According to your beliefs, which one of these people has a better chance to go to heaven?

Question

1. Criminal Joe - a child molester and mass killer of 18 - who spent 22 years on death row and while awaiting execution found Jesus and honestly, and wholeheartedly accepted him as his personal savior - and asked forgiveness for his sins before dying.

2. Citizen Joe - some poor shmuck who, while doing his taxes, blasphemed the Holy Spirit.

Answer 1

Hmmm...well, they'll both go to the afterlife...Citizen Joe, even though he's a poor shmuck, will have a better time on the next level because at least he won't have to pay taxes. As for that blaspheming of the Holy Spirit, just what is that?...no one has been able to clearly, precisely, and consistently define it for me. And....do we really know if Citizen Joe even believes in a holy spirit (if not, it would be impossible to do the blaspheme thing)?....now, let's suppose that CitJ does believe in this holy spirit; the god of the heaven would have to be petty, small, and spiteful if it doesn't let in a blasphemer of one its three parts (which brings me to a different matter entirely...why three, etc.) ? In either case, Citizen Joe, after he rests up a bit, won't be such a poor shmuck in his next incarnation. "No more taxes. ~The Doll~
P.S. As for Criminal Joe, he'll also go to the afterlife but his next incarnation won't be as easy as Citizen Joe's. By the way, that last minute "I'm scared personal savior acceptance" (whatever that really is, since people of a certain religion invented it..and a high no. of people do it while in prision...) didn't help the families of the 18 dead and children molested or get CrJ out of jail.

Answer 2

According to my personal beliefs, neither individual will be subject to hell due to the actions that they partake in. In order for people to be punished or rewarded, for eternity, based on how they perform, for what they say, or for what they believe, you must believe in a creature that has the power to arbitrate the worth of an individual life, and then levy consequences for good and bad behavior for all eternity. Only theists can believe in such an immoral proposition, and only Christians, who devoutly follow their “Good Book” to the letter, would actually state that the person in scenario #2 would be more worthy of eternal perdition, for a verbal slip or a thought crime, over that of a murderer in scenario #1.

Yet, even in the case of a murderer, eternal punishment is unjust. No crime, no matter how egregious, merits unending pain. All crimes on this earth cause temporal pain and suffering, and that even includes murder. For someone to experience everlasting pain, without end, makes the punishment completely NOT commensurate to the crime. It would be the equivalent a judge, executing a man for double parking. Yet, even that analogy, doesn’t even begin to approximate the heinousness of eternal punishment, because, though the man’s punishment did not fit his crime, at least his punishment did not go on forever.

My point is simple. The doctrine of hell is fundamentally the most immoral doctrine ever propounded by religious people. It cannot be factual, and this is especially true if there is a JUST higher power. In either case it is improbable, and it is time that religious people discard with it. The very fact that so many people of faith adhere to the existence of hell, as fervently as they believe in heaven, underscores the fact that at the heart of religion, and especially Christianity and Islam, there is a rabid desire to take revenge against ones fellow man, and to elicit obedience through fear and not an appreciation of the truth.

Answer 3

Well, I believe that hell is just an absense from the god(s)/goddess, and that in order to get to heaven you must be reincarnated and reach a point of actualization.... SO, I don't think either one of these people have been described as actualizing.. however i really don't know enough about number two to know if he has self actualized, since I don't believe that blashemeing the holy spirit sends you to be reincarnated as a gnat....

Answer 4

NO#1

Answer 5

According to my beliefs..........

Criminal Joe would have a much better chance to go to heaven. He was converted.

But I believe that Citizen Joe also has a chance to be saved for: "The measure of God is different from the measure of Man."

Answer 6

I hate to break it to you, but that isn't the job of anyone on Earth... Christians will not be called to make the decision regarding who goes to heaven and what not.

Let me ask you a question...

Hitler killed 12 million in the camps, contributed to the deaths of literally 50 million people and left a legacy of hate that is still alive to this day. Do you think he should be able to die and that be the end of it?

Answer 7

It's not a toss up; like poker, playing your chances.
We must be fully commited to God and Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior; accept Jesus death on the cross to pay for our sins. The miracle of it is that we can be saved.
Turn your back on all sin immediately; don't play around with it like it won't kill you. Some sin kills immediately, other sin is slow death; bible says that full grown sin produces death.

Answer 8

Ephesians 2:8-9.

Answer 9

I think they'll both experience an afterlife, during which they'll both understand the nature of what they did wrong; I don't believe in hell (I'm Jewish), but I do believe that we have to come to grips with the things we did when we are in a place/space where we have greater understanding than what we are capable of seeing in this life. The notion that we see "through a glass, darkly" is one of the few things with which I agree with Paul (Saul of Tarsus); I believe in this plane of existence we are EXTREMELY limited.

Answer 10

Depends on who paid off St. Peter with biggest bribe.

Just kidding. Actually , Doll is closest to correct.