clair: Well, would you like it if all people went to Heaven?
Hitler? Manson? Dahmer?
God certainly loves them and hey, if would be cruel to punish them forever.
So what if they did horrible things. Forget about it. No punishment is necessary!
Lets get everyone out of prison on earth too while we’re at it!
What you don’t realize is that God is JUST.
If people want to stay unforgiven, even though they don’t have to, why should God stop them?
He is just. Justice demands punishment. Unless you don’t believe any criminals should be in jail?
dalovindj, What if Hell is outside of God’s created universe? What if he didn’t create it at all, but when you say no to God, what your saying is no to everything in the universe that is good. Therefore you set yourself outside of the universe where there’s is nothing. It’s seperation from God and all that’s good forever.
But then again, what if we look at it from a biblical POV, in which Jehovah created everything, including that creature of light, Lucifer? Sorry, dreamer, you can’t have it both ways. Either He created everything or he didn’t. If He didn’t, well then, He’s not the all-powerful creator of everything.
You can be a fundamentalist, or you can not be a fundamentalist (read: biblical literalist); there ain’t much middle ground.
Or, to boil it down, did or did not the Christian God create Lucifer? Did or did not He get kinda pissy when Lucifer committed the sin of pride? Did or did not He send Lucifer to walk the earth to tempt man? Did or did not He make a little bet with Lucifer to see who could screw with Job the best?
To paraphrase the lyricist, either you is, or either you ain’t. Which is it? God created everything, including Lucifer/Satan (not the former poster) and all the demons, or He didn’t and therefore He is not the all-powerful Creator of Everything?
stofsky :rolleyes: I’m merely asking a question of dalovindj here and trying not to state anything as fact (new debate approach). Since I’ve left that 1% of my belief open to debate, I’m not about to sit here and say Hell is Hell, I know where it is and what it is and that’s that. That would be something I would of done before. 
I just wanted to make the public statement that I believe 100% that God exists.
and that He is loving.
And just.
vanilla, your post is so full of holes that I was going to let clair handle it herself, but she doesn’t seem to be around today, and I’m sick of looking at it, so here goes.
Torturing someone in a lake of fire for all of eternity is quite a different order of punishment entirely from incarcerating someone in a prison for several years. Most people, even theists, find the former apalling, and the latter just, so I do not think it was at all fair for you to imply that clair would be in favor of releasing criminals from prison (though of course I do not know her feelings on the subject).
Do you really think that torture for an infinite amount of time is the only just response for any crime commited by a person on earth? Or for the “crime” of not following a particular religion?
Personally, I do not think that toture of any duration is ever just, be it administered by a human agency or some supernatural being, whether that torture is inflicted on a mass murderer or an otherwise decent person who just happens not to believe in Jesus.
And I think that the kind of God that would do that is the exact kind of unimaginative, spiteful, hateful, nasty, mean, small-minded God that an unimaginative, spiteful, hateful, nasty, mean, small-minded human would invent, and that unimaginative, spiteful, hateful, nasty, mean, small-minded humans would flock to worship. (Not that I include you in the latter category, vanilla–I don’t know the reasons you have for worshipping your God. I’m just saying.)
Gotta say “yeppers!” to that.
If you take the Bible literally, as the word of God, then Satan (for some reason I keep typing ‘Stan’ :smack: ) works for him. He does nothing except the will of God. While we’re at it, let’s lay that notion that God gave man free will to rest, shall we? God forbade man to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, it was the serpent who urged him to do so and thus gave man free will.
Assuming there’s a god, and all…Yes I would find that such a god would deserve much more respect than the one you’re talking about.
I don’t know who Dahmer is, but concerning the two others, yes. Because there’s no way any necessary limited action (in time and scope) could deserve an eternal punishment. Whatever could be the crime, eternal torture is necessarily disproportionnate. Plus, whatever harm they could have done, this harm is necessarily insignificant cwhen compared to the eternal bliss their victim will (assuming they’ll go to heaven, tough a lot of litteralist would think that these victims too will burn forever in hell). Assuming you just spent 1 million years in perfect happiness, how important is it that you have suffered during you’re ridiculously short live on earth?
Perhaps you would have a point if your concept of hell would be a temporary hell (like the catholic purgatory, or the concept of hell held in several other religions), assuming there would be a point in making criminal suffer (and I don’t think there’s actually a point, if there’s some kind of eternal life awaiting us), but eternal suffering is necessarily unjustified.
