seriously, anyone really believe this nonsense? Get out of here!
Yes, some people do. Have you any other deeply insightful questions to ask?
Diogenes the Cynic,
I too would like to take this opportunity to thank you for this.
As a long time lurker, and very seldom poster, I do have a question which is not really related to this discussion – my apologies if this is not the correct place.
I read a lot here, a lot of the discussions on Christian doctrine, bible quotes - you name it. I find it fascinating to read about the beliefs that I have had, set in a historical perspective, which often make me change my beliefs on said subjects. I would like to express my sincere appreciation for this (not only to DtC but to everyone who has participated in these discussions over the years).
I would really love it if someone could step forward and do the same to the Koran. I read and hear a lot of statements about this book – and I admit I am totally ignorant as to what the thing actually says.
“Kill the infidels!” “You are either a Muslim or you need to be killed!” “No tolerance is accepted here!” etc etc and bla bla bla.
As much as I accept that these are statements from fringe/fanatical lunatics – is there anyone here who knows this book in all its historical detail like DtC and the Bible, who could caste some light on that issue.
I think this would be greatly appreciated amongst us lurkers, and probably amongst the more prolific posters as well.
There seems to be (I hope) an enormous amount of ignorance as it relates to people of this faith.
JimNightshade, why don’t you start your own thread about it? Though I couldn’t contribute much, I would be interested too.
I wish I could help, but my knowldge of al Qur’an is cursory at best. I do know that it gets cherry picked a lot for quotations that are not necessarily as menacing in context as they appear to be when used as literal scare quotes on anti-Islamic websites, and I also know that the word translated as “infidel” does not refer to all non-Muslims, but has a special definition of being either an active enemy of Islam or an apostate Muslim. Christians and Jews are considered “people of the book” and are not counted as infidels unless they actively do something to attack Islam.
Of course, what constitutes an “attack on,” or an “enemy of” Islam is a subjective one and is wide open to manipulation by radical clerics, but simply not being a Muslim does not make you an “infidel” by Qur’anic standards.
The word (kafir) means “coverer up/hider”, and it’s pretty much somebody who “hides from God”; a person who refuses to recognize God’s existence, i.e. atheists (who don’t believe in god), and polytheists (who believe something else is God). It’s also sometimes extended to apply to secularists; those people who put manmade law above divine law.
But they also say that such a person has to have full knowledge that God exists (or at least have had a full and correct education on the “truth” of Islam and understand it fully) and reject him anyway. Most atheists they see as being innocently ignorant.
This thread isn’t nearly as vigorous as I expected or as the subject deserves…
so I’m gonna play a bit of devil’s advocate here & stir it up. These are mostly for Dio to respond to, tho everyone is invited to comment.
First,
Revelation 14:
9 And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,
10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:
11 And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.
The empasized part of verse 11- I know that ‘for ever & ever’ is better translated ‘for ages &/of ages’- but isn’t that still the strongest language possible in NT Greek to denote ongoing unending torment?
Second-
Matthew 25: (Christ speaking of the Judgment of the Sheep & Goats)
46 And these (the uncaring ‘goats’) shall go away to punishment age-during, but the righteous to life age-during.’
If the punishment is finite, then doesn’t that imply that the life Christ promises, usually translated as “Eternal Life”, is also finite? Can ‘aionion’ mean ‘age-long’ in one case while ‘eternal’ in the other case?
Third-
The dominant majority view through Church History has been that the totally impenitent sinners will earn punishment in Hades and then eternal torment in the Lake of Fire (Gehenna). Even most ‘modern liberal’ Bible translations such as the New Revised Standard Version, authorized by the National Council of Churches- hardly a bastion of fundamentalism, use ‘eternal’, ‘everlasting’, and ‘for ever and ever’ regarding the ‘aion/aionion’ fate of the condemned. How is it proper, wise or safe to be challenging both the doctrine of the historic Church (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant) and the consensus of both older & modern Bible translators?
