Reply #24: Perhaps, but I have a few issues

[MikeH]

One thing that has bothered me is that according to much Christian teaching, particularly fundamentalist and evangelical teaching, one can only be forgiven or "saved" if one accepts Jesus Christ during this lifetime. If a person, for whatever reason, misses out on accepting Christ in this lifetime, then that person is out of luck, according to some people.

One scenario that has bothered me is that of a murder victim being unsaved, and supposedly going to hell, and the murderer later accepts Christ, say in prison, and goes to heaven.

And I cannot accept that people of other religions, or people who never hear of Christ, are going to hell because they don't accept Christ.

And even after accepting Christ for myself, I could never accept or feel comfortable with the idea that somebody else's salvation or eternal destiny might depend on my telling that person about Christ. I could never want to tell somebody else about Christ believing that and based on that motivation.

Even if I can accept that people are ultimately saved through Christ, I cannot accept that such salvation depends on the circumstances of a person explicitly hearing about, understanding, and coming to accept Christ in this lifetime.

Actually I am not a Christian any more, so I don't worry so much about these issues any more. I am not a Christian any more mainly because I feel that Christianity was not of help to me personally, as I explained in a post on another thread.

Thus I am off the hook as far as any obligation to tell others about Christ.:) I don't think I have any obligation to tell others about Christ, who was not of any help to me in this lifetime, but who *supposedly* has saved me from going to hell in the next life (but which one would have no way of verifying; the only warrant for believing it is because it is in a book which is *supposed* to be the infallible "Word of God" but was actually written by fallible humans and is fallible just like anything else).

Edited to add: If God loves me, as Christians claim, then He accepts me where I am as far as Christianity is concerned.:)