Why would they? Just because you disagree with something doesn't mean you get to rewrite it. I don't agree with Sir Isaac Newton on many details, that doesn't give me license to rewrite what he wrote.
I'm slightly confused. Are you saying that hell (described in the bible) is incorrect as a fact? or opinion?
If you managed to prove that hell doesn't exist as a fact, then you can very well make the case to change/rewrite/improve
No you wouldn't.
I might PM you later on this but whatever i'm going to say, ICM has probably said it or will say it (I find that he and I think alike a lot on this issue)
Why would they? Just because you disagree with something doesn't mean you get to rewrite it. I don't agree with Sir Isaac Newton on many details, that doesn't give me license to rewrite what he wrote.
I'm slightly confused. Are you saying that hell (described in the bible) is incorrect as a fact? or opinion?
Certainly hell is described in the Bible as existing. I'm saying it doesn't actually exist.
If you managed to prove that hell doesn't exist as a fact, then you can very well make the case to change/rewrite/improve
If Hell is simply "being absent the presence of Gods love" or some such nonsense...
Then I'd currently already be in Hell correct?
No. You are not currently experiencing the absence of God's love.
Indeed, such a thing is neither logically possible, nor consistent with the notion that even in death, one cannot escape the reach of God.
Furthermore, if Heaven is "being in the presence of God's love" or some such nonsense...
Don't YOU have some of that presence in your life already? Don't you believe that God has
some presence in the world?
Ah, I see now where you were going with this. Very good.
Am I to assume by this that you are arguing from a strict Christianity basis? You do realize many nonchristian faiths also contain hells right, and you do realize not all hells are the same right?
How many non christian faiths have an omnibenevolent deity?
Listen to yourself
"Is hell compatible with an omnibenevolent deity?"
"You do realize that there are other kinds of hell in non christian faiths, right?"
That's just plain stupid.
I don't want to talk about the Parable of the Prodigal Son. It's irrelevant.
In a discussion where you bring out the topic of forgiveness in christianity?
Are you serious?
God may not be YHWH, Christianity could be wrong.
Yes, christianity could be wrong, but that's not what we're talking about. Unless the OP was discussing a non christian faith, that's irrelevant.
Am I to assume by this that you are arguing from a strict Christianity basis? You do realize many nonchristian faiths also contain hells right, and you do realize not all hells are the same right?
How many non christian faiths have an omnibenevolent deity?
Listen to yourself
"Is hell compatible with an omnibenevolent deity?"
"You do realize that there are other kinds of hell in non christian faiths, right?"
For instance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayan_religion
If the God that exists is Itzamna, and it was claimed to be Omnibenevolent, then the existence of Xibulba would be debatable.
Second, even if it WAS referring to YHWH alone, and it's not, Scripture does not support that YHWH is Omnibenevolent. If I need to directly quote the Torah/Bible here I will, but please please tell me I'm not debating this subject with someone who doesn't know their own source material.
If you don't know anything but your cherry picked Sunday school fluffy Christianity, then that's just sad.
The Torah/Bible is chock full of direct passages that God is vengeful, angry, unforgiving, jealous, and a killer.
Jesus does not absolve this, nor does he even try. "Jot and title".
Third, I do not accept YOUR assumption that the God of Christianity is Omnibenevolent.
All of this I laid out in my first post.
Reading is tech
I don't want to talk about the Parable of the Prodigal Son. It's irrelevant.
In a discussion where you bring out the topic of forgiveness in christianity?
Are you serious?
God may not be YHWH, Christianity could be wrong.
Yes, christianity could be wrong, but that's not what we're talking about. Unless the OP was discussing a non christian faith, that's irrelevant.
The OP wasn't discussing ANY particular faith. He was discussing Hell><Omnibenevolence.
If God is not the Christian God, but some other God, he still could be claimed to be Omnibenevolent, and the existence of Hell, would then be debatable.
No, IcecreamMan, he's correct. The debate is clearly discussing how to reconcile the existence of Hell with the existence of the omnibenevolent, omnipotent God of Christianity. The OP even mentions the Bible, and the thread from which this discussion spun off from, which was a discussion of how to reconcile Hell with the Christian God.
So if you're going to make snide comments like "reading is tech," you really should make sure the misunderstanding isn't yours.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=10954788&postcount=1
The first part is "The Problem of Hell" which isn't exclusive to Christianity, and neither is the OP's first paragraph.
The Problem of Hell is NOT limited only to YHWH. In fact one of the very first sentences is "The "problem of Hell" is an ethical problem related to religions in which portrayals of Hell are ostensibly cruel, and are thus inconsistent with the concepts of a just, moral and omnibenevolent God.[1]"
Religions. Plural. YHWH isn't the only God, nor the only one with a Hell.
The second part of the Op's post is the only Christian part spun from the previous thread. His questions are more in regard to what Hell is like, and not addressing The Problem of Hell.
Also, if he IS referring ONLY to the Christian God. I address this issue adequately not only in my FIRST post on page one, but also here:
Second, even if it WAS referring to YHWH alone, and it's not, Scripture does not support that YHWH is Omnibenevolent. If I need to directly quote the Torah/Bible here I will, but please please tell me I'm not debating this subject with someone who doesn't know their own source material.
If you don't know anything but your cherry picked Sunday school fluffy Christianity, then that's just sad.
The Torah/Bible is chock full of direct passages that God is vengeful, angry, unforgiving, jealous, and a killer.
Jesus does not absolve this, nor does he even try. "Jot and title".
You would be correct that I wasn't properly addressing the "Christian" debate, if in fact, I wasn't.
Lastly,
Neither you nor Mondu have demonstrated at all that the God of Christianity IS Omnibenevolent. In which case, no reconciliation need be made.
I don't see how it isn't befitting a Benevolent God.
Benevolence which hinges on standards whether for others or for ones' self is far different than unconditional love which is what most people end up pointing to in discussions like this. It always comes back to "if God loves us so, and is all powerful, and is this that and the other why do we suffer, why is there a Hell, why X, Y, Z" and it's simple. Unconditional love doesn't mean suspension of standards, negation of moral appraisal.
You see many examples in not only the Bible but in other religious texts of "he giveth, he taketh away" which is the perfect example both here on Earth as well as in Hell. You see this also in human figures of authority, following the examples that have been set for us for millenia. You also see God as a vengeful, jealous figure who doesn't pull any punches in saying just how bad it will get for you if you stray off his narrow path.
Yet for those who walk it and are dutiful and faithful the reward is infinite. The reward is open to everyone but not guaranteed to anyone. That's the semi rigged free will game, having the ability to do what you want but are limited in what you can do in order to get to Heaven/Paradise/Valhalla/etc and it's the perfect exercising of that free will that gets you there. On top of that God has the benevolence to place those limits and requirements, safeguarding it against being spoiled and ruined by those who can't live up to it. The hands that can hurt are also able to hold open the gates to Heaven for you.
These things may have already been said, I didn't read the whole thread just the OP.
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CAMILLA: You, sir, should unmask.
STRANGER: Indeed?
CASSILDA: Indeed it's time. We all have laid aside disguise but you.
STRANGER: I wear no mask.
CAMILLA: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda.) No mask? No mask!
That's the semi rigged free will game, having the ability to do what you want but are limited in what you can do in order to get to Heaven/Paradise/Valhalla/etc and it's the perfect exercising of that free will that gets you there.
So in your view a benevolent god puts people in a rigged free will game in order to punish those that do not play the game perfectly.
On top of that God has the benevolence to place those limits and requirements, safeguarding it against being spoiled and ruined by those who can't live up to it. The hands that can hurt are also able to hold open the gates to Heaven for you.
If only god had the benevolence of not testing humans in order to receive his love.
Why doesn't god try to fix or rehabilitate the people who fell short of receiving his love. We as a society have discovered that you can rehabilitate some people. Turning bad into good. If god is all knowing and all powerful wouldn't he be able to teach all of the losers of his rigged game to become winners at some point in time?
Instead of trying to fix them he just trows them in a lake of fire. Real classy move god.
So unconditional love means love with a few conditions such as standards. This seems oxymoronic.
Is this reward open to people that have never heard of god and were never taught the right path to walk?
So in your view a benevolent god puts people in a rigged free will game in order to punish those that do not play the game perfectly.
That is not my view of benevolence.
