If God is moral then religion is irrelevant to salvation

This pages argues that if people who have had no chance in their lives to learn of Jesus or Muhammed can enter heaven after they die then revealed religion is pointless and wrong. If such innocent and unfortunate people cannot enter heaven then God is immoral.

Contents:

List all the pages on Universalism

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If God is moral, everyone has a chance to enter Heaven

If everyone has a chance then it is irrelevant which religion you as long as you try your best to make good choices.

So;
Entrance to heaven is based on making good choices according to your life experiences
or
God is immoral

This indicates that knowledge cannot save people: Only our choices in life can. If we learn something then that by itself can't save us. It is not the knowledge we possess that saves us, but our choices of what to do with that knowledge. This is common sense. But before continuing I will cite a few examples:

Example One: Someone who is innocent of monotheism can enter Heaven
A very moral and just person tries his whole life to do what is best. Occasionally, like all people, he behaves in a bad way. Everyone does so this is besides the point. This person learns things in life and tries to do what is morally and socially best for himself and others. Perhaps this person is a Native American in the year 1000. Someone who has never heard of Jesus or Muhammed or a one true God.

God would of course be immoral to deny this person access to heaven. heaven must be attainable according to the good choices that this person makes during their life. This means that for people who are innocent of religion there is a normal moral chance.

Example Two: Someone who embraces the wrong religion can enter Heaven
What if our example, our Native America, is taught from birth that in order to do good you need to do what is good for the community. If you fail to respect the spirits, your community will suffer.

This person, who honestly and sincerely wants to do what is good, gives respect and perhaps even worships these spirits. This person must still be judged according to his choices, but it is not his own fault that his knowledge of the world is not correct. You cannot be punished for something that is not your fault: It is immoral. Therefore there is a chance that people who belong to the wrong religion can enter heaven otherwise, God is immoral for not revealing itself and the true facts to everyone.

If you deny that people who do not know of God or know certain information are able to make the good choices that affect our destination after death then you are saying that God discriminates against people according to their circumstances and this is immoral.

We do not know which religion is correct

Some have said that choosing to reject Jesus Christ is a moral decision, therefore non-Christians have made a moral choice that is judgeable by God. However I disagree that it is a moral choice. I choose to reject Jesus because I am an atheist, and cannot believe that Jesus is the son of God or that he can forgive sins. The following text is from a usenet post to uk.religion.christian made on 2002 Sep 16 during a debate:

I think rejecting "2+2=5" is not a moral choice. Even though it may be illogical, there is no argument that being illogical is immoral. But that doesn't seem like an argument that will get either of us anywhere... what I wanted to say is: I am talking of people (such as myself) where there is not evidence to accept the right religion. I honestly do not know which religion holds most merit or truth. There are many contradictory beliefs in religions. There are (this must be obvious) people who are presented with wrong evidence. For example a person who is cleverer than me in a particular field (say: Physics) could convince me that something is true in physics. I would only have the information I'd gathered to judge what is true or not. There are many people who do not have enough knowledge to know which religion is true. I am one of those people. My argument is that God would not discriminate against us according to our choices made on such limited knowledge.

I haven't found a logical or experience-based evidence that God exists. If I found that I felt God exists, then I would still be a very long way from assuming that Christianity, Islam or Judaism is a "correct" religion! All of these religions present very compelling evidence all based on a large amount of both historical research and empirical evidence: but they also present contradictory accounts of the truth. To "choose" one is impossible until even any of them can be discounted, let alone 2 of 3 of them!

Even once a particular type of monotheism is chosen (I've limited the choices to monotheistic religions for now) there are frequently so many divisions and contradictory factions within these blanket terms that the path to the "right" set of beliefs is a long way from being settled even when a particular religion is chosen). It seems like it's a very long and twisted path, and without being brought up with any religion, I'm starting right at the very beginning!

This is what I mean by "lack of knowledge to choose the right religion". In the wake of an immense amount of "unknowns" about life I try to make moral, good decisions that benefit the people around me, my community, the world community and myself. Because although I don't have enough theological knowledge to choose which set of dogmas I should worship, it still feels good to try to do what is right. And I wish, that if God exists, he is judging me by my moral choices and not by my knowledge of religion.

Conclusion: Religion is pointless

We know that in order for God to be moral, he must judge us according to our actions and not according to our beliefs. Our beliefs are frequently beyond our own control. This means that it does not matter what theological beliefs we have: Only our morals matter in so far as knowledge is concerned. Our will to do good is more important than the knowledge we have about the world, it is obvious that our moral choices are more important than the religion we choose.