(October 19, 2013 at 5:06 pm)Rationalman Wrote: There is no choice in the matter. That is the whole point i'm making. Of course you will pay the protection money. But its not your own choice to get your legs broken if you refuse to pay.
That's not how it works, you basically have three options here.
1) There is no eternal salvation, this is not good news.
2) There is eternal salvation but you have to earn it entirely yourself this is not good news.
3) There is eternal salvation and it given you as a free gift from God himself, this is good news.
All other religions are option 2 but Christianity is the only option 3 on the market. Though God isn't going to force a gift onto you that you don't want or wouldn't ever accept. If you reject God you will keep all your sin and be removed from Gods love but that's would be what you decide you want. What you don't get is Gods love forced upon you you can reject him.
Quote:Oh does he now. Do you know what butterfly children are? Might want to look all those up. How about all those people killed by tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanoes, tsunamis, earthquakes, lightning strikes, forest/bush fires. A loving god would not allow these things to happen.
How would you create a physical universe that allows for the evolution of sentient organic forms of life and avoid these consequences of the natural physical laws you need to have established to begin with? You can ask why God decided to create us this way but I'd say it's so we can come to have a relationship with him through our own freedom of choice, you would call this relationship between creature and creator is called a theosis.
Quote:Now i'm just going to wait for the justifications of all of these.
I gave you some, heck do you think this aspect of life and human suffering wasn't mentioned in the Bible at all? You'll find it's in there in full gritty detail. God himself shared in this human suffering on the cross of course he understands human pain and misery.
Quote:Please do explain how all these people deserve the pain, suffering and death.
It's a consequence of human freedom of will and the way the natural order has to be to allow for the freedom of will in the first place. It wasn't possible to create ourselves without suffering involved. But it was still worth creating because positives ultimately outweigh the negatives, the creation is still good, we are good and life is still a gift and we still have a loving relationship with our creator.
Quote:Are you saying this whole mess is God's fault since He started the ball rolling?
Do you place any value in human life and human freedom at all? If you do then here you are and God made you. Yes your physical body is the result of billions of years of natural processes but God made of all of that to begin with.
Quote:I am saying he created the situation in which going to hell is possible.
Only if you want to abuse what God has given you and/or reject Gods grace. I'm not saying you're necessarily doing that yourself. It's more a misunderstanding than a genuine rejection of God in your case.
Quote:That means it is his responsibility and the blame lies with him. Again i shall use the godfather example: sure you have a choice, either pay the protection money or not. But if you don't pay, you get your legs broken or you get killed. So obviously you will pay. In reality, there is no actual choice there. But if you should choose to not pay, it is not your fault, and you are not choosing to get your legs broken. The blame lies with the godfather because he created the whole situation. If he wasn't blackmailing you for protection money in the first place, there would be no need for a choice. Its the same thing with god. If he doesn't demand you worship him and stick by his code of ethics and morals, we wouldn't go to hell and we wouldn't have a problem
Think of hell like this, take all your character flaws your anxieties your hostility/aggression everything about yourself you don't like and magnify it over an eternity of time. Bearing in mind you can't "cease to exist" as a creation in the image of God you are immortal. I think there is a problem with the whole concept of being able to "cease to exist" when you already exist, seeing as it's only existence you experience nothing else.
C.S Lewis does a good job explaining hell in a Biblically consistent manner, describing it as a prison with all the doors locked from the inside.
http://www.discovery.org/a/507
Come all ye faithful joyful and triumphant.
