A Good Person
"I don't worry about Hell because God doesn't exist... Well, maybe he does and maybe he doesn't. No one really knows for sure.
If God exists, I'm not worried about Hell because I'm basically a good person. I generally do the right thing, and I go out of my way to help others. I don't go to church, or anything like that, but that doesn't matter. Churches are full of hypocrites anyway, and the Bible was written by a group of men a long time ago. The only thing churches do is try to push their religion on everybody and scam people into giving them money.
If God and Heaven are real, then I'll go to Heaven because God can see that I have a good heart. That's all that really matters.
All religions are basically the same. If there is a God, he'll honor that. So it really doesn't matter what you believe. This is because it's all about whether you're a good person. I'm a good person, so I don't worry about Hell."
-Common Human Thought
The above statement describes what many people believe. It's very popular, and I understand why. The statement is largely based on what we, as human beings, see and experience in this life.
I would like to examine this statement more deeply in order to determine whether or not it's something that can be trusted. However, I'm not qualified to do so.
I could continue this article by picking apart the "Common Human Thought" statement, and carefully examining all of its components. But in the end, my conclusion wouldn't mean a lot. That's because I'm just a guy with an opinion, and the world is full of them.
My solitary intellect has very little authority; if any at all. So instead of examining the statement from my own experiential perspective, I'd like to examine it from the perspective of someone who matters -- Someone who has authority on this issue. I'll look at it from the perspective of Jesus Christ.
I want to examine the statement from Jesus' perspective, but I still have another problem. You and I may not agree that Jesus is one who has proper authority. So lets examine the "authority" issue first. That way this article may begin to have some value.
The fact that I can mention Jesus' name, without having to introduce him, has it's own merit. Jesus is so well known, that I don't have to question whether or not you've heard of him. If he were merely in the news every day, then I'd have to question whether or not you've heard of him because you may not watch the news.
I make no assumption that you are, by the world's definition, a "religious" person. But that doesn't matter either because Jesus isn't only known by those who are religious.
I can fairly safely assume that you've heard of Jesus, even without knowing a thing about you personally. As stated before, this fact has its own merit. Especially for a man who hasn't been on this planet for over two-thousand years. That, combined with the fact that the entire world references all of time to Jesus' birth, produces fame that is unparalleled.
Fame, alone, doesn't give anyone special authority on this topic. It's important to look at WHY Jesus is famous.
It's been reported that Jesus did things that are impossible for any ordinary human being to accomplish. There are reports that he walked on water, instantly calmed a storm with a command, instantly healed lots of people, and even brought dead people back to life. There's also a report that he, himself, came back to life, after being dead for a few days. After coming back from the dead, he ascended into the sky; leaving this planet. All of these claims are extremely wild and outrageous.
Because no one, who is alive today, actually witnessed any of these events, it would be easy to just dismiss them as being false. However, there are people who WERE alive at the time, and some of them claim to have witnessed these events. History tells us that some of them even died for their testimony that these events actually took place. Why would people choose to die, and be tortured, for a lie?
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