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Who gets into heaven (assuming there is one)?

A group for members of all religions, or no religion at all, to talk about religion

  1. I would say that God can use anyone to speak a word of truth into someone else's life, but that doesn't necessarily make them a "prophet" or give them the gift of prophecy.

    No, I haven't.

    This is very problematic to me. I've never heard of such a thing. The Bible is clear that it is the Holy Spirit who distributes these gifts. He doesn't need us to anoint people and lay hands on them and pray a spiritual gift into their life.

    Idk either. That all sounds very strange to me, and I'm not sure where they got that idea from, but it probably wasn't the Bible.

    I try not to judge too much, because maybe I'm wrong, and maybe God is totally on board with everything they're doing. But it feels like playing God to me, rather than allowing the Spirit to give you whatever He decides to give you.
     
  2. I'd be interested to see what scriptures those are.

    Says who? I've never heard of that in the word.

    Well, that can be true. Sometimes people might not realize they have a gift. It's always good to encourage people if you see a certain gift in them, so they remember to use that gift. But idk, this sounds different to me. But maybe I'm just understanding it wrong.

    Idk, I've never heard of them, and I've been a Christian my whole life.

    That just seems different to me. That's like a specific call from God, not some institution. It was like a mentor/mentee relationship that was directed and encouraged by God, not a school teaching people how to prophesy.

    But anyway, I dont want to go back and forth about this forever. I can't say with certainty that anyone is or isn't a "real Christian" or whether or not they're doing the right thing. Maybe God has directed them to do that, or maybe not. It doesn't seem right to me, but I dont know everything.
     
  3. It's not something that's done all the time at my church, but it's not discouraged or anything. Basically we are open to whatever God wants.
     
  4. Yeah, that sounds weird. I've never encountered anyone speaking in tongues. My mom says shes spoken in tongues before, in private during prayer, but I've never personally encountered it, that I can remember. Maybe once or twice.
     
  5. I see both of those (prophecy and speaking in tongues) as things that come out naturally, through the spirit, not something that should be forced or organized. Like "alright everybody, now it's time for us to speak in tongues and prophesy" is not right.
     
  6. It's not
     
  7. Yeah, that's the norm in a lot of charismatic denominations. I've never been a fan of them. I believe my church is associated with the Calvary chapel. My old church that I grew up in was part of the Christian Missionary Alliance.
     
  8. I do know what that means, and no I haven't ever seen that happen. I'm not 100% sure if I really believe that's even a real thing.
     
  9. I dont believe it's the holy spirit. I believe its likely either just themselves (a placebo effect) or possibly something demonic in nature. We have a church like that here, and I've been to it once, and I felt extremely uncomfortable, spiritually. It did not feel like a place where the holy spirit was present, to me. Quite the opposite. But again, this is just my opinion and I could be wrong. I dont really have the time to do an extensive biblical study on this right now, but I would recommend you look at what the Bible says about this stuff, not just what I say.
     
  10. Hm... I'm a little fuzzy on whether or not the Bible backs up this view, but personally, just using my own logic, I would say that Satan's ultimate goal is to deceive us away from Jesus and salvation. So if giving someone peace and a warm, fuzzy feeling will deceive them into believing a lie, that migh subsequently lead to further lies that will draw them away from God, why wouldn't he do that?

    Just as God doesn't necessarily care about keeping us away from harm all the time, because he is more concerned with the state of our souls, I believe Satan works the same way. Sometimes God allows us to go through hard things, even though He cares about us, because those hard things lead us closer to Him and mightily greatly and positively effect our eternity. So why wouldn't Satan allow us to be happy and feel good, if it will ultimately end in our destruction? What's a little buzz of warm fuzzy feelings in comparison to an eternity of suffering? Seems like a good trade for him, from my perspective.
     
  11. Honestly, I'm not 100% sure on that. To me it makes sense that they have that power, but I dont know.

    Also, "good" is subjective. Something that feels good isn't necessarily good for you (i.e. drugs and junk food). So if being "slain in the spirit" feels good, or being healed of some ailment feels good, but ultimately leads to your demise, then is it really "good" after all?

