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There Is No Hell
- Thread starter Neo Deist
- Start date
And this is just for you …
If you honestly believe that the above quote serves as 'evidence' of "deliberate misinformation injected into Scripture by the Holy Roman Church," the problem goes far beyond that of trumpeting bigoted drivel.
JayJayDee
Avid JW Bible Student
All of that would be true except that the Bible's whole scenario from Genesis to Revelation explains all of the reasons for the present condition of man and this earth, as well as the outcome of the whole thing. Its a story about rebellion and free will and the wisdom of the Creator in how he proves that it wasn't a flaw in his design.
What you are describing is Christendom's version of events....that has nothing to do with the Bible. It has been corrupted over many centuries. It is no reason to discount what is written in the scriptures.
It's not about God's power and what he could do if he wanted to. Do you honestly think he looks at this earth and thinks..."what a lovely family...I'll just let them continue to take such good care of each other and their planet"
Seriously!He had a purpose in putting us as material beings on this material earth. He isn't done yet. What he purposed in the beginning will yet come to a successful conclusion.
I don't know how a deist explains the present situation.
According to God's word, the adversary was the first of God's intelligent creatures to abuse his free will. Not content to keep his rebellion to himself, his desire for worship led to him involve the only other creatures who could give him what he wanted.
This rebel never challenged God's power....what he challenged was God's sovereign right to set reasonable limits for his human creatures.
Animals operate by instinct. They need no intervention or instruction from him to continue living because their lives are governed by a programming that enables them to live and perpetuate their species on their own. They have no conscience, no concept of the future and no morals.
Humans are the only creatures designed to reflect God's qualities and his moral values. They alone are accountable to him for how they use (or abuse) their free will. By giving humans alone the choices he allowed, based on their intelligence and ability to contemplate consequences, they were given only one rule in Eden. It imposed no hardship on them whatsoever....but disobedience to this one command would introduce aging, suffering and death.....something humans were never designed to experience.
If a rebel spirit had not been influential in creating a desire for the fruit (or what it represented) humans would still be living forever on earth right now. There would have been no death, no sin, no suffering.
Whether you take the Edenic scenario as real or metaphoric, it explains why we have the situation we do on this planet, when everything in us is screaming that it is all wrong! The Bible writer Solomon said that "man dominates man to his injury".....who can deny that?
We have a collective, inbuilt expectation about how life should be...and this isn't it.
What we lost in Eden was everlasting life on a paradise earth, in peace, security and happiness. The Creator is not stupid. Giving humans free will was not a mistake...it was a precious gift. So when it was abused, the Creator used it as a opportunity to teach and to demonstrate for all future rebels, (both in the spirit realm and on earth) what happens when we disobey the one who made us. Independence is an attractive thought, but in practice, when someone exercises his free will to the detriment of others, nothing good ever comes of it. Man is not designed to exercise domination over other humans. As soon as you give man power over others, it corrupts him every time....be that in a political or a religious setting.
If you dismiss the Bible's reasonable explanation, where does that leave you? What answers are you able to glean and from what sources do you get them?
Being in a perpetual state of "I dunno" Would drive me nuts!
No evil ? Who would want the conscience of a serial killer ?__________________
The present ' concept ' of hell exists today due to especially to when the Jews began mixing with the Greeks and adopted religious-myth theories and philosophies as being Scripture when actually Not taught in Scripture.
KJV Bibles translated into English the word Gehenna has hell fire. Gehenna was just a garbage pit outside of Jerusalem where things were destroyed Not kept burning forever. So Gehenna is a fitting term for destruction such as Psalm 92:7 saying the wicked will be destroyed forever.
The English word hell comes from another word, and in Scripture biblical hell is simply the word for the grave where the unconscious dead sleep in death until resurrected out of the Bible's temporary hell or grave.
