Hell, or rather my brief experience of it.

[Darkstar]

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Question: If you wanted to spit in god's eye, then why was being seperated from him painful?

Once I was in the place of my judgement, my bitterness was gone. It was replace by fear. Fear because just by being their I knew I was screwed. Then when I first looked into the eyes of Christ I felt for a split second completeness and peace, coupled with a love that i can not even hope to describe. As soon as I understood what was going to be lost the shadow of my unresolved sin emptied me, and the love that I knew only for the breifest of moments was completely gone. I wanted that back more than anything I have ever wanted prior or since...

We were literally designed to be loved that way. To have it and to loose it is devistating... Now add insult to injury and be cast into a all consuming emptyness where you know you will NEVER be that complete again, and it is enough to make you say anything, even though you know you do not deserve what has been taken from you.

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"We were literally designed to be loves that way" Does it say that in the bible?

I guess that "a lot" of study can be done in twenty minutes, because I rejected the cavernlike hell in favor of a place of pure fire (whether metaphorical for pain or not) after about that much research on the subject. (Note that said reseacrh and conclusion occurred prior to this thread)

Where the time spent comes in is that you have to reconsile the two descriptions of Hell. What the Jews were given to understand is Just as True as what Christianity was told of hell. On the surface these two contradict.

I don't think that the Christian hell has been described in cave form in the bible. Please show me the verse containing this description if I am wrong.

So...why doesn't god also use shock tactics (perhaps even more so) on the insincere?

I don't know. Maybe He knows who is worth saving and who is not. Maybe the insincere aren't worth saving for some reason.

I thought this was about who wanted to be saved, but now you are telling me that god decides some people aren't worth showing up for and lets them burn?

Sounds like some other atheist deconversion stories...but a bad dream reconverted you?

I did not know God before this dream/vision.

And you didn't know him after because god is unknowable...right?

And for those who want to believe and desperately seek god to find nothing?

Unless you fall into the catagory of Romans 9 We are promised to always find something. We may not find what we want but we will find an oppertunity. If we are faith to what we have been given we will be given more.

Were they doing it wrong?

Did they follow the model provided in Luke 11?

Oh, so sincerity isn't the deciding factor in 'finding' god. You have to follow a passage that can be interpreted in multiple ways, and if you find nothing then you must have used the wrong interpretation, even if you claim you didn't. I mean, you can't prove you did it right, so why should anyone...wait...Drich?

I suppose it makes sense. Hitler understood how easily religion [not necessarilly Christianity] could be used to manipulate people, and used it to his advantage.

???so???

I may not have made this clear enough, but my argument is not that Hitler was a faithful Christian, but that he used Christianity (among other things, such as the economy) to rally people against the Jews. Whether or not he was a traditional Christian (it is believed he could have been a deist) is not relevent. He used religion (again, not exclusively) to support his ends, and it worked.

“Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.”