is "both", the answer to your second question is "No."  But you want more detail. Let me use Phawkins' argument as a skeleton for my thoughts. 

phawkins1988

This I agree with, though I may disagree about it’s relevance on a couple of levels later.

This is a true statement, but I need to qualify it.  Belief is not an action, it's a state of being, and so cannot be chosen or not by default. We use the terminology "He is believing..." but I really think that's misleading. A person who believes something is not really [i]doing anything [/i]with regards to that which he believes.  So I agree, that belief is out of our control, but I don't think it's an example of an action outside of free will. 
 Like other states of being, while we do not control them directly, we do control many of the actions that put us in that state of being, however. 

Assuming for the sake of argument this is true- I maintain that belief is not an action, and as such, 3 leaves unaddressed the real potential for moral judgement in the actions that bring that belief about. A person is morally accountable for the books they choose to read, the people they associate with, and so on. We have all persued some sources and avoided others based on what we wished to believe. Acknowledging this fact makes it to hard to believe that we can’t be indirectly accountable for our beliefs.

Agreed, but see above.

Arguable. I’ll grant it.

Granted.

Granted.

Granted.

Technically true.  However, God could punish someone for the choices they made in life that resulted in their being an atheist.  For example, anybody who claims to be a philosopher, and does the sorts of things that philosophers characteristically do, would not be 'off the hook'. They could potentially be punished for intentionally choosing courses of study that lead them away from the truth of God. 
So, I do agree that there are atheists (as well as people who believe plenty of other things) that are not accountable for what they believe in any moral sense- children come to mind, and perhaps people with extremely poor access to education.  However, I don't believe that people are universally excused for what they believe- certainly, the people who post here bare reponsibility for what they believe, for example.

Both are required. A Christian who thinks that behavior is not associated with eternal life needs to read the bible again.

Romans 11
22Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off.

Ned and Ucci,

Are all good people excluded from this eternity? If you do not believe in Jesus, but live good, kind, and giving lives? Even then? Would God not understand that maybe some people “get it” through the back door, but still get it?

Are you open to this possibility?

There is no-one good except for God, so everyone is automatically excluded from eternity. If you don’t believe me ask Jesus…

Mark 10
18"Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good—except God alone.

No I’m not. I completely agree that this would seem to be the"reasonable" thing to do, and personally I wish it were actually true, since many people I like and love would actually be saved and not tortured for eternity. However, I understand this notion to be wishful thinking and completely unbiblical, therefore my answer is “no”.

The bible clearly teaches that no-one can possibly come even close to the moral standards that God requires. Not because God is demanding, but because the human race is so far fallen and sinful. Our best efforts (insert personal moral hero here) do not even come close, even though such people might seem morally pure in comparison to you and I. Maybe they would get 2/100 on the moral scale rather than the lowly 0.02 that you and I would get. Unfortunately, the pass mark has been set at 100/100 and we will not be graded on a curve! Thus, our only hope out of this dilema would be if someone else existed who was compeletly morally pure (100/100) but who mercifully agreed to take the just punishment that we deserve.

This understanding is at the heart of the gospel message, and yet it is soooo poorly understood even by Christians. Most people think that Christianity is about repenting of our bad works and trying to do better in the future. In reality we need to repent of both our good works and bad, realizing that we cannot make any headway towards God on our own. Personally, I think this is one of the most offensive aspects of the gospel. Most people have a really hard time admiting that they are so bad, and cling to the vague hope that a few good works will somehow make things better. In reality our situation is much much more hopeless than that and the bible does not offer any solace to those who live a good life without realising a need for Christ. And before you get too angry with me, I didn’t make up the rules!

Does that make sense? Do you understand where I’m coming from?

Yes, I do. I think what I have a hard time with is that from what I know about Jesus, he would not agree with you. First of all, he was raised a Jew and half of the Bible is built on the Torah or Old Testament. It would be very hard for me to believe that Jesus died for our sins and yet would forget about all of the Jewish people. I would be more inclined to believe what you say if others were included in this mix. It seems preposterous to me that everyone in an Eastern faith could be excluded - and I believe that Jesus is probably surprised at this interpretation of the Gospel. I don’t think that reading it literally is anything but scary and as many points as you can make FOR that view there are hundreds that go against it.

I realize that what you believe is on faith alone and I respect that. I respect that a lot as a matter of fact. I am just trying to understand how a loving Son of God could allow for those lost souls, or even those who are blind or deaf, too intellectually in the dark to see it — will be ignored and left behind. I know in my heart that I sin, but also know that I wake up in the morning and do what’s right. I believe that if there is a God watching, I will get a key to the pearly gate… ho hum.

