joy's comments really created quite a stir. as a speech teacher i'd have to say she defended her arguement well.
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Let's say 1/6 people are doing things the "right way", and will "go to heaven". That's insainly generous on my part, the 1/6 figure. Given the number, there are over six billion people on earth right this second. Doing a touch of basic math, gives us five billion people who just because they don't happen to believe the exact way that they're "supposed to", are going to be eternally tormented.
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it sounds harsh doesn't it? if God does exist. if He did create us. if the Bible is correct that there is a heaven and there's a way to get there. logically, i'd have to agree with the "only one right way" idea.
we hold that idea in so many thing outside of religion. for example, marriage. here's a married couple. the wife cheats on the husband. he's outraged. she's shocked. "but your way of marriage just wasn't working for me." she says. yeah, i'm guessing that's not going to go over too well with the husband.
example2: putting a bike together: juniour wants a bike for chirstmas. you're up all night putting it together for him. the directions show the right way, you don't follow them. it's not going to be a happy night.
example3:directions to someone's house-you're going to a party at a house you've never been to. you're given directions but you toss them out the window and say "miami's only a few million houses-how hard can it be to find this one house?" you drive all night, never find it surprisingly. the party host sees you the next day and inquires about what happened. "did you not understand the directions? they were pretty specific." he says. "i thought i'd find your house on my own" he looks at you puzzled, "if you would have used the directions i gave you, you would have been to the house in 10 min. anyone who read the directions got here fine and we had a great party."
the point. if there's a God who is powerful enough to make a world and everything in it. i think He has the right to say-"this is the ONE way you come to heaven. follow the directions, they're simple. you follow the directions, you'll get the reward. you try your own way you're going to lose"
in addition, i would think that a God who claims to be holy/perfect has even more of a right to be angry than the husband who found out his wife was cheating on him. no doubt the husband, being non-perfect, made mistakes-he works late a lot, he raised his voice a few times, he can be impatient, etc-but he feels robbed nonetheless. he was faithful. he has a right to say, "okay, i'm divorcing you, i'm not going to provide for you any longer or protect you from harm."
i can't imagine God stooping so low as to give humanity the finger, that's like having an arguement with a 3 year old about the 1st ammendment. it's a waste of time. but i'd say He has the right to take all his gifts away. the earth might be considered one of those gifts. if He took that away all that would remain is hell. and i think divorce could considered be a small taste of that on earth.
aside from God's apparent right to judge and pass judgement. where's the love?
i love my students. if a student doesn't do their work or is unprepared for a speech, there's a pentalty. if i'm late for work, there's a pentalty, i'm assuming you can come up with another million examples of the same idea so i'll move on. punishing the student isn't because i hate him. it's because he didn't do what was required. the other students did. i can't reason, "oh, but carlos is such a cute kid-i'll give him a 100 even though he didn't do the assignment." because i love my students i reward the right and punish the wrong. and i hate putting a 0 in my gradebook. it hurts. but it wouldn't be fair to the kids who did the work.
if God created a heaven and hell and there's ONE way to heaven, he can't say "oh, but cynthian. is cute, i'll let her in too" because, 1. that would be imperfect, and i'm pretty confident that God calls Himself perfect. and 2.it would be unfair and unloving to those who came that ONE way. i would think it hurt Him too.
it's very logical. the question comes then, do i believe there is a God? or do i just like to analyze the logic of religions? do you believe in God? that's up to you. joydriven's remarks certainly made this a bit more colourful. i'd have to support her reasoning even if i didn't support her God.