The concept of Hell discourages belief

[catfish]

2 Timothy 4:3-4
King James Version (KJV)

3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

Yes, like the happily-ever-after fable which you cling to.

Which fable would that be? How does rejecting one fable equate to clinging to another?

[John V]

Which fable would that be?

The one you promote in which the damned live happily ever after.

How does rejecting one fable equate to clinging to another?

It doesn't. Clinging to a fable equates clinging to a fable, and that's what you're doing.

You're backed into a corner regarding aionos and eternal life.

You haven't addressed verses which indicate eternal punishment independent of aionos.

You have nothing but wishful thinking and some unsupported insinuation that greek mythology was worked into the Bible, and only the chosen few can distinguish which parts are which.

[catfish]

You have nothing but wishful thinking and some unsupported insinuation that greek mythology was worked into the Bible, and only the chosen few can distinguish which parts are which.

Do you or do you not recognise Hades and Tartarus as Greek myth?

[Mister Agenda]

..for eternity? God is to baby sit every d-bag in the History of the whole world, because YOU can not understand that some do not want anything to do with God or His people?

I've heard it said that nothing is too hard for God. Do you disagree? Do you believe in a God that can't decree perpetual separation between two groups of people for eternity and just have it be so without checking every 5 minutes to make sure it's still working?

What about those guys who flew those planes on 911? What about everyone like that? Or are you just talking about those who just do not want to completely commit to God in this lfe because they think they will have to give up too much?

Infinite punishment for finite crimes is unjust by definition. There has to come a point where you've suffered enough, no matter what you've done. What crime is so great that you deserve to be tortured eternally after you've already been tortured for a trillion trillion trillion years?

That's my point. What God creates is consumed (at some point) by the nothingness and all will eventually be void.

To each their own, but I don't see any reason to believe you.

The bible only points to God being completely present in what He has created. Your idea of 'omnipresents' is not biblically supported.

Maybe, but yours isn't, either. The Bible never mentions the void you mention or hell being separation from God.

I do not think there is a limit on the questions you can ask God. I have asked everyone that I can think of and all the ones you all ask that I can not answer, But essentially yes. It is my understanding that we will be given to an understanding of how 'things work' When we enter heaven Through Christ.

After it's no longer useful in determining our fates. Would that be okay in this life, say, witholding information about which cancer treatment is most effective until after the patient has committed to a course of treatment?

That was a Question I asked, my answer: Would you lament your choice because your imediate goal would be self perservation? Or would you lament because you Truly Love God? If you truly Loved God then why didn't you Love Him in this life?

You can truly love whatever your torturer wants if the pain is bad enough and has going on long enough. Self preservation isn't an issue, apparently not existing forever isn't an option. I don't love him in this life because I think he is imaginary. If he wants me to love him once I know he's real and he's insecure about whether I would love him if I wasn't being tortured, maybe he shouldn't torture me.

Only one person in the History of the world has actually been confirmed to do this. (The theif on the cross) I honestly would not bank on the Idea that God is a fool or would be powerless to refuse you if you said the sinners prayer a min before you die. I would say the Theif would be the exception and not the rule.

I suppose you can think that, despite the example you provided being the only example of someone in that situation with Jesus around to confirm their salvation, which means in 100% of the cases we know the outcome of, biblically, it worked.

The bible seems to differ from your 'theology.' Hell is refered to The pit, The Grave, The Void.

Perhaps you could quote the verse that refers to hell as 'The Void'?

Lucifer chose it over God, I am sure some of us would too.

Due to my familiarity with agonizing pain, I would have to conclude that hell must not actually be very painful, then.

For what reason? So those on one side can gain hatred and resentment till they decide to breach that wall? Instead of a wall God kept a pit unfilled. It's kinda like your wall in that all who do not want to be with Him will go there. Except there is no collaberation or escape.

Could you define God's limits, please? You seem to think you have special information that God can't build an unbreachable wall. I need a scorecord to keep track of all the things you think God can't do.

If they did why do you think their minds would change?

First guess is that it would be for the same reason that the angels did.

Was it because God turned his back on them they learned to love Him anyway? Or did they change their minds because they saw what God offered His children and being selfish wanted to maniuplate God to give them what the living have?

I'm not privy to the inner workings of the heaven of your imagination.

I mean really, How can we learn to love God when He has turned His back, when we will not love Him when the Full power and Authority of the Holy Spirit is at our beckon Call in this life?