Does he or not? According to the christian theology, he’s supposed to…
Yes. It would be. I already pointed out that eternal suffering is necessarily disproportionnate with any necessarily limited crime.
Let’s assume you have children and love them. One of your children disobeys. You may decide to punish them. Perhaps because you think they deserve to suffer for something they do. But would you be cruel enough to torture them? (you could argue that what a children could is insignificant as compared to Hitler’s crime, but i would respond that hitler’s crime are insignificant as compared to eternity). More likely, you’ll want to punish them to teach them a lesson. But the comparison with eternal torment would be to lock them up in a closet and then punish them every day for the remaining of their lives. Would there be any point in doing so?
The punishment you’re proposing is way more horrible than anything they could have done. Once again, if you think a punishment is necessary, it should be limited and proportionnate to their crimes. And once again, yes, if there’s really an eternal life of happiness awaiting us, i don’t think a punishment is in any way necessary for anybody. You’re going to live forever (like in miliions of millions of millions of millions of years) and you’d still feel you need to know someone is suffering because he harmed you during your ridiculously short and insignificant life on earth? Plus, if you’re perfectly happy, you’d necessarily have no desire of revenge (if you feel such a desire, you’re unhappy)
Nope. Precisely because there’s no other life awaiting us, IMO. Hence a criminal harming me has wasted the only thing I had. And punishment during our life can be proportionnate to crimes commited during our life. Both point are moot is I’m going to live forever in happiness and if the punishment is eternal.
Actually, I always thought that a christian logically shouldn’t really care about criminals being jailed or not. The harm done to them is necessarily irrelevant as compared to what await them after their death. And criminals there’s a perfect judge awaiting for the criminal anyway (whether he decide to actually punish them or not). So, why should it be necessary to punish criminals on earth? Legal punishment makes much more sense from an atheist point of view, IMO.
Nope, it isn’t if he intend to torture them forever. Even in the case of the worst criminals.
That’s another major issue with your argument. Because actually most fundamentalist think that much people than only the worst criminals will go to hell. Yes, sure, if I really, really want to be tortured forever, god would be right in allowing me to be tortured (but of course, I should be allowed to change my mind).
But it’s not the choice that is proposed to us. People want to…say, cheat on their spouses. They didn’t sign an agreement stating that they’re are fully willing to be tortured forever if they cheat on their spouse. Let alone are they able to fully realize what such an agreement actually mean . And anyway, no sane person would state that cheating on your spouse deserve to be say, burned to death. And actually we’re not even talking about signing an agreement, but about someone who’s setting some rules and state : and if you don’t obey my rules, i’ll make sure to make you suffer as much as possible. In a totally disproportionnate way. That is the work of a tyrant, and a very cruel tyrant, at that. Not of a benevolent being.
I’m not even talking about christians who think that even the most moral and good man will burn forever if he wasn’t christian, while the most awful criminal will be forever happy in heaven providing he repented and accepted jesus as his savior some instants before his death…
I already responded that. The punishment in infinitely disproportionnate with the crime, hence definitely not just. And though punishing a criminal makes sense in a universe where there’s no afterlife, it doesn’t make sense if we’re are going to live forever in happiness, especially not if there’s anyway a perfect judge awaiting us all. If someone should be arguing about freeing all the criminals, it should be you, not me.
That would make god a benevolent being indeed deserving respect (not sure about worship, though), as long as he does whatever he can to avoid people being send to hell. Though one could wonder why he created men at the first place knowing that a lot of them would eventually suffer forever. Especially creating them able to sin. Perhaps it would necessary to assume he didn’t create men, either, or at least not with their sinful nature. In which case, you’re somewhat close to the beliefs of the middle-age cathars (who ended up burned by the benevolent christians : “kill them all, God will sort them up”, etc…)
But in this case, you’re assuming that god isn’t all-powerful. Either he must obey to some kind of absolute law of the universe, either there’s an evil and more powerful god than him who created hell, either there’s an equally powerful evil god, like in the dualist Zoroastrian religion. It’s not consistent with the christian theology, anyway.
So, certainly hell isn’t logically compatible with a god at the same time benevolent and all-poweful. Actually, it even difficult to argue in favor of a god at the same time benevolent and and omnipotent, even without a hell.
