Explanation for Bible-Thumpers and Hell?

The BBQ Pit
1

---------- Point #1 -----------

Isn’t hell merely eternal separation from God? Isn’t that what the non-Christian wants: to not have anything to do with God? Isn’t it fair then for God to give people what they asked for? shrugs shoulders and raises eyebrows I can’t find any bad logic there.

-----------Point #2------------

Ezekiel 33:11 says, “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live…”

Contrary to some beliefs here, neither God nor a sane Biblical believer takes pleasure in the thought of a person going to any place like hell. Justice supposedly is upheld which is the overall goal, but it is by no means a happy time for anyone. In fact, why do you think those crazy Bible-thumpers keep trying to convert you? Because they don’t want you to go to Hell, a place they think exists!

However stupid they sound, or wrong they may be, or superioristic they seem, they care, bottom line. However closed minded they appear, they believe in their belief strongly and for them to give that up over a couple of discussions on a message board could mean that they were never true believers in the first place… so why would you want to blame them for hanging on by their fingernails to their faith and trying to frantically push it on you? Why?

If they cause you harm in any way, then resentment of that particular Christian(s) is warranted. But, if one follows the Bible to a “T”, I wouldn’t think that they would be going around causing harm to very many people on a regular basis. The Bible teaches love, believe it or not. While God’s wrath is well documented, Christians are certainly not called upon to cause harm or carry out judgement, only show love.

(There are a few places in the OT Bible where God commands believers to kill, carry out God’s judgement. But the undoing of the First Covenant that the NT teaches makes it clear that a Christian who tries to carry out God’s judgement will be judged harshly. It’s a fact of being a NT Christian.)

Remember, one can regretfully believe in something. It’s called accepting a terrible truth (Hell). Nobody’s happy about it or even wants to talk or think about it, but everybody believes it’s real and they respect it’s realism and what it stands for. Christians are out to prevent this accepted terrible truth from happening to others. Nothing more or less. If there is some prideful or unloving agenda poking out from their preaching, then I would seriously doubt that they are a Biblical believer, but rather an impostor and I would label them accordingly, to preserve fairness to the true Biblical follwers, the ones who care.

2

If God’s judgement is perfect, why would Hell be “regretful?”

Everyone who goes there deserves it, right? What’s to regret?
Do you personally believe that a person who is just as good as you but doesn’t happen to believe in the same god as you deserves to be tortured forever?

3

There’s also the little problem that if you go around bugging people about hell, you’re being an annoying busybody. You know, like those people who drive slow in the fast lane in order to keep people from speeding.

(Sorry, I couldn’t resist…)

4

That’s an interesting and valid viewpoint, Fuel, but I don’t really give a shit. Discussing theology is, to me, about as interesting and useful as having my aura read, or getting my chakras realigned. The only thing about religion that really interests me is when it affects how you relate to people in real life.

From my point of view, religion is just the excuse. You ask someone, “Why do you spend all your time helping out at the homeless shelter?” and they say, “It’s what God wants.” You ask someone else why they’re picketing the funeral of an AIDS victim, and they give the same answer. Well, bullshit. They help out at the homeless center because they’re a good person who cares about others, and have conceived a God to fit their view of what’s “good.” And the exact same applies to the guy at the funeral: he’s invented a God for himself that shares his hate. Both Christians can point to stuff in the Bible that supports their view of God, but both of them are also ignoring stuff in the Bible that clashes with their idea of God. Because it’s not beliefs that shape the man, it’s the man who shapes the beliefs.

So, saying your “regretful” that some people are going to hell doesn’t make much of an impression on me, because who you think is going to hell is nothing more than a reflection of who you are as a person. Saying “Serial killers are going to burn in hell,” is just another way of saying “I don’t like serial killers.” And that’s a sentiment I can get behind wholeheartedly, because I don’t like 'em either. I don’t believe they’re going to hell, because there’s no such place, but the basic sentiment, “killing people is wrong,” is one I agree with. And if you say “Non-Christians are going to burn in hell,” that’s just another way of saying “I don’t like non-Christians.” And that makes you a bigot, and I don’t give a good god-damn what your justification is.

5

Isn’t it funny how people always defend the fundies? It’s always, “it might offend you when people say God will send you off to be anally raped with a broken bottle for eternity, but remember, they only do it because they care.” It’s never, “it might offend you when people say that fundamentalist Christianity is a form of demon-worship embraced by bigots, but remember, they only do it because they care.”

Why is that?

