What happens to non-Christians when they die?

God is all love, but not all-loving.

The LORD tests the righteous and the wicked, And the one who loves violence His soul hates. - Psalm 11:5, NASB

Just as it is written, "JACOB I LOVED, BUT ESAU I HATED." - Romans 9:13, NASB

God did not create evil. Human did (And Satan helped). The Bible asserts numerous times that good works won't get you anywhere. God knew it was impossible for us to be "good" enough to get ourselves to Heaven, so He provided a way. God doesn't send anyone to Hell...people send themselves there.

I don't know what translation you use but KJV and NIV don't use the word evil.

Isa 45:7 I create both light and darkness; I bring both blessing and disaster. I, the LORD, do all these things.

As you can see it's disaster. Disaster and evil can be 2 very different things. Disaster is like the flood for example.

God is all love, but not all-loving.

The LORD tests the righteous and the wicked, And the one who loves violence His soul hates. - Psalm 11:5, NASB

Just as it is written, "JACOB I LOVED, BUT ESAU I HATED." - Romans 9:13, NASB

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God does not hate us, but our sin. It is against God's nature to hate us, because we are all His children. Does any parent hate their child? In the same way, God will always love us, no matter what we do.

My bad. KJV does use evil. Again though evil in what your trying to point to and evil meant by that passage as seen in many translations is different.

Originally posted by Neo
What do you believe happens to non-Christians when they die? If a Buddhist monk lives an exemplary life, devoting all of his time to helping others, will God send him to Hell for an eternity just because he didn't believe in Christ while he was alive?

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I don't have any opinion on this that reaches the level of a "belief". I started a thread on this called "Salvation and details" a few days back; the basic question I've always had is, if Christ's salvation is limited to those who know about him, how accurate do they have to be? Do you need to pronounce His name correctly? Do you need to know that he's the son of God? Does your faith need to be built around stories of a Jewish carpenter, or is it enough that you believe that God exists and is merciful?

I don't have these answers. I don't think anyone really does. Saying that the only way to salvation is through Jesus doesn't answer the question of whether you need to know of him to be saved; it just says that, if you're saved, it's because of his sacrifice.

For an interesting variant, ask yourself what happened to Abraham. He obviously never accepted Christ as his saviour, and we know that all humans sin.

Originally posted by Neo
What do you believe happens to non-Christians when they die?

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They die and their bodies are buried or cremated and their loved ones mourn their passing. Same thing happens to christians.

If a Buddhist monk lives an exemplary life, devoting all of his time to helping others, will God send him to Hell for an eternity just because he didn't believe in Christ while he was alive?

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Well, IF I believed in a god and heaven and all that, I would say that buddhist monk would be right near the front of the line to pass through the pearly gates! How someone can justify the notion that the Hitlers and Charlie Mansons of the world could get into heaven by ANY means and still think that a person who leads good life without the coercion of believing in the threats of hell won't get in to heaven is laughable, IMO.

No one said that believing in hell was the sole requirement for receiving eternal life & heaven. Accepting the message that Christ is your Lord & Savior because of his payment for your sin's penalties on the cross is the requirement.

Your idea of a someone living a "good life" appears to vary greatly from what God says a good life is. Which absolute standard of good were you appealing to when you boldly stated that someone lived a "good life" without getting to heaven? This is a logical impossibility, of course - if they were truly "good" they could walk in to heaven, and heaven would rejoice.

The idea that you could get into heaven with a totally holy God without paying the price for the disgusting sins that all have committed in their life is laughable, IMO.

Originally posted by Neo


Isaiah 45:7
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

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That is a bad interpretation on the part of the KJV. The word translated 'evil' here is the word Ra which can mean the following:

7451 ra` { rah}

from 7489; TWOT - 2191a,2191c

AV - evil 442, wickedness 59, wicked 25, mischief 21, hurt 20, bad 13, trouble 10, sore 9, affliction 6, ill 5, adversity 4, favoured 3, harm 3, naught 3, noisome 2, grievous 2, sad 2, misc 34; 663
Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon

I think the NKJV renders it better as 'calamity.'

God Bless

Originally posted by Neo

I used the KJV Bible, the hebrew word used in Isaiah is Rah, which translates to evil, not disaster.

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You need to learn the art and science of biblical interpretation. Looking up a word in the Hebrew and attributing the most commonly used interpretation for it is not how you go about translating a word. A word is translated by the context in which it is used. The panoply of scripture tells us that God can have nothing to do with evil and therefore He could not have created it. Evil is not an entity anyhow so how can it be created?