If only god had the benevolence of not testing humans in order to receive his love.
Why doesn't god try to fix or rehabilitate the people who fell short of receiving his love. We as a society have discovered that you can rehabilitate some people. Turning bad into good. If god is all knowing and all powerful wouldn't he be able to teach all of the losers of his rigged game to become winners at some point in time?
Instead of trying to fix them he just trows them in a lake of fire. Real classy move god.
1. The unconditional love/standards thing is on two separate levels, no different than between a parent and their child. The difference is in severity and extremity of ultimate outcome for sure but the two levels aren't incompatible nor oxymoronic. It's perfectly reasonable to feel unconditional love towards your children and at the same time hold them to standards that promise reward or punishment for their choices.
2. I think this is a multiple situation scenario. Those who are unaware of Heaven, the path to walk, etc could enter it if by their own actions they unconsciously walked it. It's just like those dreams or actual real travels people have where they're on a journey and just end up in a place where they feel they truly belong, that their way of life has brought them to.
On the flipside those who are unaware and who do wrong wouldn't be protected from Hell, in the manner of the 'sins of the father visited on the son' sense with the particular sin being lack of God in their life, with this lack potentially extending back generations and it turning into the sins of the great great great great great grandfather visited on the entire line if no effort was ever made to correct it or if they never found their way towards God. An extreme example, but also indicative of the kind of isolation that it'd take to achieve such.
3. It doesn't matter if that's your view of benevolence, that's the benevolence God exercises. You create everything and you'll have that leeway. I used the term rigged only to state that the exercising of your free will comes down to a decision: freedom from the narrow path of God or freedom from eternal damnation? The pivot point of free will there is which does the person find the stronger promise of joy in?
There's plenty of people who take the approach of "better to rule in Hell than be a slave in Heaven" that is personified in Luciferian types throughout the religions. They look at no constraints now, boundless freedom now as more important and more joyous and the thought of the narrow path and a future reward as a joke. The flipside for those that follow the narrow path is of course restrained, limited and defined joy now for boundless reward later.
What's interesting is that for the most part both camps think the other can be saved, from corruption or enslavement as it is seen depending on where you're at within the mix.
4. Again it's not about testing humans to receive his love, it's for the reward of Heaven, at least in Christian centric view. You get into some murky territory in some other religions especially Pagan ones, where you have trickster Gods as likely to use man as a plaything as they are to reward them for their faith.
Heaven is the ultimate 1st place trophy in that regard and I'm inclined to think you'd prefer it as something along the lines of a participation reward but it isn't such. God=the first elitist.
5. I wouldn't be able to vouch for any reason why God decided not to take a more active role in teaching humans, if you go by the history in religious texts you see quite a bit of discussion and communication with early mankind. I'd say though that tradition is the first thing that people would look to for guidance in that regard. The notion of rehabilitation in this implies being out of touch, cut off or separated from tradition. In that sense people looking for the way would just look to their fellows for practical guidance.
You have large segments of society now that for difference reasons and situations of upbringing have little to no exposure to these traditions or their reasons beyond the most general explanations or descriptions of them. I think that's definitely a strong source of the confusion and alienation that exists. I have a friend who is a 3rd generation atheist, his entire family was brought up like that and that's what they are through and through so their attachment to it is very strong. That is his tradition, that's where his family flexed their spiritual muscles and those muscles are highly developed at this point.
But that doesn't mean anyone like him in view or anyone with a differing view couldn't make the change towards the path God set to Heaven, it just means that the work has to be done to align with the traditions and views that are both expressed and implied in the Bible and other texts, for make no mistake there's just as many implications towards the path as there are arrow signs of belief. That's why there's so much emphasis on the Spirit, that's the thing which enables you to see, feel, recognize those implications in your daily life.
6. And of course if he's all knowing and all powerful he'd be able to teach all the 'losers' but why should he? He created humans, not hollow men who needed every single action and belief done for them. He gave you free will and gave instructions on how to follow the path, you need him to control your feet, hands, eyes, mouth and brain too? Need him to be your playground aide, blowing his whistle and getting you back where you belong your entire life? The particular thing you describe is a function of the family, community and society not God.
As for your classy move comment, again: you make the world, you can make the rules. It'll be your sandbox then and you can do as you like. Probably the only part of the entire viewpoint in this that I don't agree with is the embodiment of Hell as the fiery pit but that's the philosopher in me saying that eternal punishment is a multifaceted thing with as many interpretations as there are people. It's strong imagery though, no doubt.
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CAMILLA: You, sir, should unmask.
STRANGER: Indeed?
CASSILDA: Indeed it's time. We all have laid aside disguise but you.
STRANGER: I wear no mask.
CAMILLA: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda.) No mask? No mask!
If god is all loving and all forgiving, he wouldn't allow people who lived their lives as good people but did NOT go to church to go to hell. They did the hard part (living as a good person) and skipped the "easy" part. An all loving forgiving god would forgive you not doing the easy part if you did the hard part well.
If god is all loving and all forgiving, he wouldn't allow people who lived their lives as good people but did NOT go to church to go to hell. They did the hard part (living as a good person) and skipped the "easy" part. An all loving forgiving god would forgive you not doing the easy part if you did the hard part well.
He's one of those parents that even when you present good logic and reason for w/e, he would still say
"SOL there kiddo, my rules cause i'm an adult"
I should get this guy one of those #1 parent coffee mugs when I die
If god is all loving and all forgiving, he wouldn't allow people who lived their lives as good people but did NOT go to church to go to hell. They did the hard part (living as a good person) and skipped the "easy" part. An all loving forgiving god would forgive you not doing the easy part if you did the hard part well.
He's one of those parents that even when you present good logic and reason for w/e, he would still say
"SOL there kiddo, my rules cause i'm an adult"
I should get this guy one of those #1 parent coffee mugs when I die
To which I respond he is a poor parent than time to drop his ass and become the "adults" ourselves. Science full funding ahead!
What are the different ideas of hell, and how long do people stay there? Are in they in there suffering for eternity, or do they get destroyed after suffering for an indetermined amount of time (who knows when Jesus will come back)? Is hell temporary, a place of suffering but also rehabilitation so that people have a second chance of getting into heaven? I've seen these words mentioned in the Bible: "Sheol", "Hades", and "Gehenna". What are these?
I will just answer these from a Biblical perspective, as I'm unfamiliar with other religions' concepts of Hell (aside from ones such as the Greeks and Egyptians, but those are extinct). The Bible says they suffer for eternity (Rev 20:10, 15, 21:8), as after those verses there is no mention of respite for those thrown in, so it's kind of a this life is your only chance sort of thing. If you want a REALLY good source of information on Hell, get Erasing Hell by Francis Chan & Preston Sprinkle. They wrote it in response to Rob Bell's Love Wins. The book explains why Rob Bell's theory is based on an opinion of translation and why the Bible is deadly serious about Hell.
Someone explained Sheol earlier, but Hades is simply the Greek term for Sheol (in the Christian context this means a waiting place until judgement, but for the Greeks themselves this would mean Elysium, Asphodel, or Tartarus).
I'll go off on a slight tangent here and say that the problem with Hell, from a Biblical perspective and within the mainstream Christian tradition, is that it's so internally inconsistent.
1. If we need salvation through Jesus Christ because we can never (by good works) be good or perfect enough to EARN heaven, then neither can we (by bad works) be evil or imperfect enough to EARN hell. So, as I said in another thread: if heaven is the unmerited gift of God's grace, then hell is the unmerited curse of God's caprice, i.e. schizoid Deity.
2. We're told that God cannot allow the "unsaved" into heaven because His perfect Holiness cannot abide the presence of sin. But if God cannot abide the presence of sin, then how is it possible that Jesus Christ (living in the midst of sinners as he did) was actually God? And if God can endure sin by taking on human (or some other) form, then why not do so tirelessly, exhaustively, until by one manifestation or other He had saved all sinners?
3. Hell is the abode of Satan. Satan was tempted by pride to rebel against God, which is why he was cast down out of heaven. However, we are also told that Satan is the originator of sin, and that God cannot sin or cause others to sin. But Satan could not have been tempted by pride unless the temptation had pre-existed him; so temptation actually did have its origins in God...?
To explain my later reasons, the Bible outlines 3 main aspects of God: His Holiness/Perfectness, His Omnipotence/Omniscience, and His Love.
