Christians: Do you believe that "when people reject Christ, they

[KevinS]

automatically choose to go to Hell?"? I see this phrase here a lot. If you don't mind me saying so, it has more holes in it than ten pounds of swiss cheese.

If you "reject" Christ, it means you have elected to believe that the Christ story is not valid or true. It does not mean that you have chosen to go to hell. It means you SIMPLY DON'T BELIEVE.

If, in your Christian faith, you think that the outcome of making such a choice is going to result in the punishment of being SENT to hell, then say so.

A person doesn't choose hell any more than a disobedient child chooses to be punished by being sent to his or her bedroom with no supper.
Since some people are still missing the point, I invite you to go find anyone on this planet who would make the statement "I am choosing to go to hell".
Andrew H: Yes, they have chosen his hammer, after all.

 

[Bruce]

Probably. But consider that many people choose a hellish life here on earth by their preference for the illusion of sin over the reality of God's friendship. Rather than the happiness God planned, they choose a miasma of drug abuse, the loneliness of promiscuity, and in many cases, the false peace of suicide.

Jesus, who is the only man with personal knowledge of the realities we will encounter after death, said that there will be a Final Judgment in which the books are closed on our choices. We will have either chosen to live forever in a place of charity, self-sacrifice, and humility before the Creator, or an eternity of utter loneliness in which we have only bitter regret.

I suspect that an eternity of charity, self-sacrifice, and humility would be no more attractive to God haters then than it is now, and that they would likely bound off into the outer darkness celebrating their "freedom."

Cheers,
Bruce

 

[Boats]

Jesus tells us in John 14:6 " I am the way the truth and the life,no one comes to the Father except through me." If you reject Jesus you've condemned yourself.

 

[penguinmeister1]

I've always understood hell to simply be the one place God is not. That is all it is. Therefore, if you don't believe in God, you just get what you have insisted is true the whole time.
Course, since God is everything good, absence of God does mean everything good is gone, and only the bad remains.

 

[john]

any whom say yes to this must skip all the verses that say otherwise.

Matthew 16:27
For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.

Galatians 6:7
Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

Revelations 20:12
And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.

 

[peachie]

Absolutely not. There were those who walked right beside Him and didn't believe. Thomas had to put his fingers into His wounds before he believed it was Christ. Jesus said, "Blessed are those who believe without seeing. Christ, in His human state knew how hard it was and is for many to believe. We are to spread the good news of who He is and why He had to come into the world. But, hell is for demons, not God's creation. Christ conquered sin and death on the cross. God will beat the devil in the end and claim all of His people, not give them over to His enemy.