good news for all of us!

[no-excuses]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/pope-francis-assures-atheists-you-dont-have-to-believe-in-god-to-go-to-heaven-8810062.html

[Nam]

Who cares?

-Nam

[AllPurposeAtheist]

I care because I let two fat chicks on the bus ahead of me back when it was reported. You can't enter the kingdom without letting fat chicks on the bus first.

[aitm]

yep. Fat chick and church.....kinda obligatory like salt and .....er....peppahh..

[The Skeletal Atheist]

So what's the point in being Catholic then? Is that like brownie points or something? Do atheists and people of other religions have to live in the ghetto of Heaven? If there is a ghetto of Heaven what's it even like?

[christy starseeker]

John 3:36
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him.


1 John 5:12
He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.


Matthew 10:33
33 "But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.


Luke 12:8
8 "And I say to you, everyone who confesses Me before men, the Son of Man will confess him also before the angels of God;


John 3:14-17
14 "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; 15 so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. 16 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. 17 "For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.


John 5:21-24
21 "For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes. 22 "For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, 23 so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. 24 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.

John 8:12
12 Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, "I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.


John 17:1-3
1 Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, 2 even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. 3 "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.


Acts 4:12
12 "And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved."

1 Corinthians 3:11
11 For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.


1 Timothy 2:5-6
5 For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time.


1 John 4:1-3
1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world.


1 John 5:10-12
The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning His Son. And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.


if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. - Romans 10:9

Ok francis...

[SGOS]

Ok francis...

The Bible is irrelevant.  He's the Pope.  He has spoken.

[StupidWiz]

Pft, heaven.

[the_antithesis]

Yeah. Why would we want to go to heaven. It's full of assholes.

[Solitary]

That could be heaven if you are a gay man.  Solitary

[The Skeletal Atheist]

Yeah. Why would we want to go to heaven. It's full of assholes.

Considering the personal hygiene of most anti-gay straight men...no, not at all.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Be careful now. If this shit gets out of control the LDS will posthumously make us all saints..

[Nam]

Be careful now. If this shit gets out of control the LDS will posthumously make us all saints..

I'm already a saint, at least my imaginary friend tells me so.

-Nam

[Lion IRC]

Glad to see this story from last year is still kicking around in atheism chat venues.

“You ask me if the God of the Christians forgives those who don’t believe and who don’t seek the faith. I start by saying â€" and this is the fundamental thing â€" that God’s mercy has no limits if you go to him with a sincere and contrite heart. The issue for those who do not believe in God is to obey their conscience'

Where in this (translated) quote does it say you don't have to believe in God in order to........?

“Sin, even for those who have no faith, exists when people disobey their conscience.”

If anything, this quote makes it clear that no one can really, honestly, be 'in denial' about the moral argument for Gods existence.

Francis is cleverly planting a thought bomb - putting a stone in the shoe - and prompting the atheist to question how it could be that objective good/evil can exist UNLESS there is a transcendent moral law.

[aitm]

how it could be that objective good/evil can exist UNLESS there is a transcendent moral law.

if there WAS a transcendent moral law, your god has neither shown it, nor any proclivity towards following one. Your god gave the world evil and practiced it and bragged about it. Your god is the most immoral of all gods man has invented.