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This question begs another question with which I have tackled. If there is a line between those going to "heaven" and those going to "hell" what is it? For those of you who would answer beliving that Christ die for you sins, I present this conundrum. What of those who have never been given the opportunity to even hear about Christ or those, who do to some ambiguous incident, reject not God, per se, but the Christian church.
Well, there is a good precedent straight from the Bible to start. Romans 8, I beleive, says "The heavens declare the glory of God," and boy are they right. I don't know how you can look at the awesome complexity of the universe and think it all happened by pure chance. (For those of you who don't believe in any sort of divinity, look up St. Thomas Aquinas. He wrote some very compelling LOGICAL arguments about there simply having to be some sort of deity.) Now, suppose that is the method by which you have come to know of God. Well, alas, you still fall short of the believing in Christ line. And I put it to you this way, believers, do you believe God to be so petty that he would deny eternity to such a person? I say no. I like to say God gives second chances to those who don't get a first. This begs the further question, if God isn't petty to that extent, doesn't that mean he wouldn't be so petty as to demand you call him by his right name? I sure hope not because Christianity alone has a couple names for him, including Jehovah and Yahweh. So what about gender? Well he isn't really a he, now, is he? Sure, Jesus was male, but does the Father truly have male genitalia? I think not. So, what about, a non-Christian religion which believes in a monotheistic creator goddess? Also, lower gods. The ten commandsments say thou shalt have no other gods before me, not there are no other gods period. So what about polytheistic religions who still put the Creator first? My belief? It doesn't matter what you believe, so long as you worship the Creator above all other such possible deities and so long as you believe the Creator is also a Provider (for Christians, this means he Provided Christ as a means to heaven) and a Guide (for Christians this means god Guides us by his Spirit/that little nagging voice in the back of our head/etc)
Peace be with you,
G
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