6

Interesting you should mentio this justification. When my dad was driving us through Montana one summer, he was flipping through radio stations and we happened across the tail-end of some kind of sketch with a parable mixed in. The story apparently involved some kind of contest, family togetherness, and the “bad guys” were putting up appearances to win, but were thwarted by their greed.

Some woman delivers the moral at the end, to the effect of, “We don’t show our love for our families to win contests or to put on appearances, but because God wants us to love one another.”

So I love my parents and my sisters, not because of my feelings for them, but because it’s divinely mandated? I don’t need a god to tell me that.

[sub]…just my genes do; they also tell me to burn things[/sub]

7

<Applause>
(God made me do it)

8

Fuel: Christians aren’t the only ones who believe in God. There are also faiths whose adherents worship different gods. Thus, your point #1 is answered in the negative.

9

Fuel, what’s the single most famous verse in the whole Bible? The one whose cite gets draped over the railing at football statdiums and such?

Look at the next verse.

Now, follow something that sounds entirely off track for a minute.

Suppose you have discovered how to get high off car exhausts, and go around inhaling exhaust fumes. I discover this is the case, and try to stop you.

I’m not stopping you because it’s sinful. I’m not stopping you because it’s illegal. I’m not stopping you because it’s immoral. And I’m not stopping you because I have a better understanding of what’s a worthwhile future for you than you do yourself.

I’m stopping you because you stand a good chance of killing yourself, and if you manage not to, of burning out portions of your brain through CO poisoning.

In short, if you choose to keep doing it, sooner or later you won’t be able to choose to do much of anything.

Truly, truly, I say to you that God is not interested in sentencing Joe Schmoe to Hell because he failed to hold the right understanding of the Chalcedonian distinction of the two natures of Christ, or because he at some point lusted after another person who was not duly married to him at that moment according to the proper mode for undrtaking a marriage according to a moral theologian.

Rather, He wants to keep people from destroying themselves by making wrong choices, and facing death without that which alone allows them to enjoy and be fulfilled in what comes after.

He’s not a police magistrate throwing the book at people; rather, He’s an EMT trying to save lives.

Now, I grant that people who believe that God is principally interested in people refraining from sinning, and ready to throw the Good Book at anyone who happens to sin, are probably doing something good by their own principles if they try to warn everybody else. But I find it just plain absurd that they use it as a handy dandy reference guide to the sins of others, and fail to read, with any degree of comprehension, what it was that pissed Jesus off about the Pharisees. Because by their standards, the Pharisees are the good guys among the Jews, the ones who love God so much that they keep His commandments to the letter and try to force everybody else to do so.

10

This is another point that gets raised frequently, and is one that I like to call foul on. God isn’t a magistrate or an EMT: he’s God. He MADE CO poisoning. Presumably, he could un-make it. In fact, he did unmake a large bit of metaphorical CO poisoning via Jesus, according to some intrepertations. If what is good and right and beneficial is in line with what God wants for us, then why doesn’t God remake the universe so that either people don’t want to do harmful things, or that said things aren’t harmful anymore?

11

But Poly, since God created Hell, isn’t he also the one taking the lives that he is trying to save? IOW, if you view it as God trying to save people (from Hell), then isn’t He trying to save people from Himself (since He created Hell), and isn’t that weird?

Wouldn’t the easiest way to save people from Hell be to not create Hell in the first place?

12

But Poly, since God created Hell, isn’t he also the one taking the lives that he is trying to save? IOW, if you view it as God trying to save people (from Hell), then isn’t He trying to save people from Himself (since He created Hell), and isn’t that weird?

Wouldn’t the easiest way to save people from Hell be to not create Hell in the first place?

Also, your example about the person huffing car exhaust is a false analogy. It would be a correct analogy only if you had planned to hurt the person if they didn’t stop huffing car exhaust, and then by convincing them to stop, they avoided the consequence of you hurting them. But if the whole point is for them to avoid the consequence of you hurting them, then you can choose to not hurt them no matter what they do.

I’m rambly today, sorry.

13

Interesting.

I now have a picture of God as having a universe-sized case of Munchausen’s-by-proxy.

14

Not entirely. I have talked to a not-insignificant number of people who said they were Christians and the reason they go around with a mental list of sins and also are ready to witness at any point in time is that they think God will punish them if they don’t try their hardest to get every single person they meet to be Christian/repent/etc. They’re more looking out for their own hides than anything else.

