(Yesterday at 7:26 pm)Lord Andreasson Wrote: Jesus used Greek Mythology, Hades (Hell) and Ouranus (Heaven), to describe consciousness.
Both are personifications of either our Humanity or Divinity.
David said in Psalm 139:8 If i make my bed in sheol (hell) thou are there.
God is in our metaphysical darkness with us.
The real Gospel is the Abrahamic Covenant - "God preached the gospel to Abraham saying, In thy seed shall All Nations be blessed" (Galatians 3:8).
My favorite oracles are Genesis 12:1-3, Psalm 22:27, Acts 3:19-26 and Revelation 21:5.
I ask christians what "All Things" mean in those verses and they choke.
Universalism is coming around more and more, the original Gospel.
The name Hell first showed up as "Helle" in the 725 AD Anglo Saxon version of the Bible.
Crazy the brainwashing going on for centuries.
I like the "Healing of the Nations" oracle in Revelation 22:2, too!
I find the idea of universalism very beautiful, and I think you've found verses that support it well.
It seems to have been one of those alternate, almost-underground currents in Christian thought that has never been official dogma, but has had strong supporters forever. And they have serious allies to point to, since (as I understand it) the Church Fathers before Augustine mostly saw hell as temporary. Origen certainly did.
It seems to be human nature, unfortunately, for a lot of people to wish damnation on others. I'm constantly amazed at the number of people who want others to suffer. Or who get pleasure simply from making others feel bad. And this is not just Christian people -- it's like 99% of everybody on the Internet. But one would hope that this is a human flaw, and one that an ideal deity would not share.
And of course there's the practical side, where the people with power threaten the gullible to make them behave. I was surprised to find that even in Taoist temples in China, there are paintings of hell to scare the simple people into behaving themselves. I suspect that the educated don't believe this, but it serves its purpose. And today we atheists are far too wise to fall for such threats, so instead our media gives us more worldly scare stories to get us lined up like sheep -- Russians, Muslims, terrorists of all descriptions. We happily work ourselves into a panic and take what they give us, because if we don't then today's evil Hitler Satan figure will certainly drag us to hell.
Recently I read C.S. Lewis's book The Great Divorce. And I make no claims for this as great literature or theology. But when he portrays different people as so obsessed with their selfish desires that they prefer hell over heaven rather than give up some unhealthy attachment, it does ring true. As I recall he leaves it ambiguous as to whether even the most stubborn will someday come to their senses.