Can the full power and authority of the Holy Spirit at your beck and call help you construct an argument for the existence of God that doesn't contain a logical fallacy? Because a person who claims to have the power of God at their disposal who can't do anything anyone else can't do too sounds more like a schizophrenic than someone who has been granted access to any ultimate truths.

Why should God be made to keep anyone inline on that side of eternity?

Who said anything about making God do anything? Clearly he chose not to keep the angels in line. Why would he choose to keep the humans in line?

Shouldn't we all want to simply be there with Him to the point of complete willing compliance?

That's an excellent question, you might want to ask the third of the angels who didn't want to simply be there with him to the point of complete willing compliance. The obvious implication is that being around God isn't that great, so not that great that 33% of the beings who knew the bliss of heaven chose to rise against him, despite knowing they could not win. I wonder how many it would have been if God were beatable?

Why do any of those things when the ultimate lesson in all of this would be lost? Israel's short commings and failures are there for us to learn from. In an effort that we do not make the same mistakes. It is also there so as to answer our questions as to the nature and reasoning of God.

The only lesson to be learned from being punished for being merciful is that you better not hesitate to kill people if you think God wants you to. Judging from history, that was a lesson well-learned. It's probably fortunate for the people around you that you don't hear the voice of 'God' telling you to kill them.

Also why would God deflect the consenquences of our choices? Isn't that the result of Free will He has given to us?

Why would God act to punish us for our choices with a promise of eternal torment if we don't love him? Doesn't his carrot and stick approach undermine the whole free will thing?

But you know better than God?

If there's a God, I know better than to think I can speak for him.

God's absolute benevolence is The only thing on that list is not biblically supported in any way shape or form. Matter of Fact we are expressly told not all of us are His children. The bible even goes so far as to List those that God hates. It even says He hates those with certain character traits. One has to ignore all the bible actually says, in favor of this doctrine of omni benevolence. This is what I am talking about building your own picture of God, rather than worship the picture the Bible has made.

I generally don't love people who are hateful, vengeful, and jealous. Why should anyone love God besides being too afraid of him not to?

The the problem you are having is a philosiphical one of the God you have created. While I on the other Hand am repersenting the God of the bible without the benfit of the filter you use to view what 'god' should look like.

I haven't created any Gods. I just respond to all the different Gods that people tell me about. It's your description I'm going by. You describe a God who can't make a wall (or otherwise permanently separate people) that can't be breached by mere human souls. without throwing them into some horrible void, who can't take care of dangerous people unless the Hebrews kill them for him, and so on. Clearly you believe in a God who needs you to make ad hoc excuses for him.

Appearently you are no better at reading me than you are God/Christianity. Fore I have said over and over we did not know the Cost of our salvation. I only pointed to passages that said the Cost was deeper than the physical cross.

You said it cost God his son. Then you said what it cost God is unknowable. You know your posts are still there for anyone to read, right?

It does seem like you do not understand the basic nature of God. For the Term All Powerful Means God has the final word on what is to be done. Not that He will use his power to go against His nature to satasify a few bockers.

Maybe you should stop phrasing it as though certain tasks or feats are things God can't do, or are more trouble than God should have to go to, then. You're the one putting limits on his power, not me. Since you're implying you understand the basic nature of God, when you speak for him, you should be able to explain why he chooses not to do something instead of making him sound like something would put him out to much for him to do it. If you can't explain God's choices, maybe you should be a little more humble about putting yourself in his shoes.

Then Take him up on His promise and find out for yourself.

I did. Turns out he was just my imagination.

If a man told you there was Free Gold to be had if you wait in this line between the hours of 1pm and 5pm and everyone who waited as instructed Got (some even more) what was promised . would you not wait in that line, just because your peers tell you this line looks like other lines that produce nothing? Why not speak to those who waited in that line?

I did speak to them and found out they don't have any of that gold they keep talking about. Seriously, Drich, with power of the Holy Spirit at your beck and call you can't come up with an analogy that doesn't sound like you'd have to be gullible enough to send money to a Nigerian prince to buy it?

You can also Check on the existance of God yourself, so no.

Without believing the stranger first? Funny how that works.

