Trying to understand hell and who belongs there (very personal issues I face)

Faith & Science Conversation
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Indeed!

A lot of human arguments are flawed because they are based on premises which are incorrect. You accept them on faith and that is fine. But where this gets silly is when you use the premises you accept as a judge of the beliefs and arguments of others to call them absurd when the fact is you have nothing but your choice and no proof of the premises you have accepted for yourself.

God’s omnipotence does not mean that God can do whatever you say by whatever means you care to dictate. Otherwise we live in nothing but a dream world where there are no realities about how things work. The objective evidence certainly demonstrates otherwise.

Questions to consider are this: Can God create beings who make their own choices not predetermined by what God has decided? If He can do so, then would God choose to only create beings which are absolutely under his control? If so then how are they different from machines and tools and how does He have a relationship of substance with such beings, when they are little more than characters in a novel He has written? Is a relationship where one party has no power, no privacy and makes no choices of significance, while the other party takes no risks, shares no power, no choices, and gives no privacy or trust, be a relationship we would describe as love?

I like Rob Bell. And I read his book. But I think it is significantly flawed. My principle disagreement is that I don’t think something which is a means to power is ever something which should be called love. Love requires vulnerability, sacrifice and risk. And that means that quite often love does not win. When a mafia godfather assures us that he loves his people when he extorts money for protection from himself, that is not a love I believe in. Nor do I believe the rapist or the serial killer when he claims to love his victims. That is not love. That is sickness. It is evil. I certainly do not believe in God made in their image.

Furthermore it doesn’t agree with reality. Did love win, when Adam blamed eating the fruit on the woman God gave to him? Did love win when Cain killed Abel? Did love win when nearly all mankind thought only evil continually? Quite often love does not win. Love is always a risk. That is the nature of love and the difference between love and power.

And??? Is your implication that salvation requires a belief or knowledge that God exists? One does not have to embrace universalism to reject the Gnostic gospel of salvation by works of the mind such as knowledge or belief.

According to Paul in Romans 10, one who lives by faith doesn’t even ask such questions. To think you have a means to judge who goes to heaven and who goes to hell is legalism.

Huh? We have to be able to judge or God is unjust? I don’t think so! Not when Jesus says over and over again that we cannot and must not judge.

But frankly I don’t think hell has anything whatsoever to do with judgement. It has to do with choice with regards to one simple question: Are we willing to let go of our sins and change or not? It is not a matter of being put somewhere, because sin brings hell with us no matter where we go. This is why Jesus said we must be perfect. It is not because we are not allowed to make mistakes – on the contrary, He always said, “your sins are forgiven, so go and sin no more.” Making mistakes is how we learn. So the question is really whether we want to learn – whether we want to do better.

Never is there an argument so misused. Apparent contradictions abound in nature. It would seem impossible that something can be both a wave and a particle, and yet this is the case for the fundamental constituents of the physical universe. Clearly I don’t accept the premises by which you manufacture a contradiction between Jesus’ teaching of ECT and the justice of God.

And to be clear here, helping you to avoid your previous mistake. I have not advocated ECT as my position or argued against universalism. I have only pointed out the flaws in the arguments by yourself and Rob Bell.

82

I can’t believe you just said this. So puny human knowledge trumps God? What ever happened to “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

83

How could anyone say something as ridiculous as this, especially God?

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him , “Teacher, rebuke your disciples .”Jesus answered , “ I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out”( Luke 19:39-40).

The degree of perception possible for any thing or being varies widely. Still, even seemingly inanimate objects, like boulders or piles of sand, have a rudimentary level of consciousness according to Hunt’s definition of perception, which is simply an object “receiving information from the world.”

Each grain of sand is an object in relation to the world and therefore it is also a subject that “experiences” existence, albeit to a much more limited extent than humans do, according to Hunt. He calls this a “micro-consciousness.” In a 2011 paper in the Journal of Consciousness Studies (pdf), Hunt explains:

[L]iterally every life form and every speck of dust down to the smallest subatomic particle is influenced by the world through the various forces that act upon it. An electron is influenced by charged particles close enough to have an impact, and from objects that exert a gravitational pull—and the electron behaves accordingly. To exist, to be in the universe, means that every particle in the universe feels some pull and push from the various forces around it—otherwise it simply doesn’t exist. Thus, the electron perceives , as I have defined this term, and the electron is a subject.

There are mysteries with this God of ours. “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed. The insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms-this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.” Einstein was a piece of work.

