I suppose it would be easier to just say "That's just the way it is, just believe it". I think, though, that if God blessed us with a fantastic brain and intellect, it's our duty to use it. No one has yet explained to my satifsfaction the justice of unlimited punishment for a limited crime, i.e., a crime commited in a limited time and space. And I feel God, by definition, must be just.
A sincere, good Muslim, born in a land where one praises almighty God with the word Allah, or a Hindu who uses the word Vishnu, are they doomed merely for using the wrong sounds, though their aim and intent is identical to a Southern baptist, who, like them, uses the words, ideas and rituals that are customary to his friends and community? I can see correction from God for inadvertantly erring in one's method of worship, but eternal damnation? I don't think that every member of a non-Christian religion, every secular person, and every member of a questionable Christian sect is defiantly and proudly opposing and rejecting God. So why the ultimate punishment?
Not asking you to answer, just sharing my thoughts here :)
If I may offer a slightly different method of expressing the Gospel..
The issue isn’t so much being damned for an infraction, as much as it is how anything that might have any semblance of unrighteousness in it to have a relationship with something that is Perfect Righteousness.
That mechanic has been provided by the one who is perfectly righteous and perfectly just Himself.
Now here is another interesting twist. When He finds something that is righteous in something else, His perfect justice allows Him the freedom to bless those whom He finds righteous in perfect justice with His grace.
He’s gone even further, than this. He has even promised that anybody who siply exercises a smidgeon of faith more than absolutely no faith whatsoever, will have a saving faith.
So the only real issue is discerning what type of faith is good enough for Him to recognize as righteous.
One very simple way of doing that is to exercise the very same faith which our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus exercised while on the Cross. He has already told us that that same faith unto and by Him is recognized for righteousness. In other words, simply consider who God the Father is through faith in Christ, and He is then free to handle all the rest.
Once that occurs, the believer receives many things from God, the Holy Spirit. One of those things is a seal from the Holy Spirit. No matter what happens, how one changes their mind or their thinking, if they had faith through Christ at anytime in their life prior to the first death, they have an advocate through Him.
The issue of sin was settled once and for all on the Cross by God the Father judging all mankinds sins imputed on the Son. The issue of sin, with respect to being able to have a relationship with God through faith in Christ has already been settled, once and for all eternity. The issues of good and evil have not yet been so decided. Neither is it possible for us to accept Him after postsalvation sin, until we turn back to Him and confess our sins to Him, thereby re-entering once again into a status where He is free to continue our sanctification in our hearts, minds, and soul, a type of epistemilogical rehabilitation of our soul and heart, if you will...
In regards to all other persons, they also have an opportunity in their lives to have a relationship with God on His terms,...not ours.
The type of culture we are raised within will never prevent us from having a relationship with Him. Only our volition, deciding to rebel or turn away from Him and what He provides, alienates us from Him. For the believer who turns away, God disciplines him. For the unbeliever, there will remain an opportunity for salvation until the first death, but not afterwards.
BTW, if you still find a problem in what God provides, it generally is because either we don’t quite understand from His perspective what has been provided or have attempted to counterfeit His plan in our thinking of how a perfect world may be built independent of Him.
Since we don’t yet have all the answers, there are a few indicators when we might be on the wrong track. When in fellowship with God, through faith in Christ, we respond to whatever situation arises, rather than react. Love is patient.
Whenever we catch ourselves thinking independently of faith in Christ, we are actually scarring our thinking processes. This will be hard to understand at first, but without remaining in fellowship with Him, He isn’t free to to grace us with sanctifying our thinking due to His perfect justice.
WRT to a good Muslim praising Allah,...quite truthfully, if that person is focusing on God through mechanisms God provides to have a relationship with Him, that person may be in more fellowship with God than a person who claims to be Christian, who cites a creed from an academic perspective, but never places any faith through Christ.
Likewise, do not confuse human good with divine good, nor morality with salvation. Our sins will bare us out. Thanks for the opportunity to write a little to you. Regardless of what I write, though, God has had a plan for you from eternity past and the important thing is to be in the right place at the right time to fulfill what He has in store for you. That happens first, by simply having just a smidgeon more faith, than absolutely no faith in Him, again through jesus Christ our Lord. Just let Him know what you think though faith in Christ, and He handles all the rest. (Lots of testing as you advance in your walk, but for every cursing there is a blessing, again through faith in Him.)