There is the idea of course hellfire isn’t the sort you see in Dante or Chick tracts (with fire and torture) but more generally a separation from God.
Also in the eyes of God who is perfect even trivial things like say lying or stealing could be just as horrible as mass murder or genocide is to our eyes.
As for the inspiration for this question this blog post by the wife of Pastor Steve Anderson (on whom I posted a Pit thread back in December):
Or as I suggest, the Glory of God is experienced by those who hate Him as the Fire of Hell.
I do not think the idea of all sins being equal as contrasted with God’s Perfection is really Biblical.
The Pastor’s wife makes a good point. God does hate some actions & there comes a point where you cannot separate the actions from the actor. Except for the verses about Esau being hated there, every passage cited shows God hating people who actually do harmful stuff to people & wallow in hateful attitudes. And to some extent, we are called to share in that hatred. HOWEVER, we Christians have to always remember that we were among those who merited God’s hatred.
If Christ had so desired, He could have rightly killed the Christian-killer Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus & sent him straight to Hell. With that perspective, we have to be very careful in how we treat even the worst of people- and I say this as a staunch believer in the rightness of corporal & capital punishment.
I’ve a question, FriarTed; would it also be reasonable to say that another reason why that hatred may not be so easily shared is that, not being omniscient, we don’t have access to as perfect a measure of judgement as does God?
As an aside, the idea that God in his magnificience would be terrible to some seems to play that glory downwards quite a bit. Certainly in some situations being confronted with the antithesis of one’s beliefs or suchlike might well be unpleasant, but I would have thought such magnificience in this case would rather preclude that. We are talking ultimate glory here!
A bit offtopic but amusingly enough one of the ads I saw on this thread was this:
Very reasonable! Thanks for bringing that up!
I would be very happy to find out in the End that all people will be so enthralled at seeing God totally clearly that they will melt in repentance & adoration. However, I can’t discount Christ’s solemn warnings that even at the Judgment Throne, people will be copping an attitude with God. Some people are just that stubborn.
Talk about some people’s concepts of Eternal Torment!
Should such a thing as God exist, I hope I would be one of those people. He’s got a lot to answer for. The way I see it, just being the creator of the universe doesn’t give him any right to be shielded wholly from criticism. Sure, if God exists he could no doubt just reach into my mind, break a few important things, and – boom, just like that – I melt in repentance and adoration. If that’s the sort of thing he enjoys, that’s what’ll happen. But if he values me, he’ll take his lumps, because they’re part of the package. Anything else necessarily entails the death of me as an individual – in which case I stop existing anyway and could not care less what happens thereafter.
For the record, if I were a god, copping an attitude with your creator would not only be tolerated, but encouraged. People should think for themselves. The mere fact that someone created you and has the power to erase you from existence with a single thought does not grant them any right to treat you like a slave. If you have the power to do so, you can have neither respect nor love.
Just to muddy up the situation further, I found John Paterson-Smyth’s 1910 Gospel of the HereAfter has been scanned onto the Net. I found my copy at a flea market for 10 cents over a decade ago. Glad to see it’s been given immortality on the Net.
He gives Biblical consideration to Afterlife Salvation, Annihilation of the Wicked, and Universalism, tho he does not outrightly dismiss traditional viewpoints. He’s maddenly inconclusive but it’s great to see that he raises the questions.
There is a difference between Heaven, the Kingdom of God, and the New Earth. Where one may end up depends on several things. But one in heaven or in the Kingdom of God can assist those souls in Hell and on earth, guiding them spiritually to Jesus to the extent that the person will allow. Only a very few will be locked in Hell/Lake of Fire for a very very long time, and you will see, even if they seemed friendly and nice on earth, just how rotten they are and how evil, how they caused great suffering for many. These very few people, are aspects of the soul of the devil, and is the reason for all suffering on earth. You will understand this, and that the fire is to ultimately refine them, even if it means burning away 99.99% of them in hell over ages of ages. You will understand that those ways cause untold suffering, and why that way must be destroyed for Love to rule.
Could you tell us which Bible contains this information, and where?
Well, that would make more sense than having Hitler, Pol Pot, Anne Frank, and Gandhi all in the same circle of hell because the first two were evil and the latter two didn’t have the “right” beliefs.
While I’m unsure if it’s exactly biblical according to some theologians people in Hell are punished according to their sins (ie so Hitler will be under far worse condtion than Ghandi).
You are wrong. eating meat on Friday was a mortal sin. I was a Catholic and had a lot of trouble with that one. I attended Catechism classes and was conferred. I actually do know something about it. I was raised in the church and received my programming,
Church teachings are full of contradictions. The omniscient god who knows everything. The omnipresent god who is everywhere. If he is omnipresent, why do we have to go to church? If he knows everything, he knows if you will do bad. he may as well charbroil you at birth and save the trouble. How is it free will ,if he already knows what you are going to do? It does not stand up to much rigor. Church philosophers spent a lot of brainpower trying to find an explanation that would quiet the questions. Some go to church and never ask them. But at a higher level, the church constantly tries to invent explanations that will sell the flock that has doubts. But it fails miserably. The old church did not have to find an explanation for evolution. Darwin had the elders spinning their wheels trying to work around it. Science keeps them busy.
I was raised a Baptist, and we were not supposed to question or doubt any doctrines; if we did, it was “Satan working on us.”
What Baptist denomination were you-Southern Baptist or Independent Baptist?
Not Southern…unless it was Southern California.
I never heard them call it anything but Baptist.
For instance what was the church’s name? Did you use the KJV? Did the ladies have to wear long skirts? Were the people there generally anti-Catholic?
It was just called the First Baptist church, yes to the KJV, no dress code that I was ever aware of.
I get the same thing. It’s making me question my continued membership in that church. But that is just “Satan working even harder” on me.