84

“Belief in the virgin birth is the product of faith alone, not credible historical testimony and reporting. If it was the result of the latter I probably wouldn’t have spent 10,000 words repeatedly asking for evidence justifying a belief and get nothing in response.”

It is plain as day no one would make up such a story. No motive. Too grandiose. Christ didn’t need anyone to manufacture a single incident about his life. Afterall, He was God. He was a walking miracle in everything He said and did. God doesn’t normally walk down our streets or cough or comb his hair. God doesn’t normally eat lunch with the guys, recline on pillows and shoot the breeze. He isn’t born on too many occassions. It was sort of special when God Almighty appeared in a manger one night. He doesn’t come around very often to feed thousands of people with only enough food for a handful of folks. (I could have eaten that snack standing on my head.) I don’t recall ever noticing him tell dangerous winds and waves threatening a bunch of people on a boat to knock it off.

We can say He was God’s son, but being born of a virgin is too much? We shouldn’t push our luck.

85

Well I believe he was born of a Virgin but I also believe it because of faith. Definitely no real reason to believe it. I am also perfectly fine and it would not change my faith if he was really the son of jospeh since I believe Jesus was a man 100% in every way about was blessed by God.

It’s also perfectly reasonable to be skeptical of it. Plenty of people lie about nothing. I had a guy caught lying once what he ate for breakfast.

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Many of them paid a hefty price for perpetrating a hoax, if that’s all it was.

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Same as with cults in general. Same with almost any religion that faced persecution. It’s not that extreme.

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But, what were they trying to get from it? They lost everything. All they had to do was let go of it. They were persecuted big time. If they made it all up, why die for lies? Why suffer? They had nothing to gain.

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So, my original post in this thread was just to let folks know there is a completely legitimate belief system followed by many devout christians that did not involve ECT. I had no intention of having to defend that belief system because of how secure I am in its correctness. Obviously, if I hold such beliefs and understand the ultimate ramifications of them, then there is no need to defend them. I will see you on the other side.

I will see ALL of you on the other side. I’m looking at you, Adolf. I’m looking at you, Joseph. This is how far I believe the love and grace and mercy (and, yes, judgement) of God extends: He will keep wooing each and every one of us until the last of us relents. We, of course, will need to love and forgive each and every last person as well. Ouch! I’d start practicing now if I were me. As Mother told Ripley. “All other priorities are rescinded.”

This is what I and many other followers of Jesus have determined is the message of the gospel. That this is the ultimate teaching of the bible. There can be no greater good news. All of creation has been restored. God has done all His good will. However you want to put it. Yes, I understand that what we see right now doesn’t appear to be restored. Mere details. Faith, hope, love and all that.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking with it. It does not bother me even just a smidge if you don’t get it because I know that at some point in the future you will. What do you know, I’m free to love and cherish you just the way you are. It’s up to God if you need some changes.

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You are creating a false dilemma, as if the first followers of Jesus or even later ones at the end of the first and throughout the second century died because of the virgin birth. They died because they would not worship the emperors as Gods. Jesus was the only one worthy of their worship. There are whole streams of thought without the virgin birth. Your reasoning is fallacious.

You are also arguing with a straw man. No one in here is saying they made it all up. If they did make the birth narratives up and Matthew most certainly made up the majority of his details and Luke a lot of details as well, they did so because of who they thought Jesus was and is. They did not believe in Jesus because of the virgin birth stories. They created the infancy narratives because of who they believed Jesus was and is. You might have the trajectory reversed. Personally, I am willing to grant a virgin birth (due to the magisterial Church teaching and virtually unanimous belief throughout all Christianity, past and present) and the names of Jesus’ parents from birth narratives and little else. This is due to faith. There isn’t a single good historical reason to believe them and every reason not to.

Vinnie

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I think they wrote down what they believed to be facts. They sacrificed, or were willing to sacrifice, everything because of the factual basis of the accounts including the birth stories, not because of them alone. To make up the stories they gave us about his birth doesn’t make sense. They present him as a pauper born miraculously to nobodies in desperate circumstances without pomp or glory. What did they hope to achieve by introducing God’s son like that?
Why would we be willing to accept His moral teachings, believe that He is God, and that His resurrection really took place and reject the birth accounts?

