God, say the religious fundamentalists, is the source of all morality; there can be no morality without a Judge who rewards and punishes. If we did not fear hell and yearn for heaven, then what would stop people from murdering each other left and right?
many (most officially i believe) believe that we are justified by faith alone and that divine grace comes without our own action. this is why calvinists generally accept predestination. there are some really byzantine logics which allow believers in this to still live lives which accept a de facto element of free will, but the point is that officially most protestants belief that your place in heaven or hell is not contingent upon your moral behavior, but rather your face in the savior.
now, there is a difference between the “official” party line, and how people act and process their ideas. but a rational attempt to discuss this probably needs to start with explicit concepts.
Certainly in the British charismatic mainstream, of which one of my parents is a member, the accepted notion is that the only decision which has any bearing on your eventual judgement is whether or not you “accept Jesus as your saviour”.
I get the feeling that this is an even less useful philosophy than the “bad folks go to hell” line, as God -in his infinite wisdom- has essentially cancelled himself out. However, the result is that Christians who accept this tend to be more genuinely altruistic than those who still believe the celestial carrot-and-stick are in play, because they at least follow their own moral conscience rather than a set of fixed laws.
God, say the religious fundamentalists, is the source of all morality; there can be no morality without a Judge who rewards and punishes. If we did not fear hell and yearn for heaven, then what would stop people from murdering each other left and right?
many (most officially i believe) believe that we are justified by faith alone and that divine grace comes without our own action. this is why calvinists generally accept predestination. there are some really byzantine logics which allow believers in this to still live lives which accept a de facto element of free will, but the point is that officially most protestants belief that your place in heaven or hell is not contingent upon your moral behavior, but rather your face in the savior.
now, there is a difference between the “official” party line, and how people act and process their ideas. but a rational attempt to discuss this probably needs to start with explicit concepts.
Certainly in the British charismatic mainstream, of which one of my parents is a member, the accepted notion is that the only decision which has any bearing on your eventual judgement is whether or not you “accept Jesus as your saviour”.
I get the feeling that this is an even less useful philosophy than the “bad folks go to hell” line, as God -in his infinite wisdom- has essentially cancelled himself out. However, the result is that Christians who accept this tend to be more genuinely altruistic than those who still believe the celestial carrot-and-stick are in play, because they at least follow their own moral conscience rather than a set of fixed laws.