Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
How can people be happy in Heaven, when people are in Hell?
Options
Comments
-
no it is a matter of faith.
unless of course you simply believe jesus was just expressing an opinion.
if jesus says something so poignantly clear, it is a matter of faith to believe in him. to doubt is unbelief.
and there is no contradiction or metaphor. you can look from genesis to revelations and not only jesus, but the prophets and apostles say the same thing.
yes dear hell is real. eternal punishment is real.
2Pe 2:4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment;sherr1ngton wrote: »Fortunately, that is a matter of opinion.
Who makes the soul, the spirit? And why?
Also, Jesus spoke in parables. He wasn't relating history when He was talking about the good Samariton. He wasn't saying that a mustard seed can actually move a mountain. He wasn't saying that it is sinful to wash the inside of the cup as well as the outside.
Nor is it a sin to wash your hands before eating.
He was speaking in metaphors.
It is the same with the eternal fire; it's a metaphor.
When He told the disciples to beware of the yeast, it wasn't actual yeast He was talking about.
I'd be interested to know how you seperate passages of the bible that are metaphors and passages that are to be taken literally.
Jesus had a literary style and your interpretation of the eternal fire is a departure from that style.
It's a bit like watching a comedian and regarding his stories as jokes except where the joke is a little close to the bone in which case it is regarded as not a joke. Well, the meaning you infer from a joke does not necessarily reflect the intention of the comedian who simply wants to make you laugh.
You laugh at the good Samariton, you laugh at the mustard seed and you laugh at the dirty vessel but when it comes to the eternal fire, it stops being funny to you.
You see, it really is a matter of opinion.
The soul is created pure and is Godly and cannot be touched by the flesh. The soul is simply God's window to the world and one doesn't destroy the window on account of what one sees through it.
Think about it, according to Catholicism, more than five sixths of all human souls that were ever incarnate are going to be punished for eternity in the fires of hell. What kind of business or processing plant can survive when 83% of its produce is waste?
If hell were a reality created by God to punish souls, then one would have to assume that hell and not heaven were the point of God's plan.
Do you honestly think that God would be happy knowing that for every soul that comes back to Him, another five will be tortured for eternity.
So, either God is primarily concerned with filling hell, or He needs to re-jig His plant to improve the quality of the souls He produces or the idea of hell is a device by way of which we scare our children into submitting to the will of God.
No-one is going to hell.
And the reason that no-one is going to hell is that a plan to torture souls for eternity would be abhorrent to God.
Remember, God destroyed the world in a flood and then felt bad about doing that and promised never to do it again.
It would be perverse to preach that God subsequently came up with the idea of eternal torture.
The problem with the bible is that God occasionally acts out of character and it is noteworthy that God acting out of characters totally fits the agenda of the author of the story that has God acting out of character.
God does not act out of character. How can pure water make itself into vinegar?
It is with this in mind that we should read the bible. This and common sense.
God does not design torture chambers, men do.0 -
antiskeptic wrote: »Nobody perfect here I would agree. But God is perfect. And those in heaven will be perfect (made so by him, not by own efforts). There will be no stains, no blemishes, no selfish desires, no more sin or rot or disease or death.
At least, that's my idea of perfect. And God's idea of perfect.
What then does God need with hell?
The fate of our souls is not dependent on a 2000 year old story that has come down to us after generations of Chinese whispers and reinterpretations that came into the bible through edicts of those seeking to satisfy their own agendas of power and control.
How can one say on the one hand that men are responsible for evil but on the other hand, no evil person would ever try to corrupt the bible?
God does not need utilise hell as a mechanism to attract followers, His creation speaks for itself. It is men who benefit and profit from the notion of hell.
Bad men.0 -
sherr1ngton wrote: »What then does God need with Hell?
Gehenna, one of the names associated with Hell was Jerusalem's rubbish tip. That's one purpose. A place for eternal creatures who reject God to exist with what a rejection of God entails. A place to punish wrongdoing.
I don't see anything in those that offends perfection. Justice and wrath can be perfect.The fate of our souls is not dependent on a 2000 year old story that has come down to us after generations of Chinese whispers and reinterpretations that came into the bible through edicts of those seeking to satisfy their own agendas of power and control.
The fate of your soul is in the hands of whoever created it, if created. If they chose the imperfect in the process of that so be it. God so often deals with mankind through men. Imperfect men.
