Post by homer on May 14, 2012 21:05:25 GMT 2
Yes we are beating a dead horse here of course (ooo that rhymes) since my belief is that God is infallible.
And your retorts to this are all prefaced by your conviction that their is no God at all, "but if there was a God why would he be loving if ...fill in the blank."
Anyways there is much to say here in regards to Hell. This same question I asked to everyone, including my pastor, as it was the biggest thing that made no sense to me. How could it be justice to burn or punish people for an eternity...after all even if you took into account someone who had devoted their life to committing the most unspeakable atrocities, a life time is after all a life time and how could an eternal punishment ever fit the crime. The answer is undeniably No, it could not. Especially when my concern was for friends who were perhaps agnostic or atheistic, but not at all what we could call evil with no regard to the well being of other people. They were loving caring individuals.
"If God is petty enough that he wants to keep them out of Heaven, fair enough, but throwing them into a lake of fire to experience unimaginable pain for the rest of eternity? Really? That's perfect justice?"
Again here you take the blame for your chosen separation and denial of God and place it on God's shoulders when he has given you every opportunity to accept him and believe in him and be forgiven for sin through his son.
Paul says this in Romans 1:28 - That all are without excuse...
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. 2 You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. 2 Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. 3 So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? 4 Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?5 But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath , when his righteous judgment will be revealed. 6 God “will repay each person according to what they have done.” 7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. 8 But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. 9 There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; 10 but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 11 For God does not show favoritism. 12 All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. 14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.) 16 This will take place on the day when God judges people’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.
So Paul inspired by the spirit of God declares none of us has excuse for turning our backs to God and denying him, but those who do so become haters of God, he leaves us to live in our own sins because it is what we have chosen and what we choose is separation from God at death when we face judgment because he cannot allow the sin into his perfect kingdom.
This website below clears up the eternal aspect of the punishment, I think it speaks well to this supposed contradiction in God being perfectly Just but also eternally punishing people. Focusing on the passage of REV 20 8-9 that is not speaking symbolically but literally. Eventually God destroys those who have rejected his grace and willfully chosen sin over his love and forgiveness. So they cease to exist, he has the power to create eternal life and the power to destroy it, which is ok news right? Since the atheistic belief of afterlife is summed up simply by the total lack of life, we die and cease to be a consciousness any longer, by rejecting God you one day receive what you already believe anyway. Read this though, it's a good source of the Christian doctrine on hell in my opinion.
www.thetruthabouthell.net/
Now this is a personal question for you, would you say there is even really evil in the world? Take for example a serial rapist, is that evil? In a world absent of eternal souls what is evil to you?
If everything in the bible is more or less made up, then truth is relative to each person correct? We are able to define our own morals yes, and while we can settle on things that we may deem as hurtful to others, can we truly call them wrong? After all, no doubt Hitler thought he was doing the right thing by cleansing the human populace of inferior races. If there is no eternal concept of evil, Hitler was not evil he was just misunderstood? Your thoughts?
And your retorts to this are all prefaced by your conviction that their is no God at all, "but if there was a God why would he be loving if ...fill in the blank."
Anyways there is much to say here in regards to Hell. This same question I asked to everyone, including my pastor, as it was the biggest thing that made no sense to me. How could it be justice to burn or punish people for an eternity...after all even if you took into account someone who had devoted their life to committing the most unspeakable atrocities, a life time is after all a life time and how could an eternal punishment ever fit the crime. The answer is undeniably No, it could not. Especially when my concern was for friends who were perhaps agnostic or atheistic, but not at all what we could call evil with no regard to the well being of other people. They were loving caring individuals.
"If God is petty enough that he wants to keep them out of Heaven, fair enough, but throwing them into a lake of fire to experience unimaginable pain for the rest of eternity? Really? That's perfect justice?"
Again here you take the blame for your chosen separation and denial of God and place it on God's shoulders when he has given you every opportunity to accept him and believe in him and be forgiven for sin through his son.
Paul says this in Romans 1:28 - That all are without excuse...
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. 2 You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. 2 Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. 3 So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? 4 Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?5 But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath , when his righteous judgment will be revealed. 6 God “will repay each person according to what they have done.” 7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. 8 But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. 9 There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; 10 but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 11 For God does not show favoritism. 12 All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. 14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.) 16 This will take place on the day when God judges people’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.
So Paul inspired by the spirit of God declares none of us has excuse for turning our backs to God and denying him, but those who do so become haters of God, he leaves us to live in our own sins because it is what we have chosen and what we choose is separation from God at death when we face judgment because he cannot allow the sin into his perfect kingdom.
This website below clears up the eternal aspect of the punishment, I think it speaks well to this supposed contradiction in God being perfectly Just but also eternally punishing people. Focusing on the passage of REV 20 8-9 that is not speaking symbolically but literally. Eventually God destroys those who have rejected his grace and willfully chosen sin over his love and forgiveness. So they cease to exist, he has the power to create eternal life and the power to destroy it, which is ok news right? Since the atheistic belief of afterlife is summed up simply by the total lack of life, we die and cease to be a consciousness any longer, by rejecting God you one day receive what you already believe anyway. Read this though, it's a good source of the Christian doctrine on hell in my opinion.
www.thetruthabouthell.net/
Now this is a personal question for you, would you say there is even really evil in the world? Take for example a serial rapist, is that evil? In a world absent of eternal souls what is evil to you?
If everything in the bible is more or less made up, then truth is relative to each person correct? We are able to define our own morals yes, and while we can settle on things that we may deem as hurtful to others, can we truly call them wrong? After all, no doubt Hitler thought he was doing the right thing by cleansing the human populace of inferior races. If there is no eternal concept of evil, Hitler was not evil he was just misunderstood? Your thoughts?
