This is something that has bothered me for sometime. I am pagan, Germanic Heathen to be specific, and my religious belief is that the only way to get to "Heaven" is by doing good deeds and avoiding bad deeds. If you do do a wrong deed you must atone for it in someway, and there are some sins for which there is no way to atone (i.e. you are damned). If you fail to atone you can be punished in this life and the next.
Yet, I have seen others of my belief seen as somehow not as moral as Christians in divorce and other civil cases. Christianity, of course, believes if you repent and ask forgiveness you will be forgiven. But isn't this just a way to get out of being punished for the sin?
So I ask, which is more moral, the idea you must do good deeds to get to a good afterlife, or the idea you must repent and ask forgiveness? Or are they essentially just as good as the other?
2007-08-09
21:52:26
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13 answers
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asked by
Swain
3
in
Religion & Spirituality