The concept of Hell discourages belief

[Silver]

So, your arguments based on proper treatment of children are groundless.

So that is why the church abuses children and covers it up.

[Mister Agenda]

What if he does not want your help in any way shape or form? What if from the time he could speak he made it clear he did not like you or your authority over him? Would you force him to accept you and what you offered? Would you force Him to stay in your house even if he was old enough to leave?

If he won't take it, he won't take it. But I won't have him thrown in a pit of hot tar for it.

With one condition, God respects his children enough to allow them to pick their own directions in this life and the next.

I would respect my children enough to do the same, and still love them enought not to prepare a pit of burning tar for them. Frankly, I wouldn't even have to love them to not do that, just not hate them with a psychotic passion.

So long as he lives right? How does that differ from what God has done for us through the atonement Christ offers?

No pit of burning tar (what hell is like according to your experience).

Actually no, that is not a biblical percept. I will agree most religions teach this but they do so outside of what Christ Himself taught. Do you know of the parable of the talents in Mat 25:14-30? Basically it says God will only hold us responsible to what he has given us. If we are faithful we will be given more if we are not the what we have will be taken from us and given to someone else. This means if we do not have to understand the bible like a Billy gram. All we must do is do the best we can with what God gave us. Not the best as in what you tell someone is your best, but your best as in all your heart, mind spirit and strength, and no matter what your finished product, God will judge you favorably according to this parable.

And if we don't, pit of burning tar.

What if your son chooses that fate over spending an eternity with you?

If I were God, I'll have determined the consequences for not spending eternity with me. If I were God, it wouldn't be eternity in burning tar, and if there were some punishment, it wouldn't be an eternal one: I will always be willing to take my child back. Real life fathers don't want their children to suffer and don't impose a life of suffering on them, the consequences of not heeding our advice are what we are trying to protect our kids from in the first place, we don't say if you play in the street I'll have a car run over you, we say I can't protect you from being run over by a car if you play in the street.

The problem I see is that you assume that all children love their fathers their whole lives. wait till you boys hit 16 and decide to do the opposite of what you would have them do for no other reason then because it would please you that they do what they were asked.

I don't see anything in the post to justify that conclusion. Saying his love is unconditional implies that he will love them no matter what. And again, it doesn't take loving them to keep you from planning to have them tortured forever, just lack of psychotic rage.

Now imagine this rebellion in the scope of eternity. I think given enough time this would make reasons for wars..

You've got a point there, I heard there was a war there already, so it's clearly an option. Apparently, nothing is guaranteed, even in heaven.

I did a thread on this titled God does not love you.. (the way you think He does.) In Short I look at the Greek word that gets translated to the word love in the English. It is Agape. This Agape form of Love is indeed conditional. It is not a love based on emotion but Choice. In that we must choose to accept God's offer of love. Once we do then we will experience that Boundless love you are describing. Agape is not a generic all encompassing love that knows no bounds for everyone in general. Agape is indeed conditional and has a price tag on it. In order for God to offer it it cost Him His only Son.

So Jesus is dead? Because if he's not, it didn't cost God his only son.

In order for us to receive it we must acknowledge and accept what it cost God to offer it. To me this does not sound unreasonable.

To me it does, and the 'or else' of eternal suffering for not being convinced by his missionaries makes it sound more unreasonable.

Again, He is not the modern day English understanding of all loving.

True, that model of love was too precocious for the fickel Oriental potentates Yahweh was modeled after.

He is the Koine Greek understanding of Agape. To understand God is to seek Him on His terms and not to try and force God to fit our understandings. If we do what you have done we build a strawman fallicy and lable it god. when our strawman fails to live up to or is not consistent with the God of the bible our reaction is to say God does not exist, because there is a fatal flaw in our strawman version of God, rather than admit we never sought the God of the bible to begin with.

If he did exist, he wouldn't be worth worshiping. Expecting or desiring worship should be beneath an ultimate being. Wanting worship automatically disqualifies him from deserving it.

Again have you asked yourself why? What fundamental principle is being violated when God forces someone to spend an eternity serving Him?

The fallacy of false dichotomy. A being as powerful as God can't be restricted to only two options.

Which is what this life is all about. To see if you can eternally serve Not the God you have constructed for yourself, but the God of the bible for all of eternity. If yes then simply accept the redemption offered, if no then stay your course and know you will be eternally separated from the God you want nothing to do with..

You know it's YOU we don't believe, not God, right? All we know about God is what people who claim to speak for him tell us, and you can't seem to get your stories straight. It's not really your fault that God doesn't make you very convincing when you don't have access to the power of the state to torture us in this life if we don't see things your way. Without divine backing, you're just schlubs trying to convince other schlubs you know things it isn't possible to know.

If there's a God that wants to speak to me, I'm all ears. Presumably, it knows how to reach me. If there is a God, I want to know about it, and I'm enough of a coward that I would worship him to avoid eternal torture, but I'm not going to believe this obvious conversion meme in advance just on the off chance it might be true, without a good reason to believe it actually IS true, anymore than I'd believe you if you told me a nuclear missile is going to hit my city tomorrow without convincing evidence: sure, if you're right and I don't believe you, I'm dead, but the severity of the consequences of not believing you don't make the odds that you're right higher.