Because it is sometimes self-serving as opposed to serving God, for one. Because we tell them it is doing the opposite of working, for another, and they keep on. Because we tell them to stop, for another. Because we are already Christian, sometimes, but we aren’t their preferred flavor of Christian, so we have to re-repent, or convert, or something. Because we do not see their words or their actions as a witness to any sort of being we wish to associate with, for another. Because using someone else’s conversion to bolster your own weak faith is slimy. Because it is better to have strong convictions that something is not the case, and be able to defend it, than it is to hold onto something for the sake of self-service when there is no harm if self-service is changed. Because it is in not questioning that we waste our lives.

Shall I continue?

These people do not follow the Bible with any particularly admirable rigor. They take up a collection of verses that suit their purpose, pack them all together in their old kit bag, and smile smile smile. Even if the bag is burning up with God’s Wrath. They present some of the vilest stuff on Earth as if one should gobble it up like priceless sirloin. And they take pride in being accordingly rebuked when they should take a look at this message of theirs and ask themselves why any respectable human would sign their life over to a being more concerned with judgment than anything else.

Shall I continue?

Cite for God’s wrath being well-documented?

The Bible does teach love. My beef, and the beef of a shitload of other people, is that those who purport to convert people to Christianity bring a message that is disconnected from God’s love.

NOBODY is happy about it or wants to talk about it? Where the FUCK are you living and what the FUCK are you smoking? Damn, I wanna get some of that shit! People REJOICE at the thought of someone being in Hell/being hell-bound. Last I checked (I don’t really have any desire to go there anymore) there was a counter listing the number of days Matt Shepard has been in hell on this website. There are any number of fire-and-brimstone “witnessers” … people who try to convert others out of fear instead of love. hell is a place that many people who are trying to be effective witnesses to God/Christ/whatever talk about in great detail partly to scare the shit out of people. Damn fucking straight they enjoy it.

This is hardly the case all the time. And it is not an accepted truth, by necessity, to all non-Christians.

Gee, I wonder if we’ve seen any of those prideful or unloving agendas at this MB in the past, say, few months? Nah, I can’t think of any in GD or the Pit.

15

God’s judgement is perfect, according to the Bible. And Hell is regretful to the person in it because they supposedly wish they had chosen to follow God, or wish God didn’t exist. It is regretful to the still-living believer because it’s one person who failed to be saved. Like I said in the OP, “Justice supposedly is upheld which is the overall goal, but it is by no means a happy time for anyone.” We are happy at the overall goal of justice, but the individual instances of lost souls is be no means a pleasant thought, at least to the Bible believing Christian.

They deserve it, but it’s a tragedy.

I believe that the person you described should get their wish… eternal separation from God. Whether the separation is torture to that person or not is another issue unrelated to God’s justice. God sentence was completely warranted and fair… what is unfair about giving a person what they want? You say because they don’t know yet that they don’t want it? Well, God set the rules and if you spit in his face here on Earth, you don’t get to be with Him in heaven. Pretty harsh, but fair nonetheless.

*I just had to say that I just finished my last test of my Finance Degree!!! I just wanted to share that if by any slim chance someone out there can share in my happiness. Wuhooo! On to Fire-rescue certification and growing the lawn business… *

ahem, Carry on… :stuck_out_tongue:

16

All analogies are silly to some degree, some more so than others. And generally they have a point to which the analogy-creator is driving, and only make sense as an analogy in that context.

My point was that IMHO Hell is not a punishment but a consequence – it’s the inevitable state resulting from a life led for selfish motives and kicks, when kicks keep getting’ harder to find, and all your kicks don’t bring you peace of mind … ::: forcibly stops self from channeling Mick Jagger ::: :wink: In making choices with consequences, you end up limiting your potential actions by what those consequences entail. And sooner or later you delimit yourself down to a person without choices, with no capacity to change, a burnt-out cinder of what once was a vibrant human spirit. And that, not wrathful torture, is what is truly Hell.

Anyway, the point is, if you insist on jumping off that cliff with a rotten rubber band for a bungee cord, you’re almost definitely going to end up killing yourself or permanently maiming yourself on those jagged rocks at the bottom. And while it would be nice if thousands of fluffy bunnies automatically gathered at the foot of the cliff whenever somebody jumps in order to break their fall, the world as we know it doesn’t work that way.

Now, why God created a world in which you can harm yourself, end up choosing Hell through short-sighted decisions, etc., is beyond me; He didn’t include me in the Webring when He was planning the Universe, for some reason! :slight_smile: But I suspect I know something of the reason.

Another analogy: Jordan, my youngest “grandchild,” is a beautiful boy, and fearless. He is firmly convinced, at age 7, that he can walk the concrete wall at Pullen Park, about five inches wide and six feet above concrete pavement. And, amazingly enough, he can. But every time he does it, I’m hovering, ready to catch him when he falls (which he hasn’t yet). He has a two-wheeler and is beginning to learn stunt riding. And he loves swimming in the ocean – waves close onto twice his height don’t faze him in the slightest.