In this example, you choose to throw the “omnipotent” part out of the window. I would say that the most economical choice for someone who want to keep as much of the christian theology as possible (of course, it would be different for another religion) would be to throw out the concept of hell, not of omnipotence (Or else convert to zoroastrism…but I believe they don’t accept conversions which probably explain why they’re such a minor religion nowadays, despite being one of the oldest still existing). Also, you would find more christians who don’t believe in hell (or at least in hell as traditionnally depicted) that christians believing that god isn’t omnipotent.
Again I ask
It was a question, not my belief, just a question. Maybe an idea that I have swirling around in my head, but still, a question given to an unbeliver. Now if you don’t mind, could you answer and give me your opinions? **Squish - stofsky **?
Hell=reincarnation. Or temporary hell.
From what I’ve read, briefly, there is some school of thought that believes that the original concept of Hell was more like Purgatory-a temporary hell.
Actually, god being all powerful, he could have cosen to take back the knowledge of good and evil. So, one can assume he was OK with men having free will. Of course, it’s not very consistent with forbidding them to eat the fruits of the tree at the first place, but hey, we’re in the realm of myths and myths are rarely consistent.
Plus it’s a very common mythologic structure. Humans are created and happy but steal some power which belong exclusively to the gods (or some other god gives them this power…it’s interesting that in this case, the religion being monotheistic, the “giftbringer” is a serpent instead of another god). This usually resulting in men losing immortality (along with some other punishments, like in the case of the biblical myth).
It seemed to me that originally the Jewish “hell” (can’t remember the correct name right now) was more a place where the shadows of the living would roam without purpose. Not a place of punishment, but not a place of reward, either. Very similar to the original concept of the Erebos in the greek mythology, before they added the idea of a judgment of the dead.
My SO was explaining this to me tonite. He says there is a temporary Hell in the center of the earth, which is the same place Jesus went after he died on the cross, before he rose again. When “Judgement Day” comes, there will be a “second death” for the people that are there now and then they will be cast out of God’s presence forever. I know, it sounds incredibly harsh and I wish I could understand. All I know is that God is incredibly merciful and he says he doesn’t want anyone to go there.
quote:
clair: Well, would you like it if all people went to Heaven?
clairobscur
So let me get this straight. If God opened the doors of Heaven and said “all may come in”, then you would want to go? Even though he allows all the evil in the world to continue and still would give no answers as to why or change anything about the bible, the only thing changing would be that one statement. If he were to say that, you would immediately believe in and respect him?
I’m thinking this thread has served it’s purpose and hopefully Squish, you are satisfied. Correct me if I’m wrong but it seems to me we are only debating here now. If anyone wants to open up a thread in GD I’ll keep my eyes open, though I don’t feel the need to open one myself at this point. I think I’m going to re-read Podkayne’s post a few times and lay-low for awhile (yeah, right!).
Carry on if you’d like, I just wanted to say that.
I’m fine with a GD thread, but what would be the topic?
I’d like to see a Biblical reference to this “temporary hell in the center of the earth” (in reality, of course, the center of the earth is mostly molten iron).
You asked:
Then there would be a creator–a greater and more powerful god–who created the universe in which ‘God’s universe’ exists. Do you believe that there is a God greater than your God? In Biblical context, that’s certainly possible, as re: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”–implying that other gods do indeed exist and that God isn’t the only deity.
Thanks for participating in this thread, dreamer.
Actually, it’s been a while since I read about all that, but the place at the center of the earth is basically a holding tank. It’s said that whenever anyone dies (from Adam to us), they go there until the Rapture (if you believe in all that). THEN comes your judgement day. I could be wrong though - as I said, it’s been a while. Anyone have a quote… or if you can even give me which book, I’ll look it up?
C.S. Lewis: The Great Divorce.
Lewis envisions Hell as being like every bad day you’ve ever had on Earth, all rolled up into one. All the store-clerks are assholes, all the customers, jerks, it’s overcast, drizzly, too cold for spring clothes but too warm for winter, and besides…all your clothes are uncomfortable, or have a rip in them…the waitress spilled the lukewarm coffee on you and now your pants are sticky and the guy in the theatre (which is showing a dull movie) is talking…it’s just blah.
The story is about a group of people who take a bus-holiday…to Heaven. Can any of 'em stay? To do so, they have to give up their sins. But it’s harder than it looks…
[spoilers]
One of 'em manages to succeed, but the implication is that all will, eventually[/spoilers]
Very, very thought-provoking book.
Fenris
Hell is one big long line of Kmart registers.