God Bless

Originally posted by jrmorganjr
No one said that believing in hell was the sole requirement for receiving eternal life & heaven. Accepting the message that Christ is your Lord & Savior because of his payment for your sin's penalties on the cross is the requirement.

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Ahhh, but what happens if you don't accept that message? You burn in hell for eternity, right? So if Hitler decided at the end of his life that he was afraid of going to hell for what he had done during his life, he was coerced into "accepting" jesus as saviour because he was afraid. Now if a buddhist monk who has done nothing to harm anyone in his life and who has lead a devout life in "his" religion dies without fear of going to hell, so he doesn't change his ways on his deathbed and god doesn't let him into heaven because he never believed then I think their is something wrong with the whole system. Who would you rather spend eternity in heaven with: Hitler or a buddhist monk? I know who I would choose.

Your idea of a someone living a "good life" appears to vary greatly from what God says a good life is. Which absolute standard of good were you appealing to when you boldly stated that someone lived a "good life" without getting to heaven? This is a logical impossibility, of course - if they were truly "good" they could walk in to heaven, and heaven would rejoice.

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So being "truly good" means accepting jesus, I assume? So if Charles Manson truly accepts jesus he will go to heaven with you because he is now "truly good" even though he was a horrible person before he accepted jesus?

The idea that you could get into heaven with a totally holy God without paying the price for the disgusting sins that all have committed in their life is laughable, IMO.

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What disgusting sins did the buddhist monk commit?

What happens to non-Christians when they die?

The same thing that happens to christians. They get buried. Or cremated as the case may be.

First, I believe when we get into heaven, our memories aren't erased. That would be awful. It would be like taking away my identity.

Second, the non-Chirstians in this thread believe "good people" are good enough for heaven. Wrong. One measly sin, can seperate us, because the presecnece of God is to be holy. The Grace of God isn't limited to only good people. Many propstitutes, robbers, murderers, etc, etc... have turned to Christ for salvation and turned away from their old ways. If Hitler sincerely turned to Christ before the nazi regime, there wouldn't of been a nazi regime. If Hitler turned to Christ after his nazi regime, then he is in need of Jesus soo much more. God wants EVERYONE to be in heaven with him. I think it's wrong to say Hitler doesn't deserve Heaven, of Manson doesn't deserve heaven. Because, no one desreves heaven. You, me, The Pope. None of us deserve heaven. But God has given us all a gift. The Gift of salvation! What must we do? Simply accept it. No one can enjoy a gift wihtout first accepting it. Again, none of us deserve heaven, but by the Grace of God, some are given heaven.

Third, how do we become saved? Well for me, I prayed to God, asking him to send Jesus into my heart. I guess become saved can be a mind change, of finally realizing 'you' (me, whoever) need Jesus. Realzing Jesus is 'your' savior, and/or realizing you need the Grace of God. Whosoever believes in Jesus sahll not perish. Believe. And you will be saved. Good works will follow believeing, and so will wanting to follow God's will. It's a wonderful thing!

Fourth, free will created evil, not God. That's like saying, God created the AIDS virus. He didn't. Man did. He 'allows' the AIDS virus, and he allows evil. Because he uses both for the better good eventually. I'm sure many AIDS patients who were on their deathbed, realized their end was coming, and accepted Jesus. Now they are enjoying the presence of God in heaven. I think Satan is angered all the time, because his evil ways are always being twisted for the better by God. I don't know exactly why God allows evil, but I do know, God has our best interests in mind. I do know, that his plan is infalliable, and he knows what to do. I trust him.

Fifth, peace out.

Exactly! But, you wouldn't realize that when you're there, since you won't have a memory. How else will God make us forget about those in hell? I wouldn't want to be in heaven if I knew that my Buddhist friend was burning in hell.

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God won't erase our memories, if he did we'd all be robots. If he wanted all of ut be robots he wouldn't of given us free will. I don't know how God can do this wihtout erasing our memories, but he will. We are finite with out mind and our ideas, he is infinite.

Why did God make mankind so weak against sin and Satan?

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Mankind made themsevles weak to sin and satan. Once upon a time God and Mankind lives together, then man decided not to obey God. When they did that, they became even weaker to sin than before. Dis-obeying God makes us weak to sin and satan.