1. It's not a matter of earning hell, it's deserving hell. I wouldn't go to hell because I did X or Y, but because I, being broken as I am, have decided life is better doing things on my own. The Bible says nothing about earning hell, it says everyone deserves it. The issue also is not doing something to deserve hell, the issue is choosing something besides God which causes a person to deserve Hell (unless you count choosing as doing, but I think of doing more as performing an act or a task). The separation from God results because His Holiness cannot allow it, although His Love desperately wants to allow it so you can experience Him and He can show you His Grace.
2. You're right that His Holiness cannot tolerate sin, but you answered your own question. He cannot allow sin in Heaven, but on Earth, sin is tolerated. Otherwise, there could be no choice on Earth, and therefore no free will, and therefore no love. In order to love something, you must have a choice. So if He comes down to Earth, the sin does not bother Him as it does in Heaven, because His own law allows for it on Earth. Your last question is just like asking for icing on an already iced cake. Hebrews 7:27 explains how the manifestation of Jesus and His sacrifice is offered to all. While God wants to save everyone because of His Love, He cannot use His Power to do so unless everyone chooses to accept Christ's sacrifice, otherwise He would contradict His Holiness. Salvation as of now is 100% based on people's volition to accept the fact that they must stop trying to justify themselves and embrace Christ's sacrifice. If salvation was not based on people's own decision, then it would violate God's Love.
3. You mentioned how you formulated this based on "mainstream Christian tradition," but this is completely false (why anyone would attribute any credibility to tradition or mainstream is beyond me). While Satan was cast out from Heaven (Isaiah 14:12), he still has contact with God (Job 1). Also, Satan's sin was his pride. He stopped believing God gave him his beauty and believed he had the potential to take his place (Ezekiel 28:11-19). God gave Satan free will (otherwise he could not love God, and therefore God would have no reason to create him), but Satan chose himself over God. This is the epitome of sin. Sin is not necessarily an action, but pride causing one to believe God is either not necessary for life or not important in life. The temptation originated in Satan, not God. God only gave him (and every other being) the potential to sin, but also the potential and choice to choose not to.
The 'Satan rules Hell' myth is one of the least backed but most common ones. Satan does not rule Hell and is waging a war on God, he has a heavily limited rule on Earth. Hell is God's prison, why would He have the being who opposes Him the most rule it?
The separation from God results because His Holiness cannot allow it, although His Love desperately wants to allow it so you can experience Him and He can show you His Grace.
Where does His Omnipotence come into play? Because you seem to be saying that he cannot do something that it is logically possible for him to do.
He cannot allow sin in Heaven, but on Earth, sin is tolerated. Otherwise, there could be no choice on Earth, and therefore no free will, and therefore no love. In order to love something, you must have a choice.
The implication here seems to be that there is no love in Heaven. But don't worry about that yet, because first you have to explain the shaky premises. Consider this: Naturally you will agree that we are not omnipotent, that there are things we cannot do. We cannot spontaneously fly through the air, for example. But you claim we still have free will anyway. So, if we do have free will, it evidently must be possible for us to have free will even when we have choice out of just a subset of all possible things to do. And if God forbade sin on Earth, he would only be subdividing the set; we would still have a subset of things allowed to us, and thus still have free will. So the argument that sin is a prerequisite for free will does not follow.
So if He comes down to Earth, the sin does not bother Him as it does in Heaven, because His own law allows for it on Earth.
And going the other way from above, why doesn't God allow sin in Heaven? You said it yourself: it's His own law. He can surely set it to whatever he wants.
Justify the identification of the figure "Satan" in Job with the "Day Star" referred to in Isaiah and the "King of Tyre" addressed in Ezekiel. I submit that they may be different characters; show me how I'm wrong.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=10954788&postcount=1
The first part is "The Problem of Hell" which isn't exclusive to Christianity, and neither is the OP's first paragraph.
The Problem of Hell is NOT limited only to YHWH. In fact one of the very first sentences is "The "problem of Hell" is an ethical problem related to religions in which portrayals of Hell are ostensibly cruel, and are thus inconsistent with the concepts of a just, moral and omnibenevolent God.[1]"
Religions. Plural. YHWH isn't the only God, nor the only one with a Hell.
Hrm... Ok, fair enough. I rescind my objection.
Second, even if it WAS referring to YHWH alone, and it's not, Scripture does not support that YHWH is Omnibenevolent.
Technically, it supports that God both is and isn't.
That being said, you will never find an argument that God is anything but good in the Bible. That part's repeated pretty consistently. It is, along with his power, one of the primary attributes of God.
Moreover, you are aware that this debate assumes an omnibenevolent God, because otherwise there is no problem of Hell, right?
Benevolence which hinges on standards whether for others or for ones' self is far different than unconditional love which is what most people end up pointing to in discussions like this. It always comes back to "if God loves us so, and is all powerful, and is this that and the other why do we suffer, why is there a Hell, why X, Y, Z" and it's simple. Unconditional love doesn't mean suspension of standards, negation of moral appraisal.
Yes, that is exactly what unconditional love means. It means, "Without conditions." If you love someone unconditionally, you will continue to love them no matter what they do, right or wrong.
Yet for those who walk it and are dutiful and faithful the reward is infinite. The reward is open to everyone but not guaranteed to anyone.
So why wouldn't God just let everyone in there?
That's the semi rigged free will game, having the ability to do what you want but are limited in what you can do in order to get to Heaven/Paradise/Valhalla/etc and it's the perfect exercising of that free will that gets you there.
These are sounding a lot like conditions to me.
On top of that God has the benevolence to place those limits and requirements,
Oh so there ARE conditions.
Well then it's not unconditional love, now is it? No. No it's not.
safeguarding it against being spoiled and ruined by those who can't live up to it.
Which, according to the Bible, is everyone. So why is God letting anyone in at all, and then if he's going to let people in, why some and not all?
1. The unconditional love/standards thing is on two separate levels, no different than between a parent and their child. The difference is in severity and extremity of ultimate outcome for sure but the two levels aren't incompatible nor oxymoronic. It's perfectly reasonable to feel unconditional love towards your children and at the same time hold them to standards that promise reward or punishment for their choices.
However, it is not reasonable to inflict infinite suffering upon someone you love and claim you love them.
2. I think this is a multiple situation scenario. Those who are unaware of Heaven, the path to walk, etc could enter it if by their own actions they unconsciously walked it. It's just like those dreams or actual real travels people have where they're on a journey and just end up in a place where they feel they truly belong, that their way of life has brought them to.
So wait, are you saying it is within man's power to redeem himself and in turn earn Heaven?
Isn't that completely against what the Bible says?
On the flipside those who are unaware and who do wrong wouldn't be protected from Hell, in the manner of the 'sins of the father visited on the son' sense with the particular sin being lack of God in their life, with this lack potentially extending back generations and it turning into the sins of the great great great great great grandfather visited on the entire line if no effort was ever made to correct it or if they never found their way towards God. An extreme example, but also indicative of the kind of isolation that it'd take to achieve such.
Exactly how is being punished for a sin one never committed just?
6. And of course if he's all knowing and all powerful he'd be able to teach all the 'losers' but why should he?
Because that's what a benevolent being would do, clearly.
He created humans, not hollow men who needed every single action and belief done for them. He gave you free will and gave instructions on how to follow the path, you need him to control your feet, hands, eyes, mouth and brain too? Need him to be your playground aide, blowing his whistle and getting you back where you belong your entire life? The particular thing you describe is a function of the family, community and society not God.
And yet, by your argument, all of those fail constantly, resulting in more and more people being damned to eternal suffering.
As for your classy move comment, again: you make the world, you can make the rules.
I will just answer these from a Biblical perspective, as I'm unfamiliar with other religions' concepts of Hell (aside from ones such as the Greeks and Egyptians, but those are extinct). The Bible says they suffer for eternity (Rev 20:10, 15, 21:8), as after those verses there is no mention of respite for those thrown in, so it's kind of a this life is your only chance sort of thing. If you want a REALLY good source of information on Hell, get Erasing Hell by Francis Chan & Preston Sprinkle. They wrote it in response to Rob Bell's Love Wins. The book explains why Rob Bell's theory is based on an opinion of translation and why the Bible is deadly serious about Hell.