God also gave me the ability to reason, and I would conclude, that Your idea of God is not real. That's not to say a God does not exist beyond what your god should look like.

Your version, his version, no sound reason to believe either of them is real.

This would be an accurate analogy save for one minor detail. God offers atonement. If God did not offer atonement or some way for one to redeem himself then you would be 100% correct. But because atonement for sins was offered then the destruction of your 'mini van' is because you chose to have it destroyed, and God/ford is simply facilitating what you wanted to do.

Like if someone holds a gun to your head, and tells you to give them your money, it's your fault if you get shot because you chose not to hand over the money.

Here is a thread I started explaining what I know of Hell.
http://atheistforums.org/thread-15622.html

Thanks for sharing, that was an interesting read.

---

@ OP:

First problem is with your premise that all people are God's children. Biblically this isn't the case:

John 8
42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me. 43 Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word. 44 You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it."

Paul alsr refers to our adoption as God's children several times, indicating that we are not born as children.

So, your arguments based on proper treatment of children are groundless.

Because it's okay to torture other people's children forever?

[Minimalist]

They will come with the free will bullshit in 3... 2... 1...

And, as predicted, there's drippy spouting bullshit from every orifice.

[LastPoet]

And, as predicted, there's drippy spouting bullshit from every orifice.

I just might be one of them fucking prophets, they might just start sendind me money and start on beatification, so I become a saint. Preferably while I'm still alive.

[The Grand Nudger]

@ OP:

First problem is with your premise that all people are God's children. Biblically this isn't the case:

John 8
42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me. 43 Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word. 44 You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it."

Paul alsr refers to our adoption as God's children several times, indicating that we are not born as children.

So, your arguments based on proper treatment of children are groundless.

Rgr, rgr, because as long as they aren't -your children- it's okay to be an asshat.

[Anomalocaris]

For me, it is the concept of belief that discourages belief. If I had been promiscuous enough to embrace the concept of belief, then I would have no reason to disbelief anything, including hell.

[Drich]

If he won't take it, he won't take it. But I won't have him thrown in a pit of hot tar for it.

What if he chooses Hot tar to your company? or more likly What if this bad seed wanted to be in your company just to torment his brothers and sisters?

I would respect my children enough to do the same, and still love them enought not to prepare a pit of burning tar for them. Frankly, I wouldn't even have to love them to not do that, just not hate them with a psychotic passion.

The pit of Hot tar is actually the emptiness or lack of anything created by God. It's kind of an either or thing. Either you want to be a member of creation or you do not. If you are apart of creation then God being omnipresent you would be with God. Hell is the absence of God. That what makes it hell that's what makes you burn with loathing and regret. Because you will have full knoweledge of what God offered, and you will lement your desision to have been seperated from it.

No pit of burning tar (what hell is like according to your experience).

Hell is the emotion or the experience of being consumed by the emptiness or the void of creation. Hell is hell because there is no God. Or at least for me. Because once I was knew what God offered I lemented my choice to be seperated from God. That said I do not think everyone will think the same way about Hell.

And if we don't, pit of burning tar.

if that is all you understand then yes.

If I were God, I'll have determined the consequences for not spending eternity with me. If I were God, it wouldn't be eternity in burning tar, and if there were some punishment, it wouldn't be an eternal one: I will always be willing to take my child back. Real life fathers don't want their children to suffer and don't impose a life of suffering on them, the consequences of not heeding our advice are what we are trying to protect our kids from in the first place, we don't say if you play in the street I'll have a car run over you, we say I can't protect you from being run over by a car if you play in the street.

At some point in eternity future the children of God will mature just like the children you are trying to focous your arguement on. If the heart of the child is on loving the parent then that child will grow love and honor the parent. However if their is resentment or discontentment in that child's heart given enough time (A trillion years or so) that discontentment will manifest into hate and eventually a fight or even on a large enough scale war. Then what?

This has already played out once and the highest ranking angel and 1/3 of his brothers were lost. we do not know the cost of this conflict nor how it effects anything else on that side of eternity. We just know that we have been given this life without the imeadiate knoweledge of God's glory so we can make a honest heart felt decision about where we want to spend eternity. Persumably so it does not blow up into another conflict. Which BTW is the reason I believe that God orders the complete destruction of those who apposed Israel, and in somecases where they did not obey we see the long term consenquences being played out. For instance acouple of women and a few children were allowed to live after God had told them to kill everything. The Jews let them live instead thinking the were more compassionate than God, think they knew better than God. In just a few short generations those people came back and nearly wiped out the children of Israel and enslaved the rest.

I do not know how that all would play out on an eternal scale, but I know God's desision to destroy those who appose Him is what is best for His followers in the long run.

