Hell Is Real And Souls Go There

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
421

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Even the mightiest, most benevolent and wisest king can’t prevent the fox from stealing the occasional chicken. And even of he could, should he?[/quote]

If someone has the power to prevent tragedy, with no inconvenience to himself, and chooses not to do it, then what do we say of this man?

Think of my earlier line about the coyote. I carry a pistol and wander in the night. I come upon a coyote preparing to eat an abandoned baby in the wilderness. I watch it eat and then go on my way. What kind of man am I?[/quote]

Einstein said he didn’t believe in a god that played dice. Heisenberg showed that in fact Einstein was mistaken: God plays with a nearly infinite number of dice, each with a nearly infinite number of faces.

I don’t believe in a god who micromanages the cosmos. A god who allows supernovas to wipe out entire solar systems is not going to divert a single electrostatic discharge in order so that one living organism will live another day. This is nothing against God. Stuff just happens. [/quote]

I tend to agree. However, you’re not describing the God of Christianity–the one who has opinions of homosexual sex and adultery and the foreskin. The one who created and saves people, who is a jealous God, who is supremely interested in their comings and goings of man, even in the comings and goings of the contents of his mind and heart.[/quote]

Well, no, of course not. That would be silly. Such a god would be just like a person only with a whole bunch more power, and that thinks like you do. You can’t lift off from such a platform.

:)[/quote]

Funny, I look around at an increasingly permissive society and see the opposite. [/quote]

You see the opposite of what?[/quote]

That such a god–with such worries–would be just like a person.
[/quote]

Do you have concerns about the kinds of things that SMH described in the post above, i.e. homosexual sex, foreskins, adultery, abortion…? Do you believe that God shares these concerns?
[/quote]

Do you mean, do I share God’s concerns? Sure. Do you believe god also isn’t concerened with what you aren’t concerned with?

422

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

Anyway, this is not really meant as an attack on the god of the Deist, which is the god you’ve more or less described. It is instead meant to question the authenticity of the supremely good, supremely powerful, and supremely interested God of Abraham and Isaac.[/quote]

I don’t get how it questions the “goodness” of a being that defines “goodness” for himself, and us.[/quote]

You believe in an objective morality, and you believe that you understand this objective morality to the extent that you can say that abortion is evil, i.e., “not good.”

Tell me, is the killing of an infant good, or bad? Or does it “depend?” And, if the latter, how are you any better than the slimiest relativist?

And, furthermore, if this God really defines “good” and “bad” for himself, can He take bodily form and then proceed to rape every single living human, from the oldest centenarian to the youngest infant, and then define that as “good?”

And if He did so, would you defend Him and live Him?

In the end, it comes down to this: either you don’t believe it to be an objectively bad–or unjust, or evil, or whatever you want to call it–thing for an infant to be killed, or you believe that God allows objectively evil to occur even when that evil has no bearing on human free will. And if you believe the latter, then you don’t believe in God’s purported omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence.[/quote]

No sir, you’re missing the point. God wills when and what is good, and for who. It is objective, because it is ultimately within the jurisdiction of a being that is imperishable.

423

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]Karado wrote:
Varq typed: “I would save the baby because it is a member of my own species.”

Sans the Coyote situation, if the baby is the size of a Pea in the womb
would you still try to save it from being aborted because it’s still a member
of your ‘own species’?
[/quote]

I’ve just bought a ticket to a fancy fundraising dinner benefiting the local right-to-life group. Draw your own conclusions. [/quote]

Thank you sir!

424

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
And if it wasn’t a coyote eating a baby human, but a spider eating a fly, would you still pull the trigger on the spider?[/quote]

I would not.

But I would save the baby, as I am utterly sure you would too.

The question is, would God?

And the answer is no, so far as anybody has the ability to tell.[/quote]

I would save the baby because it is a member of my own species.

Would a god save another infant god from being engulfed by a collapsing universe?