Someone explained Sheol earlier, but Hades is simply the Greek term for Sheol (in the Christian context this means a waiting place until judgement, but for the Greeks themselves this would mean Elysium, Asphodel, or Tartarus).
Incorrect. Sheol is not hell, nor a waiting place for judgment.
Sheol represents an earlier tradition in Judaism of a land of the dead, much like Hades was to the Greeks, in which all of the dead, virtuous or sinful, would go to a place without sunlight.
The idea of a separate afterlife for the virtuous and for the sinful, one going to Heaven and the other Hell, came much later.
So for you to say that the Bible has a uniform stance on the afterlife is incorrect.
1. It's not a matter of earning hell, it's deserving hell. I wouldn't go to hell because I did X or Y, but because I, being broken as I am, have decided life is better doing things on my own. The Bible says nothing about earning hell, it says everyone deserves it.
And why, exactly, does everyone deserve it?
Because of how we are? Well that can't be helped, can it? And if that can't be helped, and was not through anything we did, how can Hell be a punishment? What is it punishing?
The issue also is not doing something to deserve hell, the issue is choosing something besides God which causes a person to deserve Hell (unless you count choosing as doing, but I think of doing more as performing an act or a task). The separation from God results because His Holiness cannot allow it, although His Love desperately wants to allow it so you can experience Him and He can show you His Grace.
As Blinking said, you are in this paragraph demonstrating that God is not omnipotent, because you are saying God simultaneously wants to do something and cannot actually do it.
Furthermore, you are claiming God's love has a finite limit. This cannot be, and yet you are saying that God would abandon someone willingly forever. This is not what love does.
While God wants to save everyone because of His Love, He cannot use His Power to do so unless everyone chooses to accept Christ's sacrifice, otherwise He would contradict His Holiness.
Or he could save them regardless.
Salvation as of now is 100% based on people's volition to accept the fact that they must stop trying to justify themselves and embrace Christ's sacrifice. If salvation was not based on people's own decision, then it would violate God's Love.
Except why wouldn't God just save everyone regardless?
If he loves everyone, and the sole mechanism by which a person is saved has nothing to do with what the person does, but is God's grace, then how can you then argue that God would place a condition on salvation and still say God is omnibenevolent?
Why does creating the world let you "make the rules?"
Um, really? Because you made it, and are Omnipotent and can decide literally everything? Sometimes the simple answers are really the best ones.
Yes, that is exactly what unconditional love means. It means, "Without conditions." If you love someone unconditionally, you will continue to love them no matter what they do, right or wrong.
There's no contradiction between unconditional love and having standards in place to enter Heaven. God or any human being can love someone unconditionally and still deny them something because of whatever standards they chose to set for awarding it. Your parents ever promise you money as a kid for good grades? Mine did and if I didn't get them I didn't get the money. Same principle here.
So why wouldn't God just let everyone in there?
Simple enforcement of standards, the type of thing you'd see embodied in holy shrines and sites where only the pure, only the selected may enter. Why would you think you'd get into Heaven just for being born? Because God loves you? That's not enough, pretty simple notion.
These are sounding a lot like conditions to me.
Conditions to get into Heaven, not conditional love. You're entwining the two, and implying that you can't have one without the other and that's not the case.
Oh so there ARE conditions.
Well then it's not unconditional love, now is it? No. No it's not.
See above. It's not hard to understand, I don't know if you're a parent or not but any parent who sets anything as off limits until their kids earn it will get this. They don't stop loving their child while they're trying to earn the thing, nor do they stop loving them if they fail to earn it.
There's also an underlying sense of devotion, inspiration/aspiration involved here. Something to apply your whole lifes' effort towards, believing in it and balancing yourself around. Showing the required worthiness as judged by God, the guy who made the whole place.
Which, according to the Bible, is everyone. So why is God letting anyone in at all, and then if he's going to let people in, why some and not all?
Do you see how it doesn't make sense?
Everyone from birth, but not necessarily everyone in perpetuity. Born in sin, reborn in faith and ascending the stairs to Heaven through your deeds afterwards. People that don't have their sins cleansed, who don't do the basic stuff let alone make the long walk through life on the narrow path don't deserve to enter Heaven as God sees it.
It doesn't make sense to you because you're not putting yourself in Gods place and asking why would He be selective? Why would He make it difficult to get into Heaven? Heaven is the pinnacle of mans' worthiness in the eyes of God, and worthiness needs to be proved especially when going all the way back to the Garden man has shown countless times that he isn't.
Again I'm not sure why this doesn't make sense to you. Heaven is an exclusive club that you have to pay the dues God sets to enter, where everyone that is there has earned the right to be by not only good, moral behavior but faith and devotion, following the path. The process of life and everything you do in it lets you accumulate the spiritual coin to do so, if you don't you don't enter. Not much more to it than that. Is God holding a grudge against us? Sure, all the way back to the Garden. Does that suck? Yeah, alot. What can we do about it? Walk the path.
However, it is not reasonable to inflict infinite suffering upon someone you love and claim you love them.
By human reasoning, sure. Perhaps by Divine reasoning too, but in the end that's what happens. The creator of the world didn't ask people to vote on this, it was a judgment, maybe even a petty one. Who knows but God? The way out of it has been written down for a long time and until it changes that's what we have to deal with.
So wait, are you saying it is within man's power to redeem himself and in turn earn Heaven?
Isn't that completely against what the Bible says?
See above. Redemption, rebirth and ascendance are basic premises of the religions.
Exactly how is being punished for a sin one never committed just?
It's not, in the human sense, but we're not talking about that. What we're talking about is an effect of previous generations taking you spiritually if not mentally and physically far away from where you should be and belong.
Easiest metaphor to represent that is languages. If you speak a particular language and don't keep up on it, use it and have it be a part of yourself you lose it. It can be learned again with effort, but you don't just have it without making it a part of your everyday or regular life. I used to be fluent in Japanese and semi fluent in Russian, a decade of not using either and I can barely remember any of it. That doesn't mean I couldn't relearn what I lost, become what I was linguistically again and the same applies in this spiritual sense. Another example is the 'boy in the wild' thing which randomly pops up, these kids who become dissociated from their culture due to either long years away from it in the wilderness or who are only their specific culture/race on a genetic level because they were born in the wild and never learned anything about their cultural practices and are something completely different from other members of their culture.
If you don't keep the attachment to the tradition, the tradition is lost. In the sense of what God would think about the Godless it's the same thing. Worship, have faith, spread the word and walk the path or by degrees you separate yourself from God. I already mentioned my atheist friend earlier in the thread, religion and spirituality are a debate topic to him not a way of life and that's the result of 3 generations of his family making that the environment they live in. From what I've been told his direct ancestors in his immediate family were very religious but that was worked out of the family fabric before he was born so he's totally devoid of spiritualism and religious yearning. Clearly as established God considers it a sin to not believe in Him, ergo sins of the father visited on the son but able to be cleansed and redeemed once the will is exercised to undertake it.
Because that's what a benevolent being would do, clearly.
A benevolent being can still stick to his guns and keep Heaven for those who follow the path to it he set out. You have the free will to make the decision to do so. You want benevolence to be all encompassing and push out the necessity of standards, of proving and earning entrance to Heaven. You're not willing to accept that one can be benevolent and still prize exclusivity.
And yet, by your argument, all of those fail constantly, resulting in more and more people being damned to eternal suffering.
Open to everyone, guaranteed to no one.
Why?
I already answered this from the other poster. Asking an Omnipotent being who created everything why he can make the rules just because he made everything seems silly at best.
And why, exactly, does everyone deserve it?
Because of how we are? Well that can't be helped, can it? And if that can't be helped, and was not through anything we did, how can Hell be a punishment? What is it punishing?
Not addressed to me but I'll respond anyway. Sins of the very first father and mother.
As Blinking said, you are in this paragraph demonstrating that God is not omnipotent, because you are saying God simultaneously wants to do something and cannot actually do it.
Furthermore, you are claiming God's love has a finite limit. This cannot be, and yet you are saying that God would abandon someone willingly forever. This is not what love does.
His reference to wanting to do something and cannot do it is more of the same of what I said. It's a matter of God's standards preventing action, not a lack of ability to do so. Simple I want to do X but my beliefs, moral code etc prevent me.
Or he could save them regardless.
