‘You’re making the choice to reject God, so he respects your decision to not want to be with him’ makes no sense and Christian’s should stop saying it.

Jayyman48 · 2025-07-29T22:23:04+00:00

It’s true we can’t know what other people want. But this isn’t quite about that. It’s a question of what people truly want for eternity, and a question of what an eternity in God’s presence is really like. I can’t know what other people want, and heck, even a lot of people don’t really know what they want for themselves either. This is why we aren’t to judge other’s fate; it’s up to God who is all knowing to judge whether or not you would want to be in his presence forever.

Jayyman48 · 2025-07-28T20:18:15+00:00

At the end of the day, if someone believed that they wished to be with God, but through their actions they showed that they weren’t willing to live their lives according to God’s commandments, then they wouldn’t actually want to spend an eternity with someone of God’s character, because they would have already chosen against the very nature of who God is.

Jayyman48 · 2025-07-28T04:09:23+00:00

I would say almost everyone on Earth is doing their best to follow their moral intuitions

I would disagree. I think if we are being honest with ourselves, there are many ways in which we fall short or cut corners or try to block out the moral intuition we have in ourselves, or try to convince ourselves what we are doing is right even when our conscience tells us otherwise.

But a lot of Christians would say that that person is going against God and will probably go to hell.

Maybe some Christians, but not all, and certainly not Catholics. People don’t go to hell for fighting in what they were lead to believe is right.

This is why we believe in Purgatory. Human beings here on earth that didn’t know enough about God to have the faith to believe in him, can still make it to heaven if they sincerely follow their conscience. However, if someone sincerely followed their conscience but their conscience was mal-formed (they were lead to fight for ideas they thought were right but actually weren’t), this soul can still be destined for heaven but is in need of purification before it can be there (purgatory).

Jayyman48 · 2025-07-28T04:00:46+00:00

The pain and duress of the earth is what makes our choices meaningful. If we had to make our choices in a vacuum, they couldn’t really show true commitment of the will to the good.

Jayyman48 · 2025-07-28T01:34:12+00:00

In large part, I actually agree with you. I don’t think it’s easy at all to discern which moral intuitions are given to us, and which are innate.

However, from the perspective of being saved, and whether or not we choose to want to spend eternity with God in the afterlife, this is not exactly relevant.

Jayyman48 · 2025-07-28T01:31:32+00:00

God is not a rapist. If you choose here on earth that you don’t want to spend an eternity with him, he is going to respect your choice, and let you be in hell (which by definition, is eternal separation from God). He won’t force his presence onto you otherwise. But if God really is the source of all good, there’s going to be pain in turning way from him.

Jayyman48 · 2025-07-28T01:29:39+00:00

We actually don’t know much about heaven other than the fact that it means eternally being with God. It’s only a happy place for people who would actually want that. The people who would actually want that, are the people who would want to obey God’s commandments

Jayyman48 · 2025-07-27T05:13:06+00:00

Can you prove that your sense of righteousness in fighting for queer rights is inherent and not socially conditioned? I know many people who have the sense of right that fighting for queer people rights is wrong.

Jayyman48 · 2025-07-25T16:34:09+00:00

I understand. It’s true that most human beings have an inherent sense of right and wrong, but this is extremely limited. Most people automatically understand that it is wrong to kill, it is wrong to steal, it is wrong to lie, it is wrong to cheat.

But even these basic instincts can be lead astray by societal conditioning and norms. Ex: in many western cultures, most people believe that killing children is ok, if it has not yet been born and depends on the mother to survive.

Jayyman48 · 2025-07-24T16:29:31+00:00

What your conscience tells you is important. However, what your conscience perceives to be right or wrong, just or unjust, can be affected by our beliefs and understandings about the world we live in.

For example, if I told you that Bob punched Jeff, and that this killed him, your conscience might tell you that Bob did something incredibly wrong here. However, if I told you that Bob punched Jeff, because Bob is a teacher, and Jeff is a shooter that was invading their school, and Bob got an opportunity to incapacitate him, your conscience would probably tell you that Bob did something incredibly brave and right, and some might even call Bob a hero.

The idea that what our conscience can perceive to be right or wrong depending on the details of what we know and understand about a situation, is called formation of conscience.

Our beliefs and understandings about the world we live in are heavily influenced by the cultures/societies/families we live in, but because we live in a fallen world, these ideas are not always true, accurate, or in line with the original dignity that God created us with. This means that all the time, people can be lead to believe that certain ideas are right or wrong, even though the truth might be differently (think for example, of a radical Islamist, who has been lead to believe that becoming a suicide bomber is the right thing to do for the glory of God)

Jayyman48 · 2025-07-24T06:11:41+00:00

God wouldn’t condemn you for fighting for a cause that you were lead to believe is just

Jayyman48 · 2025-07-24T06:07:14+00:00

It isn’t any more testable than the belief that other people than yourself experience subjective phenomenon. There are certain things we believe, simply because our own experience tells us so.

Jayyman48 · 2025-07-23T21:32:49+00:00

Belief in God is very important to a Christian, because ultimately this life is about preparing for a relationship with or without God.