I don't see the problem so long as He's the one deigning it so.How can one say on the one hand that men are responsible for evil but on the other hand, no evil person would ever try to corrupt the bible?
I can't think of how anyone could suppose the Bible uncorrupted by error. But when it comes to principles, important principles, you aren't relying on a word or a sentence or a paragraph. You are relying on the thrust of scripture. You can't corrupt the whole thing.God does not need utilise hell as a mechanism to attract followers, His creation speaks for itself. It is men who benefit and profit from the notion of hell.
What he needs and what he does are two different things.0 -
no it is a matter of faith.
unless of course you simply believe jesus was just expressing an opinion.
if jesus says something so poignantly clear, it is a matter of faith to believe in him. to doubt is unbelief.
and there is no contradiction or metaphor. you can look from genesis to revelations and not only jesus, but the prophets and apostles say the same thing.
yes dear hell is real. eternal punishment is real.
2Pe 2:4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment;
First off, these are not the words of Jesus.
To take as an example of what I'm getting at, your quote from the bible implies that God intends for sinful angels to suffer indeterminitely.
Well, is Lucifer not a sinful angel?
If sinful angels are in hell then how can Satan be among us? And what are the devils and demons among us?
How does one make sense of that contradiction?
If Jesus wanted us to understand it that way then why didn't He write it down? Like all the other prophets did?
I suspect that He probably did. He was a highly educated man. I think that anything that Jesus would have written would not have profited the church. I don't think it was Jesus' intention to make the Vatican rich or to keep people poor.
Jesus wanted peace and happiness for all peoples of all nations, He wanted to overcome death, disease and suffering, not war, not oppression, not monetary profit.
What would Jesus think of the popes who sanctioned the crusades, the pope that assisted in the murder of the Knights Templar or the good Christians who were burning people at the stake for daring to hold a different view to the church?
What would He think of people telling their children that they are going to hell?
Don't you see my point? The bible has been edited and amended by precisely these people. They were not acting in the name of God, they were doing it in the name of power and wealth. Greed.
Greed is part author of the bible.
The bible speaks for men who want to control you, it is your heart and conscience that speak for God.
In a sense, the bible is part of God's judgement. It is up to us to realise that we are being led away from God. Look at the world, we have manufactured our own hell at home.
God doesn't care who started the fight, He just wants all His children to get on. He might have to work harder on an errant son but He never gives up on even a single one of his children.
God's judgement on the universe is the universe. It will be the way it is tomorrow because of the way it is today.
To God, evil is like a crease in a piece of clothing. You don't incinerate the clothing to get rid of the crease, you iron it out to make the cloth flat.
Creation is the cloth that is being ironed by God and God is constantly removing creases. There are many creases in such a great cloth and when it is finished, creation will be a splendid cloak around the shoulders of God.
And all evil will be made good.
And no burning involved. Neither of angels nor of people.0 -
antiskeptic wrote: »Gehenna, one of the names associated with Hell was Jerusalem's rubbish tip. That's one purpose. A place for eternal creatures who reject God to exist with what a rejection of God entails. A place to punish wrongdoing.
I don't see anything in those that offends perfection. Justice and wrath can be perfect.
The fate of your soul is in the hands of whoever created it, if created. If they chose the imperfect in the process of that so be it. God so often deals with mankind through men. Imperfect men.
I don't see the problem so long as He's the one deigning it so.
I can't think of how anyone could suppose the Bible uncorrupted by error. But when it comes to principles, important principles, you aren't relying on a word or a sentence or a paragraph. You are relying on the thrust of scripture. You can't corrupt the whole thing.
What he needs and what he does are two different things.
I'm sorry, God does not create rubbish and therefore has no use for an incinerator.
Creation is a story being told by God. He is the author. The idea of God punishing souls is like Arthur Conan Doyle punishing Moriarty. Moriarty came from Doyle and so Doyle would have to punish himself.
Let me assure you that God has no intention to incinerate Himself for eternity. God is not a masochist and nor is He sadistic, both of which would be required for the existence of hell.
We are fleeting thoughts in the mind of God and we will not be held to account for the dreams of God.0 -
Advertisement
-
sherr1ngton wrote: »I'm sorry, God does not create rubbish and therefore has no use for an incinerator.
Man creates rubbish.Creation is a story being told by God. He is the author. The idea of God punishing souls is like Arthur Conan Doyle punishing Moriarty. Moriarty came from Doyle and so Doyle would have to punish himself.