Except why wouldn't God just save everyone regardless?
If he loves everyone, and the sole mechanism by which a person is saved has nothing to do with what the person does, but is God's grace, then how can you then argue that God would place a condition on salvation and still say God is omnibenevolent?
Because He decided not to, for whatever reasons he chose to make the path to Heaven narrow and difficult. No point in questioning it, asking questions of this particular path doesn't bring us to the end any sooner or easier.
The grace of salvation is based on ones' actions, the love of each human being isn't. I'm still not seeing how you're not grasping that God could be all the things mentioned at once without contradiction, that would be quite like a human wouldn't it? Us being made in His image and all. There are people with really shallow souls totally incapable of this but even the average person is capable of multiple levels of emotional and spiritual states within themselves simultaneously even in regards to one singular thing.
Ok this is really long now, bedtime. Enjoy.
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CAMILLA: You, sir, should unmask.
STRANGER: Indeed?
CASSILDA: Indeed it's time. We all have laid aside disguise but you.
STRANGER: I wear no mask.
CAMILLA: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda.) No mask? No mask!
Why does creating the world let you "make the rules?"
Um, really? Because you made it, and are Omnipotent and can decide literally everything? Sometimes the simple answers are really the best ones.
Of course, if you are omnipotent and made the rules, you could necessarily - NECESSARILY - have made different ones.
Yes, that is exactly what unconditional love means. It means, "Without conditions." If you love someone unconditionally, you will continue to love them no matter what they do, right or wrong.
There's no contradiction between unconditional love and having standards in place to enter Heaven. God or any human being can love someone unconditionally and still deny them something because of whatever standards they chose to set for awarding it. Your parents ever promise you money as a kid for good grades? Mine did and if I didn't get them I didn't get the money. Same principle here.
No, the principle would be your parents promise you money for good grades, and when you don't get them, they break every bone in your body, flay all your skin off, and when you get out of hospital, repeat as long as possible.
These are sounding a lot like conditions to me.
Conditions to get into Heaven, not conditional love. You're entwining the two, and implying that you can't have one without the other and that's not the case.
You can't send someone you love to be tortured eternally.
There's also an underlying sense of devotion, inspiration/aspiration involved here. Something to apply your whole lifes' effort towards, believing in it and balancing yourself around. Showing the required worthiness as judged by God, the guy who made the whole place.
It's like saying just because I founded the company I get to bang all the staff and beat up the ones I dislike. The word for people like that is "Sociopath"
It doesn't make sense to you because you're not putting yourself in Gods place and asking why would He be selective? Why would He make it difficult to get into Heaven? Heaven is the pinnacle of mans' worthiness in the eyes of God, and worthiness needs to be proved especially when going all the way back to the Garden man has shown countless times that he isn't.
Again I'm not sure why this doesn't make sense to you. Heaven is an exclusive club that you have to pay the dues God sets to enter, where everyone that is there has earned the right to be by not only good, moral behavior but faith and devotion, following the path. The process of life and everything you do in it lets you accumulate the spiritual coin to do so, if you don't you don't enter. Not much more to it than that. Is God holding a grudge against us? Sure, all the way back to the Garden. Does that suck? Yeah, alot. What can we do about it? Walk the path.
I'm genuinely amazed you can describe this guy as loving and good.
It's actually much worse than I described above; it's as if one of your ancestors in the middle ages didn't get all HDs at university, and every member of your family tree since has been getting tortured to death on their eighteenth birthday by some weird cult. That's not love, that's not benevolence; it's psycopathic; And trying to do what they want isn't devotion, it's stockholm syndrome.
A benevolent god and the existance of hell are utterly at odds with each other. No possible being - not dhalmer, not manson, not godwins law - deserves undending eternal torture.
We are weak, and fickle, and easily roused to anger. But not the worst of us would wish an *infinite* amount of suffering on someone (for starters, we;d get bored eventually). But if you exclude the utter sociopaths, even those who support things like the death penalty think it should be more-or-less quick and clean. Hell, even in the middle ages, they'd probably have blanched at it - and these were people who would hang, draw and quater someone for kicks. Well...ok, treason.
The existence of hell makes god...look, bring on the godwin - worse than Hitler. Worse than Stalin. Worse than pol pot, Mao, all the crazy rulers - worse than Calligula, and the Khans, and the lot of them.
As for original sin: Seems really fair for young kids, who can't walk the righteous path, or for those who never hear the christian word of god, or who are unlucky enough to be born skeptical.
so, I did some research (mostly searching my PDF of the KJ version of the bible.) and nowhere does it say that God is omnibenevolent. he is patient, long suffering, and has "an everlasting love", but nowhere does it state that he is good to the point of foolishness. it also states several times that he cannot tolerate sin in any degree, and that he cannot accept anything less than perfection. However, the confusion comes in when we get to Christ, who is believed to be God in human form. several passages from the bible (King James version, at least.) contradict this, if only from a logical point of view.
so, we return to this: a god who is bound by his own perfection to cast out anyone who is not as perfect as he is. He could accept imperfection, but then he would cease to be god, because he sinned. but, because he loves us, he found a loophole: another perfect being could volunteer to take everything on himself, so long as people tried their best. This is where Christ comes in: He became that perfect being, basically sacrificing himself so that all who believe on him, or barring that, live a good life, can return to God.
as for original sin, load of crock. the concept of original sin was created by the catholic church during the feudal era as a way to guilt trip people. why should I pay for something that had to happen in the first place? sure, Adam broke a commandment of God, but (and this is MAJOR speculation) if Adam had followed that commandment, he would not have been able to populate the earth, which was the other commandment given to him, because he would not have known "good from evil".
also, note that God did not specifically command them not to eat the fruit. what he said was basically "do what you want, but know that I don't want you doing this."
Why is sending people to hell automatically unjust? Is so hard to believe that just like some deserve a prison term some deserve a bad afterlife as well?
Why is sending people to hell automatically unjust? Is so hard to believe that just like some deserve a prison term some deserve a bad afterlife as well?
Because there is no act or combination of acts which deserves eternal torture.
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We have laboured long to build a heaven, only to find it populated with horrors.
a) God is all powerful and omipotent and has uncondisional love for all of us,
b) God does not tolerate sin in heaven, he can on earth becuase of free will but not in heaven (aparently no free will in heaven) but I will pass on that.
c) God views us as a parent would, ie if we are bad we are "punished" in hell. Despite the fact that I have never seen a parent who told their child if they misbehave I will skin you alive, fester your wounds in salt pour salfuric acid on you and sodimise you at the same time... but whatever maybe he is alittle more abuseive than most.
Why would God, who has uncondisional love for us and KNOWS we will sin, (omnipotences) not create "heaven 2.0" where he can have his heaven (version 1) with no sin for his little angle children, and for his kids who didn't quite get it, still have a nice place to be where he can tolerate their sin. Since he is all powerful and uncondisionaly love us this would be the most logical thing to do, It fills all requirements, he still loves you and gives you a nice place to stay, He can still mentor you to try and help you grow to be a better person as a parent, he still has no sin in heaven (version 1)
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I'm slightly confused. Are you saying that hell (described in the bible) is incorrect as a fact? or opinion?
If you managed to prove that hell doesn't exist as a fact, then you can very well make the case to change/rewrite/improve
I might PM you later on this but whatever i'm going to say, ICM has probably said it or will say it (I find that he and I think alike a lot on this issue)
Certainly hell is described in the Bible as existing. I'm saying it doesn't actually exist.
Why would I rewrite a historical work?
No. You are not currently experiencing the absence of God's love.
Indeed, such a thing is neither logically possible, nor consistent with the notion that even in death, one cannot escape the reach of God.
Ah, I see now where you were going with this. Very good.
Yes, you are correct.
Quite the contrary.
How many non christian faiths have an omnibenevolent deity?
Listen to yourself
"Is hell compatible with an omnibenevolent deity?"
"You do realize that there are other kinds of hell in non christian faiths, right?"
That's just plain stupid.
In a discussion where you bring out the topic of forgiveness in christianity?
Are you serious?
Yes, christianity could be wrong, but that's not what we're talking about. Unless the OP was discussing a non christian faith, that's irrelevant.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
So to you, the bible is just a regular historical piece and not divinely inspired?
Correct.
Well, that's interesting.
