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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2278 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for May 15, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Inspired by the fear the reaper thread, It's always been odd to me that so many Christians and ex-Christians report being scared of hell. It always seemed pretty easy to avoid to me absurdly easy in Protestant's case but even for Catholics and Orthodox you just need to go to a priest.

The ease you're describing is exactly what should worry you. "Just believe" and "just see a priest" both assume the spiritually dead can flip their own switch, which is the one thing Scripture says they can't do. Hell isn't scary because the exit procedure is hard; it's serious because "I said the words" was never the question being asked.

I guess I meant believers when I was a believer I never had much worry, faith the size of a mustard seed and all that, and my faith was much stronger then that. When I stopped believing well I no longer feared hell. In Thomas' thread a lot of people were saying when they were Christians they were worried about hell. I dunno maybe it's my Protestant upbringing that believing in Jesus and accepting him into your heart was how you got to heaven and since I did that I was never too fussed about the whole thing.

Faith that evaporates tells you what kind of faith it was. The framework you grew up in starts the story with your decision. Scripture starts it before the foundation of the world, a people chosen in Christ before time existed, given to the Son by the Father. The ones who fall away weren't really of us to begin with. "Accept Jesus into your heart" isn't actually in the text anywhere. It's a 20th-century revivalist gloss on a much older and stranger doctrine. What kept you unworried was confidence you'd done the transaction right. That's exactly what should have unsettled you. If the old confidence wasn't real, maybe the real thing just hasn't come yet. Election runs on His timetable, and plenty of His sheep have wandered far longer roads before they heard the call.

It's also the case that protestants do not all agree on what faith entails, and it isn't necessarily something super easy to achieve or to be sure that you have. And regarding confession and so on, papists do require contrition, you can't just show up and run through a script without repenting.

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