Or reward himself in the case of those in heaven. Is that not possible either. And if not then you are claiming that God can't create separate beingsWe are fleeting thoughts in the mind of God and we will not be held to account for the dreams of God.
If we are then this thought of God disagrees with you.0 -
antiskeptic wrote: »I can't think of how anyone could suppose the Bible uncorrupted by error. But when it comes to principles, important principles, you aren't relying on a word or a sentence or a paragraph. You are relying on the thrust of scripture. You can't corrupt the whole thing.
You can't?
They can't?
What about Peter? Could he have corrupted the whole thing from the start?
The passage quoted above precedes a misogynistic, anti-sex rant:
13 They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you./SIZE][URL="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Peter+2&version=NIV#fen-NIV-30514e"][SIZE=2][COLOR=#0066cc]e[/COLOR][/SIZE][/URL][SIZE=2 14 With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed—an accursed brood! 15 They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Bezer,/SIZE][URL="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Peter+2&version=NIV#fen-NIV-30516f"][SIZE=2][COLOR=#0066cc]f[/COLOR][/SIZE][/URL][SIZE=2 who loved the wages of wickedness.
Why did Jesus never say anything even remotely like this?
Maybe Peter misunderstood Jesus. Do you think that someone who has the kinds of problem that Peter has with sex is the best person to act as moral arbiter?
Jesus rescued a prostitute from the rantings such as Peter has above. Does Peter consider himself as without sin and so he feels entitled to start casting stones.
But now there is no Jesus to speak up for the prostitute and Peter has the floor.
And Paul.
Yes, the whole message is corrupted. On the one hand Jesus freaks out in the temple because it's the sabbath while on the other hand He justifies His disciples working on the sabbath by saying the the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.
Now, either you are happy to believe that Jesus was a hypocrite or else you must conclude that the entire story has been rewritten.
Myself, I choose to go with the latter and so I try to isolate those contradictions and I find that when I look at the words of Jesus, some seem altruistic, the good Samariton story for example, while others seem hypocritical, the parable of the talents, for instance.
Then what I do is to first ignore the altruistic stuff and read the rest in context with Peter and Paul and I find that there is some agreement there.
Then I look at the altruistic stuff in context with Peter and Paul and I find that I'm reading about two completely different personalities.
My view is that when Peter and Paul laid down a framework for Christianity, they reckoned without the gospels. I think that originally, the gospels only contained the altruistic stuff, the principled stuff and that parts like the parable of the talents were added later in order to support the capitalist approach of the church.
'And Jesus said make profits for your master or there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'
I don't think that Jesus was interested in profiteering but I think Paul and Peter were.
It is literally impossible to discern the truth from the bible but we can apply common sense to our reading of it.
And where God or Jesus seem to act out of character, we should be suspicious.0 -
antiskeptic wrote: »Man creates rubbish.
Rubbish, like man, is transient. Souls are not rubbish or man and are not transient.
God recycles everything and nothing is ever lost from His sight, it is simply changed from one form to another.
The universe comes from God word. How can you punish words?0 -
antiskeptic wrote: »Or reward himself in the case of those in heaven. Is that not possible either. And if not then you are claiming that God can't create separate beings
Reward Himself? What do you give to a man that has everything?
My point is, who made Moriarty evil and Sherlock Holmes good? Who fault is it that Holmes has a morphine habit?
Should Doyle have continued to punish Moriarty outside of the book for what Moriarty did in the book?
I don't think that I claimed the God was incapable of producing seperate beings.
We are seperate from each other but nothing is seperate from God.
Or ever will be.
Some character in God's book intruduced the concept of hell in the same way that a sci-fi writer might have a character introduce the concept of alien abduction.
Neither alien abductions nor hell exist outside the imagination of man. It just so happens that God's children have free will and tend to let their imaginations run wild. It's a creative driver but one of the side effects is that sometimes flights of fancy conjure up fearful things like 'hell' and centuries of indoctrination have convinced many of us that such things exist outside the imagination, in reality.
And this makes God chuckle. How relieved we will be we when find out the truth.0 -
antiskeptic wrote: »If we are then this thought of God disagrees with you.
And by the grace of God you can.
