Concept of Going to Heaven...

[mrstickball]

Kasz216 said:

mrstickball said:

It'd be humorous if Christianity was created in order to control people. Worked out pretty bad for Jesus and everyone that followed him for about 300 years.

Well, you could make an arguement that the formation of the bible and forming of the Catholic Church was to control people.  Though I imagine that's why the 300 years disclaimer is put it.

To be fair, the New Testament is simply a "Best Sellers" list of texts used to teach Christians. The list was used well in advance of the Council of Nicea, and well before Christianity was legal in the Roman empire.

In fact, by 200 AD - just 80 years after the (arguable) completition of writings, you had the Muratorian Fragment, which points to the fact that most churches had already adopted what we accept as cannon - it was simply later on that it officially cannonized.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muratorian_fragment

As for Constantine and the Catholic Church - that's an argument for a different day, and probably worth it.

 

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Also, as far as I can tell... Christianity isn't about following God's law.

It's about realizing man can't fully follow god's law being sinful and less then perfect... and can obtain salvation by admitting ones faults and wishing to be a better person or at least feeling bad for ones misdeeds.

Under christian dogma as I understand it, Hitler could be in heaven right now if he realized what he did was wrong and had regrets.

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It depends on how you look at it.

Christianity is inherently about following God's law through the life and testimony of Jesus Christ. Salvation is about the forgiveness of sins, and coming into a relationship with God, absolving one of their sins. Becoming a true Christian involves works. A good bit of the New Testament points to it.

In the case of Hitler, I think you get into arguments of blasphemy and election that would heavily weigh against someone like Hitler being in heaven. That is, he was so hateful and wicked, that his likelihood to call on Jesus was incredibly unlikely.

That isn't to say that it's impossible, of course. Paul was a mass-murderer and wrote most of the New Testament. Joeseph Blayhi was a genocidal rebel leader that killed 20,000 people in the Liberian Civil War. He's now a preacher working with former enemies to rehabilitate child soldiers.