Does hell give life meaning and purpose?

[Atlas]

It's all about the dynamics of one's choice. One cannot possibly "choose" God, without an alternative. Otherwise there is nothing which makes heaven viable.

God is gratuitous.

For me, the sky god is gratuitous to my understanding of reality. But you, why would you say this? Please clarify your meaning.

As far as choice. I'm trying to demonstrate that there is a choice without hell. There is the grave. If God remembers you in love your reward is to be held close in an eternal heavenly reward. If God forgets you, you are dead to Him, forever - forgotten in the grave.

There is nothing different between this God and the Christian God except for the psychopathic side of God who creates the horror dream of hell to terrorize the souls that do not please Him for eternity.

Do you see the choice? It says something about us that we choose a God who is filled with our own darkness. A true God of love would not set us against ourselves as sport the way you describe below.

We are ruled by what we love, even in hell.

"Seek and ye shall find" ... Which is to say, we all see what we want to see, even if it's contrary to what God wishes. This is the only reason why hell exists, to keep the bad segregated and, from tormenting the good. So instead, they're allowed to torment each other which, out of the shear love of torment -- what we might call blaming others for our problems -- at least in the beginning -- they can conceive of nothing better to do. This is what "my hell" is about anyway. And, it's completely non-denominational.

Iacchus, can you possibly believe that this is what love is? This is what comes of your flight from clarity. You have stopped exploring the depth of those words you claim are most dear. Meaning and love.

How is it that you find love in the diabolic laughter of souls tormenting one another. Is that what love means in your life? List the qualities of love and you'll see that demonic torture fails to find a place on the list.

Hell is a holdover from an ideology you learned to accept as a child. Now it remains, a shadow that haunts your consciousness. See how it perverts the mind. You find that love is a sick unrelenting bedevilment intended to bring suffering, agony, and anguish on others. It is not the soul's choice - It is God's choice to maintain a madness such as this in His creation - and you call Him love too. Cast this idea aside Iacchus. It infects your dream of perfection and light and renders it an ugly, festering malignance.

 

[Atlas]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Does hell give life meaning and purpose?

Yeah it is.

God, how many Christians today refuse to believe in Hell exactly? I'm surprised that you have a hard time understanding that Christianity doesn't need Hell when so many Christians don't have the belief in Hell. Yes, I know you're not a Christian. But you have to recognize that the two ideas are compatible (Christianity/nohell) because they, frankly, are compatible to many Christians.

Elliot,

Do you have insight into their theology? According to the Creed, Jesus descended into Hell and from there rose again from the dead.

Do those Christians deny the resurrection too? Or do they accept the entire Judeo-Christian saga as nothing but the power of myth to inform our existence?

Do you know if they believe in the devil or even what sect of Christianity teaches no hell?

It's a fascinating departure from dogma, don't you think?

 

[jan]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Does hell give life meaning and purpose?

Do you have insight into their theology? According to the Creed, Jesus descended into Hell and from there rose again from the dead.

Do those Christians deny the resurrection too? Or do they accept the entire Judeo-Christian saga as nothing but the power of myth to inform our existence?

Do you know if they believe in the devil or even what sect of Christianity teaches no hell?

It's a fascinating departure from dogma, don't you think?

As far as I know, the term "Christian" is not copyrighted, nor patented, nor is it a registered brand or trade mark.

But of course a Christian who doesn't believe in hell can't be the one and only true scottsman...

As it happens, I also know a few Christians who don't believe in hell.

Some even don't believe in a literal resurrection. Some do.

 

[jan]

Originally posted by elliotfc
Now, if the debate was that you needed an afterlife to have an *objectively* meaningful life...I'd have to think about that one some more. I suspect yes...or, I think you'd have to have some eternal mind at the very least. Meaning, there could be no afterlife for us at all, but there could be an eternal mind which transcends materialism who is influenced by our lives (it may lead him to create a universe in a different way, or something).

How does any of this gives your life an objective meaning? After all, what does it mean, to have an objectively meaningful life?

