Do most people who go to Christian churches really believe that all non christian are eternally tortured?

Question

Personally I think most people who go to Lutheran, Methodist etc churches don't really believe all the silliness about eternal damnation for not accepting Jesus in official church meaning. In your actions you may accept the one true God of good and love without calling him Jesus. There are plenty of good people who don't call themselves Christian's. People like Gandhi. I don't think the majority of Christian's really think good people go to hell. I mean Christians who use logic that is. Yet at their churches they just have to hear the occasional nonsense about eternal torture. Am I right that most Christians don't actually buy into the fire and brimstone dogma?

See this is the problem take someone like spiritwalker who I'm sure is a good person but all of a sudden I'm ridiculing God by questioning whether apparently good people are cast into an eternal fire. I just don't understand that type of thinking. Shouldn't these inconsistencies be questioned rather than somehow being relegated to slights against the religon. I believe in Jesus and he is the son sent from God only apparently I see him as being much more loving and kind then alot of so called Christians.

Answer 1

Most Christians I know do believe this way but more mature Christians like Billy Graham often change and say they expect to see more religions represented in heaven. I believe that when He, Jesus, says no one enters except through me means that He decides and not us. Not that if you don't know me by the name of Jesus you are doomed. I believe He would come to anyone under any name if that person were seeking truth and God. I guess what I mean is It is the big choice choose God or not but not so much dogma and such but between each individual and God. I do however see Jesus as a perfect revelation of God's love and His Son and my savior and think it is easier seek God's love and forgiveness for believers in Him. It seems to me with other religions you are required to be obedient at all times and there isn't as much about redemption and change after meeting the Lord as in Christianity.

Answer 2

I was raised a catholic. We only did the holiday thing. I have since become Baptist and I am thirsty for knowledge of Jesus Christ. I had a friend die this summer from alcoholism. He wasn't religious. What I have learned is that you must have a relationship with Jesus. If Jesus doesn't know you. Literally know you, from prayer etc. Then you will not be allowed into heaven. You must work on a relationship. You are not granted a free pass and it is taken away if you are bad. You have to earn it. You have to be on the list, by name. It made me sad to think that my friend didn't go to heaven because he didn't have a relationship with Jesus. I don't think he needs to be in hell, but there is no other options. If you are religious and want to follow Jesus then you cannot make the rules. He made the rules and we have the choice to follow him. You cannot bargain with him. He does as he pleases. If you read your bible, you will learn that God is not always good and just and loving. That is why people "fear God" He does and will punish you.

Answer 3

Those who do not come to God in The Way He prescribes, and only in The Way He prescribes, will be eternaly seperated from God. What the experience of that seoeration will be is a subject of debate not affecting any ones Salvation. But the results of rejecting God(not comeing to Him as He prescribes) will not be good for sure... There are only two choices... Acceptance or rejection...and mankind dose not get to make up how the acceptance is accomplished... God had prescribed The Way... Follow God's rules or suffer the concequences.

Answer 4

Yes, there is such a "place" called Hell, but those who end up there do so more out of the choices they have made in their lives.

Regarding what the Catholic Church says about non-Christians:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation

Answer 5

Jesus came to save people from hell, not send them there.

Hell is just a name given to an eternity of being separated from God. This is the choice made by people not wanting to be near Him.

It's not God's choice.

1 Tim 2:3-4
3 This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4 who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.
(from New International Version)


John 6:39-40
39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."
(from New International Version)

If they pick another god or savior , then they can depend on them for eternity. It's simply a matter of free will.

Answer 6

There is no such thing as eternal torture. The Bible says the meek will inherit the earth and the bad will be destroyed for ever. Psalms 37:11, 29

Answer 7

I would never join any religion that believes, for example, that all 6,000,000 Jews murdered in Hitler's concentration camps are all in Hell suffering torment forever. Any god or trinity or whatever that has that as one of it's basic tenets is not one I would have anything to do with. I was born Jewish and I remain Jewish and I will die Jewish. We have our own place we go after death and the best thing about it is that no Christians will be there.

Answer 8

I am a believer in the place called "Purgatory". God's "mud room". I think we all face the Judgment at the Last Day. I think that a loving God grants second chances. I think that being face to face with the Almighty Creator of the Universe will convince many. Only the people who reject Him at that time will be condemned...and deserve to be with the devil and his apostate angels in hell.

Answer 9

In my mind, God is gracious, merciful and forgiving. Tho some churches (not mentioning which one; but most of us know which one it is) threaten their parishoners with eternal damnation, I believe God has a hold on all of us whether we ask Him to or not. If a mass murderer can confess and ask for forgiveness and absolution on the eve of his/her death and receive it; I cannot believe that God overlooks the rest of humanity.

Answer 10

there is not eternal punishement. The eternal fires suggested in Revelation represent the purifying of evil and victory over evil. people who do not beleive in Jesus Christ are not getting punished for eternity. They get judged interior the resurrection of the purely and unjust. Then in the event that they are stumbled on unjust, they go through the 2d loss of existence meaning they quit to exist continuously. they don't go through. the actual God isn't into suffering. however the devil needs all of us to think of that the actual God punishes and makes human beings go through so he has arranged issues so as that the actual God gets the blame and accuses the actual God of inflicting suffering while that's the devil who does all that. The be conscious 'hell' which maximum human beings go at the same time with the ternal suffering surely ability the grave and represents being ineffective. all of us who's alive dies. all of us pass to 'hell' in a fashion. whether, while the top has come and all the scriptures are fulfilled, there will be the judgement and the 2d loss of existence for people who elect to serve the devil. This refers to those that sell out to the devil. i will see no scripture that pertains to those that in basic terms stick to him for a on the same time as yet do not sell out being given the 2d loss of existence. the only unforgivable sin is to sell out to the devil (blasphemy of the spirit).