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Merry Christmas!
December 2021
Disturbing trends!
Some Catholics and mainline Protestants say you don't need faith in God to go to Heaven
T
here are a lot of disturbing trends starting to play out before our eyes now, such as this new wave of saying that you can go to heaven through any religious organization, as we wrote about last month. Now there's this story of some Catholics and Protestants that say you don't need faith in God or even believe in God to go to Heaven. Scripture is very clear, as it says unless we have faith, it is impossible to please God. Hebrews 11:6 says, "But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him." This is completely wrong from what the Bible clearly teaches us. Data for this study, which was done back in September of this year, was collected from 6,485 adults in the United States. Pew Researchers made a decision to ask some questions, for instance; the meaning of life? The
purpose of suffering and why bad things happen to good people? This national study was released during some life threatening times for everyone worldwide. When talking about American views about the eternity, this study revealed that the majority of adults in the United States believe in Heaven and hell, but more believe in Heaven than they do in hell. Of the people that were polled, 73% of them believe in Heaven, in contrast to the 62% that believe in hell. Also, 39% of American adults believe
that anyone who doesn't believe in God will all go to Heaven, 68% of Catholics and 56% of Protestant Christians were also found to believe everyone will go to Heaven. When people were asked about suffering in the world today, few of the people blamed God, although some did. Most of them did agree that suffering happens because of people's actions. A lot of evangelical Christians believe that satan has his hands into human suffering. Now 86% of adults believe that people's
suffering is due to random choices that are made. Even though people have a wide range of beliefs on suffering, most of the people did not view suffering as something that is negative, because 68% believe "everything happens for a reason" and that suffering exists " to provide and opportunity for people to come out of it stronger." Many people that were polled in this study show the way they see suffering as being connected to the way they see God. Eighty percent of the people in this group said that suffering in this world comes from people, not God. Also, 70% of the same group believe that it's okay to go against God's plans. Around 69% of the people from the historical black churches blame satan for most of the suffering in the world, but less than half of Protestant Christians and Catholics blame satan for the suffering.