It breaks my heart you see things this way. Because 'the guy on the internet' is not the only resorce you have. Unless you live in a country that has bann Churches You have a 'local affilate/atashe' you can check with and you have a direct line because the guy on the internet (and if you would check with the local office would confirm) Gave you the president's cell number. Even if it was just the guy on the internet and you lived in one of those countries that has bann the church, you can always just call and see if he picks up. It won't cost you anything it's a toll free line. (Because He paid all the charges)

Been there, done that. I know I can contact imaginary friends at will (Is that you, Helios? YES. If you're real, please show me a sign. GO OUTSIDE AT 7 AM TOMORROW AND IF THE SUN HAS RISEN YOU WILL KNOW I AM REAL. Praise Helios!).

If I were in Saudi Arabia I would be surrounded by people who believe Islam wholeheartedly. Would God let me off the hook if I believed in the Mohamed version of him instead of your version?

The one thing I've found about religous people is that they don't have anything special going for them that I can't find in people who believe different religions than they do or don't believe in God at all. They're all just people who believe or don't believe different things and are a product of their culture, experiences, upbringing, and genetic inheritence like everyone else.

[The Reality Salesman01]

"To what end? What if the only way to change the mind of your son was to rewrite his personality, to basically lobotomize him and make him a different person? What if he love "x" more than anything you could offer him? What if 'x' was Heroin and not just a party girl? What if one lead to the other? Do you suppose 'reason and understanding' has anything to do with how a Herion addict thinks? Even when they are not chemically dependant on the drug they still crave it."

It is a bit obtuse to suggest that there are only 2 ways to get a creature endowed with logic and reasoning to accept that something is true.

The way you are describing as true goes like this:

A.

1) Create a universe/multi-verse designed for such creatures to inhabit.

2) Set an order and balance to this universe filled with amazing complexities, but make sure that no matter how complex these things may be, the order of the physical and visible constructs will always be able to be understood using numbers, reproducible consistant results, and verifiable evidence. Give them the ability to figure this out, and make those numbers absolute. Make sure that their minds work in such a way that this becomes the basis for what is accepted a knowledge and intelligence.

3) Ensure that the creatures become dependent on their persuit of knowledge and make that very thirst for information, and the ability to comprehend and reflect upon it the biggest thing that separates them from every other creature that inhabits their visible universe.

4) At some point early on in their persuit for understanding the complexities that have been put in place, and before they have truly grasped the concepts of such things, insert an individual that contradicts ALL of it.

NOTE:This is key, because if done too late, it will be too hard to convince them. It will be more effective while they are still in this early stage of intellectual development.

6) Give this individual the power to perform grand examples of things that others would percieve as impossible. (part seas, turn water into wine, make a basket of fish and a few pieces of bread enough to feed hundreds, and walk on water etc.). Do not give this power to everyone, it will take away the credibility.

7) Let him be savagely murdered, but convince everyone that he welcomed the torture and death for a reason that cannot be verified and will be forever misunderstood and misinterpreted through text, but make sure the others understand that it WAS important. It's not really important that they know why exactly. (MORE ON THIS TO FOLLOW).

8) Have the others write a book for the entire future of the species to follow. Fill it with rules and stories of things that will later go against everything you've designed the species to understand. Make it both logically and physically impossible. Provide them with nothing to verify the things written in the book. The tools and abilities you designed them to have will make it impossible for a large majority to accept as every fiber of the very being you gave them will not allow them to accept such things.

9) Make sure that everything about YOUR existance cannot be confirmed by any method you've given them to use. Instead, tell them it can only be confirmed individually through "personal experience". As an interesting distractor, fill the population with a number of different alternatives that follow the same creation guidelines, with similar explanations, but make it to where each of them think the others are crazy.

10) In order to get them to believe all of this, tell them if they don't, they will be tortured for eternity in a terrible place worse than they could possibly concieve. Make sure they are informed by people in their geographical region of this. It is absolutely paramount that you do not get involved in anyway that could be understood by the logic you designed them to use for understanding the things you have made anymore. It is crucial that the only way they are to be swayed is by their peers and by the threats contained in the book.

11) Tell them that if they read the book, it will show them how to make the decisions you wish them to make. But make sure the people tell the others that it is ultimately their choice on how they wish to live. Tell them that there are consequences to choosing wrong, but (this is the best part) make sure the original book was written so long ago, that nobody will be able to agree on exactly WHAT IT SAYS!! They won't have a clue what exactly isn't allowed or could exclude them from the torture they are trying to avoid!