Excuses for Tertulllian? He definitely had some views that are specifically labelled as heretical. I'm sure he wasn't all bad, and I'm his worst writings only reflect a part of his personality. Yes, I could see him at his worst. I don't seem his at either his best or his worth. He was of his times, and they were times of persecution and stress and savagery and all that. I don't think that .001% of Christians know anything about Tertullian these days so he's just, to me, an interesting footnote. I could condemn him harshly for maybe enjoying the idea that his enemies would suffer eternally...it's an extreme take on absolute justice, and he was self-righteous. That flew better back then, and it doesn't fly in our society today.

I think that Tertullian is of minor importance here, so I would like to drop that theme, especially since our views of Tertullian don't seem to be completely irreconcilable. But after having said that: was his time really one of "persecution and stress and savagery"? I thought he died of old age?

Everything that goes into the human experience has a say in it. When I say natural, I mean natural for humans, and not other animals. I'm trying to think if there's ever been a time in the organized (civilized?) human experience where the sentiment that some people needed to be punished (whether children or criminals) didn't exist. It is just a though exercise, and I tend to think humans have always had the desire to see trangressors punished. Whether humans should get past that desire (like I'm sure many individuals have) is another question.

But perhaps we could manage to create a society in which most people would be ashamed to publicly demand that offenders should be punished for eternity.

Perhaps it is natural to want to see offenders punished, but wanting them to see to suffer for eternity seems to me to be a bit over the top and reveals a lack of humanity.

Yes, God created hell to *house* those who would reject him (that's my definition), that's the important thing. It may or may not fulfill an emotional need, but God did not create it for that reason, and I don't think it matters to God whether it does or doesn't fulfilly an emotional need of some humans. Or, it would matter to God, but only if the person obsessed over it or something.

Does God need a hell? Does hell give God's life meaning and purpose?

These are the questions that I consider to be crucial.

God needs to allow Free Will to work even AFTER WE ARE DEAD. That's why he *needs* a hell, for it would enable Free Will (the choice to reject God eternally) in the afterlife.

Hell gives Free Will meaning and purpose. I don't think the question, then, is whether or not Hell gives God's life meaning and purpose, but whether or not Free Will (and everything that it enables, from love to hate) gives God's life meaning and purpose. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't.

Your idea of hell sounds extremely mild. Difficult to reconcile it with what the Bible claims Jesus had said.

If hell is nothing but a place where all those people who, for whatever reason, don't like God or don't care about him, can life together in peace and harmony — then I guess we totally changed the subject. Would I be omnipotent, I might be in fact considering to create such a hell. I wouldn't call it "hell", though. And there could be quite frequented roads between heaven1 (for the believers) and heaven2 (for the nonbelievers).

Therefore, I ask more specifically: does (or could) a hell that punishes and tortures its inhabitants give God's life meaning and purpose? Does God need such a hell?

I assume since you tried to construct a very different hell, you don't see the need for such a (more traditional) hell.

 

[elliotfc]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Does hell give life meaning and purpose?

There is something in the notion of cannibalism which seems to be a parallel. Some cannibals take their enemies spirit power into themselves through the consumption. It's a little different because they are the masters, they have claim on the spirit because they've conquered and taken the life.[/QUOTE]

I've got an anthropology background, and the consensus is that there really have never been "cannibals", or, cultures that were primarily anthropophagic. There have certainly been isolated cases of it, it has occurred in times of stress, and yes, there is the link to martial belief as well.

That doesn't mean that the link is not a valid one; it certainly is. Eating and drinking are universal to human beings, and Jesus uses this mechanism as a way to empower his believers. In addition, in both cases, a supernatural transfer of power is invoked. I think belief is vital to both practices as well.

We were made stronger by the idea of magic food - at least we sure thought so. And the Eucharist was no different. If you really believed you were taking Jesus into your body it had profound psychological effects.

I think all Christians who believe in the Real Presence would agree that belief is necessary for the Eucharist to have an effect on the consumer.

-Elliot

 

[elliotfc]

Originally posted by Atlas Prison deters criminal activity in the general population by keeping the prisoners outside the general population, something death does even more effectively than prison. So Hell is superfluous as a deterrent. Just leave the corpse rotting away in the grave and the soul dead and rotting with it.

Fair enough Atlas, but Hell could serve as a deterrent in a different way. You define it in a very specific, and very direct way.

