re: #606 freedom_fighter

It is not “pride” to believe that because one lives a good and decent life one should qualify for any positive afterlife (if it exists). Actually, I think the word for that belief is “faith.” Just because that faith is not the same as yours certainly doesn’t make it “pride.” But thanks for helping to illustrate the arrogance that clouds the hearts of those who see the world this way.

What faith is it that believes that a person who lives a good and decent life qualifies for a positive afterlife (heaven)? Interestingly that is a belief of a large number of people. A great read is a short 90 page book by Andy Stanley called “How Good is Good Enough” and sheds very interesting light on the “good enough” theory. If the good enough theory is true…

1) Who or what has given us the standard of how much is good enough?
2) Is this standard published anywhere? If I am banking my eternity on being good enough, I’d like to know what the standard is and how I meet it.
Questions that are answered quite well in the book.

I find it to be morally incoherent that people who have conducted themselves with scrupulous kindness and altruistic care for their fellow human beings should be sent to eternal torment in the absence of an embrace of a religious dogma, while serial killers and mass murderers can make a deathbed or pre-execution conversion and be gifted with a slot in Heaven.