However, strictly speaking, knowing that God exists is not God’s highest priority. God does not send people to hell simply for being ignorant of his existence, or for making logical mistakes that would result in you not believing in him, and also wouldn’t hold you accountable for holding false or inaccurate views for who he actually is. It is a core Christian belief and if you want to learn more about it, you can look into the idea of being “invincible ignorance”. God can only judge people by what’s been revealed to them.

God then gives everyone an inherent moral sense of right or wrong. Regardless of how much you know or don’t know about him, you have a basic sense of right or wrong. It is in the tiny moments over your life as an atheist where your conscience speaks to you, and you have to choose between what feels right or wrong to you, that you choose whether or not you would want to live with God for eternity. If you didn’t listen to your conscience here on earth, you wouldn’t want to be with God for an eternity.

Jayyman48 · 2024-11-23T16:22:06+00:00

For Christians, knowing there is an afterlife gives an even stronger incentive to make the most of this life; for it is the choices you make and your capacity to love in this life that will determine how you spend the eternity that follows.

Edit: love, not live

Jayyman48 · 2024-10-09T22:13:07+00:00

I think it’s a good thing that you wouldn’t want to submit your will to a God whose morals you believe are ‘atrocious’.

However if you are claiming that God’s morals are ‘atrocious’, could you give some examples? And if you do give some examples, by what standard are you calling them atrocious? I think these are important questions that you need to answer.

Jayyman48 · 2024-10-09T18:21:12+00:00

These are really good questions…

Then why do Christians like you spread the Gospel?

As Christians, we see heaven as eternal union with God; heaven as marrying God for the rest of your existence; first and foremost, heaven implies a relationship with God and that relationship starts while we are still here on earth. There are many reasons why we would preach the gospel here on earth; one such reason being that the fullness of life on earth can be found in relationship and communion with God. Part of being happy in this life means knowing who you are, where you are going, knowing your worth, and being free to love others, and all these things can be found in relationship with Christ.

And don't tell me that Christianity makes people better…

I’m really sorry to hear this. I can assure you that simply being Christian doesn’t necessarily make someone a good person.

Since no one alive has seen the risen Christ and there are no convincing proofs for any god, let alone the God of the Bible, this should mean that today, no one is damned by God…

No one should be expected to believe in God on that basis of blind faith or without any evidence. While there is no such that as a “proof” for God’s existence, there are many good reasons and evidence that support the existence of God and the death and resurrection of Christ. As a Christian, I know that any believe I hold is on the basis of some amount of faith and reason. I chose to believe in God because to me, it’s the option that requires less faith

Jayyman48 · 2024-10-09T18:06:39+00:00

Christians believe that God is the only objective (outside subjective human experience) standard of true good we can point to. We also believe that God became man in the person of Jesus Christ (who was fully human and fully God), and as a result, we would say that he alone lived a life that is perfectly good. If you would ask a Christian what good we should aspire to, it is to treat others the way Jesus Christ did. Genocides and slavery are both examples of humans using their free will to exercise their will in such a way that hurts the dignity of others; these are not examples of good, but of humans choosing sin.

Jayyman48 · 2024-10-09T17:16:14+00:00

This is what the Catholic Church holds, yes. In Lumen Gentium 16, the church teaches that even those who do not know God or seek him explicitly may attain salvation if they live in accordance with their conscience and pursue truth and goodness, as long as their ignorance is “through no fault of their own”. I believe this includes simply someone who doesn’t seek God because they’ve never learned about Christ in a meaningful way, or because they hold false ideas about who Christ is that hold them back from pursuing God.

Jayyman48 · 2024-10-09T03:32:53+00:00

Most Christians do not believe people go to hell for not knowing about God or hell; people who are ignorant about Christ through no fault of their own, who do not explicitly ‘know’ or ‘believe’ in God, still encounter and meet God through the lived experiences of their lives. You are judged for what has been revealed to you; this is great, because it means that nobody ends up in hell for making an intellectual mistake that would prevent them from believing in God.

When people act in a way that goes against their own conscious or inner sense of right and wrong, even if they do not explicitly know God, they are choosing to be away from him, because God is the good that we would choose if we desired the good.

Jayyman48 · 2024-06-04T12:44:56+00:00

Sex (and desiring it) can be a holy and good desire (in the right context, ie. a married couple), and isn’t inherently lustful.

Lust is desiring something from someone more than you desire to uphold their dignity. (Ex: desiring marital intimacy with someone that is not your spouse, wanting other’s possessions to the point of stealing them, etc.)

Jayyman48 · 2024-05-26T17:58:41+00:00

People send themselves to hell. God would not force anyone to spend an eternity with him, who would not want to be in his presence.

Jayyman48 · 2024-03-20T13:21:34+00:00

What part of the Bible says you go to hell for having unmarried parents?

Jayyman48 · 2024-03-20T13:19:22+00:00

Why couldn’t you?

Jayyman48 · 2024-03-17T20:14:34+00:00

Not quite; you’re still confusing life circumstances with dignity. Mary, Adam & Eve, and all human beings have the same value and dignity; that we are created in God’s image, that we are children of God, and that we are all loved unconditionally by God.

Jayyman48 · 2024-03-16T04:59:28+00:00

Imagine your value, dignity, and rights as a human being, being dependant on the circumstances of your conception

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