Prison time also allows the prisoner to reform and reenter society having "paid his debt". Hell is not set up for that either. It's strictly a center for cruel and unusual punishment that is to last forever and removes all hope from the damned.

I won't bring up different conceptions of Hell because obviously you have one in my mind, so I'll just stick with that one. Cruel and unusual punishment is a human concept that does not apply to God's justice. Or, it may apply to God's justice. It wouldn't have to. So yes, it isn't exactly like a human prison. It would be exactly like God's prison. They will have things in common, and there will be differences too.

-Elliot

 

[elliotfc]

I can point you to centuries of mainstream scholarship (including recent stuff) that say Hell is infinitely worse than a punch in the nose. C.S Lewis who is considered to have been a moderate and intellectual Christian painted it as maddeningly horrific.

You're right.

In my model I give the guy two choices - do as I say or be punched in the nose. He might believe that being punched in the nose is preferable to doing as I say in which case it is better, or good, relatively speaking to be punched in the nose. If he chooses the punch in the nose then he is allowed it. As I see it Christianity defines God as offering such a binary. How can it be wish fulfillment?

Some people would not want to be with God (and do all that would be involved with that, namely, capitualation) for all eternity. Do you disagree with that?

I don't sit and wish for an unpleasant eternity any more than my friend wishes for a punch in the nose.

I'm not saying that you do. I'm not saying that anyone does, either. You have identified one of the options (an unpleasant eternity) without really going into the other part of the binary opposition. So I could ask you this question. If you die, are confronted by God, and told that your beliefs on Earth (as sincere as they certainly were) were incorrect, and that you (like all people) need to understand that your sinful life was a sign that you were at war with God and that your sins need to be fully appreciated and understood and that Jesus is the only way to the Father (I could go on and on and on), and only after accepting all of that (ideas and beliefs that you may have completely rejected in your earthly life), would you *totally* capitualte to that objective truth? Would it be a hard choice for you? Granted, this is my personal view of how a person achieves eternal communion with God (I'm not going to call it eternal pleasure or happiness, because the focus is on God). Or, if you're not sure how you'd act in this case, could you possibly *respect* or *understand* someone who refuses to capitulate to God in such a way, and then chooses Hell in order to stay true to the individual's own principles? Or, could you conceive that (even if you don't respect/understand it) as a possibility?

But how many people want - as you say - to be "cut off from God"?

On this earth? To the atheist it would be irrelevant, as how can you be cut off from someone that doesn't exist? To the theist, they will believe (like myself or a terrorist bomber or an irreligious type who only prays once or twice a year) that they have God pegged, so surely they wouldn't want to be cut off from their particular impression of God.

But I'm not talking about the on earth scenario. I'm talking about when it's all laid out. Then you have to dispose of your pride completely. See, we'll all be wrong about God (some more than others). Will we be content with that fact, or, will we refuse to admit any flaw in ourselves, looking for any excuse or anyway to hold onto our pride? This is the time where I'll suggest that some people may decide to *want* to be cut off from God. And I have no idea about a percentage of people who would choose what would be, in my opinion, a really bad situation. But if Lucifer could choose it, why couldn't we?

Would an eternal soul want to be cut off from God if he/she can't have God on his/her own terms? Maybe. Why not? See, I'm not fixated on pain/pleasure/sad/happy, or anything like that. Those are not the crucial issues, and anyone who thinks that they are will also have to dispose of *that* belief.

Presumably an infinitely merciful God will not be consigning people who genuinely don't believe in the Christian God to Hell.

Losing the modifier, they'll have to believe in God as God is. I, as a Christian, don't have the full appreciation of God, and I may have it a bit wrong. I'm not going to tell God that he has to fit in my own personal Christian conception of God. Actually, nobody is going to have to believe in the *Christian* conception of God. When you are judged, there's no more picking and choosing; or, there's only the *correct* choice, or a perception that the person will refuse to relinquish.

So who is in Hell? And where are the people that genuinely don't believe in the Christian God?

The Catholic Church (I am a Catholic) has never proclaimed that any individual (that can be named) is in Hell. I don't know who is in Hell, but I think that there are people in Hell. The people who don't believe in the Christian God (or, more correctly, didn't believe in the Christian God while alive on Earth) will be allowed to, by a merciful God, to accept Jesus as the way to the Father after they are dead. That is my personal belief, and many Christians believe differently.

