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“I just disagree so much with the way the Catholic church says things like if you’re not a good person you’ll die and go to Hell
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Exactly what I said on a catholic thread the other day, that is the message of that church, completely opposite of what the true Gospel says, that all our good works are as filthy rags, we are saved by the Cross, nothing more, good deeds will not earn a place in heaven.”
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That error is so — I don’t know, inside out and backwards? — that I can’t even wrap my mind around it, much less explain to the obdurate how to reason their way out of it.

Yes, our salvation is made possible by the bitter passion and death of Our Lord, and yes we are enjoined to become the best people we can become.

All of us *can* become worthy to spend eternity with God; some will. All fall short, all can be forgiven for that.

The notion that some are predestined for salvation or damnation is an insult to God. It is not merely stupid; it is deeply, almost unimaginably, demonically stupid. It is not intellectually, theologically, or scripturally respectable. It is ludicrous.

The physical universe is a device. It’s purpose, or at least one of them, is that we *become* something that God wants us to become. This is why free will is crucial, and why predestination is an idea that only the Earl of Hell could have spawned.

For the most part, Catholics are disliked and reviled because we don't believe that you can just get into Heaven without out first following Christ's teachings and doing good works. We are thought of as evil hateful people for that(not by all protestants, but many).

Yet they believe that somebody like my niece is predestined to hell because she can't consciously believe in Jesus. My niece has cerebral palsy. She is 16 years old. She cannot feed herself, she still wears diapers, she cannot talk, and I don't even know if she can truly understand what we are saying. Therefore, how can she have true faith in the proper sense of the word?

Now I don't know if the Protestants would say to me, yes your niece has been damned. But if that is what they believe, than they can't accuse us of being hateful.

I don't believe that God allows children like my niece to be born simply to send them straight to hell for not being able to acknowledge him or his son. I think that God allows these children to be born in order for us to see Christ. Who do you see Christ in the most? People skipping around with but a care in the world, or those who suffer and are handicapped.

As Catholics, we feel that being born the way my niece was born is a grace. My niece cannot sin. She can't be evil like we can. She can't gossip, curse you, hurt you on purpose, and most of all she cannot hate. She is a mirror of our Lord. She suffers greatly and is without sin.

I don't know if I am saved. I don't think that anyone truly knows. I think God knows. He is a merciful God. Therefore he will take all things into account when judging us. True Catholics don't walk around condemning people to hell.