Because I am pretty sure I learned this in Sunday school (and wasn’t satisfied by the answer they gave either) I am too embarrassed to go ask my pastor friend. Christians believe that jesus came and lived as a man and then died on the cross ‘for our sins’ right? So all we have to do if we stuff something up (like cheat on the spouse or kill the neighbor) is ask god’s forgiveness, right? The bible says that all our sins will be forgiven. So what about people who committed a ‘sin’ before that jesus-dude sacrificed his life for our sins? Like Adam and Eve? And if Adam and Eve’s sins are also forgiven, then why do we still have to bloody work so hard and experience pain in bringing forth children and all that? How do the christians explain that? Because I think even the christians would agree that it is pretty sucky if everybody who died before jesus was crucified has to burn in hell forever.
Before Jesus ‘brand offers’ and the like was acceptable because the Lord found it pleasing. or sumthing equally stupid along those lines.
Jesus came and made the sacrifice so that we didn’t have to do those anymore.
I stole this from Yahoo answers:
First of all, hell is simply the grave, not a place of torment. The dead are unconscious and feel no pain. (Eccl. 9:5,6)Everyone who died before Jesus is still asleep in their graves, awaiting a resurrection. God promises to resurrect the dead, all those who worshipped him and those who died before they could learn the truth about God. (John 5:28,29; Acts 24:15)
Those who know the truth about God but refuse to obey will be destroyed (not burnt forever) (Psalm 37:9,11)
if you want to facedesk, read the rest http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080911005520AAr0juJ
Isnt this where the “waiting room” comes in, crickey, I cannot for life of me remember the term. Where unbaptised babies go wait as well. Come on help me out here people?
perdition?
limbo?
the fat joke is, too, that you can be a complete doos your entire life. kill, rape, steal. and if you accept jc as your master and repent on your deathbed, you are okay for heaven.
how does that work? so i can be an atheist, and just to be safe, say the right words when i croak?
Yes. But you have to really really mean it, otherwise it doesn’t count. Jesus can tell if your heart is true.
I think you might mean “purgatory,” or, more properly, the Roman Catholic “limbus patrum” and the “limbus infantium,” which two are not the same.
Theology is a bottomless source of jokes, as weak as they are.
'Luthon64
what allways irked me, is how about the millions of humans who lived on other continents, before the colonialists came around and gave them the word of god.
are they to burn in hell coz they were born before the priests came around?
i wonder what the bible has to say about that?
and surely, if god created all humans in his own image, then all nations and tribes should have the benefit of his salvation, not just a select few.
its such bullshit it makes me nuts.
There’s a tale, probably apocryphal, that covers this issue very nicely:
Eskimo: “Father, would God punish me to eternal hell if I had never heard of Him?”Theology is a bottomless source of jokes, insipidly weak though they are.Priest: “No my son, God would not punish you for that.”
Eskimo: “So why did you have to tell me about Him then?”
'Luthon64
Purgatory it is. Must be pretty crowded at this point considering the abortion rate…
The imperative to repent your sins lest ye be caste into the wilderness, is one of the Catholic/Christian church’s biggest scams/lies. Not only did the church extract large sums of money, they controlled the lives of their subjects because they repented. Think how powerful a local priest is in a small village because he knows ‘all’. When the local magistrate walks past him after a nights cavorting with a prozzie, the magistrate cringes because the priest casts his evil eye over him after he confessed. Have you also noticed how people in SA say “Sorry” when they shouldn’t because you made a stuff-up of something. IMO this is a throwback of the notion that if you confess you’re forgiven and has been taught in our schools…everything’s OK if you say you’re sorry. Saying you’re sorry doesn’t cut it for me.
I agree with all the above - the whole forgiveness bullshit is… well… bullshit. But christians seem to believe its true. But if Adam and Eve (the original sinning fuckers) were forgiven (the bible tells how they showed remorse etc) then why did their punishment (being banished from the garden etc) stick? Shouldn’t god have said something like - “oh thats ok, I’ll just fence off the tree to make sure you don’t do it again, but please my children return to walk naked in the garden with me?”
I have a knee-jerk reaction when done in, regardless of what it is, I will accept your apology and then go ahead and cut you out of my life as effectively as possible. I simply wont expose myself to another possible incident once you’ve proven untrustworthy. Now that doesnt sound very forgiving, but too many people go through life being trodden on because of their “forgiving” natures, I’m not a sucker for punishment. I also cant see why I should forgive someone because THEIR religion says I should.
So yeah, sorry doesn’t cut it for me either.
And what kind of sick God would require blood sacrifice in order for Him to consider forgiving His children? Shit, it would be like me asking one of my kids to sacrifice the family pet if he did something wrong. If He’s so powerful and compassionate, why doesn’t He just simply forgive without all the blood? The whole forgiveness thing is ridiculous. Christians don’t see the problems in their doctrine due to HUGE amounts of cognitive dissonance and the familiarity of having heard the story over and over since childhood.
if a superior etherial force existed, that had the vuma to create an entire universe. then i bet you, he wouldnt give a horny rat’s ass if an infinately small speck of nothingness on one of the bazillions of planets, did something wrong. he would barely be aware of the milky way’s presence.
the whole ‘we are so furtunate to have a god all to ourselves’ bullshit is silly beyond imagining. its all this believing we are the centre of the universe, and god’s only creation.
since we have established that
a. the earth isnt flat
b. the sun and stars doesnt revolve around the eart
c. we are not the centre of the universe
d. life may not be limited to our planet
i do believe that the argument is invalid.
GCG you seriously rock!
And with Jesus it only gets worse.
It is like my neighbor doing me bad, then begs for forgiveness. Then I say I can only forgive him if I kill my dog.
Seriously wtf? That otherwise intelligent people accept and belief this, is what attracts me to these discussions. I’m completely flabbergasted over and over and over again. It is fantastic 
it’s like old whatshisface who had to sacrifice his only son to prove his faith to god. and he’s like, ok cool.
what kind of god would require such kind of crap?
what kind of god would put his servat through such immense heartache, and torment, to just get a kick out of it. sound terribly passive agressive and spitefull to me.
imagine now, (if it were true, mind you), this guy, having to tell his wife what he’s about to do. how he would have stressed about killing his own kid. imagine that if he’d gone through with it, his whole family would have been torn apart, and his community would not have believed that god told him to kill his kid.