12) As they start dying off, sort the ones that happened to meet the criteria as you see fit. The ones that don't make the cut will be tortured, but it's their fault because had they gone against their gut instincts you designed them to have, they would have been able to see that the supposed mythical torture was true, and it turns out to be as bad as the book described.

13) Its going to be hard for you to be ok with this, because afterall, they had no REAL way of knowing whether or not it was true, but hey, it was still their choice. And that's what is important. If you actually made an effort to connect with them using ways they are designed to understand, they might be able to choose too easily. It has to be the most important choice and there can only be 2 outcomes. The funny part is that everything else they've made a decision from will be based on a different process of experience. But what you've just done is made an effect that has nothing to do with any cause they could ever comprehend and then used it as the ultimate punishment for not picking right!


The other way you've suggested is:

B.

1) Labotomy

Never mind that if my son was dealing with something awful I could at least attempt to personally connect with him in ways he will understand instead of having strangers tell him its bad and if he doesn't stop he's gonna die, and then once i've decided he's had enough time to think about it, kill him myself?

You're saying that God could either do the above crazy shit, or make us robots.

The other option is to appeal to us on the level of understanding for which we are designed to depend on.

You keep using extremes such as heroin addictions and attacking family, but the issue of not giving God as much attention as he thinks he deserves, is not even in the same ball park as a heroin addicted individual that needs help!

Take your heroin example, there aren't just 2 options for approaching a heroin addict.

1. TELL HIM ITS BAD AND THEY SHOULD STOP (That will not be effective as they cannot comprehend such thoughts because they are chemically addicted to a substance).

2. KILL HIM BECAUSE HE DIDN'T LISTEN (You didn't even exercise all of your abilities! Use your mind and attempt different approaches to cure him, appeal to his potential ability, and if you need to, yes...LOCK HIM UP IN A ROOM and monitor him until he recovers) It's not brainwashing, it's being empathetic. It's having the clear vision of what the right thing to do is and understanding that the person cannot think for themselves and cannot comprehend what they should do because their brain is not functioning the way you know it should. You are doing something from a clear state of mind with superior judgement for the good of someone else who cannot see your point of view. When they recover and kick the habit, they aren't going to sue you! They were sick and you healed them.

Knowing better means you should do better. But, if someone doesn't know, they cannot do.

If you have the evidence and you don't share it, but instead punish people for not just believing you and because they hurt your feelings, you're a very petty fool. If you are in a position of power and you punish them without remorse and zero empathy for not believing you when you had the ability to connect with them more effectively then you are not even qualified to be a leader on earth. Let alone a leader of all things.

[John V]

Do you or do you not recognise Hades and Tartarus as Greek myth?

Certainly. I also recognize that hades was the usual greek translation for the hebrew sheol, and that there are verses regarding eternal suffering which don't use hades.

[catfish]

Do you or do you not recognise Hades and Tartarus as Greek myth?

Certainly. I also recognize that hades was the usual greek translation for the hebrew sheol, and that there are verses regarding eternal suffering which don't use hades.

So, are you asserting the NT was written in Hebrew? Gehenna is also used in the NT. Why transliterate one and not the other?
What about in Jude 1:7 where eternal is referenced to Sodom and Gomorrah suffering the torments of eternal fire. Is the fire eternal or the suffering?

[John V]

So, are you asserting the NT was written in Hebrew?

No. Are you asserting Jesus spoke in Greek?

Gehenna is also used in the NT. Why transliterate one and not the other?

Because there was no greek counterpart for Gehenna.

What about in Jude 1:7 where eternal is referenced to Sodom and Gomorrah suffering the torments of eternal fire. Is the fire eternal or the suffering?

Both seem to be eternal in that verse.

[catfish]

So, are you asserting the NT was written in Hebrew?

No. Are you asserting Jesus spoke in Greek?

Gehenna is also used in the NT. Why transliterate one and not the other?

Because there was no greek counterpart for Gehenna.

And you think the Greek mythological realm of Hades and Tartarus are the conterparts to Hebrew's sheol?

[John V]

And you think the Greek mythological realm of Hades and Tartarus are the conterparts to Hebrew's sheol?

I think the concept of hades was close enough to the concept of sheol, yes.

The Septuagint (Greek translation of the OT) was done hundreds of years before the NT was written and it substituted hades for sheol. This was not a new practice with the NT writers.