And neither of our souls are in peril.0 -
Advertisement
-
the point of the quotation is that HELL is real.
you have to agree with that point first. if you dont agree there is such a place, or neither Jesus nor the writers of scripture never mention such a place, then i suppose your issue is not accepting what has been written.
but if you do AGREE that there is such a place, then you should ask yourself why is there such a place ? for what purpose.
i dont know where you stand as you seem to jump back and forth about about an idea that eventually everyone goes to heaven (since no one goes to hell).
if you can quote me from scripture that there is no such place or that no one goes there eventually, then i'l engage you with this discussion. otherwise i leave you to your own thoughts of uphoria.sherr1ngton wrote: »First off, these are not the words of Jesus.
To take as an example of what I'm getting at, your quote from the bible implies that God intends for sinful angels to suffer indeterminitely.
Well, is Lucifer not a sinful angel?
If sinful angels are in hell then how can Satan be among us? And what are the devils and demons among us?
How does one make sense of that contradiction?
If Jesus wanted us to understand it that way then why didn't He write it down? Like all the other prophets did?
I suspect that He probably did. He was a highly educated man. I think that anything that Jesus would have written would not have profited the church. I don't think it was Jesus' intention to make the Vatican rich or to keep people poor.
Jesus wanted peace and happiness for all peoples of all nations, He wanted to overcome death, disease and suffering, not war, not oppression, not monetary profit.
What would Jesus think of the popes who sanctioned the crusades, the pope that assisted in the murder of the Knights Templar or the good Christians who were burning people at the stake for daring to hold a different view to the church?
What would He think of people telling their children that they are going to hell?
Don't you see my point? The bible has been edited and amended by precisely these people. They were not acting in the name of God, they were doing it in the name of power and wealth. Greed.
Greed is part author of the bible.
The bible speaks for men who want to control you, it is your heart and conscience that speak for God.
In a sense, the bible is part of God's judgement. It is up to us to realise that we are being led away from God. Look at the world, we have manufactured our own hell at home.
God doesn't care who started the fight, He just wants all His children to get on. He might have to work harder on an errant son but He never gives up on even a single one of his children.
God's judgement on the universe is the universe. It will be the way it is tomorrow because of the way it is today.
To God, evil is like a crease in a piece of clothing. You don't incinerate the clothing to get rid of the crease, you iron it out to make the cloth flat.
Creation is the cloth that is being ironed by God and God is constantly removing creases. There are many creases in such a great cloth and when it is finished, creation will be a splendid cloak around the shoulders of God.
And all evil will be made good.
And no burning involved. Neither of angels nor of people.0 -
sherr1ngton wrote: »And by the grace of God you can.
"you"?
I am but a thought of God (you said). A dream of his. And so are you. It appears God's thoughts are in conflict with each other.0 -
sherr1ngton wrote: »You can't?
They can't?
What about Peter? Could he have corrupted the whole thing from the start?
What whole thing? His epistles?
That's not the whole thing.The passage quoted above precedes a misogynistic, anti-sex rant:
13 They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you./SIZE][URL="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Peter+2&version=NIV#fen-NIV-30514e"][SIZE=2][COLOR=#0066cc]e[/COLOR][/SIZE][/URL][SIZE=2 14 With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed—an accursed brood! 15 They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Bezer,/SIZE][URL="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Peter+2&version=NIV#fen-NIV-30516f"][SIZE=2][COLOR=#0066cc]f[/COLOR][/SIZE][/URL][SIZE=2 who loved the wages of wickedness.
I take that to be an anti fornication rant. carousing, adultery, greed, appear to be the traits mentioned.
Are you of the view that sex of any kind is good? Or would you agree that wickedness can express itself through sex?Why did Jesus never say anything even remotely like this?
Jesus? I don't recall him writing anything. Are all the gospels corrupted too?Jesus rescued a prostitute from the rantings such as Peter has above. Does Peter consider himself as without sin and so he feels entitled to start casting stones.
There is a difference between righteous anger and judgmentalism. You don't have to be perfect in order to be righteously angry. Ask the parent of a molested child.Yes, the whole message is corrupted. On the one hand Jesus freaks out in the temple because it's the sabbath while on the other hand He justifies His disciples working on the sabbath by saying the the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.
Jesus freaked out about how something designed to allow man to commune with God was being prostituted to money. He also aborred it being made a religion of - man having to attend religiously for fear of breaking a law.
You'll forgive my exiting the discussion with you at this point. No insult intended but these are kindergaarten level objections you're raising. They don't display even the most elementary understanding of what's going on.0 -
Mod note: FYI, sherr1ngton has been sitebanned so he won't be responding here again.0
-
antiskeptic wrote: »As an aside: I wouldn't argue that religious adherence is a necessity for salvation. I'm pretty sure all sorts, religious and otherwise, will be 'in heaven'
........