I am not so much interested in the classical understanding of Hell than what might be considered the contemporary mainstream understanding of Hell. But I am also interested in your understanding of this concept.

I will stubbornly insist that people can choose Hell, and that God will allow that free choice to be made. I think Hell is a variable. It could be hellfire and brimstone, it could be an infinite supply of heroin, it could be an eternity with demonic 6 year old boys. The only ingredient off limits would be the love of God.

-Elliot

 

[elliotfc]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Does hell give life meaning and purpose?

Honestly - this is brand new to me. I've never heard of xians who don't believe in Hell (and I assume a devil). Please point me to a link or book that explains how this works. It must be fascinating!

http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=359
Scroll to table 3. It says that 82% of Christians believe in Hell (and only 99% of Christians believe in God. Heh).

As to how it works? A person can believe in anything they want. No labeled person is *confined* to believe in everything that the label is supposed to believe in.

-Elliot

 

[elliotfc]

I would also like to see how xians can renounce critical thinking without the threat of eternal hellfire.

Thomas, do you have a hard time conceiving the possibility or something?

A person can stand on a corner and renounce people who stand on street corners renouncing things. How? Just by doing it.

You sound like a doubting Thomas. Do you really need to see it to believe it?

-Elliot

 

[elliotfc]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Does hell give life meaning and purpose?

Elliot,

Do you have insight into their theology? According to the Creed, Jesus descended into Hell and from there rose again from the dead.

A few answers.

First, according to a 2003 Harris poll, 18% of people who label themselves as Christians do not believe in Hell. I think that most, if not all of those people, would reject Creeds (I think you're referring to the Apostles Creed, or the Nicene Creed) that include any mention of Hell. Maybe the Christian has constructed a personal creed, and subscribes to it, and not any creeds constructed by particular churches.

Second, I've met very many Catholics who insist that there is no Hell (some of them may have actually meant that there is no fire/brimstone/punishment Hell and they might have had something else in mind, I don't know) and that the bit in the Creed is really about Jesus going into a limbo-like place, a holding cell for souls who died before the Incarnation.

Third, some Christians can conceivably believe that Hell is an archaic theological construct that has to be clipped just as most Christians have clipped many of the harsh proscriptions in Mosaic Law. These would be modernist, or sophisticated Christians, who might feel Hell to be incompatible with their idea of an eternally loving and forgiving God. I've read some books/articles which hold this way of thinking.

Do those Christians deny the resurrection too? Or do they accept the entire Judeo-Christian saga as nothing but the power of myth to inform our existence?

4% of Christians in the referred to poll reject the resurrection, compared to 18% who reject Hell.

Do you know if they believe in the devil or even what sect of Christianity teaches no hell?

18% of Christians do not believe in the devil. I don't think any mainstream churches hold that line. I'm sure there are dozens of small, unitarian style churches when many Christian members. I think the Gurneyites (small sect of Quakers) reject hell and Satan. I can't remember why I think that, but it's in my head so it must be true arf arf.

It's a fascinating departure from dogma, don't you think?

No, it is dogma actually. Once you've settled on what dogmas to pick, they become personal dogmas.

-Elliot

 

[elliotfc]

How does any of this gives your life an objective meaning? After all, what does it mean, to have an objectively meaningful life?

What it means is up to the objective judge, who would be God, by definition. Objective meaning means true meaning, and not one that can be debated. It can be rejected (go to hell and all of that).

I think that Tertullian is of minor importance here, so I would like to drop that theme, especially since our views of Tertullian don't seem to be completely irreconcilable. But after having said that: was his time really one of "persecution and stress and savagery"? I thought he died of old age?

Yes, but the apostle John also died of old age while the other apostles were mostly martyred. Tertullian also wrote this letter, called "On Flight in Persecution".
http://www.molloy.edu/academic/philosophy/SOPHIA/tertullian/tertullian_flight_txt.htm

But perhaps we could manage to create a society in which most people would be ashamed to publicly demand that offenders should be punished for eternity.

I think we've achieved that society! Stree corner preachers who spread hellfire and brimstone are not popular! It is becoming increasingly uncool to be a religious extremist of that ilk (you're all going to hell). They are lambasted on television and film, and most Christians have mastered the phrase "yes, I'm Catholic/Christian but..." Like me! I'm Christian, but I don't think that all non-Christians are going to burn in Hell.

