(February 16, 2015 at 4:58 pm)Cinjin Wrote: It seems I'm meeting more and more Christians who are disavowing their devotion to eternal torment by their "loving" god.

Of recent I took to calling them the Play Nice Christians (a close relative of the Convenient Christian).

At any rate, one of these luke-warm half-assed mindless brother-in-christ types imparted upon me that Hell was not necessarily a bad place at all, and that their god, in his infinite wisdom, was able to customize each eternal punishment for each of the 85 billion souls he's sent there (give or take 10 billion).

Yep, hell for the average non-believer like myself won't actually be all that bad. True, we won't get to sing songs about Jesus, dance naked for the angry wizard himself, or tour the cosmos in high angelic fashion, but apparently god may allow us to hang out with our friends and have a smoke now and again.

So what of it christians? Is your fellow brother-in-christ correct? Is your god going to have a version of hell that's more like a cosmic slap on the wrist???




It amazes me what length the sheep will go to in order to circumvent the rules of that angry Hebrew god. Just sayin.

Hi Cinjin
After going through my own purgatory process of sorts, and meeting others both Christian and atheist who have been through purging and cleansing and recovery,
I would say that hell refers to either the suffering caused directly by unforgiven conflicts that escalate or refers to the process of working out all that karma.

The lake of fire mentions burning up the devil, beast and false prophet which is the opposite/negative forces of the trinity.

the trinity basically represents unity in spirit by love of truth, love of justice, and love of peace for all humanity.

the negative flip side is division over
* fear of the unknown
* fear of change or control by outside opposing influences or authority
* fear of conflict or confrontation
which cause ill will and unforgiveness to divide and conquer humanity

so all that fear and cause of bad karma or sin can be worked off, and that is what all this hell and purgatory symbolizes.

of course i was told I am going to hell for teaching it that way,
so don't listen to me. keep listening to all the wonderful Christians
who think it is enough just to tell people X is bad and leads to hell,
and Y is good is leads to heaven and who don't try to explain the process.

frankly I think the Buddhists have more of sense of the spiritual
process of dealing with karma, and the Christians are better at
praying to remove the negative influences that otherwise keep you stuck in it.

the two ought to work together, and the people who have discovered how
to use both seem to be quite satisfied and balanced, and at peace with both.

(February 16, 2015 at 5:28 pm)NuclearJaguar Wrote:

(February 16, 2015 at 5:25 pm)AFTT47 Wrote: I met one who decided God would never condemn someone to Hell but he became an atheist within a few years.

Hmmm that might have been me before I woke up, do I know you?

I was such a chop lmfao

No, the guy I knew lives in the U.S. It's probably a common thing though. You start rejecting the most absurd parts of a religion and before long, it all falls apart.

I've never heard of the customized hell, but many Eastern Orthodox believe that heaven and hell are the same place - in the presence of God. If you like God then it is heaven and if you don't like God then it is hell. That is similar to the customized hell in that each person's relationship with God determines the experience.

Universal salvation seemed to be the majority view among Episcopalians and Eastern Orthodox - or at least that is what I assumed. Nobody worried about salvation.

I'm one who doesn't believe in eternal torment, but I'm not quite that nice of a christian. Jesus definitely spoke of hell and it's not a nice place, since he said it would better to cut your arm off or gouge your eye out than to go there. You are right though. Views of hell are changing. The catholic church adopted the eternal torment view of hell and it became the predominant view, but that wasn't the case before that time. In the earliest days "annihilation" and "universal reconciliation" were highly accepted views by church fathers. It seems though that one has to make a stop in hell before moving on to either of those situations.

Lek, I am confused. You said hell is not a place of eternal torment but it is better to gouge out your eyes rather than go there. That sounds like a place of torment to me

Evidently, anyone that doesn't play both sides of the conversation in prayer has to be punished for not finding the hiding jesus. The fitting punishment for not pretending for jesus is to pretend to live in hell for a while..

---

(February 16, 2015 at 9:56 pm)Nope Wrote: Lek, I am confused. You said hell is not a place of eternal torment but it is better to gouge out your eyes rather than go there. That sounds like a place of torment to me

Nope, Lek's bible is made of Play-dough, he shapes it into anything that fits his imagination.

(February 16, 2015 at 4:58 pm)Cinjin Wrote: Yep, hell for the average non-believer like myself won't actually be all that bad. True, we won't get to sing songs about Jesus, dance naked for the angry wizard himself, or tour the cosmos in high angelic fashion, but apparently god may allow us to hang out with our friends and have a smoke now and again.

Those who deny hell or make it a place for the unforgiven to go and suffer little or no consequences, have no respect for His sovereignty.

GC

(February 16, 2015 at 5:02 pm)Nope Wrote: Online I have run into some Christians who do not believe in hell but they are a minority. The joy of sending those who disagree with your religion to a place of everlasting torment is just too emotionally satisfying for most Christians.

It goes back a long ways:

Tertullian Wrote:At that greatest of all spectacles, that last and eternal judgment how shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many proud monarchs groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness; so many magistrates liquefying in fiercer flames than they ever kindled against the Christians; so many sage philosophers blushing in red-hot fires with their deluded pupils; so many tragedians more tuneful in the expression of their own sufferings; so many dancers tripping more nimbly from anguish then ever before from applause.

Because Christianity makes you a better person, amirite?

(February 16, 2015 at 10:35 pm)Godschild Wrote: Those who deny hell or make it a place for the unforgiven to go and suffer little or no consequences, have no respect for His sovereignty.

GC

Or they could just think roasting people alive for not doing what they want is a bit extreme.

Well we all bitched at Pol Pot when he did it.