I have my own responses to these but I wanted to mix things up a bit.
Yes, if someone is ignorant of the, and commits a misdeed because of that, they’re forgiven (4:17-18), although the Koran doesn’t seem to admit of the possibility that there is such a thing as an ignorant atheist. Reading it, the idea is that the existence of God should be self evident; that knowledge of the existence of God is innate and clear from observing the world around us.
The Koranic site for that, by the way is 10:5-10. From the Yusuf Ali translation:
I hope everyone here will agree that Hell, whatever any scripture may or may not say about it, is, well, just wrong. If it exists, if there really are damned souls suffering there, then God is unworthy of love, worship or obedience.
If you are talking about Hell as an Eternal Torture Chamber, I agree with you. If you are talking about Hell as the end result of a life lived in rebellion against God & abuse of people, then I totally have to disagree. Now, I would hope that perhaps that Hell ends in final extinction or perhaps repentance & reconciliation, but I don’t see the injustice of someone who lived a self-absorbed, God-defying, people-abusing life either falling into oneself forever, being exiled with people who are just like him, or being totally exposed in the inescapable, unflinching Light of the Love & Justice of the God he despised (all 3 possibilities I could see for an eternal conscious Hell).
I don’t think I’ve known very many Christians here who actually believe in hell. There are some, but not most of the regular posters. I think that maybe there are a lot of atheists who think that we believe in hell. I’m not sure.
Do you have that quotation that Brain Glutton was speaking of? I seem to remember that it had quite a different meaning.
No, I think I was mistaken. I found this which tends to support Brain Glutton’s interpretation.
But it explores the thinking further. Apparently St. Thomas Aquinas was fairly young when he wrote that and changed his views somewhat. I didn’t read all of the explanation. His theology is not of particular interest to me.
Sorry that I misspoke.
I addressed Matthew 25:46 above. I said that I was willing to accept “eternal” or everlasting" as translations for aioniaon. My contention was that kolasis, the word translated as “punishment” literally means “pruning off,” “cutting off” in Greek, and that this accords with an annihilationist view (which WAS the 1st Century Jewish view).
The whole idea of a Hell or place of eternal suffering of a soul after the death of the body, seems contrary to some other passages in the Bible. The punishment for sin (according to the Genesis story) was death. And how can the soul be responsible for what the body does?
If this supreme being knows all things then why did He allow the person to be concieved, if he knew it was going to suffer for all eternity, isn’t this being a sadist? It is contrary to the Gospel writer John, who deems God to be Love!
Such a Human father would not be considered good if he acted in such a way. Wouldn’t God act better than a human?
Dio- and what about the Revelation 14 passage (which to me is the strongest “Eternal Conscious Torment” ‘proof text’)?
As I said, I have my own responses to my three points there which I’ll share later.
Zoe- so how do you & your Christian circle of friends relate to the “Sheol/Hades/Gehenna” passages?
This is the sort of stupid threadshitting that has ruined many Great Debates discussions. The debate is not what any person posting happens to believe, but interpretations or understandings of the texts that are put forth.
Dismissing it in another context might be acceptable, but simply deriding the discussion is not.
Do not do this again.
[ /Moderating ]
The problem I have with Revelation is that it was almost put in the apocryphal column, if it wasn’t by the inspired decision by Augustine and others to insert the text by considering it a symbolic one, not a literal one.
Otherwise it could mean that the Church, already taking control of the empire, was in bed with the beast or that the revelation had already taken place as the Roman emperor pagan beast was conquered by then.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/apocalypse/explanation/brevelation.html
Well, to be really nitpicky, it says the “smoke of their torment,” not their torment itself. Revelation also says that even the Lake of Fire will eventually be destroyed.
I think the most relevant refutation of that verse as a proof of a Biblical endorsment of Hell as eternal, conscious punishment (and it would be the only book which even seems to come close), is that it IS Revelation. The entire book is allegorical. None of the rest of it is supposed to be taken literally, so why make an exception for that verse?