Please describe your god's loyalty reward scheme.

[Catholic_Lady]

So I was thinking of the same question OP kinda had but mine was more open ended and I truly am interested in the answer. I'm sure I could go look it up but it would be interesting to hear here. (<- that amuses me, sorry I digress)

What gets each denomination into their heaven? I think CL was pretty detailed in her view on Catholicism but I would like to take it a step farther. [1]Y'all can't talk directly to god can you? Am I mixing that up with another one? [2]That's what priests and confession and all that is for right? So in order to go to heaven do you have to talk to them or just knowing what is inside you at the last moment get you in? I read Left Behind Kids when I was younger and they were worried that last minute conversion couldn't be real but that wasn't based of Catholicism.

What about the other religions? Do you have to go to their church and become one of them first? Do you have to do certain things as building blocks to get there? If you die before you finish them does it count as effort? I don't think we really have many others of different faiths here so I might need to just google this.

1. Depends on what you mean. We can pray to Him. So, "talk to Him" in that sense. But obviously we don't hear back and can't have a back and forth conversation.  

2. Because of this^, a priest in the confession is meant to be a physical representation of Christ, who will talk to you. And confession is a sacrament that we believe absolves you from your sins so long as you have real remorse for them. However, if a person has remorse for a wrongdoing, it will still be forgiven, even if they don't go to confession or pray for forgiveness. So yes, a person can die in a state of grace without having gone to confession. Otherwise we'd have to say that everyone who hasn't gone to confession goes to Hell, which we don't. To me, confession is helpful because it makes the forgiveness process feel more official and because I can't have a back and forth conversation with God, so the priest is there to provide that human need for verbal affirmation and conversation.

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So I was thinking of the same question OP kinda had but mine was more open ended and I truly am interested in the answer. I'm sure I could go look it up but it would be interesting to hear here. (<- that amuses me, sorry I digress)

What gets each denomination into their heaven? I think CL was pretty detailed in her view on Catholicism but I would like to take it a step farther. Y'all can't talk directly to god can you? Am I mixing that up with another one? That's what priests and confession and all that is for right? So in order to go to heaven do you have to talk to them or just knowing what is inside you at the last moment get you in? I read Left Behind Kids when I was younger and they were worried that last minute conversion couldn't be real but that wasn't based of Catholicism.

What about the other religions? Do you have to go to their church and become one of them first? Do you have to do certain things as building blocks to get there? If you die before you finish them does it count as effort? I don't think we really have many others of different faiths here so I might need to just google this.

John 10
27 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. 28 And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand.

Romans 8
31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? 33 Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written:
“For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”
37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Point being that most atheists, and some Christians, look at salvation as if it's all about what people do. Really, the onus is on God to save all who are his.

Yes, there are certain things you expect to see when someone is saved, and expectations differ from one denomination to the next. For me, a simple declaration of faith is all. Others might expect a declaration of repentance, or water baptism, or whatever. But in the end, we don't save ourselves with those things. Jesus is the one who saves us. Those things are just responses to salvation.

Yep, I second AM here that expectations differ depending on denomination. 

I'm curious to know, AM, if you have a particular belief on what happens to babies who die before they are born or before they are able to declare faith?