    The same could be said for bad things. If something seemingly bad happens to you, but ultimately it leads you to seek God further and find lasting joy and peace, then was that "bad" thing really so "bad"?
     
  12. I have no idea, but God certainly allows Satan to have power. The book of Job shows us that plain as day.
     
  13. No problem! Again, though, I encourage you to study the word. Dont take my word for it, because I could always be wrong.
     
  14. I dont remember exactly. I knew someone who went to their "school of ministry" and they told me all about it, but it was a while ago, so I dont remember the details. But it was weird stuff that to me just sounded like trying to teach someone how to be psychic or something. Like trying to guess how many fingers you're holding up behind your back or something, and I remember something involving dice. Idk. A whole bunch of stuff that's not in the Bible, thats for sure. The only appropriate way to teach someone how to receive prophetic words is to teach them how to listen to God, to improve their relationship with Him and teach them how to hear His voice and pay attention to what He has to say. You dont need anything more than that. All of that extra fluff is taking something God-given and trying to make it man-made. Its trying to do it on your own, in your own power, and it's a corruption of God's gift. In my opinion.

    I'll PM you some more information.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 5, 2018
  15. Eh, even that last bit sounds weird to me. There's no need for that. God gives us what we need when we need it. He's not to be tested like a ouiji board or something. If He has a word to give someone, He might choose to speak that through a prophet or through some other means. I don't see why we need to employ all these other things instead of just letting God do what Hes going to do and following Him. We are not the leaders here, demanding that He give us words or follow us in our plans to prophesy that day or whatever.
     
  16. Fightyourlowerself

    Fightyourlowerself Fapstronaut

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    Hi all,

    My understanding (I am not an expert) of all this (from an orthodox Islamic perspective) is that anyone can theoretically get into heaven because there's only a small number of beings that have specifically been condemned (by god) to hell (the ones I can think of the top of my head are Satan/Lucifer, The Pharaoh mentioned in the scriptures (the one whom drowned when the sea was split) and one of the uncles of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) known as 'Abu Lahub'). Other than this and a few other specific people in history there's no restriction as to who can get in as no body knows what belief a person might hold in their mind/heart.

    I was also taught that there is a legitimate difference of opinion amongst the experts who study theology about one concept - "has the clear/pristine/unbiased message of god's religion reached the people"? which links to the point in the first post about not everyone having an equal opportunity to do this.

    One group (of experts) argue no because of all the lies /misinformation / misconceptions regarding religions in the world today. As a result they say that anyone can go to heaven without needing to follow the religion because in the Quran there is a verse along the lines of "god doesn't punish a people up until the message reaches them" so these experts use this as the basis for their opinion. They say unless someone (who is competent) has explained the religion properly to the people, the people wont be blamed for not following it.

    But other experts in this field argue any rational person should be able to contemplate by themselves and at least prove through logic alone (very important - not using scriptures like Bible/Quran) that there is one supreme being e.g. through the argument by design, ontological argument, first cause argument etc. So they argue to get into heaven people must believe in the supreme being at least even if they don't find his religion. Other experts also dispute this because someone may go through their whole life never really thinking about it and it would seem unfair to be punished for this.

    This is why there are differences of opinion regarding who can get in.

    Hope that helps a little bit. sorry if this confuses anyone. Please let me know if I can clarify anything better.

    I wish you all the best in your lives.
     
  17. 007_JamesBond

    007_JamesBond Fapstronaut

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    I have been to hundreds of seances from many different mediums. I went to a séance where I heard the spirit guide Evening Star say, “What is heaven for one person is hell for another.” For some people opera is heaven, for others it is hell. For some people rock ‘n roll is heaven, for others it is hell. For some people streets of gold are heaven, for others they want natural beauty and animals. We are unique individuals and we also get bored so heaven needs variety, freedom of expression and opportunity. For some engineers heaven would be to continue to research their field.
     

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