That would be the standard by which one should judge the behavior of gods. [/quote]

If this is so, and God’s view of me is analogous to my view of a fly, then Christianity (along with Judaism and Islam and Hinduism and most of the rest) is a lie.[/quote]

Do you invite flies into your home?

425

One thing that always struck me about the Deist view. It’s the idea that God couldn’t /wouldn’t be concerned with this or that. Or, the view that he might not be concerned with us at all. That a god wouldn’t deposit revelation in this or that manner. Yet, we also can’t even begin to have any knowledge of such a mighty being. Isn’t that contradictory. Isn’t saying what he wouldn’t do, or wouldn’t be concerned with, a claim to knowledge of this being’s mind?

426

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
…

If I’m going to burn in hell for not believing that Jesus was divine–or, at least, no more divine than anybody else–then…

So, if the conditional clause is fulfilled, then it really doesn’t matter what I say in the consequent clause. Unless, of course, you think I’ll be punished all the harder for what I’ve said here…in which case, while you’re right that it’s unwise of me to say it, He deserves the censure all the more, so far as I’m concerned.[/quote]

You are off the proverbial hook.
And I get to play the Devil’s Advocate. (The pun is intended.)
(Let’s leave the New Testament out of this discussion for a moment–it’s cosmology and dicta are interwoven with Hellenist and Persian notions.)

  1. Where, in the Old Testament, does it command people to believe anything? My answer is, “nowhere.”
    Belief is not the same as action, obedience, etc. Since lack of belief (of some dictum) by someone is not commanded, it is not punishable.

  2. Next: Where, in the Old Testament, is there a description of a Hell?
    Nowhere. Oh, dear readers, do not bother trotting out references to “sheoul” or to “Gehenna.” These were simply the over-interpreted terms for a pit (or grave) and the valley outside Jerusalem where the garbage was burned. (Hell and an afterlife were concepts which pre-exilic Israelites implicitly abhorred because they were notions nurtured by hated Egyptians, Chaldees, Assyrians.)

So, smh, there is no thoughtcrime, and belief (or lack thereof) is not punishable by exile to a place that does not exist–at least not until after Alexander’s armies came visiting a desolate backwater of the Persian empire.

427

With divorce laws and courts the way they are, you young fellers better marry lasses who believe this.

428

[quote]dmaddox wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]dmaddox wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]dmaddox wrote:

[quote]zecarlo wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
They were very real to the Greeks, the Egyptians and the Norse.

You’d be in big trouble had you implied that they were not to the devout believers in Sparta, Alexandria and Oslo. [/quote]
And that’s the problem with the religious. It is real to them and that’s enough for it to be real. Belief is not truth. [/quote]

And one day it will be Real Truth to you also. Just wait.
[/quote]

This is the stuff that I take issue with.

You don’t “know” this. Because you can’t prove it. And if you can’t prove a claim, why make that claim?[/quote]

There are some answers we will never know, I add, on this side of heaven. My faith is strong in the fact that people 2000 years ago lived and walked with Jesus. That they knew he was God, and he was here to save us. They also were killed because of that belief.

Now you say that is not proof, but yet we believe in the theory of Relativity from a guy that is dead that you never met. Now people have built on that Theory for 50-70 years yet it is considered Gospel to the scientific community. What is the difference? There is no difference other than people were not killed for that belief.
[/quote]

You said it yourself: theory.

Physics is theoretical. And yet it holds up to experimentation.

Anyway, the point is not about science. Far be it from me to tell you what Einstein and Bohr said, much less whether it was true or not.

The point is about religion. You say that I will know “the Real Truth” in the end. But you can’t prove it–not even in the way that a physicist can prove quantum mechanics.

So why make a claim that cannot be proved?[/quote]

Because it has already been proven. Why do I have to reprove it? People knew Jesus and walked and talked with him. He was crucified, dead, and then rose again on the 3rd day. There were over 30 witnesses to this. Many of which would rather die than recant their testimony. So it is already proven. Now if you want proof that Jesus is coming again, then we have to wait for that.
[/quote]

There is absolutely no proof whatsoever that the fairy tale that you’re retelling ever happened.

