Tag Archives: Christianity

Polemics

Why do people go to Hell?

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I’ve decided to do a series on Hell.

I wanted to say a few words about the following topics, one per day:

Now, I am no theologian, but I am going to take a crack at answering these questions from a layman’s point of view, and the more experienced people can correct me where I am mistaken. I am answering all these questions from an Wesleyan Protestant point of view. These are just my opinions, so please seek the advice of the Bible and more qualified theologians. And leave your corrections in the comments.

Why do people go to Hell?

Everyone has a moral obligation to use their free will in the time during which they are alive to investigate whether God exists and what his character is like. Once they discover the answers to those questions, they are morally obligated to use their free will to love God – as he really is – using all their capabilities. Loving God also means obeying the moral law, but I think there is a lot more to loving God than just obeying rules.

Each person is also obligated to engage in and support enterprises that help others to know God as he really is. If a person fails to use their free will to love God, then that person is sinning. Notice that on my view, being nice to your neighbor is relatively unimportant compared to being nice to God. Jesus’ first commandment is to love God, and that vertical dimension is much more important than horizontal dimension.

The pre-condition to loving God is knowing what he is really like. Most people are born into a certain religion or learn it from their parents or their culture and they either adopt it without thinking or they reject it without thinking. But on the Christian view, the best thing you can possibly do with your time is to investigate whether God is real, and what he is like. It’s wrong to say that investigating doesn’t matter or that all religions are the same.

I think that the result of any honest investigation is going to be that the Christian religion is going to be found to be more true in its major claims than any other religion. I.e. – people who conduct an honest investigation are going to find that the Christian claims about the universe coming into being out of nothing, and of Jesus rising from the dead, etc. will be validated by the progress of science and historical inquiry.

But since people have a natural tendency to focus on making themselves happy, not many investigations occur. They know that if Christianity is true, they would have to engage in radical self-denial and self-sacrificial love. They know they would have to sober, be chaste, be different, and not be liked because of their exclusive view. And people don’t want to do that, so an honest investigation never even gets started.

Instead, what you find atheists doing is hoping in speculations to justify their flight from the demands of the God who is there. They’ll talk about the multiverse, unobservable aliens seeding the planet with life, not yet found precursor fossils, etc. Atheism is about one thing and one thing only – using freedom to seek pleasure instead of truth and goodness.

One of the problems that Christians have today is that they do not really understand what sin is. They think that sin is about hurting other people or making other people feel bad. But actually, the sinfulness of a person has little to do with that, and much more to do with how we respond to God. We have a moral obligation to know God and to include God in all of our decision making. Hell is the penalty for failure to meet this obligation.

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Muslim woman calls police to have Christians arrested after debate

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Story from the Daily Mail. (H/T Dana Loesch via ECM)

Excerpt:

A Christian couple have been charged with a criminal offence after taking part in what they regarded as a reasonable discussion about religion with guests at their hotel.

Ben and Sharon Vogelenzang were arrested after a Muslim woman complained to police that she had been offended by their comments.

They have been charged under public order laws with using ‘threatening, abusive or insulting words’ that were ‘religiously aggravated’.

[…]After the incident, the couple voluntarily attended St Anne’s Street police station in Liverpool, where they were interviewed under caution.

In July they were arrested and charged under Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 and Section 31 (1) (c) and (5) of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998.

This kind of law reminds me of Section 13(1) up north in Canada. These hate speech laws are passed by the left to undermine the inalienable right of free speech. It is selectively applied by the left against their enemies (e.g. – Christians) for the benefit of special interest groups favored by the left (e.g. – Muslims).

Now may be a good time to link to my post on “Why I am not a Muslim“.

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India reacts to the death of Christian politician Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy

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map-of-india

Recently, the popular Chief Minister of the state of Andhra Pradesh died in a helicopter crash.What was not widely known before his death was that Reddy was a Christian! One of a small 3% minority of Christians in India, which is dominated by the Hindu religion. Let’s see whether his Christian faith made any difference in the way he was perceived by others.

Here is an article from the Hindustan Times about the reaction of the people.

Excerpt:

Andhra Pradesh plunged into gloom Thursday as it became known that Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy had died in a helicopter crash in the dense Nallamalla forests.

People cried inconsolably in the state secretariat, the chief minister’s camp office and Gandhi Bhavan, the headquarters of the ruling Congress party.

“He is my God. I can’t believe he is no more,” wailed a Congress party worker.

“He gave life to several people through Rajiv Arogyasri (health insurance scheme for poor). Nobody had imagined he will lose his life this way,” said another Congress worker.

The Times of India reports that Reddy’s Congress party swept the local elections in Andhra Pradesh.

Excerpt:

Riding on the sympathy wave following the death of former chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, ruling Congress in Andhra Pradesh made a sweep of the byelections to local bodies.

Of the 18 Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituencies that went to polls two days ago, 15 fell in Congress kitty.

[…]The same was the case with the Mandal Parishad Territorial Constituencies where Congress clinched 12 out of 17 that went to by-elections.

[…]In municipal corporations, [Congress] won four out of five wards…

The Hindustan Times reports that a movie is in the works.

Excerpt:

After statues and temples immortalising late Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, the popular leader who died in a helicopter crash early this month will come alive on the silver screen.

Telugu actor Rajasekhar will play the role of YSR, as the late leader was popularly known. Producer-director Puri Jagannath announced Monday evening that he would make the Telugu film titled Rajasekhara Reddy.

Flanked by actor couple Rajasekhar and Jeevitha, Jagannath said he was feeling honoured to make a movie on the towering leader, who enjoyed unbelievable popularity among masses.

“YSR was immensely popular. A large number of his fans died of shock or committed suicide after hearing about his death in the helicopter crash,” he said.

Last and best of all, here is an op-ed in the Deccan Chronicle sent to me by Shalini.

Excerpt:

This brings me to the role of religious minorities in India…

Christians form around 3 per cent of the population of India. There are not many very big Christian landowners or Christian industrial houses… Nevertheless, the community enjoys 100 per cent literacy and has done more for education and medical services of our country than others put together. I would hazard a guess that crime rates including corruption among Christians are probably the lowest.

By contrast, Sikhs who are the richest minority, forming around 2 per cent of the population, have 30 per cent illiteracy, high rate of crimes of violence, and probably the highest incidence of liquor and drug addiction. Worst of all is the plight of the largest minority, the Muslims who form about 13 per cent of our population. Although they have a few multi-billionaires … their literacy rates are the lowest, particularly among women… Instead of getting on with things that matter like education and health-care, their leaders waste most of their time asserting their separateness.

I regard Rajasekhar Reddy as the best example of what a state Chief Minister should be and the Christian contribution to India’s welfare as something other communities should emulate.

Meanwhile, in the West, we have the ACLU trying to suppress the public expression of the very faith that rationally grounds good works. You cannot have the good works of Christianity without the Christian beliefs. How hard is this for atheists to understand? On the atheistic view, survival of the fittest and the pursuit of pleasure in the here and now is rationally grounded. Self-sacrificial love for your neighbor is irrational on atheism.

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