I understand the impression that people have of fundamentalist Christians, that they're everywhere, that they want to scare us all about the reality of Hell, etc. With 300 million people you're going to have a few million of such people. That's just the way it is. And they know how to sound more numerous than they really are, just like the Confederacy knew how to inflate the size of their forces by strategic displacement.

Perhaps it is natural to want to see offenders punished, but wanting them to see to suffer for eternity seems to me to be a bit over the top and reveals a lack of humanity.

Yes, but it would also reveal a lack of humanity to not understand how a father, who's daughter was tortured, raped, and murdered, might want the perpetrator to burn in hell.

Your idea of hell sounds extremely mild. Difficult to reconcile it with what the Bible claims Jesus had said.

Jesus wanted to paint a stark and scary depiction of Hell and I ain't going to begrudge him that. I actually do consider Hell to be an awful place to be...because I am a believer! When you say my idea is mild...I'm trying to accentuate a philosophical understanding of Hell, and I'm not to concerned with the blood and guts of Hell. Some people are, and some people are helped by such depictions of Hell, and I ain't going to begrude that either.

If hell is nothing but a place where all those people who, for whatever reason, don't like God or don't care about him, can life together in peace and harmony — then I guess we totally changed the subject.

If we have, my bad.

My point is that it is *essentially* a place where people who reject God go. The details, the depths of despair, all of that is not of vital importance to me. The subject is Hell, and I'm trying to offer something that I think I can offer. A sort of detached, and unemotional, picture of Hell. If you're looking for something else, God knows you could find it. If you want to focus on the pain/suffering of Hell (whether you believe in it or not), you can definitely do that. I don't think doing so is wrong, or disordered. It's just not the best way for me to think about Hell.

Therefore, I ask more specifically: does (or could) a hell that punishes and tortures its inhabitants give God's life meaning and purpose? Does God need such a hell?

I don't think that anything, besides God's mere existence, gives God's life meaning and purpose. The meaning and purpose comes before any activity of God. If God was contingent upon what he creates to have meaning, he would be a contingency, but that doesn't make any sense.

God chooses to respect Free Will, and a ramification of that is Hell. I don't think that need has anything to do with it. The fact that God respects Free Will shouldn't be transformed into a need.

I assume since you tried to construct a very different hell, you don't see the need for such a (more traditional) hell.

No, I see a need, because Jesus saw a need too. I'm talking about depictions of Hell as other people would appreciate them.

As for my personal needs, no, I really don't need the Hell as torture device model.

-Elliot

 

[elliotfc]

"Does hell give life meaning and purpose?"

Having written a few thousand words on that already, I think the question begs the question "would life *not* have meaning or purpose without Hell?

So I'd ask the people who don't believe in Hell if life has meaning or purpose without Hell. If so, is it conceivable then that even people who believe in Hell would *agree* with you, that life has meaning or purpose without Hell? Does that make sense? Or, to rephrase that thought, is a person who believes in Hell precluded from having the same notion of a non-believer of Hell, that life has meaning and purpose, for the same reasons.

Or, if people who don't believe in Hell *also* don't believe that life has meaning or purpose, would you propose the question as a way of discovering under what possible circumstances a human could find meaning/purpose in life?

-Elliot

 

[Thomas]

Thomas, do you have a hard time conceiving the possibility or something?

I'm open to all possibilities as long as it doesn't conflict with common sense.

A person can stand on a corner and renounce people who stand on street corners renouncing things. How? Just by doing it.

Sorry, you might want to elaborate on that so I don't misunderstand it.

You sound like a doubting Thomas. Do you really need to see it to believe it?

You're not the first one to call me that. But actually I believe in things from theoretical physics which can't be directly verified. For one thing, I believe that the universe are striving towards a state of extreme symmetry (or maximum immunity). You can see how symmetry increase by the minute by looking at the history of almost everything. It's an abstract hypothesis, but so is the idea of hell, and if you watch the news it could seem that we're already there.

One thing I have never told you. I'm actually quite impressed by your calmness. Hats off for that. I figure you must be an excellent priest, because your calmness will have a contagious effect on the believers you help in the daily (if I'm right about you being a priest?).