430

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
…

If I’m going to burn in hell for not believing that Jesus was divine–or, at least, no more divine than anybody else–then…

So, if the conditional clause is fulfilled, then it really doesn’t matter what I say in the consequent clause. Unless, of course, you think I’ll be punished all the harder for what I’ve said here…in which case, while you’re right that it’s unwise of me to say it, He deserves the censure all the more, so far as I’m concerned.[/quote]

You are off the proverbial hook.
And I get to play the Devil’s Advocate. (The pun is intended.)
(Let’s leave the New Testament out of this discussion for a moment–it’s cosmology and dicta are interwoven with Hellenist and Persian notions.)

  1. Where, in the Old Testament, does it command people to believe anything? My answer is, “nowhere.”
    Belief is not the same as action, obedience, etc. Since lack of belief (of some dictum) by someone is not commanded, it is not punishable.

  2. Next: Where, in the Old Testament, is there a description of a Hell?
    Nowhere. Oh, dear readers, do not bother trotting out references to “sheoul” or to “Gehenna.” These were simply the over-interpreted terms for a pit (or grave) and the valley outside Jerusalem where the garbage was burned. (Hell and an afterlife were concepts which pre-exilic Israelites implicitly abhorred because they were notions nurtured by hated Egyptians, Chaldees, Assyrians.)

So, smh, there is no thoughtcrime, and belief (or lack thereof) is not punishable by exile to a place that does not exist–at least not until after Alexander’s armies came visiting a desolate backwater of the Persian empire. [/quote]

Your statement (Dr. skeptix) about hell not being in the Old Testament interested me, and the only place I can think of that may suggest an everlasting hell is Isaiah 66:24, when he talks about how the faithful will look out and see the dead bodies of those who have transgressed, where “their worm will not die, and their fire will not be quenched.” A few times in this chapter, the fire refers to God’s judgment and wrath; and if it is something that is undying and unquenchable, it could suggest a picture of God’s wrath unending and continually being poured out on those who have died.

Now I know from other threads that you have a very good knowledge of the Hebrew and are extremely familiar with the Old Testament. I ask as a serious question, what do you think the worm and the fire refer to in this text looking into the original hebrew and such? Admittedly, this text is not an extremely clear and straighforward support of hell in the Old Testament but I’d like to hear your take.

431

[quote]pushharder wrote:
I’d like to see a bonobo lift off from a platform.[/quote]

You were alive when Ham lifted off from a platform in New Mexico, weren’t you?

“I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth,” Ham radioed from the Mercury Capsule to Ground Control, “put out my hand and touched the face of God. And strangely enough, he looks just like me!”

432

464×599 110 KB

Here he is. Ham the Space Bonobo.

Created in God’s image.

433

1936×2592 1.41 MB

[quote]Karado wrote:
(Claps)…If true, good for you Man, there’s hope for you yet.[/quote]

Oh ye of little faith.

434

[quote]krillin wrote:

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
…

If I’m going to burn in hell for not believing that Jesus was divine–or, at least, no more divine than anybody else–then…

So, if the conditional clause is fulfilled, then it really doesn’t matter what I say in the consequent clause. Unless, of course, you think I’ll be punished all the harder for what I’ve said here…in which case, while you’re right that it’s unwise of me to say it, He deserves the censure all the more, so far as I’m concerned.[/quote]

You are off the proverbial hook.
And I get to play the Devil’s Advocate. (The pun is intended.)
(Let’s leave the New Testament out of this discussion for a moment–it’s cosmology and dicta are interwoven with Hellenist and Persian notions.)

  1. Where, in the Old Testament, does it command people to believe anything? My answer is, “nowhere.”
    Belief is not the same as action, obedience, etc. Since lack of belief (of some dictum) by someone is not commanded, it is not punishable.

