I have a question aimed at the theists on this board, for which I will hopefuly attain a logical answer for.

Hypothetically speaking:

I am a billionaire and I give up 99.5% of my wealth to the poor inhabitants of the third-world countries (not necessarily the corrupt governments within them), hoping to inspire other billionaires to do the same. I not only give up my wealth, but I also travel to all of these countries personally, and make sure that the wealth is administered correctly, and that brand new hospitals and other necessary infrastructure is developed. I am also a strong advocate against war - any kind of war, and I use my money within the political sphere to inspire governments to divert the majority of their military spending, toward medical research, and anti-poverty initiatives. To put simply, I am Mother Teresa on steroids. I single-handedly help the world more than any one person or group of people have ever done, since the very evolution of mankind.

HOWEVER. I despise religion, and I despise the notion of ANY type of deity. Every country I travel to, I personally make sure to "spread the word" about the evil and poison that the idea of God is. I make sure that everyone I help, not only knows, but begins to believe that notions of God are the worst thing to ever happen to humanity. I am not subtle about it either. I blatantly advocate the removal of "faith" - across all imaginable connotations.

My question is. If I was to die tomorrow - judging by the words written in the Bible or the Quran - would I be put in hell? or heaven? and why?

Hypothetically speaking:

God would fork you over royally for not singing his praises.

Because he is a "jealous God".

You're a sinner like everyone else, and you'd go to Hell. Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice for sin. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."(John 3:16) You need Jesus.

I'm Christian, and this is based on the Bible.

So what you're telling me is - Regardless of how moral you are. Regardless of how much good you to do the world. Regardless of how many people you help (even when you've helped more people than Jesus himself did). If you do not believe, it counts for nothing...

That is the deal they cooked up.

You should never question your worthiness and base your path on others judgements. It's a highly complicated matter but first step is learning more about spirituality and self-empowerment. I might suggest reading a little bit into the guidelines of Odinism for some knowledge. I am not an Odinist but I like to read about lots of different theologies. Theirs is quite old and very interesting.

You should not base your path on others judgements? If a doctor tells you that you have cancer, you should not base your path on his judgement?

Yet if you killed millions of people but accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savior you're in!

Bingo!

No I don't think the contrary applies. You have to be moral AND believe. You can't have just one or the other. It's a double requirement unfortunately.

Nope.

Romans 10:9-10 If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.

Believe it or not.

That is the deal they cooked up.

I think it evolved.

My apologies. Single requirement. Morality does not come into it AT ALL. Hmmm.....I was hoping that its kind of like a points system, where you accumulate points for doing good onto others, and then you receive another 50% of the points at the end, for just believing. Silly me.

Of course it counts. So does sin.

Wizard-50 -

As I recall, you never were able to give a coherent account of your own theology on what is required for salvation. Have you had a revelation since that thread, or are you still just saying random stuff w/ no real meaning, much less justification?

You're contradicting yourself. In your previous post - in answer to my question - you said that it doesn't count and you said that my hypothetical person would go to hell. The hypothetical person did as much "good" to others as is possible, and the hypothetical person was the most moral person of all mankind, yet he would go to hell - because he despises the notion of God.

HOW does it count, if he goes to hell, regardless of his good deeds on earth?

Are you actually blind to your blatant contradiction here?

Yes! Praise the Lord! Jesus overcomes all of it. Probably the best example of this is Saint Paul, who was a Pharisee and, for lack of a better term, professional Christian killer.

Followed by the next few verses about his salvation through Jesus.

Nah.
The way it works is that you believe, and confess.
You are recreated spiritually, and the spirit of God comes to dwell inside of you.
You can't earn salvation. Jesus already earned it.
You just receive the inheritance.

Good works, however, do play a role, but not as a legalistic requirement; rather-- you are imparted a desire for good works, and communion with God.
You really can't help but do good.

And if you don't believe, then you don't receive the inheritance...

Isn't that essentially the same as 'earning' the inheritance? You adopt a belief, you get rewarded for it. Whether you use the word 'receive' or 'earn' for this reward is irrelevant to my argument, and I'm not interested in debating semantics regardless.

Glad to hear that you also agree with us, when we say that morality is not a requirement to get into heaven.

Saying that - you really can't help but to do good if you are in communion with God/if you believe - is rather nonsense, as the myriad of priests involved in sexual scandals is growing yearly.

I think there is a fundamental flaw in your scenario that you are overlooking. You have postulated a situation and then asked "Heaven or Hell?, which is fine but given your question you have to assume the existence of a God that makes such a judgement (or the question is meaningless). Essentially then, a Biblical God. Under that assumption, your hypothetical individual did not achieve as much "good" as possible. What he did was use his extreme wealth to provide material, earthly benefit to people, but used the influence he gained to turn them away from God to the maximum extent possible. The loss of that contact with God would be a great "evil" for those people, one that might well result in the loss of their souls. Assuming then that there is a God and a Heaven and a Hell, I would think your hypothetical individual could have a great deal to answer for.

That is the reason why I do not try to tell people what to believe. More specifically, if I were an atheist I would not try to tell people to abandon a belief in God unless I could show with absolute certainty that God could not exist. I would not want the responsibility for their outcome on my final balance sheet.

IMO this is a hugely flawed hypothetical. The only person who can judge one way or the other would be God. Nobody on 2p2 would have any idea one way or the other. There are way too many specifics and any answer you get is meaningless imo.

If this thread was aimed at finding out different theists views on salvation then carry on, but I think there are better tactics than this.

Yes. And so is the myriad of atheists who molest children, and the myriad of liberals who murder innocent people, and the myriad of people who die from car crashes, and etc etc.

If you want to be a dupe for the media, then be a dupe.

The most common place children are sexually abused are at home, by family members.
Not at church.
The next most likely place is the classroom by a teacher.
Priests are statistically on the bottom of the list.

What if someone cannot believe? Can then still accept it? Can you take a cosmic freeroll and say 'I don't really believe this but Imma say I do anyway' and still get in?

What list? Do you have some sort of list? They would only be on the bottom compared to teachers and parents because there are so many less priests. I'd like to see a per capita.

I have looked into this some and it is not easy to find because there is a lot of emotional manipulation going on in both directions. The numbers you can find are around 2-4% of priests depending on the source which is similar to other denominations and the general population. It is probably under-reported in priests as well as in the general population so the frequency is probably higher.

The Catholic Church has handled this very badly, no doubt about it. But if you are a parent and you think keeping your kids away from priests will protect them, you are kidding yourself. Pedophiles go where the kids are so teachers, daycare providers, scout masters, etc. are all possibilities as well as clergy of any faith.

I raised three kids without incident. The key imo is to be visible to those who interact with your kids. Pedophiles tend to target kids that are in some way isolated from their parents, for obvious reasons. Not really interested in advocating for or against religion. Just being realistic.