Question about antitheists and salvation

Will God save antitheists? From my perspective antitheists are people who have been gutted by religion(either by people or life etc etc).

So let’s say a teen Christian hits rock bottom in life. He blames all the misfortunes that happened to God and that he didn’t help him trough it. He is hurt inside. He grows up hating God and not repenting. Will he end up in heaven?

Can we really know who will end up in heaven in the end?

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I don’t think we have the knowledge needed to make that judgement and actually shouldn’t be trying to.

It is the Gnostic gospel that we are saved by our knowledge (“true beliefs”). The Christian gospel is that we are saved by the grace of God.

Well it is certainly my experience that many atheists have not bought into the idea of God for reasons of morality.

But people gutted by something typically avoid it. Becoming an evangelical crusader against beliefs you don’t agree with is an indulgence in an extreme form of religion.

What can you say to people who have been gutted by something so they turn around and gut others in a similar frenzy?

This is a choice that all victims have – repudiate what has been done to them by refraining to do so themselves, or to reaffirm what has been done to them by imitating it.

The fall of Adam and Eve repeated over and over again: If things go wrong… just find someone else to blame it on. Bad idea. It just makes thing far far worse.

No. Not without indulging in legalism which is not compatible with faith (Romans 10).

Walk on that kids shoes. Let’s say he is in a war. Lost his parents. His home. He cried tears every night in front of an icon of God(praying) He begged and begged. He lost his friends. Everything. Don’t you think he has the right to be angry?

If God is compassionate wouldn’t he understand? Wouldn’t God explain to him when he sees him that all that happened for X or y reason? Wouldn’t God welcome him home like the good father he is?

I was an opponent of this. But I hope universalism is true.

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Why not though?

Sure. But the choice of actions do not automatically follow. Understanding why people do something is not the same as saying it is justified.

Of course.

But I don’t believe that hell is something God does to people, but rather something that people do to themselves. Same after life as it is on earth.

A lot of people here feel the same way.

Alas… I have reason to fear that it is not true.

Hopeful about everyone is a great place for a Christian to be. And one can be so without having to make any dogmatic pronouncements about it (either way) on God’s behalf as if we had ever been called to do that in the first place. Hoping that anybody is eternally damned on the other hand … There is at least one named character in the Bible who pursues that adversarial goal. And it isn’t God. Occasionally, or often, we may feel that way towards some, but we should never doubt which of the two aforementioned characters we are better off trying to pattern ourselves after.

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It just seems to weird to me. If God is like a loving Father why wouldn’t he do such thing? I mean it’s his child. He went through a lot. He got hurt way too much. All he needed at the end was love and a hug from his father who thought he didn’t help or that he wasn’t there.

Any loving father in this world would break in tears and hug his child with love welcoming him home ,despite the child hating him(which in his mind the hate was justifiable and it seemed so).

There are many people like the example above in this world. I refuse to believe they all are going to be condemned

judge not lest you be judged

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?

various verses about Jesus as the judge

If there is a verse that tells us to judge other people I can’t seem to recall it.

The loving and longing parent is one of the greatest images of God we are presented in scriptures, I think. Imagine being a father yourself - with a large family. But some of your own children decide they hate some others of their brothers and sisters because they did something that hurt each other. The loving Father wants all his children to love each other - but now that sin and hatred has come in between some of them, what is the Father supposed to do? Since He loves his family, he absolutely loathes the sin that has crept in to split them apart, so the Father resolves to destroy that sin so that His family can be whole and together again. Because for some of his kids not to love each other also necessarily makes a fissure in their relationship with Him too. So the sin must go - and any that cling to it instead of to the love that God wants them to live by - they must be forced to endure whatever separation or loss or consequence (hell fire even) that their sin brings about. They are powerless to undo their sin for themselves, but the loving Father will not leave them enslaved to it. He will have them back - and have them back cleansed and as joyful children again. He’s already made it clear that there is no price he won’t pay in order to see this through. For all His children. When somebody is smitten by love, there is no circumstance they will allow to come between them and the beloved - or… almost. God won’t force or coerce His beloved to “behave the way required” or “love God back the same, or else!” Because such coercion is not love at all. God doesn’t want our servile fear that grovels for fear of offense. He wants our freely given love and joyful relationship. And to those ends, God let’s nothing go to waste. Even all the evil and hell we make for each other - as much as that grieves God, our suffering also ends up shaping us in ways that can be used by God as it becomes part of our story, and our scars end up softening us toward showing grace to others. It’s hard when wounds are still fresh, though. And loss and grief very real.

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Not always . See the whole bible takes this stance that “Humans bad,God good always” . To me this is strange really.Its never Gods fault but ours. We deserve nothing and God did everything fpr us

I remember Moses changing Gods mind. Maybe God isnt perfect.And thats fine?I dont understand why this needs to be heretical saying God isnt perfect.

So i dont quite agree with all the text you brought up. God as a judge would judge the children who hurt the rest.Either that or disciplines them . A good father would have brouth them up in such a way that they would never hirt their siblings.Yet thats not the case

That isn’t what Genesis says. Not only is God’s creation good - but humanity is very good! What happened in the third chapter does not undo or negate what God already did. Aside from a few spots where an anthropomorphized God vents frustration over our rebellion and “repents of making something” - the whole of scriptures do not give us leave to think that sin has somehow re-made creation into a bad thing (a few strange and unscriptural YEC notions aside about that). If it had - that would be news to the psalmists, the prophets, and the later apostles who are all about redeeming a creation that must then be … worthwhile to redeem.

Doesnt the bible repeatedly reminsa that we are failure and our sin impacted this world etc etc?

If it didnt why its needed ti be redeemed?

Because of what we’ve done with our freedom. It isn’t because creation is bad. It’s because we do evil things.

as God knew the outcome already he would have known that moses would plead to him and that his response would illustrate his mercy to his people, so no, you can’t change his mind.

And no, if you do not repent you cannot accept forgiveness from someone that you claim not to have the authority to forgive, so we are our own stumbling block by denying Gods authority.over us.

Is Love competent in the transcendent - which is absolutely impossible to envisage except theoretically ethically unbound by our pathetic literalism, our being constipated on meaningless words - or not?

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Its always thpse who do the least bad that are suffering from the evil things the other people do.God gave us too much freedom if you ask me. He cant do that .
Just as a father has rules and limits God shouldve have done the same.Instead Gods turns a blind eye when these rules are beign broken . If this is freedom i dont want it.If this is how God reacts to his children blaming them even though they brothers hurt them he is no loving Father. I just thought there would be someone here to agree with me in my statements above or something.I guess im special in my opinions. Christians dont want to criticize their God and sympathize with a broken soul who was one of them.

If i was still a christian and someone raised these concerns i would have hugged them and say “I understand”.Because i really do . And i do think if God exists that he will let these people and others back home . He would save them no matter what. He wont leave them because he understands

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I dont know.Is it? Maybe

I do really hear you on that one, Nick. It’s easy for some to elevate freedom as the highest of all pursuits. But would they trade away at least part of that freedom to get a loaf of bread if they were starving? Or to put an end to terrible suffering or loneliness or loss that they or others are currently enduring? Anybody who gives a flippant answer to that - pretending that freedom is paramount over all, is somebody not currently suffering any of those things.

And conversely - anybody who gives a flippant answer that they would easily give up freedom for some security or bread, is probably not somebody who has suffered under real tyranny.

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Well you got really deep here. So what are we left to do? At least you understand my concenrs right and why do i feel this why.I think its justifiable.Thanks for understyanding

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