  2. Next: Where, in the Old Testament, is there a description of a Hell?
    Nowhere. Oh, dear readers, do not bother trotting out references to “sheoul” or to “Gehenna.” These were simply the over-interpreted terms for a pit (or grave) and the valley outside Jerusalem where the garbage was burned. (Hell and an afterlife were concepts which pre-exilic Israelites implicitly abhorred because they were notions nurtured by hated Egyptians, Chaldees, Assyrians.)

So, smh, there is no thoughtcrime, and belief (or lack thereof) is not punishable by exile to a place that does not exist–at least not until after Alexander’s armies came visiting a desolate backwater of the Persian empire. [/quote]

Your statement (Dr. skeptix) about hell not being in the Old Testament interested me, and the only place I can think of that may suggest an everlasting hell is Isaiah 66:24, when he talks about how the faithful will look out and see the dead bodies of those who have transgressed, where “their worm will not die, and their fire will not be quenched.” A few times in this chapter, the fire refers to God’s judgment and wrath; and if it is something that is undying and unquenchable, it could suggest a picture of God’s wrath unending and continually being poured out on those who have died.

Now I know from other threads that you have a very good knowledge of the Hebrew and are extremely familiar with the Old Testament. I ask as a serious question, what do you think the worm and the fire refer to in this text looking into the original hebrew and such? Admittedly, this text is not an extremely clear and straighforward support of hell in the Old Testament but I’d like to hear your take.[/quote]

Isaiah also says several times that God’s wrath would be poured out on eaters of the flesh of swine.

Hope you don’t like bacon.

The verse just prior to the one you quoted says that “it shall be from new moon to new moon and from Sabbath to Sabbath, that all flesh shall come to prostrate themselves before Me”.

So the whole worms eating the corpses in the burning garbage dump thing seems to be talking about that one month. Nothing about eternity, near as I can see.

Incidentally, do Christians prostrate themselves when they pray?

435

The fiery God of wrath and hate towards those that eat pigs isn’t the same God depicted today by Christians.

Yet, it’s the very same God? A god who would kill you, either for eternity in a fake hell, or just because eating pigs pisses him off doesn’t seem to be a good God. but one with pet peeves… Only a matter of time before he gets pissed and kills you, or sends you to hell. Reminds me more of a Toddler playing God than an all good, morally perfect creator being.

Just kill me and be done with it already lol. Oh yeah, that’s right, you most likely don’t even exist.

436

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
…

If I’m going to burn in hell for not believing that Jesus was divine–or, at least, no more divine than anybody else–then…

So, if the conditional clause is fulfilled, then it really doesn’t matter what I say in the consequent clause. Unless, of course, you think I’ll be punished all the harder for what I’ve said here…in which case, while you’re right that it’s unwise of me to say it, He deserves the censure all the more, so far as I’m concerned.[/quote]

You are off the proverbial hook.
And I get to play the Devil’s Advocate. (The pun is intended.)
(Let’s leave the New Testament out of this discussion for a moment–it’s cosmology and dicta are interwoven with Hellenist and Persian notions.)

  1. Where, in the Old Testament, does it command people to believe anything? My answer is, “nowhere.”
    Belief is not the same as action, obedience, etc. Since lack of belief (of some dictum) by someone is not commanded, it is not punishable.

  2. Next: Where, in the Old Testament, is there a description of a Hell?
    Nowhere. Oh, dear readers, do not bother trotting out references to “sheoul” or to “Gehenna.” These were simply the over-interpreted terms for a pit (or grave) and the valley outside Jerusalem where the garbage was burned. (Hell and an afterlife were concepts which pre-exilic Israelites implicitly abhorred because they were notions nurtured by hated Egyptians, Chaldees, Assyrians.)