Hitler and the Nazi's were Catholics.

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But if they were saved, they would have the Holy Sprit convcicting them not to murder millions of jews. Either, Hitler had never recieved salvation, or he was mentall;y ill. People who are saved don't murder millions upon millions of people. The Bible clearly tells us not to.

Then why did God create Satan and Hell? Why didn't He give mankind the wisdom and strength to overcome sin in the beginning?

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God created Lucifer, one of the most beautiful angels. An arch angel. Then, Lucifer was filled with pride, and thought he should sit on the Throne of God. Then Lucifer became satan. Again, God didn't create satan, he created Lucifer. Lucifer, because of his own free will, created satan.

Originally hell was meant for the devil and his demons only.

And God did give us the wisdom and strength sesne the begining. But many people decide not to use their wisdom/strenght. Adam and Eve both had, to be blunt, dumb attacks. Ignorant attacks, and directly dis-obeyed God. We have the power to overcome sin, only with Jesus. Many people in the OT overcame sin. The sad thing is, many people want to give into sin. They like sin. Christians, God fearing people don't. Because they hate what God hates, sin.

If God is going to erase our memories in heaven, what kind of gift is that really? Will we forget all of the bad things that happened to us in life, and will we forget about the people we know who are burning for eternity in hell? These are questions that I've been struggling to answer.

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Your assuming the God erases our memories. I honestly believe he won't. Refer to what I wrote at the top of this post.

Didn't Jesus say that faith alone is not enough, and that we must do what the Father wants?

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Yup he did. But having sincere faith leads to doing what God wants. Good works are a manifestations of our salvation. The Bible says we will know a Christian by their fruit (works).

That sounds nice, but I don't think that believing is enough, even Satan and demons believe that God exists.

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Yes but there's a difference here. The demons don't believe in Jesus for their salvation, if they did, they wouldn't of fallen in the first place. They 'know if his existence' because they've dealt with him first hand. They don't have faith in him, the have proof of him.
I personally the word 'believe' refering to the demons was a bad translation.

I agree that faith in Jesus is the first step, but faith doesn't always produce good works. Look at Hitler, he was Catholic, what good did he do? Hitler thought he was doing God’s will:

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Again, I don't believe a true Christian will mass murder million upon millions of people. Either he was mentally ill, or not a real Christian.

The Bible says that God created evil, is the Bible a lie? I don't believe that it is. Even if we say that man or Satan created evil, God still created mankind and Satan in such a way that He knew would result in their creation of evil, and He still chose to create them in the way that He did.

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1Jo 3:8 He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.

You know, I believe it hurts god ALOT knowing some of his children will go to hell. I don't know why God does it, but I do know it his infalliable plan. We have to trust in him to do what is best. He is 100% holy, how can he do anythign wrong or evil?

What good has come from AIDs? Millions of innocent lives have been lost because of the AIDs virus.

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Millions of innocent people have died, not been lost. We see death as bad too many times. We see death as an end. But it is a begining. Who knows? Maybe the majority of those millions are right no in Heaven having the itme of their life. Again, we must trust in God.

But God created Satan knowing that he would be this way, and He chose to create him anyway.

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If God didn't allow people to do bad, we wouldn't have free will. If he forced everyone to love him, that wouldn't really be love would it.

Nick, I truly hope that you're right...

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Have faith in God, and everything will be ok. Eventually, everything will be perfect.

You say that there is free will, that Satan and man "chose" to sin. The question is: WHY did they choose to sin? You may say pride. WHY did they have this pride? Where did Satan's temptation come from, himself? When did Satan's own tempting of himself become his sin? What was the origin of Satan's "choice" to sin? One could say God, but that's not right because scripture states that God does not tempt. Therefore, Satan MUST have been DESTINED, created WITH THE INTENT, for a nature of sin. If a gingerbread man comes out of the oven with a nose, it's because I stuck an M&M between his eyes.

The fact of the matter is that God created Satan and man, predestining them to sin. If God DID NOT WANT them to sin, they wouldn't have. You say God "allowed" it to happen. If I stand in the middle of an intersection and ALLOW myself to get hit, didn't I WANT and WILL that I get hit? God doesn't ALLOW something to happen and then say, "OOPSIES!!! DIDN'T WANT THAT ONE!!!".
That would imply that God makes mistakes, which I'm sure you'll agree that He does not.

God is completely Sovereign.