I have to say that does sound more realistic than the death bed conversion allowed in the small print in the bible. If i read the rules properly I can do what I like as long as at the end I convert and renounce my sin. Some interpretations seem to say I get to jump the queue at the pearly gates if those circumstances! Why put the effort in now? Fire up the sin mobile baby!
To be fair, if God does exist they can probably tell if you're sincerely repenting or just trying to pull a fast one!
DarloRich responded: "With respect -- the small print makes no allowance for such considerations. You have to be let in. The rules are clear."
@DarloRich: this "small print" which you mention, interests me. Could I request you to cite what passage of the Bible gives you the grounds which you envisage, for the certain efficacy of deathbed conversion, genuine or otherwise? (Or -- again, with respect -- could it be that you're just goofing around?)
A flaw, of course, in the "deathbed conversion" strategy, is that it can happen that one dies very suddenly -- in an accident or what-have-you: advance notice of impending death, can't be taken for granted.
JWs do not believe in hellfire - so that seems sensible.
That's my understanding about the JWs: per their creed, the righteous -- i.e. JWs; and maybe only those JWs who make the grade -- go to an eternity of bliss, either in full-on Heaven, or on Earth re-made for all time in its Garden-of-Eden-like beauty. The wicked -- everyone else -- are just annihilated after death, and go into nothingness for all time: "same as it was for us before we were born". (I find that nowadays a number of mainstream, and on the whole pretty traditionalist and strict, Christians, are of much the same opinion: viz., the saved go to a blissful eternity in heaven; and -- since God is not a sadist -- the unsaved are just annihilated and snuffed out for eternity. The [Baptist] church which I am attending these days, strongly inclines to that view of the matter.)
With no threatened horrendous negative scenario for eternity, whatever one does or fails to do during one's life on Earth; I find it somewhat surprising that so many people seem to be drawn to -- and stick with -- the JW sect, with "glum and doleful" such prominent traits of their creed; and with such rigorous requirements, and so much that one may not do, and must do, during one's spell on Earth. I would truly need the threat of an eternity of torture, to get me to sign up for participating in that overall scenario. (In my perception mainstream Christianity is, or can be, considerably less onerous.)
