05 Dec '05 17:31>1 edit
Originally posted by RBHILLIf I fail to come to know the truth, will that be entirely my fault?
If you are 100% sure where you will spend Eternity?
Well because I am a Christian and I would love for you to be saved so I can see you at the big feast in heaven someday. I am praying for you all to come to know the truth, that will set you free from all sin and doubt/fear.
http://www.heargoodnews.org/gospel/doyouknow.html
For example, suppose I listen for days on end to you and the other Christian fundamentalists, absorbing all the information you can provide, but I *still* don't find it convincing. Is this my fault? Can I help it if I am not convinced? I don't think I can. I don't see how I can believe anything through effort: I end up convinced or not by the way my mind works, not because I exert or fail to exert effort in sufficient quantities.
Do you assume that, if I don't believe what you do, I must have bad irrational reasons for doing so? That would be highly invidious.
Another question: If I come to know they truth (as you define it), and your prayer *helps* me to come to know it, will I deserve salvation less because you helped my by praying for me? You would be partly responsible, then, wouldn't you, so wouldn't there be less room for me to be responsible? So, will people who are prayed for less deserve salvation more?
Even more critically, are the people whom you don't pray for (or who tend not to be prayed for by Christians generally) at a disadvantage? Are they more likely to go to hell? Are famous people, who are more often included in people's thoughts, like Princess Diana, more likely to go to heaven than obscure people, like Pawnokeyhole (notwithstanding RBHILL's potent petitions)? If prayer really does help, then I think the answer must be yes, unless God does something extra like make nonspecific prayers more powerful than specific prayers, so that the famous don't get favoured...