no, see, i dont believe in jesus christ as my lord and savior, or how ever you want to put it. so for this simple fact, a belief, I am supposed to go to hell and suffer forever? For what? A belief. And you, you pick the right god so you get to go to heaven and all the rest of us go to hell.
I can't see how I'm either supposed to like that or accept it.
sports dont drive people apart quite the same way religion does......
Yeah, I know why you think and feel that way because it IS how some poor examples of Christian believers choose to understand and by extention spread their faith, its the whole Ghandi in hell thing isnt it? South Park sent it up a couple of times with shots of hell which featured all the worst examples of humanity, Hitler, Saddam, alongside Ghandi.
That's inaccurate if you ask me, its not how I understand the life, ministry and resurrection of Jesus, I dont even buy too closely into the ideas of Jesus being a blood sacrifice to exhonorate the world of sin, it makes for the kind of reasoning featured in Confessions of a Justified Sinner (which is a great book if you're opposed to fundametalism and some of the flawed thinking it gives rise to, particularly Calvinism).
If you dont choose to believe in Jesus that's you're choice, I dont see the good news like that, its a little like if you were a persecuted minority in hiding fom the Nazis and the news reached you that your country was about to be liberated by the allies, you'd be relieved right? Whether you really believed in allies or not you'd benefit by their actions, which is how I consider the life and ministry of Jesus.
A lot of people of people are bound to be like Thomas, they wont believe until they see, but Thomas wasnt condemned for his lack of belief was he? He was admonished and he felt sorry for himself but that's the height of it. Still others will be like those mentioned, I think its James but I could be wrong, claim to love God and hate their neighbour, when they've seen their neighbour but never seen God, I dont remember how its exactly phrased but the writer thought it was daft too.