First of all,
the OP's post is not exclusively Christian, and neither is the Problem of Hell. Here, read the OP, read the links. They are not exclusively referring to YHWH.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=10954788&postcount=1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell
For instance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayan_religion
If the God that exists is Itzamna, and it was claimed to be Omnibenevolent, then the existence of Xibulba would be debatable.
Second, even if it WAS referring to YHWH alone, and it's not, Scripture does not support that YHWH is Omnibenevolent. If I need to directly quote the Torah/Bible here I will, but please please tell me I'm not debating this subject with someone who doesn't know their own source material.
If you don't know anything but your cherry picked Sunday school fluffy Christianity, then that's just sad.
The Torah/Bible is chock full of direct passages that God is vengeful, angry, unforgiving, jealous, and a killer.
Jesus does not absolve this, nor does he even try. "Jot and title".
Third, I do not accept YOUR assumption that the God of Christianity is Omnibenevolent.
All of this I laid out in my first post.
Reading is tech
The OP wasn't discussing ANY particular faith. He was discussing Hell><Omnibenevolence.
If God is not the Christian God, but some other God, he still could be claimed to be Omnibenevolent, and the existence of Hell, would then be debatable.
Thanks to Xenphire @ Inkfox for the amazing new sig
“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
So if you're going to make snide comments like "reading is tech," you really should make sure the misunderstanding isn't yours.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=10954788&postcount=1
The first part is "The Problem of Hell" which isn't exclusive to Christianity, and neither is the OP's first paragraph.
The Problem of Hell is NOT limited only to YHWH. In fact one of the very first sentences is
"The "problem of Hell" is an ethical problem related to religions in which portrayals of Hell are ostensibly cruel, and are thus inconsistent with the concepts of a just, moral and omnibenevolent God.[1]"
Religions. Plural. YHWH isn't the only God, nor the only one with a Hell.
The second part of the Op's post is the only Christian part spun from the previous thread. His questions are more in regard to what Hell is like, and not addressing The Problem of Hell.
Also, if he IS referring ONLY to the Christian God. I address this issue adequately not only in my FIRST post on page one, but also here:
You would be correct that I wasn't properly addressing the "Christian" debate, if in fact, I wasn't.
Lastly,
Neither you nor Mondu have demonstrated at all that the God of Christianity IS Omnibenevolent. In which case, no reconciliation need be made.
Thanks to Xenphire @ Inkfox for the amazing new sig
“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Benevolence which hinges on standards whether for others or for ones' self is far different than unconditional love which is what most people end up pointing to in discussions like this. It always comes back to "if God loves us so, and is all powerful, and is this that and the other why do we suffer, why is there a Hell, why X, Y, Z" and it's simple. Unconditional love doesn't mean suspension of standards, negation of moral appraisal.
You see many examples in not only the Bible but in other religious texts of "he giveth, he taketh away" which is the perfect example both here on Earth as well as in Hell. You see this also in human figures of authority, following the examples that have been set for us for millenia. You also see God as a vengeful, jealous figure who doesn't pull any punches in saying just how bad it will get for you if you stray off his narrow path.
Yet for those who walk it and are dutiful and faithful the reward is infinite. The reward is open to everyone but not guaranteed to anyone. That's the semi rigged free will game, having the ability to do what you want but are limited in what you can do in order to get to Heaven/Paradise/Valhalla/etc and it's the perfect exercising of that free will that gets you there. On top of that God has the benevolence to place those limits and requirements, safeguarding it against being spoiled and ruined by those who can't live up to it. The hands that can hurt are also able to hold open the gates to Heaven for you.
These things may have already been said, I didn't read the whole thread just the OP.
STRANGER: Indeed?
CASSILDA: Indeed it's time. We all have laid aside disguise but you.
STRANGER: I wear no mask.
CAMILLA: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda.) No mask? No mask!
So unconditional love means love with a few conditions such as standards. This seems oxymoronic.
Is this reward open to people that have never heard of god and were never taught the right path to walk?
So in your view a benevolent god puts people in a rigged free will game in order to punish those that do not play the game perfectly.
That is not my view of benevolence.
If only god had the benevolence of not testing humans in order to receive his love.
Why doesn't god try to fix or rehabilitate the people who fell short of receiving his love. We as a society have discovered that you can rehabilitate some people. Turning bad into good. If god is all knowing and all powerful wouldn't he be able to teach all of the losers of his rigged game to become winners at some point in time?
Instead of trying to fix them he just trows them in a lake of fire. Real classy move god.
1. The unconditional love/standards thing is on two separate levels, no different than between a parent and their child. The difference is in severity and extremity of ultimate outcome for sure but the two levels aren't incompatible nor oxymoronic. It's perfectly reasonable to feel unconditional love towards your children and at the same time hold them to standards that promise reward or punishment for their choices.
2. I think this is a multiple situation scenario. Those who are unaware of Heaven, the path to walk, etc could enter it if by their own actions they unconsciously walked it. It's just like those dreams or actual real travels people have where they're on a journey and just end up in a place where they feel they truly belong, that their way of life has brought them to.
On the flipside those who are unaware and who do wrong wouldn't be protected from Hell, in the manner of the 'sins of the father visited on the son' sense with the particular sin being lack of God in their life, with this lack potentially extending back generations and it turning into the sins of the great great great great great grandfather visited on the entire line if no effort was ever made to correct it or if they never found their way towards God. An extreme example, but also indicative of the kind of isolation that it'd take to achieve such.
3. It doesn't matter if that's your view of benevolence, that's the benevolence God exercises. You create everything and you'll have that leeway. I used the term rigged only to state that the exercising of your free will comes down to a decision: freedom from the narrow path of God or freedom from eternal damnation? The pivot point of free will there is which does the person find the stronger promise of joy in?
There's plenty of people who take the approach of "better to rule in Hell than be a slave in Heaven" that is personified in Luciferian types throughout the religions. They look at no constraints now, boundless freedom now as more important and more joyous and the thought of the narrow path and a future reward as a joke. The flipside for those that follow the narrow path is of course restrained, limited and defined joy now for boundless reward later.
What's interesting is that for the most part both camps think the other can be saved, from corruption or enslavement as it is seen depending on where you're at within the mix.
4. Again it's not about testing humans to receive his love, it's for the reward of Heaven, at least in Christian centric view. You get into some murky territory in some other religions especially Pagan ones, where you have trickster Gods as likely to use man as a plaything as they are to reward them for their faith.
Heaven is the ultimate 1st place trophy in that regard and I'm inclined to think you'd prefer it as something along the lines of a participation reward but it isn't such. God=the first elitist.
5. I wouldn't be able to vouch for any reason why God decided not to take a more active role in teaching humans, if you go by the history in religious texts you see quite a bit of discussion and communication with early mankind. I'd say though that tradition is the first thing that people would look to for guidance in that regard. The notion of rehabilitation in this implies being out of touch, cut off or separated from tradition. In that sense people looking for the way would just look to their fellows for practical guidance.
You have large segments of society now that for difference reasons and situations of upbringing have little to no exposure to these traditions or their reasons beyond the most general explanations or descriptions of them. I think that's definitely a strong source of the confusion and alienation that exists. I have a friend who is a 3rd generation atheist, his entire family was brought up like that and that's what they are through and through so their attachment to it is very strong. That is his tradition, that's where his family flexed their spiritual muscles and those muscles are highly developed at this point.
But that doesn't mean anyone like him in view or anyone with a differing view couldn't make the change towards the path God set to Heaven, it just means that the work has to be done to align with the traditions and views that are both expressed and implied in the Bible and other texts, for make no mistake there's just as many implications towards the path as there are arrow signs of belief. That's why there's so much emphasis on the Spirit, that's the thing which enables you to see, feel, recognize those implications in your daily life.
6. And of course if he's all knowing and all powerful he'd be able to teach all the 'losers' but why should he? He created humans, not hollow men who needed every single action and belief done for them. He gave you free will and gave instructions on how to follow the path, you need him to control your feet, hands, eyes, mouth and brain too? Need him to be your playground aide, blowing his whistle and getting you back where you belong your entire life? The particular thing you describe is a function of the family, community and society not God.