Add to this that I don't sympathize with religion, and I think you could use your traits in far more suited areas of study and social affairs. Religion tend to block scientific progress and critical thinking.

 

[jan]

I'm actually quite impressed by your calmness. Hats off for that.

I would like to second that.

 

[Iacchus]

For me, the sky god is gratuitous to my understanding of reality. But you, why would you say this? Please clarify your meaning.

As far as choice. I'm trying to demonstrate that there is a choice without hell. There is the grave. If God remembers you in love your reward is to be held close in an eternal heavenly reward. If God forgets you, you are dead to Him, forever - forgotten in the grave.

And what you don't seem to understand, is that what we receive in the next life is contingent upon what we adamantly hold onto in this life. So, why shouldn't God fulfill our wishes and give us what we desire most? This is what makes Him gratuitous.

There is nothing different between this God and the Christian God except for the psychopathic side of God who creates the horror dream of hell to terrorize the souls that do not please Him for eternity.

The psychopathic side you speak of here, is the hell which is exhibited in man.

Do you see the choice? It says something about us that we choose a God who is filled with our own darkness. A true God of love would not set us against ourselves as sport the way you describe below. Iacchus, can you possibly believe that this is what love is? This is what comes of your flight from clarity. You have stopped exploring the depth of those words you claim are most dear. Meaning and love.

The only choice I see here is the love of self, over the welfare of others.

How is it that you find love in the diabolic laughter of souls tormenting one another. Is that what love means in your life? List the qualities of love and you'll see that demonic torture fails to find a place on the list.

So, what exactly do sado-masochists get out of torturing each other?

Hell is a holdover from an ideology you learned to accept as a child. Now it remains, a shadow that haunts your consciousness. See how it perverts the mind. You find that love is a sick unrelenting bedevilment intended to bring suffering, agony, and anguish on others. It is not the soul's choice - It is God's choice to maintain a madness such as this in His creation - and you call Him love too. Cast this idea aside Iacchus. It infects your dream of perfection and light and renders it an ugly, festering malignance.

Hey, nice projection. But, I'm afraid that's all it is.

 

[Atlas]

And what you don't seem to understand, is that what we receive in the next life is contingent upon what we adamantly hold onto in this life.

Ok... You're right. I don't understand the contingency you name. You seldom refer to religion, I don't think of you as a religionist. I think of you as a numerologist which Christian religions consider occult and sinful, I believe. Are all beliefs equivalent? How do know your truth leads to heaven and not hell. And how do you know that your definition or idea of hell has any merit or truth value? That is, how can you have confidence in what seems to me as your own invention?

So, why shouldn't God fulfill our wishes and give us what we desire most?

No reason, I guess. But the opposite question should also be asked - Why should He? He doesn't do so here. Nor does He give any indication what many want to know... What happens when we die? Isn't it a leap, and an incredible one at that, to assume that you know or can know what God's plans are? How do you come by your knowledge?

The psychopathic side you speak of here, is the hell which is exhibited in man.

No. I'm asking about the deity gleefully watching the souls He created toment each other eternally. What "loving" God would allow such a thing much less create the timeless arena.

The only choice I see here is the love of self, over the welfare of others.

You are willfully blind. Try... you can do it.

So, what exactly do sado-masochists get out of torturing each other?

Thrill - Not love.

 

[Ossai]

elliotfc

I think that anyone at any time can choose to reject God, be you human or angel.

As for heaven...I think it's a state of being. Christianity, or at least Catholcism, actually doesn't have a whole lot of specifics about it. Christians believe in the resurrection of the body, Christians believe that we were created to be heaven, and heaven for us could actually be a life (in harmony with God i.e. Adam & Eve) on a recreated Earth.

So A&E messed up while in heaven and the whole Jesus bit is just to get back in? So what’s to stop someone after arriving in heave, from getting kicked out again? Would they be sent back to earth or would they go straight to hell, do not pass GO, do not collect $200.
If they are kicked out, do they get another chance at heaven?
What about the people that don’t go to heaven, are they stuck in hell or can they change their mind? If free will is so important couldn’t they just decided to accept god and be welcomed back?

