judge

Although most people seem to have very good after death experiences a minority seem to not pleasant (at first anyway). Even non Christians seem to have good ones as well.
here is a quite amazing one.

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/storm01.html

Struggling to say goodbye to my wife, I wrestled with my emotions. Telling her that I loved her very much was as much of a goodbye as I could utter because of my emotional distress.

Sort of relaxing and closing my eyes, I waited for the end. This was it, I felt. This was the big nothing, the big blackout, the one you never wake up from, the end of existence. I had absolute certainty that there was nothing beyond this life – because that was how really smart people understood it.

While I was undergoing this stress, prayer or anything like that never occurred to me. I never once thought about it. If I mentioned God’s name at all it was only as a profanity.

For a time there was a sense of being unconscious or asleep. I’m not sure how long it lasted, but I felt really strange, and I opened my eyes. To my surprise I was standing up next to the bed, and I was looking at my body laying in the bed.

My first reaction was, "This is crazy! I can’t be standing here looking down at myself. That’s not possible."

This wasn't what I expected, this wasn't right. Why was I still alive? I wanted oblivion. Yet I was looking at a thing that was my body, and it just didn't have that much meaning to me.

Now knowing what was happening, I became upset. I started yelling and screaming at my wife, and she just sat there like a stone. She didn’t look at me, she didn’t move – and I kept screaming profanities to get her to pay attention. Being confused, upset, and angry, I tried to get the attention of my room-mate, with the same result. He didn’t react.

I wanted this to be a dream, and I kept saying to myself, "This has got to be a dream."

But I knew that it wasn't a dream. I became aware that strangely I felt more alert, more aware, more alive than I had ever felt in my entire life. All my senses were extremely acute. Everything felt tingly and alive. The floor was cool and my bare feet felt moist and clammy. This had to be real. I squeezed my fists and was amazed at how much I was feeling in my hands just by making a fist..................

rlcjhardesty

Can't speak for the Catholic Church, but yes, this is what the Bible teaches. You must be "saved". You must be "born again". Try not to think of it as being a choice between secularism and religion. But rather, it's a matter of your willingness or unwillingness to have a "relationship" with God through Jesus Christ. Hope these help you:

Matthew 7:21-29
"Not all people who sound religious are really godly. They may refer to me as 'Lord,' but they still won't enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The decisive issue is whether they obey my Father in heaven. On judgment day many will tell me, 'Lord, Lord, we prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.' But I will reply, '[B]I never knew you[B]. Go away; the things you did were unauthorized."

John 3:5-8
"The truth is, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives new life from heaven. So don't be surprised at my statement that you must be born again. Just as you can hear the wind but can't tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can't explain how people are born of the Spirit."

John 3:16-21
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. [B]God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it[B]. There is no judgment awaiting those who trust him. But those who do not trust him have already been judged for not believing in the only Son of God. Their judgment is based on this fact: The light from heaven came into the world, but they loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. They hate the light because they want to sin in the darkness. They stay away from the light for fear their sins will be exposed and they will be punished. But those who do what is right come to the light gladly, so everyone can see that they are doing what God wants."

Romans 3:22-25
We are made right in God's sight when we trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And we all can be saved in this same way, no matter who we are or what we have done. [B]For all have sinned; all fall short of God's glorious standard[B]. Yet now God in his gracious kindness declares us not guilty. He has done this through Christ Jesus, who has freed us by taking away our sins. For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God's anger against us. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us.

Romans 10:9
For 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.

What about afterwards?

Matthew 7:12
"Do for others what you would like them to do for you. This is a summary of all that is taught in the law and the prophets."

Doctor X

Paul:

Most curious use of "all." Incidentally, according to Jn, Lazarus was rais'd prior to Junior. Not to mention most major branches of Christianity demand something else: a belief that Junior was/is a god.

rjchardesty:

Unfortunately, Jn teaches something entirely different. The word is anothen which places ano in the ablative. In otherwords, you must be "born from above"--or as Junior later denounces the "Following Band 'o Jews"--you are ek kato, I am ek ano--with ek meaning "from."

Unless you are born to be saved--ek ano/anothen, you, even if "good" and "willing" like Nicodemus, cannot, will not be saved.

Not exactly a nice message. Still, Mk just has Junior refuse to save the willing. Such is the gospel of exclusion.

--J.D.

gregor

Dr. X

It gets worse when Paul explains in 1 Tim that God sends a strong delusion to folks that might be saved, so they will believe a lie and will not accept the truth.