As for your classy move comment, again: you make the world, you can make the rules. It'll be your sandbox then and you can do as you like. Probably the only part of the entire viewpoint in this that I don't agree with is the embodiment of Hell as the fiery pit but that's the philosopher in me saying that eternal punishment is a multifaceted thing with as many interpretations as there are people. It's strong imagery though, no doubt.
STRANGER: Indeed?
CASSILDA: Indeed it's time. We all have laid aside disguise but you.
STRANGER: I wear no mask.
CAMILLA: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda.) No mask? No mask!
He's one of those parents that even when you present good logic and reason for w/e, he would still say
"SOL there kiddo, my rules cause i'm an adult"
I should get this guy one of those #1 parent coffee mugs when I die
To which I respond he is a poor parent than time to drop his ass and become the "adults" ourselves. Science full funding ahead!
I will just answer these from a Biblical perspective, as I'm unfamiliar with other religions' concepts of Hell (aside from ones such as the Greeks and Egyptians, but those are extinct). The Bible says they suffer for eternity (Rev 20:10, 15, 21:8), as after those verses there is no mention of respite for those thrown in, so it's kind of a this life is your only chance sort of thing. If you want a REALLY good source of information on Hell, get Erasing Hell by Francis Chan & Preston Sprinkle. They wrote it in response to Rob Bell's Love Wins. The book explains why Rob Bell's theory is based on an opinion of translation and why the Bible is deadly serious about Hell.
Someone explained Sheol earlier, but Hades is simply the Greek term for Sheol (in the Christian context this means a waiting place until judgement, but for the Greeks themselves this would mean Elysium, Asphodel, or Tartarus).
To explain my later reasons, the Bible outlines 3 main aspects of God: His Holiness/Perfectness, His Omnipotence/Omniscience, and His Love.
1. It's not a matter of earning hell, it's deserving hell. I wouldn't go to hell because I did X or Y, but because I, being broken as I am, have decided life is better doing things on my own. The Bible says nothing about earning hell, it says everyone deserves it. The issue also is not doing something to deserve hell, the issue is choosing something besides God which causes a person to deserve Hell (unless you count choosing as doing, but I think of doing more as performing an act or a task). The separation from God results because His Holiness cannot allow it, although His Love desperately wants to allow it so you can experience Him and He can show you His Grace.
2. You're right that His Holiness cannot tolerate sin, but you answered your own question. He cannot allow sin in Heaven, but on Earth, sin is tolerated. Otherwise, there could be no choice on Earth, and therefore no free will, and therefore no love. In order to love something, you must have a choice. So if He comes down to Earth, the sin does not bother Him as it does in Heaven, because His own law allows for it on Earth. Your last question is just like asking for icing on an already iced cake. Hebrews 7:27 explains how the manifestation of Jesus and His sacrifice is offered to all. While God wants to save everyone because of His Love, He cannot use His Power to do so unless everyone chooses to accept Christ's sacrifice, otherwise He would contradict His Holiness. Salvation as of now is 100% based on people's volition to accept the fact that they must stop trying to justify themselves and embrace Christ's sacrifice. If salvation was not based on people's own decision, then it would violate God's Love.
3. You mentioned how you formulated this based on "mainstream Christian tradition," but this is completely false (why anyone would attribute any credibility to tradition or mainstream is beyond me). While Satan was cast out from Heaven (Isaiah 14:12), he still has contact with God (Job 1). Also, Satan's sin was his pride. He stopped believing God gave him his beauty and believed he had the potential to take his place (Ezekiel 28:11-19). God gave Satan free will (otherwise he could not love God, and therefore God would have no reason to create him), but Satan chose himself over God. This is the epitome of sin. Sin is not necessarily an action, but pride causing one to believe God is either not necessary for life or not important in life. The temptation originated in Satan, not God. God only gave him (and every other being) the potential to sin, but also the potential and choice to choose not to.
The 'Satan rules Hell' myth is one of the least backed but most common ones. Satan does not rule Hell and is waging a war on God, he has a heavily limited rule on Earth. Hell is God's prison, why would He have the being who opposes Him the most rule it?
(b) Is what you cited a truthful moral fact? Is what you describe really justice?
Where does His Omnipotence come into play? Because you seem to be saying that he cannot do something that it is logically possible for him to do.
The implication here seems to be that there is no love in Heaven. But don't worry about that yet, because first you have to explain the shaky premises. Consider this: Naturally you will agree that we are not omnipotent, that there are things we cannot do. We cannot spontaneously fly through the air, for example. But you claim we still have free will anyway. So, if we do have free will, it evidently must be possible for us to have free will even when we have choice out of just a subset of all possible things to do. And if God forbade sin on Earth, he would only be subdividing the set; we would still have a subset of things allowed to us, and thus still have free will. So the argument that sin is a prerequisite for free will does not follow.
And going the other way from above, why doesn't God allow sin in Heaven? You said it yourself: it's His own law. He can surely set it to whatever he wants.
And, just for fun...
Justify the identification of the figure "Satan" in Job with the "Day Star" referred to in Isaiah and the "King of Tyre" addressed in Ezekiel. I submit that they may be different characters; show me how I'm wrong.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Hrm... Ok, fair enough. I rescind my objection.
Technically, it supports that God both is and isn't.
That being said, you will never find an argument that God is anything but good in the Bible. That part's repeated pretty consistently. It is, along with his power, one of the primary attributes of God.
Moreover, you are aware that this debate assumes an omnibenevolent God, because otherwise there is no problem of Hell, right?
Yes, that is exactly what unconditional love means. It means, "Without conditions." If you love someone unconditionally, you will continue to love them no matter what they do, right or wrong.
So why wouldn't God just let everyone in there?
These are sounding a lot like conditions to me.
Oh so there ARE conditions.
Well then it's not unconditional love, now is it? No. No it's not.
Which, according to the Bible, is everyone. So why is God letting anyone in at all, and then if he's going to let people in, why some and not all?
Do you see how it doesn't make sense?
However, it is not reasonable to inflict infinite suffering upon someone you love and claim you love them.
So wait, are you saying it is within man's power to redeem himself and in turn earn Heaven?
Isn't that completely against what the Bible says?
Exactly how is being punished for a sin one never committed just?
Because that's what a benevolent being would do, clearly.
And yet, by your argument, all of those fail constantly, resulting in more and more people being damned to eternal suffering.
Why?
Incorrect. Sheol is not hell, nor a waiting place for judgment.
Sheol represents an earlier tradition in Judaism of a land of the dead, much like Hades was to the Greeks, in which all of the dead, virtuous or sinful, would go to a place without sunlight.
The idea of a separate afterlife for the virtuous and for the sinful, one going to Heaven and the other Hell, came much later.
So for you to say that the Bible has a uniform stance on the afterlife is incorrect.
And why, exactly, does everyone deserve it?
Because of how we are? Well that can't be helped, can it? And if that can't be helped, and was not through anything we did, how can Hell be a punishment? What is it punishing?
As Blinking said, you are in this paragraph demonstrating that God is not omnipotent, because you are saying God simultaneously wants to do something and cannot actually do it.
Furthermore, you are claiming God's love has a finite limit. This cannot be, and yet you are saying that God would abandon someone willingly forever. This is not what love does.
Or he could save them regardless.
Except why wouldn't God just save everyone regardless?
If he loves everyone, and the sole mechanism by which a person is saved has nothing to do with what the person does, but is God's grace, then how can you then argue that God would place a condition on salvation and still say God is omnibenevolent?
Um, really? Because you made it, and are Omnipotent and can decide literally everything? Sometimes the simple answers are really the best ones.
There's no contradiction between unconditional love and having standards in place to enter Heaven. God or any human being can love someone unconditionally and still deny them something because of whatever standards they chose to set for awarding it. Your parents ever promise you money as a kid for good grades? Mine did and if I didn't get them I didn't get the money. Same principle here.
Simple enforcement of standards, the type of thing you'd see embodied in holy shrines and sites where only the pure, only the selected may enter. Why would you think you'd get into Heaven just for being born? Because God loves you? That's not enough, pretty simple notion.
Conditions to get into Heaven, not conditional love. You're entwining the two, and implying that you can't have one without the other and that's not the case.
See above. It's not hard to understand, I don't know if you're a parent or not but any parent who sets anything as off limits until their kids earn it will get this. They don't stop loving their child while they're trying to earn the thing, nor do they stop loving them if they fail to earn it.
