What is the purpose of an everlasting punishment in hell?

[Minimalist]

Here's an interesting article for you Pad on the introduction of hell into Judaism... courtesy of the Persians, of course.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/t...g/one.html

This recasting of Yahweh as apocalyptic destroyer was strongly influenced by the Zoroastrian religion that the Israelites had encountered during the Babylonian Exile. Zoroaster (ca. 630-550 B.C.E.) had taught that the world was the scene of a dramatic cosmic struggle between the forces of Good and Evil, led by the gods Ormazd and Ahriman. But this conflict was not to continue forever because, according to Zoroastrianism, history was not endless but finite and in fact dualistic, divided between the present age of darkness and the coming age of light. Time was devolving through four (or in some accounts seven) progressively worsening periods toward an eschatological cataclysm when Good would finally annihilate Evil and the just would receive their otherworldly reward in an age of eternal bliss. Zoroastrianism's profound pessimism about present history was thus answered by its eschatological optimism about a future eternity.

As Israel's political fortunes faded and as such Zoroastrian ideas as

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these took hold, Judaism shifted the focus of its religious hopes from the arena of the national and historical to that of the eschatological and cosmic, from political salvation in some future time to preternatural survival in an afterlife. This radical change can be seen in late Judaism's adoption of notions like the fall of Adam from paradisal grace at the beginning of time, the workings of Satan and other demons in the present age, and the Last judgment and the resurrection at the end of history--all of which Christianity was to take over and turn into dogmas. But the clearest sign of this absorption of Persian ideas can be found in the eschatological visions of history that surfaced in apocalyptic literature during the two centuries before Jesus began to preach.

One such apocalyptic work was the Book of Daniel, composed around 165B.C.E. during the Maccabean revolt against the oppressive Seleucid dynasty. The tyrannical King Antiochus IV, who ruled Palestine (175-03 B.C.E.) from Syria, had undertaken to force Hellenistic religion and culture on his Jewish subjects. He deposed the legitimate high priest, forbad ritual sacrifice and circumcision, plundered the Temple treasury, and, most shocking of all, set up the "Abomination of Desolation" (Daniel 11:31),an altar to Olympian Zeus, within the Temple precinct.

I think the last part misses what was really going here. Antiochus had a bunch of Hellenized Jews who were running the show and they were being challenged by a bunch of ignorant peasants and their fucking lunatic god. Of course Antiochus came down on the side of the Hellenized.

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You sound pretty pissed off at a God that doesn't exist.

Your god is an irrelevancy. His followers have dragged humanity through the mud, though.

[Godscreated]

No, just pissed off at the idea that Christians can believe in an all-loving good god that would create a place like hell to send the evil souls he created.

God did not create evil nor evil souls, I really do not know how you guys believe He did, have you not studied scripture. God did create hell and the lake of fire, the lake of fire is reserved for Satan and the fallen angels, hell is for all those who are not redeemed.

[Azazylix]

Hell is a human invention as much as religion as a whole. It's exactly as the video in the very first post suggests. The thought of eternal damnation is almost as daunting as nothingness, I'd say, but only to a human mind. Hell is an extremely powerful invention by people for the precise purpose of controlling other people.

I'd also say it's a rather useful literary tool used in juxtaposition with Heaven! I'd say the entire Heaven/Hell thing is just a huge exaggeration of what the old scribes thought as the good and bad in life, transformed into a daydream and a nightmare respectively.

Also, didn't Jesus Christ die for "all of our sins to be forgiven"? Wouldn't blasphemy and disbelief be a sin? So... are we forgiven?

Coz otherwise that'd be some badass exclusive club membership innit.

[The Grand Nudger]

So your god isn't the creator of all things? Most of us already suspected as much GC. I'll see your garbage excuse for gods complacency in evil and raise you this. Your god also did not create the universe, this planet, ourselves, or anything at all. If he created any of them he would, in fact, be responsible for evil. No matter how you slice it. Let his own "unredeemed" self sit in the prison he created. There is no value or merit in a set of absolute rules, meant for all, if the creator of those rules is free to circumvent or ignore them. Your religion is morally and ethically bankrupt. If you're even half as devout as you claim, you are as well.

[Greatest I am]

No, just pissed off at the idea that Christians can believe in an all-loving good god that would create a place like hell to send the evil souls he created.

God did not create evil nor evil souls,

Man is also a creator then?

I really do not know how you guys believe He did, have you not studied scripture.

Yes. It says that God creates all things including evil.

God did create hell and the lake of fire,

You just said above that God did not create evil yet hell is the most evil place known. WTH.

the lake of fire is reserved for Satan and the fallen angels, hell is for all those who are not redeemed.

So the souls that are in hell are good souls?
A hell of a way to treat good souls.

Regards
DL

[Godscreated]

No, just pissed off at the idea that Christians can believe in an all-loving good god that would create a place like hell to send the evil souls he created.

God did not create evil nor evil souls,

Man is also a creator then?

I really do not know how you guys believe He did, have you not studied scripture.

Yes. It says that God creates all things including evil.

God did create hell and the lake of fire,

You just said above that God did not create evil yet hell is the most evil place known. WTH.

the lake of fire is reserved for Satan and the fallen angels, hell is for all those who are not redeemed.

So the souls that are in hell are good souls?
A hell of a way to treat good souls.

Regards
DL

I know the verse you would use to try and prove God created evil and I've argued that verse and see no since in rehashing it, so I want ask you to give me proof. The lake of fire and hell are places of punishment for the evil.

[Minimalist]

God did not create evil nor evil souls, I really do not know how you guys believe He did,

King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

So you're saying that Isaiah is full of shit? That would be progress for you but I know your tricks. You're the type who claims its the literal word of fucking god until you are embarrassed by it and then you try and weasel out of it.

Well READ THE FUCKING THING. LITERALLY!

[Mystic]

His mercy is shown by sending His Son, Jesus Christ. Those who believe, are saved, those who don't, aren't. Of course that implies a conscious choice to reject Jesus Christ.

I personally can't see it as a mercy to punish people if they don't believe in a certain doctrine. Without Jesus Christ, and without hearing of Christianity, non-Christians you say have a chance of making into paradise.

Yet hearing of Christianity and being unconvinced of it, will put them in hell.

I hardly call that mercy.

Jesus Christ is a mercy simply to Christians while is a curse for all those whom don't believe in him.

I don't see how it's merciful to just have mercy on people whom believe in a certain doctrine while torture those whom disbelieve in that doctrine.

That hardly seems like a merciful character to me.

If Christianity wasn't there, people whom would reject Christianity would have a chance of making into paradise.

I also don't understand the concept that God can be merciful towards Christians, but not towards those whom reject Christianity, because he has to exact justice. If he has to be just and exact justice on people, then he can't be merciful towards Christians. If he can be merciful towards christians, he can merciful to rest of humans, without Jesus Sacrifice. Also the concept that God forgives others sins because of a sacrifice of his son/himself, hardly makes sense... it makes him highly illogical and barbaric.

[Greatest I am]

[
I know the verse you would use to try and prove God created evil and I've argued that verse and see no since in rehashing it, so I want ask you to give me proof. The lake of fire and hell are places of punishment for the evil.

The only proof I have of the whole biblical being a book myth is that the book starts with a talking animal and ends with a seven headed monster.

The Jews did not read their myths literally and one would have to be a pretty big fool to believe that the bible has anything to do with reality.

The lake of fire, like God, is a myth.

Regards
DL

[The Grand Nudger]

His monsters and talking animals are real, Aesops are fables, everyone knows that.