So, smh, there is no thoughtcrime, and belief (or lack thereof) is not punishable by exile to a place that does not exist–at least not until after Alexander’s armies came visiting a desolate backwater of the Persian empire. [/quote]

Yes, I wouldn’t have argued these points outside of the context of God as He is understood by contemporary Christianity.

You make a fine satanic proponent.

437

[quote]Sloth wrote:

No sir, you’re missing the point. God wills when and what is good, and for who. It is objective, because it is ultimately within the jurisdiction of a being that is imperishable.
[/quote]

So when an infant is struck by lightning, and dies, God has simply decided that this is justice? Is this a yes or is this a no?

He knew it was going to happen.

He could stop it.

He didn’t stop it.

He is supremely just.

Therefore, the death of the infant was just.

Yes?

438

[quote]Sloth wrote:
One thing that always struck me about the Deist view. It’s the idea that God couldn’t /wouldn’t be concerned with this or that. Or, the view that he might not be concerned with us at all. That a god wouldn’t deposit revelation in this or that manner. Yet, we also can’t even begin to have any knowledge of such a mighty being. Isn’t that contradictory. Isn’t saying what he wouldn’t do, or wouldn’t be concerned with, a claim to knowledge of this being’s mind?[/quote]

Isn’t that what you do too?

You claim to know all kinds of things about God. What pleases Him, what angers Him.

But the question of the problem of evil always ends with, “God is beyond your comprehension.”

This is exactly the same thing.

And, anyway, most of the Deists I know don’t exactly claim to “know” whether God cares or not. They simply say, “There doesn’t seem to be a God intervening anywhere, so I’ll assume none does.” And it isn’t exactly nuts to think that the being responsible for the Milky Way wouldn’t exactly give half a damn about the little things scurrying back and forth on the surface of a little chunk of it. Much like how my father built my childhood home and yet doesn’t care one way or another for the bacteria daubed all over its walls and floors.

439

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

It really is amazing. It’s probably the first and only thing I’ve encountered that my brain could simply not make sense of. I mean, objectively random radioactive decay? As in, not only can it not be predicted, but there is no hidden variable governing the particulars of its happening?

I simply cannot make anything of that. I can say the words, and I can know what they’re signifying, but I cannot fathom that reality operates in such a way.[/quote]

Hmmm…there is something in this post…hmmmmmm…what is it I’m thinking of, smh?[/quote]

Oh, absolutely.

Here’s the thing, though: I don’t defend quantum mechanics as “the truth.” In fact, I fully expect something else to come along and at least partially dethrone it someday, just as it partially dethroned Newtonian mechanics.[/quote]

Look, if you’re having a difficult time with quantum mechanics (completely understandable) what kind of true, encompassing comprehension do you think you’re going to have of the one who created q.m?
[/quote]

Push, this is a great point, and it’s close to being the central tenet of my view of God. The point at which your philosophy and mine diverge is the point at which I apply this same principle to everything said about God, by anyone or any text.

It is not me, but instead it is the people of the Cross who talk about what God wants, what God likes, what angers God. Who claim to know Him, or to know something of Him. And it’s within the parameters that they’ve set that I make this criticism of the problem of evil. If God weren’t claimed to be simultaneously omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, then my argument would not exist.

If it could be proved that God were these things, then I would be forced to accept them. But since I have no better reason to accept the “proof” of the Christian God, in all His particulars, than I have to accept the proof of any other god or myth or lore, I am forced to examine the notion of an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God with the only tool that I have: reason.

Perhaps human reason is insufficient. Perhaps it is not. But, since it’s the only thing available to me, I must use it and I must assume that it is correct to do so.

Reason mandates that I conclude that no such God exists, without denying the possibility that the reason whereby the conclusion was arrived at, and therefore the conclusion, is insufficient.

440

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]zecarlo wrote:

I ask God nothing because I trust the intellect he gave me.

[/quote]

“Trust,” huh?
[/quote]
Yes. I trust what I know to be real. I don’t have to second guess myself and wonder, “is my brain working in mysterious ways?”