There's also an underlying sense of devotion, inspiration/aspiration involved here. Something to apply your whole lifes' effort towards, believing in it and balancing yourself around. Showing the required worthiness as judged by God, the guy who made the whole place.
Everyone from birth, but not necessarily everyone in perpetuity. Born in sin, reborn in faith and ascending the stairs to Heaven through your deeds afterwards. People that don't have their sins cleansed, who don't do the basic stuff let alone make the long walk through life on the narrow path don't deserve to enter Heaven as God sees it.
It doesn't make sense to you because you're not putting yourself in Gods place and asking why would He be selective? Why would He make it difficult to get into Heaven? Heaven is the pinnacle of mans' worthiness in the eyes of God, and worthiness needs to be proved especially when going all the way back to the Garden man has shown countless times that he isn't.
Again I'm not sure why this doesn't make sense to you. Heaven is an exclusive club that you have to pay the dues God sets to enter, where everyone that is there has earned the right to be by not only good, moral behavior but faith and devotion, following the path. The process of life and everything you do in it lets you accumulate the spiritual coin to do so, if you don't you don't enter. Not much more to it than that. Is God holding a grudge against us? Sure, all the way back to the Garden. Does that suck? Yeah, alot. What can we do about it? Walk the path.
By human reasoning, sure. Perhaps by Divine reasoning too, but in the end that's what happens. The creator of the world didn't ask people to vote on this, it was a judgment, maybe even a petty one. Who knows but God? The way out of it has been written down for a long time and until it changes that's what we have to deal with.
See above. Redemption, rebirth and ascendance are basic premises of the religions.
It's not, in the human sense, but we're not talking about that. What we're talking about is an effect of previous generations taking you spiritually if not mentally and physically far away from where you should be and belong.
Easiest metaphor to represent that is languages. If you speak a particular language and don't keep up on it, use it and have it be a part of yourself you lose it. It can be learned again with effort, but you don't just have it without making it a part of your everyday or regular life. I used to be fluent in Japanese and semi fluent in Russian, a decade of not using either and I can barely remember any of it. That doesn't mean I couldn't relearn what I lost, become what I was linguistically again and the same applies in this spiritual sense. Another example is the 'boy in the wild' thing which randomly pops up, these kids who become dissociated from their culture due to either long years away from it in the wilderness or who are only their specific culture/race on a genetic level because they were born in the wild and never learned anything about their cultural practices and are something completely different from other members of their culture.
If you don't keep the attachment to the tradition, the tradition is lost. In the sense of what God would think about the Godless it's the same thing. Worship, have faith, spread the word and walk the path or by degrees you separate yourself from God. I already mentioned my atheist friend earlier in the thread, religion and spirituality are a debate topic to him not a way of life and that's the result of 3 generations of his family making that the environment they live in. From what I've been told his direct ancestors in his immediate family were very religious but that was worked out of the family fabric before he was born so he's totally devoid of spiritualism and religious yearning. Clearly as established God considers it a sin to not believe in Him, ergo sins of the father visited on the son but able to be cleansed and redeemed once the will is exercised to undertake it.
A benevolent being can still stick to his guns and keep Heaven for those who follow the path to it he set out. You have the free will to make the decision to do so. You want benevolence to be all encompassing and push out the necessity of standards, of proving and earning entrance to Heaven. You're not willing to accept that one can be benevolent and still prize exclusivity.
Open to everyone, guaranteed to no one.
I already answered this from the other poster. Asking an Omnipotent being who created everything why he can make the rules just because he made everything seems silly at best.
Not addressed to me but I'll respond anyway. Sins of the very first father and mother.
His reference to wanting to do something and cannot do it is more of the same of what I said. It's a matter of God's standards preventing action, not a lack of ability to do so. Simple I want to do X but my beliefs, moral code etc prevent me.
Because He decided not to, for whatever reasons he chose to make the path to Heaven narrow and difficult. No point in questioning it, asking questions of this particular path doesn't bring us to the end any sooner or easier.
The grace of salvation is based on ones' actions, the love of each human being isn't. I'm still not seeing how you're not grasping that God could be all the things mentioned at once without contradiction, that would be quite like a human wouldn't it? Us being made in His image and all. There are people with really shallow souls totally incapable of this but even the average person is capable of multiple levels of emotional and spiritual states within themselves simultaneously even in regards to one singular thing.
Ok this is really long now, bedtime. Enjoy.
STRANGER: Indeed?
CASSILDA: Indeed it's time. We all have laid aside disguise but you.
STRANGER: I wear no mask.
CAMILLA: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda.) No mask? No mask!
Of course, if you are omnipotent and made the rules, you could necessarily - NECESSARILY - have made different ones.
No, the principle would be your parents promise you money for good grades, and when you don't get them, they break every bone in your body, flay all your skin off, and when you get out of hospital, repeat as long as possible.
You can't send someone you love to be tortured eternally.
It's like saying just because I founded the company I get to bang all the staff and beat up the ones I dislike. The word for people like that is "Sociopath"
I'm genuinely amazed you can describe this guy as loving and good.
It's actually much worse than I described above; it's as if one of your ancestors in the middle ages didn't get all HDs at university, and every member of your family tree since has been getting tortured to death on their eighteenth birthday by some weird cult. That's not love, that's not benevolence; it's psycopathic; And trying to do what they want isn't devotion, it's stockholm syndrome.
A benevolent god and the existance of hell are utterly at odds with each other. No possible being - not dhalmer, not manson, not godwins law - deserves undending eternal torture.
We are weak, and fickle, and easily roused to anger. But not the worst of us would wish an *infinite* amount of suffering on someone (for starters, we;d get bored eventually). But if you exclude the utter sociopaths, even those who support things like the death penalty think it should be more-or-less quick and clean. Hell, even in the middle ages, they'd probably have blanched at it - and these were people who would hang, draw and quater someone for kicks. Well...ok, treason.
The existence of hell makes god...look, bring on the godwin - worse than Hitler. Worse than Stalin. Worse than pol pot, Mao, all the crazy rulers - worse than Calligula, and the Khans, and the lot of them.
As for original sin: Seems really fair for young kids, who can't walk the righteous path, or for those who never hear the christian word of god, or who are unlucky enough to be born skeptical.
so, we return to this: a god who is bound by his own perfection to cast out anyone who is not as perfect as he is. He could accept imperfection, but then he would cease to be god, because he sinned. but, because he loves us, he found a loophole: another perfect being could volunteer to take everything on himself, so long as people tried their best. This is where Christ comes in: He became that perfect being, basically sacrificing himself so that all who believe on him, or barring that, live a good life, can return to God.
as for original sin, load of crock. the concept of original sin was created by the catholic church during the feudal era as a way to guilt trip people. why should I pay for something that had to happen in the first place? sure, Adam broke a commandment of God, but (and this is MAJOR speculation) if Adam had followed that commandment, he would not have been able to populate the earth, which was the other commandment given to him, because he would not have known "good from evil".
also, note that God did not specifically command them not to eat the fruit. what he said was basically "do what you want, but know that I don't want you doing this."
"normality is a paved road: it is comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow there."
-Vincent Van Gogh
things I hate:
1. lists.
b. inconsistencies.
V. incorrect math.
2. quotes in signatures
III: irony.
there are two kinds of people in the world: those who can make reasonable conclusions based on conjecture.
Because there is no act or combination of acts which deserves eternal torture.
a) God is all powerful and omipotent and has uncondisional love for all of us,
b) God does not tolerate sin in heaven, he can on earth becuase of free will but not in heaven (aparently no free will in heaven) but I will pass on that.
c) God views us as a parent would, ie if we are bad we are "punished" in hell. Despite the fact that I have never seen a parent who told their child if they misbehave I will skin you alive, fester your wounds in salt pour salfuric acid on you and sodimise you at the same time... but whatever maybe he is alittle more abuseive than most.
Why would God, who has uncondisional love for us and KNOWS we will sin, (omnipotences) not create "heaven 2.0" where he can have his heaven (version 1) with no sin for his little angle children, and for his kids who didn't quite get it, still have a nice place to be where he can tolerate their sin. Since he is all powerful and uncondisionaly love us this would be the most logical thing to do, It fills all requirements, he still loves you and gives you a nice place to stay, He can still mentor you to try and help you grow to be a better person as a parent, he still has no sin in heaven (version 1)