So I guess you have to

1. be born from above
2. be baptized
3. keep all the OT laws (per Matt)
4. (or at least comply with five of the commandments)
5. sell everything
and
6. avoid that strong delusion

Whew! quite an effort.

rebels

The fact that none of us asked to exist should tell the story. We are what our genes and DNA make us. Religion has no basis in fact and is Supernatural. Far too many believe lies fed to them and live poor and boring lives. They are conditioned to pay, pray and obey. Utter stupidity.

Amos

A person should be careful when evaluating the teachings of the Catholic Church. Our faith in Jesus is not exactly one of them except that we must have faith in the example set by Jesus that we must follow, first as believers in our tradition and finally as saved sinners when in purgatory (in Catholicism the Gospels take place in purgatory where we must pick up our cross and follow Jesus). Until then are we sinners and they will be come our cross to bear when in purgatory.

chapka

The Catholic church has taught about a number of interesting celestial spheres over the years. These include:

Hell, for bad people
Limbo, for people who are unbaptized but not necessarily bad
Purgatory, for people who are good but not perfect
Heaven, for people who are really, really good

Limbo was deemphasized at Vatican II, but I don't know if it's been officially done away with. When you're in hell or limbo, you're stuck there, although there are a lot of Catholic theologians (at least in America) who belive that "baptism" can be broad enough that many non-Christians can go to purgatory/heaven. Many also believe that, while Catholic baptism is best, any Christian baptism will probably work. "Official" Church doctrine is somewhat stricter.

Most Catholics believe that when they die, they will go to purgatory, where they will spend centuries being purified (purged) of their unconfessed sins. Purgatory has historically represented major bank for the Church. When Catholics pray for the dead, they're hoping to reduce the dead person's time in purgatory. You could, historically, also reduce this time by having masses said (at a small fee to the Church), buying indulgences (at a small fee to the Church), doing good works (make the check out to the Church), etc.

If you're good enough, you go straight to heaven, bypassing purgatory. "Saint" is the Catholic term for someone who is in heaven; the Church attempts to determine whether this is the case by seeing if you can do miracles from beyond the grave.

To summarize: Hitler is in hell, aborted fetuses, stillborn children and nonchristians are in limbo, most dead Catholics are in purgatory, and a few Catholics who are very good or have been dead for a very long time are in Heaven.

And I won't even get into the Harrowing of Hell...

ozone cowboy

A lot of people use belief and faith interchangably. The English doesn't really convey the meaning of faith. I believe that if I strap on a parachute, get into a plane, go to 10,000ft, jump out and pull the ripcord the chute will open. That's belief. If I acutually do it. That's faith. Action based upon belief sustained by confidence.

I don't think God is looking for a bunch of imitation Jesus's. All he wants is trust.

What is the "born again" experience? Like a drunk watching the news and realizing that he is the one the police are looking for in the hit and run fatality. Now standing before a judge facing the death penalty the judge finds him not guilty.

How can God be Jesus and the Holy Spirit at the same time? Try thinking about water, steam and ice. It's all the same stuff but different at the same time.

Mathetes

My parents told me that in their times there was a Catholic tradition of yet another place: the Bosom of Abraham, or something like that. This was a place were the good guys of the Old Testament went, because before the Redemption of Jesus they could not go to Heaven for some convoluted theological reason or other.

In 33 AD, after his resurrection, Jesus went there and took all these guys to Heaven, and so the place is now officially closed.

However, if I remember correctly, for Dante this place and Limbo were the same (the first circle of Hell, actually). Old Testament figures were there waiting with the Roman pagans, but when Christ came he took only the OT leaders - effectively leaving Homer, Julius Caesar, good Virgil and the rest in there, never allowed to enter Heaven, as they had not worshipped the right gods.

(At least he was there, so he knows what he is talking about. )

I think all this stuff has gone out of fashion, and it is not taught any more by the Catholic Church.

gregor

Mr. Cowboy

Let me amend your statement to conform to the Bible:

"What is the "born again" experience? Like a person . . .[forcibly injected with psychotropic drugs who cannot control their actions]. . . watching the news and realizing that he is the one the police are looking for . . . [for illegally eating fruit and knowing he is going burn in hell as a result of eating that fruit]. Now standing before . . . [someone who says there is an invisible judge] . . . facing the death penalty and [the intermediary] tells them that the judge finds him not guilty,. . . [as long as the person follows Leviticus, gives all his money to this invisible judge, and worships the invisible judge fawningly. When asked to see the judge, the person is told “you’ve got to feel the judge within you.” You later learn that it was this judge that injected you with the psychotropic drugs].