Reply #102: You make some good points :)

[Zebedeo]

"what's in your heart matters the most. So you want people to be faithful because they WANT to be faithful." Agreed.

"Hell is always much more heavily emphasized than heaven" Not in my church.

"It terrifies people, and rightly so." Agreed.

"when people are motivated by fear, it gets in the way of sincerity and enthusiasm." Agreed.

"How many Christians are Christians because they love what Christianity stands for, and not because they're afraid?" Billions and billions, over the centuries.

"Their faith is rooted in fear" I think you are far too dismissive of the possibility that fundamentalists are sincere in their faith. Your statement is a generalization about a group of "others," and I think here you fall into the trap of ascribing insincerity and shallow motives to this group of people. It is easy to say such things about a group of people that have different beliefs than you, or beliefs that you do not understand.

"How do people who never heard of Christianity end up in Hell? How is that justice? How do they end up in Heaven, if they never accepted Jesus as their savior, how do they end up in Hell, if they never even heard of Jesus?" Honestly, I've struggled with this question myself. There are many perspectives on this issue. One perspective is that this is the reason for evangelism and missionary work. It is of crucial importance to reach the lost, because otherwise, they will go to hell. Another perspective is that those who pre-dated Jesus' time walking the Earth were saved by faith in the future Messiah:

"For what does the Scripture say? "And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness." 4Now to the one who works, his wage is not reckoned as a favor, but as what is due. 5But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness, 6just as David also speaks of the blessing upon the man to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works: 7"Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, and whose sins have been covered. 8"Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account" (Rom. 4:3-8).

Keep in mind also that no one goes to Hell as punishment for "missing out" on the opportunity to become a Christian. Hell is punishment for sinning - rebelling against God. So if there is a person who never has the opportunity to hear the Gospel, they do not go to Hell for that reason. If they go, they go as a result of having violated God's law.