Thread: Can a rich man get into heaven?

I don't want to debate what heaven is. That's for another thread. Use your own idea of heaven. Can a rich person get in, and why?

I think Heaven is whatever you want it to be

And yeah, I'm sure a rich person can make it into heaven. As long as you led a good life, I don't see why material possessions would bar you.

Originally Posted by Cossack

I don't want to debate what heaven is. That's for another thread. Use your own idea of heaven. Can a rich person get in, and why?

It depends how they get rich. If they get rich by exploiting the poor i.e. borrowing money to rent out properties to people on minimum wage then no. But perhaps working hard to earn money to invest cleverly then yes. There's many different ways of getting rich both moral and immoral. As long as in other aspects you are a good person.

Should a rich person buy that £250K Ferrari when people are starving? Should I buy the latest DVD's when people are starving? There is a survival of the fittest aspect to life that society often negates by handing out to the poor so often.

But I should think the answer to the question is yes. Society pushes us to dream of riches by showing us so many things we can't afford.

Originally Posted by spider8

. Society pushes us to dream of riches by showing us so many things we can't afford.

And thus so many people are depressed when the means to a complacent life surround them. Though I apologize for pursuing a tangent, I hate the unchallenged ideal of our society. Go to college, get a degree, get rich. The moment one veers from this path they are mocked and made to appear as failures when juxtaposed with their rulebook peers. I've nothing against those who pursue what has been laid out before them, but god damn if the individual doesn't have to fight tooth and nail to retain his or her self.

Originally Posted by Ana Kata

Nobody goes to heaven, have you not read the bible? It's quite clear.

I'm happy someone got it right.

This thread seems totally pointless to me without defining heaven. Are you interested in being able to say "X number of people on writer's forum believe a richman can/can't get into heaven?"

Maybe you are playing some trick through...? Trying to prove a point that heaven must be defined in order to make the question and answer meaningful?

Just to play along. No, rich men can't get into heaven. You have no idea how I'm defining heaven here, but there you go.

It isn't a trick question. I'll try to think of a stricter definition for heaven. I'm just interested because Jesus basically said that rich people couldn't, and yet there are some enormously rich Christians in the world who try to get around it. There are also rules in Islam about giving certain ammounts fo your income to charities.

Alrighty. I suppose "Can a rich person get into heaven even if their 'holy book' says rich people can't?" might be a good question. One may then have to decide what the book means my heaven, what the modern day rich person thinks heaven is... and what the book means by "rich" (maybe not economic waleth per se, but the lives rich people tended to live at that time, for example)

I assume one argument rich people might use is that the "rich" used in the bible refers to a certain lifestyle of arrogance, debauchery and indivdualistic coldness, and that they'll get into heaven if they don't personify that. Do people think it is or isn't morally justifiable to be rich?

Money gives power and power corrupts. Lack of money means you do whatever it takes to stay alive, even steal, cheat, lie and kill. Having a normal amount of money mean you envy the rich and pity the poor, and that's not good either.

The conclusion is you would go to Hell either way, except according to the Bible and a lot of smart people studying it, the original idea of Hell was the place where Lucifer and his followers were sent to be punished after being thrown out of Heaven, so you can't go there either. (or you could, but why would you?)

You might as well stay in bed.

Do people think it is or isn't morally justifiable to be rich?

I think it could be morally justifiable. Let's define rich as having more money than they need to live comfortably (which includes plenty of money for the future, so "comfort" applies to full financial secrity well into the future).

For example, say someone makes their money without harming other people. Maybe the person writes novels, or runs a number of businesses that provide customers with items they actually need, and selling the items at decent prices.

One person might say that if they aren't giving away their unnecessary surplus then they are indeed being greedy. But instead of giving that money away to charity, one may be keeping it in savings in case of accidents, or to keep it for an inheritance to children and grandchildren. I don't think you can blame someone for saving their riches to make their family's life more comfortable, as all compassion comes back to relating it to one's self (experience), and family members are a closer connection to the self than strangers in need.

If one has more than two automobiles (say, one with good gas mileage and another for moving things around) and a huge house with rooms that are never used than I think that is something to be suspicious of - I don't think this person's mental state is what we should label "success".

With Unions and other regulations on how employees need to be treated, being the rich guy on top doesn't have the potential to be as bad as, for instance, slaveowners were, but most rich people are constantly thinking about how to make a profit, how to get and have more, which is at odds with being content with what you do have, which one might call "Heaven". You also create a certain standard of living that can take a lot of work and worry to maintain, leading to a stressful, "hellish" life.

Unfortunately, the free market means there is competition, and a lot of the time surviving calls for some dirty work.

Money gives power and power corrupts. Lack of money means you do whatever it takes to stay alive, even steal, cheat, lie and kill.

That brings up another point. If there weren't rich people (with the "freedom" to stay rich) then I think we'd adapt to a system that prevents the poverty that often leads to unlawful and immoral actions.

It is harder for a rich man to get into heaven, but a lot of rich men do great things with their money. I am a Christian and I believe that you get to heaven only through belief in Jesus Christ as your Savior. It doesn't matter if you're rich or poor. We all think money is corruptive, but I'd love to have the opportunity to prove it wouldn't corrupt me.

I don't believe in Heaven, so I'm going to say no.

For the purposes of this thread, though, I'm going to pretend I do.I'd say it would all depend on how he was in his lifetime, what he did, and who he was as a person.

sure they can........ anyone can......