I would like to respond to the question posed by Blur Guy in Do communists go to heaven? in hopefully what he would deem to be a straightforward 'in his face' manner.

The question I would like to ask in return is: Don't we instead deserve to go to hell? If we were to honestly look around us, we would seriously have to consider why God would want us in heaven.

In the world today, Catholic priests sexually abuse their young congregation, Protestant pastors commit adultery, Hindu and Buddhist priests lead their followers to kill people of other faiths, Muslims suicide bombers target the innocent; Taoists and 'Confucianists' bribe and cheat while communists lock up and silence those with different views. Need I go on?

Do these people not know what is right? Aren't all religions and creeds, when we boil them down to the essential points, about being good and doing good? And yet, confronted with the mess this world is in, most of us think we have the right to go to heaven! If God is indeed a just and holy God, none of us will ever make it there.

The human dilemma is not that we don't know what is right; just that we are constitutionally unable to do it. Since that is the case, heaven going to be a rather lonely place, since none of us can fulfil the requirements of God's laws.

As the Bible has so aptly put it: 'Since we've compiled this long and sorry record as sinners and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift.

'He got us out of the mess we're in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ. God sacrificed Jesus on the altar of the world to clear that world of sin. Having faith in him sets us in the clear.

'God decided on this course of action in full view of the public - to set the world in the clear with himself through the sacrifice of Jesus, finally taking care of the sins he had so patiently endured.'

I know that I cannot be right with God on my own merits, and so I am unable to get into heaven. If any of us can be right with God by keeping to the rules, then Christ died unnecessarily. But die he did, and those who believe in him and what he has done is made right with God.