I don't see anything in the post to justify that conclusion. Saying his love is unconditional implies that he will love them no matter what. And again, it doesn't take loving them to keep you from planning to have them tortured forever, just lack of psychotic rage.

Again God's love is not unconditional. It is boundless to those who accept it but it is coonditional in that one must accept what He offers in the way He offers it.

You've got a point there, I heard there was a war there already, so it's clearly an option. Apparently, nothing is guaranteed, even in heaven.

I think this happened to show us what would happen if malcontents were allowed to rome heaven for eternity. In essence why people are thrown into a 'tar pit.' rather than be forced into God's service.

So Jesus is dead? Because if he's not, it didn't cost God his only son.

We do not know exactly what it meant for Jesus to be nailed to that cross to take on the sins of the world. May say because He is God he took what the Father had to give on the chin and bounced right back. I am not so sure. I can't say one thing or another but to me Christ dying words tells the whole story. (My, God My God. Why have you forsaken me?) or Why have you left me? To me and what I read Jesus traded His righteousness for our sins. Meaning there was a literal trade. In that we took a peice of His righteousness to cover us in excange for our sin. Leaving Him as sin before the Father. Where does that Leave Christ? I don't know for sure, even though revelation says He is at the right hand of the Father. Meaning He his position is one of power and authority, but is it the same as before where He was on Par with the Father himself?? That is yet to been seen.

In conclusion our redemption may have cost Christ far more than His mortal life. to me it does not makes sense to say: God gave his only son, just to physically die. There is more that we have not been given to understand I am sure.

To me it does, and the 'or else' of eternal suffering for not being convinced by his missionaries makes it sound more unreasonable.

Again it is not up to his 'missionaries to convince yoou of anything. God has taken on that task Himself if you will only A/S/K. Our job is to only point you to A/S/K.

If he did exist, he wouldn't be worth worshiping. Expecting or desiring worship should be beneath an ultimate being. Wanting worship automatically disqualifies him from deserving it.

That is on you to decide.

Again have you asked yourself why? What fundamental principle is being violated when God forces someone to spend an eternity serving Him?

The fallacy of false dichotomy. A being as powerful as God can't be restricted to only two options.

Then you do not understand the options or the reasons He has stated that only two options have been given.

You know it's YOU we don't believe, not God, right?

all the better then why not find out for your self. He has made himself avaible to anyone who A/S/K as outlined in Luke 11

All we know about God is what people who claim to speak for him tell us, and you can't seem to get your stories straight. It's not really your fault that God doesn't make you very convincing when you don't have access to the power of the state to torture us in this life if we don't see things your way. Without divine backing, you're just schlubs trying to convince other schlubs you know things it isn't possible to know.

sn't that the point though? for if we had divine backing then that would not leave you with much choice other than to believe. That is what your own arguement states does it not?

If there's a God that wants to speak to me, I'm all ears. Presumably, it knows how to reach me. If there is a God, I want to know about it, and I'm enough of a coward that I would worship him to avoid eternal torture, but I'm not going to believe this obvious conversion meme in advance just on the off chance it might be true, without a good reason to believe it actually IS true, anymore than I'd believe you if you told me a nuclear missile is going to hit my city tomorrow without convincing evidence: sure, if you're right and I don't believe you, I'm dead, but the severity of the consequences of not believing you don't make the odds that you're right higher.

So.. God the creator of everything is supposed to Humble himself before you and you will lift Him up and worship him on your terms...

If I were God I would tell you to pound sand, that I did X,Y and Z and have provided you a way to reach me, and you did nothing except demand that I approach you...

If the president of the united states had one of his aids or interns say to you if want to be wants to come to a state dinner do X,Y,Z and the president will personall come and welcome you, would you intern say to the Aid have him invite me himself and I will come and be honored? If this happened to you what do you think he would do? Who he come to your house and grovel for you to be honored, or will he extend the offer to someone more willing to do as he was asked?

[The Grand Nudger]

Idiotic Drich, your god doesn't have to grovel (though that would be nice - at least insomuch as groveling while explaining that you don't actually know him or what he wants would help to quickly get that point acrossed).....it just has to show its face. Small potatoes. Once your god has handled this, then we can start to talk about whether or not I'm going to join his club, and showing his face isn't going to be the determining factor there. Your posts reliably show that -to your mind- there is a sort of dichotomy in life between either being servile to something, or that something being servile towards you..always one or the other. It's disturbing, and in no way indicative of reality or the wide breadth of other possible dynamics of a relationship. If I can grasp the nuance, your fucking "god" shouldn't have any trouble with it.

[Silver]

If I were God

That is the crux, is it not? Man always makes the claim that God is unknowable, yet he then contradicts himself in claiming to know exactly what God wishes for humanity in such a way that it appears as though man is attributing human characteristics to God. In essence, God is what man wants God to be. That is why they cannot be trusted, those men who believe in God and claim to know what God wishes for others.

[The Grand Nudger]

You'd think that those who believed in and loved god wouldn't be so willing to paint it with that sort of brush, wouldn't you?