The question isn't whether you are a good person or bad person. The question is whether you are a perfectly good person or not. if not then Hell. If so then Heaven.
.....
Since no-one can obtain to being a perfectly good person under own steam, God has provided a means whereby he does the heavy lifting. Because we are unable to. The question then is whether you avail of his provision or not.
....
No one get's to heaven by trying their best.
.......
Hitler, if he died a saved man, will be in heaven. The best person you can think of, if they die a lost person, will be in Hell. Everyone who sins (which means everyone) will be in Hell unless they are saved before they die.
.....
The default is Hell. Everyone born is on a path to it. The only thing that can stop that happening is salvation.
...........
No-one can point to enough extenuating circumstances to absolve them of all their wrongdoing. Some of it will always belong to them and them alone. And even an atoms-worth of sin is enough to condemn.
............
I was referring to my own argument. Your assumptions weren't taking it on board were it was coming from.
......
I know there are lots of different Christian views (many sharing in many fundamentally important ways even if there are differences in the details/particular aspect) but if discussing with me then the problems need to be identified in the particular version I'm positing.
Ok, so you beleive we're all going to hell unless god chooses to save us.
What do we have to do in order that god will choose to save us?0 -
Ok, so you beleive we're all going to hell unless god chooses to save us.
God "chose to save us" when he sent Jesus to die for us 2000 odd years ago..What do we have to do in order that god will choose to save us?
We dont have to do anything for God to "choose to save us". We have to decide to accept the free gift of salvation already on offer. The price of that gift has already been paid0 -
Ok, so you believe we're all going to hell unless
..we capitulate in our resistance to God's attempt to save us. Before time runs out and it's too late.What do we have to do?
Nothing as such.
God's mechanism of salvation does the work involved in getting us to the point where he can save us. Technically speaking, that involves bringing our desire to rebel to an end, by bringing us to our knees in defeat.
In practice that can take on any number of forms depending on the person circumstances. A person might get to the end of the barrel through alcohol, through an addiction, through a bereavement. But it might also be the accumulation of despair after a life of satisfaction-seeking which repeatedly fails to scratch the itch. It could be a sudden realisation of the ugliness of own sin, which by the measure of the world, wouldn't raise an eyebrow. The common thread however is the the persons will capitulating in light of a recognition of truth of how low they've actually sunk.
Or the will not capitulating, if that's what the will decides. To carry on plumbing new depths of whatever it is that scratches the itch. To suppress and bury the nagging that says this isn't the way it's supposed to be - with the person knowing they stand on the wrong side without necessarily knowing what or where the right side is
-
The only thing we can do, as such, is resist being brought to this point of capitulation. To resist being defeated. And so, the only doing we can partake of is our being damned.0 -
antiskeptic wrote: »..we capitulate in our resistance to God's attempt to save us. Before time runs out and it's too late.
Nothing as such.
God's mechanism of salvation does the work involved in getting us to the point where he can save us. Technically speaking, that involves bringing our desire to rebel to an end, by bringing us to our knees in defeat.
In practice that can take on any number of forms depending on the person circumstances. A person might get to the end of the barrel through alcohol, through an addiction, through a bereavement. But it might also be the accumulation of despair after a life of satisfaction-seeking which repeatedly fails to scratch the itch. It could be a sudden realisation of the ugliness of own sin, which by the measure of the world, wouldn't raise an eyebrow. The common thread however is the the persons will capitulating in light of a recognition of truth of how low they've actually sunk.
Or the will not capitulating, if that's what the will decides. To carry on plumbing new depths of whatever it is that scratches the itch. To suppress and bury the nagging that says this isn't the way it's supposed to be - with the person knowing they stand on the wrong side without necessarily knowing what or where the right side is
-
The only thing we can do, as such, is resist being brought to this point of capitulation. To resist being defeated. And so, the only doing we can partake of is our being damned.
Really?
So God works by making our lives so difficult that we (hopefully) eventually break down and admit that we are useless by ourselves and need Gods help?
So if we're happy and just live a normal life where we deal with the usual ups and downs and the good and the bad with strength and grace we're doomed to go to hell? But if we break down and beg for forgiveness from god, then we will be saved?
Are you serious?0 -
Everyones idea of what is a "Heaven" or "Hell" differs so how could they possibly exist on that basis alone. Personally my idea of being trapped for all eternity with my dead relatives is hell to me but heaven to others.0
-
God "chose to save us" when he sent Jesus to die for us 2000 odd years ago..
