What part of Jesus saying said "Not everyone who says to Me, “Lord, Lord,” shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but
he who does the will of My Father in heaven" is unclear? Reading only what we want to see, perhaps?
If I do my best to
do the will of God, then yes, I think I DO have a better “chance”, as it were, of making it to heaven, than someone who looks but does not see, and hears but does not listen. One example: Conservative Christians have been proven to donate more to charity even when adjusting for non-religious institutional giving.
ABC News reported the following:
“ …the single biggest predictor of whether someone will be charitable is their religious participation.
Religious people are more likely to give to charity, and when they give, they give more money: four times as much. And Arthur Brooks told me that giving goes beyond their own religious organization:
“Actually, the truth is that they’re giving to more than their churches,” he says. “The religious Americans are more likely to give to every kind of cause and charity, including explicitly non-religious charities.”
The differences in charity between secular and religious people are dramatic. Religious people are 25 percentage points more likely than secularists to donate money (91 percent to 66 percent) and 23 points more likely to volunteer time (67 percent to 44 percent). And, consistent with the findings of other writers, these data show that practicing a religion is more important than the actual religion itself in predicting charitable behavior. For example, among those who attend worship services regularly, 92 percent of Protestants give charitably, compared with 91 percent of Catholics, 91 percent of Jews, and 89 percent from other religions. Those who think government should do more to redistribute income are less likely to give to charitable causes, and those who believe the government has less of a role to play in income redistribution tend to give more. Finally, people who couple and raise children are more likely to give philanthropically than those who do not. The more children there are in a family, the more likely that a family will donate to charity. One of Brooks’s most controversial findings was that political conservatives give more, despite having incomes that are on average 6 percent lower than liberals. Per Arthur Brooks
The typical no-faith American donated just $200 in 2006, which is more than seven times less than the amount contributed by the prototypical active-faith adult ($1500). Even when church-based giving is subtracted from the equation, active-faith adults donated twice as many dollars last year as did atheists and agnostics. In fact, while just 7% of active-faith adults failed to contribute any personal funds in 2006, that compares with 22% among the no-faith adults. From the Barna Group
If you really want to discuss whether or not Allah is a rational being, read the Koran, then read the bible. Comprehend what each is saying, in context, and compare the consistency with the two.
Further, Mohammed was a man. He was buried. Where would one find the bones of Christ? Or His Mother? Surely, for a religion as bent on artifacts and sacramentals as Christianity, they ought to be known and held high, right?
As far as the Flying Spaghetti Monster goes, really?
Really? :ehh:We have given you sound arguments, based, if nothing else, in the historical record, and that’s the best the atheist movement can come up with? Or to quote Homer Simpson as a way to refute the work of someone as brilliant as Pascal? He whose development of probability theory is extremely important in economics, especially in actuarial science? Pascal is regarded as “one of the most important authors of the French Classical Period and is read today as one of the greatest masters of French prose.
The content of his literary work is best remembered for its strong opposition to the rationalism of René Descartes and simultaneous **assertion that the main countervailing philosophy, empiricism, was also insufficient for determining major truths.” **
It’s almost insulting, really.
Finally, if, for example, the miracles of the resurrection and ascension and everything else associated with Christianity did NOT happen, then something even more farfetched did:
Twelve uneducated men came up with a tale of miracles, death, and resurrection, and a protagonist so compelling that thousands of people, over the course of 2000 years, would be willing to die for it. That story caused good things to happen, eg women being considered equal under the law to men, and is responsible for much of the western world. (Like it or not, Christianity
is responsible for the majority of things we take for granted in the western world.) You can claim, if you like, that in the name of the christian religion, barbaric things have been done, and it would be nothing but true. However, how many people have been killed by atheists? Mao, Stalin, and Pol Pot come to mind, and in light of them, the numbers affected by even the most wild accusations against Christianity pale in comparison.
. The goats and sheep will instead be separated based on a compassion test (I was hungry and you gave me to eat.) How do you know that you are more compassionate than those you are conversing with on the internet? What makes you think that you have a better shot at heaven than I do or any other nonbeliever?
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