Tough Questions for Christians # 1: When Can God Forgive?

Image by ♥ ... ca.tti [pienso.luego.existes] via Flickr

Let's imagine I'm sitting at home, watching videos on YouTube, and I look out the window and watch you hit my car. Your car glances the side, it leaves an obvious blow, and there are scratches on it. Luckily, I had my web cam running and I caught you on video.

Now, let's also imagine that I decided I'm going to give you 24 hours to specifically ask me for forgiveness, and if you don't — I'm going to light you on fire, and burn you to death.

Now here's the catch — You don't know whose car it is.

You know you've done something wrong, you know you dented the car. You go around to everyone you think owns the car, you ask them to forgive you, you apologize. But you don't make it to me.

The 24 hours comes and goes, finally I confront you. I call you out, and I tell you it's "Judgment Day."

I call you in front of me, I show you the video, and I say: "Look, this is you hitting my car. You damaged it, you deserve to die."

At this point you apologize profusely saying: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't realize it was your car. I'm so sorry, I will do anything I can to make it right."

Whereby I tell you that you had 24 hours to make it right and you failed to do so within that time frame, and now your time is up. I then promptly dowse you in gasoline, light you on fire, and watch you burn.

Now, how does this relate to God?

Well, in life we sin. We know that. Everyone does something wrong. Everyone does things wrong every single day. We're aware of that.

Supposedly God knows this. God watches over us and has sort of evidence, some spiritual recorder, which on Judgment Day he will be able to whip out and prove that we did indeed commit the crimes we're being accused of.

We only have a specified amount of time to ask for forgiveness for these crimes. If we wait until we're dead, and ask for forgiveness from God on Judgment Day, it'll be too late.

Once you're actually accused of the crimes, and you ask for forgiveness, by then there is nothing that God can do. At that point the "all-powerful" creator of the world is powerless to help you.

So you must request forgiveness from God within your lifetime. By the time he confronts you about the sins, or about the wrongs you've committed, it's too late. You're already going to be judged, the sentence has already been decided.

In my analogy, you had 24 hours. In the Bible analogy, you have one lifetime. Once the 24 hours is up, or once your lifetime is up, it's Judgment Day.

In my story, I was the judge and I lite you on fire for denting my car. According to the Bible, God is the judge and he will burn you forever for simply not believing he exists... or for any other little tiny thing you may have done wrong during how ever long you happen to live.

Fact is, in both scenarios once you were actually confronted by the person who could pass Judgment it was too late.

If you die without believing in God, he's already decided that you don't deserve happiness, and you're going to be burnt forever.

The ironic part is, the analogy doesn't need to be an analogy. You could hit my car tomorrow, die within 24 hours, and Jesus and God can sentence you to Hell because you hit the car and drove away and you didn't ask them for forgiveness before you died.

TOUGH QUESTION #1:
WHY IS GOD POWERLESS TO FORGIVE YOU AFTER YOU'RE DEAD?

I look forward to seeing the different video responses, and the comments I get. If I get good responses then I'll make these "Tough Questions for Christians" an ongoing series, and just continue until eventually people lose interest, or I just run out of tough questions.

originally posted on YouTube at: www.youtube.com/azatheist