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Yes to both Judeism and Islam

[Orange Wizard]

I always took it to mean they had no conscience, rather than lacked cognitive ability. Or something thereabouts.

[scrdest]

Which, come think of it, brings up an interesting point of the story of Adam and Eve working oddly enough as a metaphor for growing up.

You have newly created humans, unaware of good and evil, exploring the world, learning ('naming') all the other creatures on it, then under the influence of a third party they rebel against an authority, who also happens to be the one who gave them life, learn to make moral judgements and are forced to leave said authority's place and work on their own for their survival.

Huh.

[Graknorke]

Could be that "good and evil" is a... uh... [insert name of literary method here] which is where a combination of two opposing things is used to mean everything. So alternatively they knew absolutely nothing at all. Which... isn't unbelievable really. It's not as if there were any displays of prior knowledge going on (as if there were any prior to have knowledge of).

[Descan]

I've heard the idea (unlikely as it is) that the Garden of Eden is a metaphor for agriculture, "toiling in the dirt" and all that

It doesn't really mesh all that well once you delve into it, but it's and interesting idea~

[scrdest]

Could be that "good and evil" is a... uh... [insert name of literary method here] which is where a combination of two opposing things is used to mean everything. So alternatively they knew absolutely nothing at all. Which... isn't unbelievable really. It's not as if there were any displays of prior knowledge going on (as if there were any prior to have knowledge of).

Pro tip: if you don't know, just go with metaphor. A lot of the things are just subclasses of metaphor (like symbol or allegory or personification), so you have a decent chance of hitting the mark.

[penguinofhonor]

I'll give my personal opinion and say if you truly believed you wouldn't wait until the last minute to repent.

In my opinion, no matter how much you tell yourself you suddenly have total faith, if you didn't at least try to be a decent person during the rest of your life, and you just expect that you can save your ass by doing a heel face turn and saying "Yeah, I was a huge prick in life but now I totally believe now that I'm 6 feet from death," then you're screwed.

I was away from home for a couple days and checking the forums less, so I might be a little late to this conversation. But I was surprised nobody brought up the parable of the workers in the vineyard, where Jesus basically says the opposite of this.

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

3 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went.

“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’

7 “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.

“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’

8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

You guys sound like the people who were hired first. How can you believe in heaven and act like it would be a bad thing if God was this generous in sending people there? Would it ruin your heaven experience to have someone there who converted on their deathbed? Do you feel cheated that you can't go out and live a life of sin before finding God?

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

Once again, in my faith being saved on your death bed is ok it's not looked highly upon but it is celebrated that we will see that person again in the kingdom of god

[Cptn Kaladin Anrizlokum]

Well, I don't actually want to try a "life of sin". I don't really see the appeal.
What is it you get again with that?

And I'm not saying being saved on your death bed is a bad thing, just really unlikely. And if you believed before that, you wouldn't keep sinning just because you could repent later.

[Frumple]

Yeah, death bed conversion would be less like showing up and working for a hour and more like not working at all and knocking on the dude's door later that night asking for money for services rendered.

Which, okay. Generosity's nice and all. Kinda' defeats the purpose of the rest of the religion, though. Why all the fire and brimstone bullshit if whoever's up top is just going to shrug and let whoever in, regardless of what they did? Why put millions upon millions upon millions of people through hell on earth if you're just going to open the gates regardless? Sounds less like a critter who's generous and more like a really fucked up frat member. "Hey, you just got raped and then impaled! Awesome! Here, have an eternity in heaven! That death rates a 50, you get 5 virgins. Can't really do anything with them up here, but hey, thought that counts, amiright?"

... honestly, though, from what I recall Matthew was a bit of a bro in places, moreso than many of the other critters the varying books were attributed to. That parable could have just been the guy* giving a hearty "Fuck you" to the rest of the biblical texts. Book's got some other lines that warms my cockles with a similar sensation, really. As I've noted, I'm fond of 6:1-34, since most** of it's a cheerful "Get bent" to the church structure and general worship patterns seen in organized religion

*E: Well, whoever the hell actually wrote the thing. Whoevers. However it works.
**E2: And what isn't is effectively an "Up yours" to eschatology, which is basically the rest of Christianity. Set of lines that mostly demolishes organized worship and like 9/10ths of the metaphysical concerns of the religion, it's pretty great.

[Lord Shonus]

*E: Well, whoever the hell actually wrote the thing. Whoevers. However it works.

Current opinion among biblical scholars is that the Four Gospels were assembled from between 3 and 5 "sets" of lessons that were passed down in oral and fragmentary written form and have been dated to around (IIRC) 50 AD. Notably, while all four contain elements of most of these "sets", at least one is found only in Luke.

[Orange Wizard]

Matthew 6 is great. Reading it makes me laugh, thinking of all the people who pointedly ignore it.

[freeformschooler]

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."

Makes me facepalm.

Shh. Joel Osteen might hear.

[TheDarkStar]

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."

Makes me facepalm.

Why? It means that you should do good things because of God and not because you want to look good in front of other people.

[Frumple]

I'unno, to me it reads a bit stronger than that. That's part of it, but the lines seems to be saying less "Do good in the name of god before you do good in the name of social gain" and more "Do good in the name of god while actively avoiding social gain from doing so." Which is a pretty major difference! Like, hugely different implications. The first is kinda' wishy-washy, the second is  more "Giver, put first on your ninja tabi then donate in shadows". Second also seems a bit more in line with the surrounding bits, particularly those on prayer. Matthew seems fairly concerned about public displays of religion, heh, at least in that part of the text.

[penguinofhonor]

Yeah, I think it would stop at the "do not announce it with trumpets" line if the more lax interpretation was intended. Instead it goes on to say that you should donate so secretly that your other hand doesn't know.