Would he, if he exists and there's an afterlife send me to hell for not recognizing his existence? I'd say I'd be better off in hell to be with such a petty God.
Hear hear!
For the record, let me clear up a misconception on this issue. Roman Catholicism, in particular, does not teach that salvation is based upon acceptance of God and recognition of the divinity of Christ. This is a common mistake made by nonbelievers, who lack essential knowledge of the faith, but love a sound bite.
It is taught that our salvation is through Christ, but acknowledges that there are many, who for whatever reason are not believers, but will share eternal life. This is a doctrine I learned when I was young.
Thanks for that clarification. There are some fundamentalists, however, who do believe that anyone who doesn't believe the "correct" religious theology will go to hell. I am Jewish and so is my mother and all her family, except for her sister. She became a born again Christian many years ago and has her own Bible class. She has said that both of her and my mother's parents are in hell since they didn't accept Christianity before they died. At the same time, she clearly thinks of herself as a very compassionate and moral person. It has always boggled my mind how anyone with the slightest glimmer of compassion could believe something like that. By their logic, Hitler could have gone to heaven even after causing WWII and the Holocaust just by accepting born again Christianity in the bunker before he died. But a three year old Jewish child gassed at Treblinka who was too young to even know what religion means before they were killed went to hell. Who would need the devil with a God like that!