We dont have to do anything for God to "choose to save us". We have to decide to accept the free gift of salvation already on offer. The price of that gift has already been paid
So all we have to do is just believe?
What if I don't believe?0 -
Advertisement
-
Really?
So God works by making our lives so difficult that we (hopefully) eventually break down and admit that we are useless by ourselves and need Gods help?
So if we're happy and just live a normal life where we deal with the usual ups and downs and the good and the bad with strength and grace we're doomed to go to hell? But if we break down and beg for forgiveness from god, then we will be saved?
Are you serious?
God doesnt make our lives difficult - we do! It never ceases to amaze me how we as human beings manage to screw up and complicate our lives , taking us far from where God intended
"Break down"? Only if you mean recognising your own sinfulness, but I wouldn't call that a break down - you make it sound like capitulation0 -
-
-
Really?
So God works by making our lives so difficult that we (hopefully) eventually break down and admit that we are useless by ourselves and need Gods help?
Need God in order to live the lives we were designed to live. A self-determined life could never work.
As for making life difficult? To a degree. A fallen, sinful world and a fallen and sinful self combine to make life difficult. That, and the fact that unpleasant consequences attach to sin (e.g. guilt)So if we're happy and just live a normal life where we deal with the usual ups and downs and the good and the bad with strength and grace we're doomed to go to hell? But if we break down and beg for forgiveness from god, then we will be saved?
Are you serious?
Nobody leads that life. Everyone faces difficulty, everyone faces sickness, everyone faces bereavement, every one faces death. And everyone sins.
You don't deal with all those things with strength and grace. You deal with them by self-reliance and suppression of truth.0 -
that is actually what i was pointing out earlier. the idea of heaven and hell becomes a matter of convenience. but really ? is it just an idea when jesus himself preaches it ?
Luk 12:4 "I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do.
Luk 12:5 But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!
to deny the reality of hell is simply to deny christ himself, and replace him with a pseudo-christ, which of course is another imaginative effort of denial.tylercheribini wrote: »Everyones idea of what is a "Heaven" or "Hell" differs so how could they possibly exist on that basis alone. Personally my idea of being trapped for all eternity with my dead relatives is hell to me but heaven to others.0 -
Well Billy has the grace to admit that we don't know but takes a stab at an answer anyway. Christian Courier on the other hand extorts us to take a plain reading of the bible, then uses the book of revelation to justify it argument. Plain readings and Revelation don't play nice together.
Personally I take the old view that we are all in the same place, for some its heaven and for some its hell. Only when sin is destroyed will we know how it plays out.
A lot of our assumptions about hell are little more than revenge fantasies, I don't see much vengeance in Gods work, He seems to be more about healing than destroying.
I have to disagree on a few points here.
If we are in the same place will the constant view of those suffering hell not diminish the perfect happiness of those experiencing heaven. It would be like being told you've won the euro millions but you've to live in Syria - you should be happy but you just wouldn't be.
Secondly - I see a lot more evidence of "gods" destruction than I do of his healing. When's the last time a wave of holy water washed over an island and cured the inhabitants of all their aches and pains?
Thirdly, what possible reason could there be for the existence of hell if it's not about revenge?From reading this post, I get Atheist Ireland s agenda. ..
I'm not a big fan of organized religion , but Atheists Ireland posting blasphemous quotes is a bit Ironic isn't it. ....
I don't see any irony there? The blasphemy is in accordance with the law, not the beliefs of the blasphemer. After all, if you really thought you were offending a divine being, who could and would torture you for all eternity - you probably wouldn't say the offending phrase in the first place!0 -
So all we have to do is just believe?
Easier said than done huh? You would have to wonder at the instruction to believe something you have no particular reason/evidence to believe.
Especially since the Bible speaks of man being born unable to see spiritually.What if I don't believe?
You clearly will have to wait until a reason to believe arrives. Such an extraordinary claim as "This particular God (from all the available possibilities) exists and has indeed died for your sins" would take extraordinary evidence. Something that utterly convinces you.
Happily, God is well able to demonstrate his existence to you such that you will absolutely believe. After he does that you will, naturally and quite easily, believe. Only after.
You don't need to be a believer in God's existence (in the conscious sense of the word) in order to capitulate. Happily - otherwise you'd be stuck in a Catch-22.0
Advertisement