On a side note, these writers got the local names right which suggests they were written in Judea and around the immediate time frame when He lived.
“Did the Gospel authors know their stuff?” Williams carefully highlights all sorts of details relating to local geographical knowledge, use of Jewish names and other aspects of Jewish first century life which highlight that the Gospels simply could not have been written later and from a different culture. Only someone who lived in Palestine at that time, or at least engaged with eyewitnesses who lived there, would know which were the most common Jewish names, since these differed considerably from the common Jewish names found in other parts of the Mediterranean such as Egypt. Interestingly Williams builds on the research of Richard Bauckham in highlighting the issue of “disambiguation” in the gospels—the practice of giving an extra descriptor to a common name to avoid ambiguity. Personally I found this the strongest and most helpful chapter, highlighting some of the details which we often skim over but which actually provide helpful evidence of the authenticity of the Gospels. Agnus Macleay

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You are free to believe whatever you want. What you can demonstrate and what history tells us are two different things. I am aware of absolutely no record of anyone in the early church dying because they specifically believed the virginal conception of Jesus to be true. I am aware of several Christians who refused to worship the emperor and willingly faced death for their belief that Jesus was Lord. If you have ANY evidence whatsoever that any early Christian died specifically for belief in the virginal conception of Jesus, I would love to see you present it in response to this. You seem to have made the positive claim that they did on a very publicly open discussion forum. Is there anything factual to your statement other than your sheer desire that this is true?

But it make sense for the, I’m guessing, hundreds of other miraculous birth stories throughout history for kings, emperors, heroes of old and gods? It makes sense for all of them to have made up this story but not your hoody book? I was just reading sparks and one of the telltale signs of fideism in a religious believer is special pleading. Failing to hold your own views and beliefs as accountable as you do others.

If you have any actual historical evidence, feel free to state it.

Vinnie

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Yes i like some good old universalist propaganda here

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“I said because it was believed by his earliest followers he was resurrected. Atheists have no need to dispute my claim. They can just assume the disciples were mistaken, had strong religious experiences and maybe some lied. I never said there is solid historical evidence the resurrection occurred. I’m not Lee Strobel, Gary Habermas or Josh McDowell. I accept it on faith based upon experiencing Gods love and forgiveness while reading the word’s of Christ.” vinnie

I believe they were part of a package. No one sacrificed everything for the birth accounts, alone. They sacrificed everything because they loved him. They loved him because they knew him. They knew him from what was written down, from the testimonies of others who knew him and others who had received Him as their savior through the indwelling of his Holy Respresentative He promised would come to them and comfort them.

I suspect these birth accounts are different from others making similar claims because Jesus is God. Everything about him was miraculous. No one else was anything like this God/Man.

Vinnie, perhaps you are too smart, too educated. I don’t want to be critical of you, but you may be so smart the genuine human drama, the real life happenings described, the simplicity, the openness, the sharing of their frailities, these things present a real life story that may difficult to see when you are as brilliant as someone like you. It has the ring of truth to it that maybe your average bear can pick up on easier than someone with your intellectual prowess.

“They did not believe in Jesus because of the virgin birth stories. They created the infancy narratives because of who they believed Jesus was and is.” vinnie

How can you be sure? I think they knew the circimstances of his birth and wrote about them. These guys demonstrate simple, genuine honesty. There is no guile in the whole bunch.

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If you cant defemd your belief ,trust me its not worth believing in it. That statement above lost me any interest in reading furhter

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Tell that to the Jews in Israel. Youll get beaten up and rightly so. Such an absurd claim

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None of the early Christians believed in anything like this. NONE. Umiversalism will be the death of morality

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Thank you for your observations, and may God bless you richly!

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Gonna take the high road from this point on folks.

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I understand the exhaustion of defending a belief again and again. I do the same when I want to share my opinion, but simply have no time or desire to flesh it all out. Especially when I know 99% of the time it won’t change anyone’s mind I can just hope that someone who is on the boat will come across it later on and it help them.

I am just as confident in conditional immortality and the destruction of the body and soul.

Instead of spending time defending it maybe instead you could direct me towards some of the best books on universalism written as a counter argument to criticism of it. That way maybe some of us can not waste time reading crappy empty books on it. Any recommendations? 99% of my time and studying was spent on refuting ECT. I would like
To read some books on Christian Universalism being defending from scriptures. That way I can either see holes in my current belief or either develop a stronger sense of what to refute. Any good books on this from your perspective?

For the record though I disagree with universalism I don’t think it undermines morality. Annihilationism is often accused of destroying a sense of righteousness or preaching. I think universalism would result in a love for righteousness more so than ECT.