Putting your faith in what is written about God in holy texts means putting your faith entirely in man. That's like saying that putting your faith in what is written about science in a science book is putting your faith entirely in man.

I see no reason not to put trust in man. After all, we’re all we’ve got.

To quote Upchurch

Having faith in scripture is kind of like have unprotected sex, you are having faith in every single person who has ever manipulated the scripture.

But that's because you don't believe God exists, so of course Christians can't worship God. We say we do worship God, we say it directly and clearly, and if God exists, I'll stick with his opinion on the matter. If he doesn't exist, it doesn't matter.

To quote Homer. ‘What if you pick the wrong god and the real one is sitting in heaven just getting madder and madder?”

We're all in this together, that's what Christians believe.

To pick a nit. No, that’s what you as a Christian believe. That is not what all Christians believe.

jjramsey

Originally posted by Igopogo
Heaven and hell are concepts that exist in human centric religions. They ignore the reality around them, (God - if you want to define it that way), and arrogantly invent a means to correct the mistakes they feel that God made in doling out our lots in life.

This is half-wrong and a bit incoherent. Heaven and Hell are certainly doctrines that deal with the fact that those who do wrong often don't get their comeuppance in their lifetimes.

Human centric.

Where you go wrong here is in assuming that those who believe in Heaven and Hell see the prosperity of cheaters as the result of "mistakes they feel that God made in doling out our lots in life." The incoherency is the idea that the concepts of Heaven and Hell imply ignorance of the reality that good things happen to bad people and vice versa, when this is the very reality that the doctrines of Heaven and Hell address.

I read Igopogo’s statement differently. It’s not the ignorance but the knowledge that good things happen to bad people that form the basis for heaven and hell. There would be no need for hell if bad people got their comeuppance while alive.

Seriously, even most inerrantists believe that only the original versions of the Bible documents (which are now lost) are infallible, while copies and translations may have errors.

From the buckle of the bible belt here, but you’re very wrong on this one, at least in this part of the country. Come down and listen to some Church of Christ sermons for starters.

Ossai

 

[jan]

Yes, but it would also reveal a lack of humanity to not understand how a father, who's daughter was tortured, raped, and murdered, might want the perpetrator to burn in hell.

I can understand if he wants to break all the murderers bones, smash his teeths, gouge his eyes, strip his skin and burn him alive. But hell?

 

[Atlas]

I can understand if he wants to break all the murderers bones, smash his teeths, gouge his eyes, strip his skin and burn him alive. But hell?

Good point. Our outrage can push us toward hope for extreme retribution - but hell is so over the top. Unending, incomprehensible torture - its senselessness offends us.

Religionists are trapped by the idea of the eternal soul. Hell is an unfortunate upshot of their assumption.

 

[Iacchus]

Ok... You're right. I don't understand the contingency you name. You seldom refer to religion, I don't think of you as a religionist. I think of you as a numerologist which Christian religions consider occult and sinful, I believe. Are all beliefs equivalent? How do know your truth leads to heaven and not hell. And how do you know that your definition or idea of hell has any merit or truth value? That is, how can you have confidence in what seems to me as your own invention?

I am also relativist -- and mystic -- and suggest that we are all creatures of our own invention. Do you know of any two people who think and act alike? I don't. So in that sense heaven and hell must be as varied as the number of people on this planet. Which isn't to say we all don't derive our perception from the same thing. There's only one sun in the sky isn't there?

No reason, I guess. But the opposite question should also be asked - Why should He? He doesn't do so here. Nor does He give any indication what many want to know... What happens when we die? Isn't it a leap, and an incredible one at that, to assume that you know or can know what God's plans are? How do you come by your knowledge?

If God didn't allow for free will -- how else could we come to acknowledge Him, by being "good little robots?" -- there would be no need to hold anyone accountable for "playing God."

No. I'm asking about the deity gleefully watching the souls He created toment each other eternally.

The only ones getting "a thill" out of this are the sado-masochists in hell.

What "loving" God would allow such a thing much less create the timeless arena.You are willfully blind. Try... you can do it.

God is more like the neutral zone which exists between our thoughts and feelings. Whereas without this sense of equillibrium, there would be nothing.

Thrill - Not love.

No, it's simply a matter of what you desire most.