And I’m terrified of the risks he’s taking. In one sense, if I had my way, he’d never do anything risky. I want to keep him safe and protect him.

But in another sense, I realize that that’s not a good course. I need to stop him from taking risks he’s not ready for, to be sure – but the way to allow him to grow into the man he will become is for him to take the risks he’s ready for, prove to himself that he can do it, master what he needs to learn to do, pick himself up when he wipes out on the bike and getting back on and doing it right the next time, learn to make wise choices on what risks he should take – and he learns all this by taking those risks, phasing them, with me being protective but not overprotective, letting him progressively take risks and grow.

A world without evil, harm, or pain sounds good, to be sure. But it makes us into robots, unable to make any choices. It keeps us from growing – by making choices with consequences, and then living with them.

I do not know what future God has planned for us – but it’s one that all this is preparing us for, of that I’m sure.

17

I relate to people this way: I don’t blame anyone, or look down on anyone, for rejecting the Bible as truth. While the Bible seems to be an amazing work on many levels, there are many things that don’t seem to add up. And it’s because of these things that I don’t expect people to accept Jesus as their saviour when I they hear about Him. So, in short, the way I relate to others (believers AND non-believers) is the same, believe it or not. No hatred, no superioristic view, just two human beings who have decided different things. I have many non-believer friends, and many believer friends as well. It’s all the same to me to here on Earth.

Not true with me. I do good things because of both reasons: To worship God by obeying Him, and to help/save them others by showing love. Very simple, yet some “believers” lose sight of one or the other… and it’s a shame.

[QUOTE}**So, saying your “regretful” that some people are going to hell doesn’t make much of an impression on me, because who you think is going to hell is nothing more than a reflection of who you are as a person. Saying “Serial killers are going to burn in hell,” is just another way of saying “I don’t like serial killers.” And that’s a sentiment I can get behind wholeheartedly, because I don’t like 'em either. I don’t believe they’re going to hell, because there’s no such place, but the basic sentiment, “killing people is wrong,” is one I agree with. And if you say “Non-Christians are going to burn in hell,” that’s just another way of saying “I don’t like non-Christians.” And that makes you a bigot, and I don’t give a good god-damn what your justification is. **[/QUOTE]

The serial killer thing is NOT TRUE at all! As I said, I have many non-believer friends, who according to the Bible are going to Hell. And I enjoy their company and respect them very much. I believe that if the Bible is true, that they are going to be separated from God for eternity, but I still love them and enjoy their companionship.

When I think about the serial killer, I don’t see a person, but sin. I hate that our society and Satan fostered such a perverted person and I hate the decision that the killer made to kill. But I see the actual person as a lost sheep and have compassion on his perverted mind.

It’s what the Bible teaches. But the Bible also teaches that God is just, and for every person who goes to “separation” to preserve Justice, there is a person who goes to Heaven to reward them for their faith… and this general fact is happy.

18

Please tell me where in the Bible you found the connection between eternal separation from God and a scene from a flick called “Se7en”? I hardly see the similarity.

How can you call someone a bigot when they love you no matter what you do? Love from others should be so valued by you that you should not care all that much about the source of their love. The end result is love and that is paramount. The source is a philisophical issue, not a real-life issue. Never mind what they believe in their minds about you (that you will go to “separation”) but mind what they physically give to you, love and compassion.

19

They are wrong. One cannot show love if he doesn’t have love. The people who are witnessing and doing good things merely to follow God’s commands are doing so in vain. Those actions should automatically follow a loving heart. The loving heart, the heart of God, is what the Christian should strive for… the actions are merely a by-product. “You shall know them by their fruit”. See, they are Chrisitians first, then fruitful humans, not the other way around. Any NT Christian who thinks otherwise is shamefully mistaken, and I have heard of many who do think like that. If you have the “Fruit of the Spirit”(Galatians 5:22), that is the only thing that should be on a Christians’ mind. The Beattitudes (Matthew 5) are what a Christian should have in their heart, they are not merely a bunch of laws to keep physically in order to please God.

It’s a shame that so many “Christians” think this way, and your observation is correct. But, they are not following the Bible, they are not seeing the message in it’s entirety. Sad.

20

If you haven’t already, you have GOT to see “Finding Nemo”. Letting the youngsters take risks is a major theme of this movie. They really put the moral out there in a very entertaining fashion.

DaLovin’ Dj