I worry that your view carries with it an elitism that pushes people away from the faith you want so badly for them to see. Isn’t that the Christian way?

Bessy

First of all, there are no good people. Well, maybe One, depending on how you define ‘people’. I don’t really subscribe to the idea that there’s these white hats over here that deserve one thing, and those black hats over there that deserve another. I only know my own heart, and I certainly don’t think I have lived well enough that God owes me Heaven.
I don’t have the answer to your question- I’m really not sure what God does with the problematic “Good Heathen”, and no matter how the terms are defined, I grant there are such things as “Good Heathens”, to the extent that any of us are good.
There is one important point I’d like to make, though. It’s commonly expressed that how good a person lives is a more fair judge of who gets rewarded than if they believed a certain thing. I disagree, I think it just seems that way. Let me show you what I mean:
If you accept the basics of what I’m saying, that there’s no (or very few) stereotypical white hats and black hats, then there’s a scale of goodness and badness in people. To let us in on merit, God would have to have some cut off point- how good you have to be to get in. But why couldn’t God set the standard so high that Ghandi, Mother Theresa, and only like 6 other people make it in to Heaven? To take the opposite, why couldn’t He set the standard at “Everyone who’s not personally responsible for an act of genocide gets in”? Neither seem fair, but it’s so subjective that the only answer we can give is ‘somewhere between those two extremes’. But here’s the problem with putting the line somewhere in the middle- that’s right where most of us are. In other words, if the line is in the middle, there’s going to be billions of people that don’t quite cut it because of a technicality- their toe was over the line. How ‘fair’ would it be to send someone to hell for that?
So anyways, I just don’t have the answer to your question, Bessy, but I do think there are serious problems with the “Good person vs Bad person” idea, such that having an absolute like “Did you believe in X or didn’t you?” isn’t any worse.

The early church was comletely Jewish. Indeed Jesus states clearly that his message was first directed to the Jews. Gentiles are only an afterthough. However, Jesus himself declares that he is THE way, THE truth etc…

On what basis? Just because something appealing does not make it true. Just because something seems strage does not make it untrue. Show me from Jesus words exactly where he opens the door to alternative entry into heaven. Indeed it was Jesus who clearly stated…

Matthew 7
13"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

What does this passage mean except that the majority of the human race will be sent to hell and a minority will enter heaven? Irrespective of the means of salvation, Jesus clearly teaches that only a few will find it. Do you disagree?

With all due respect, you can believe whatever you like, but your statement of faith is completely unbiblical. If you are Ok with making up your own religion then by all means go ahead. But this is not the religion that Jesus described.

I totally understand that. However, every Christian should realize that their position with God is totally based on grace (given the long explaination I offered before about our depth of sinfulness). Sadly we often portray our message as an elitist one, but please feel free to shoot the messanger not the message.

Plus, although attracting a greater number of Christians to God is part of the Christian message we are not free to tinker with the message to make it more palatable for others. It is God’s gospel not ours. If it were up to me then I would include everyone in salvation. But it is not up to me.

Ned Flanders

I have a mild squabble with this point, Ned.  If the way into Heaven is the adoption of a belief or a belief system, it is only natural to expect that belief or belief system to be [i]appealing[/i]- we should be able to look at it and see that we ought to adopt it.* 
 So, I agree with you that something does not need to be appealing to be true, and I agree that there may be aspects of Christianity that seem less appealing than what we can come up with in our individual imagination- we're all drawn to the notion of a God that excuses our most treasured sin. However, we cannot disregard the concept of appeal entirely- Jesus and His message should have a fundamental attractiveness to human nature, when properly understood. 

Bessy
I have more to say about the whole “Goodness as a fair standard” thing that I’m holding back on, so I hope you found the first bit interesting!

*- Yes, I’m operating under an assumption of fairness, and yes, you’ll tell me that God has no obligation to be fair.

I think we have to be careful here because intellectual attractiveness is only one facet of the gospel message. Some come by this route (CS Lewis for example), but many people come to Christ who are initially repulsed by the gospel message (Paul being a good example). Indeed, the early gospel message in Acts seems to attarct people mostly based on displays of power (healings, deliverance, tongues etc…) rather than intellectual appeal. People come to Christ for many reasons, sometimes simply because they fear hell. I do not think it neccessary that the gospel be appealing or even for it to be understood for it to be effective. But I agree that sometimes this can be important.