Jesus taught sleep in death as do the old Hebrew Scriptures:
- John 11:11-14; Psalms 6:5; 13:3;115:17; 146:4; Daniel 12:2,13; Ecclesiastes 9:5
If biblical hell was a permanent place, the dead Jesus would still be in hell - Acts 2:27,31,32
Remember this: everyone in biblical hell will be ' delivered up ' (resurrected ) out of hell before emptied-out hell [ mankind's collective grave ] is cast vacant into a symbolic ' second death ' for vacated hell according to Revelation 20:13,14
During Jesus' coming 1000-year rule over earth: No more hell means: ' No more death ' as promised at Rev. 21:4,5. See also the good conditions returning here to earth at Rev. 22:2
The fact that the concept of hell has often enough been seized upon as a means of controlling people does not necessarily mean the concept was invented expressly for that purpose. It is quite possible it was just another bad idea in a long and tedious list of bad ideas that people have come up with over the ages. Or, alternately, it could have arisen as a metaphor for describing normal waking consciousness in contrast to the state of bliss associated with a certain kind of mystical experience. Or, perhaps it originated in some other way. But it's a leap from the observation of how it is frequently used as a means to controlling people to the conclusion that it originated for that purpose.
HA! I see what you're trying to do. OK, let's assume, for the sake of argument, Hell does not exist. Then where will one's soul eternally burn and torment after death? Eh?
Please don't tell me Hitler just died and that's the end of the story. That would just be sick!!!
PS: sarcasm
Please don't tell me Hitler just died and that's the end of the story. That would just be sick!!!
PS: sarcasm
Neo Deist
Th.D. & D.Div. h.c.
Actually Genesis to Revelation was merely non-literal stories written down by several anonymous authors, in an age where man had little to no knowledge of science (compared to modern times), and was often times very biased. I do not buy the concept of "original sin" and that because of some fictitious Garden story, all of humanity is born unto sin. If you buy into that, then you are accepting that God is saying, "I love you...but you are SOL from birth because of some crap that happened ~6,000 years ago, that wasn't even your fault."
It's not about God's power and what he could do if he wanted to. Do you honestly think he looks at this earth and thinks..."what a lovely family...I'll just let them continue to take such good care of each other and their planet"
I'm a deist. God created the universe, the laws of nature that govern it, pushed the start button and is doing whatever He sees fit to do...here or elsewhere.
Pure speculation. Funny that Judaism does not have the concept of Satan as the devil...given that the OT is their story.
I know several veterinarians, animal trainers (especially K9) and those in the field of husbandry that would disagree with you. Certain animals mourn their dead. Others can be taught right from wrong and make choices accordingly.
Or some elder from long ago made up a story while sitting around the campfire, when a child asked why Grandma died.
Yet no satellite imagery has found Eden, much less the angel wielding a flaming sword guarding the way...
It leaves me thinking rationally. My answers, as a deist, come from the observation of nature (here and afar) combined with scientific study.
I believe in God. I honor and worship Him for giving me life. I die with the hope that if my existence is to continue in some sort of afterlife, that God will reward me for being a moral man.
I have studied the Bible extensively. I give it due credit as a book that can influence society and moralistic living. I do not accept that it is erroneous or the literal word of God. Men wrote it, plain and simple. Those that claimed to have received "divine revelation" were always conveniently alone when it happened (from Moses to Joseph Smith).
Edit: I am not attacking you or any other believers. I am merely stating points and clarifying my position, based on rational explanation.
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MonkeyFire
Well-Known Member
I agree. All things is a virtue. It would be God like if a man came and saved us all and made perfection and passive love so all things things can prosper.
Hell, in most cases, is speaking of the grave or the underground. What the OP might mean is that there is "no fiery furnace that burns for eternity".
Good point ^ above ^ because Gehenna, translated into English as hell or hellfire, - was the fiery garbage pit outside of ancient Jerusalem - and Gehenna did Not burn things for eternity.
What is the price tag that sin pays according to Romans 6:23,7 ?__________
There was No postmortem penalty for Adam.
At creation Adam became a living soul - see Genesis 2:7
At Death, according to Genesis 3:19, dead Adam simply ' returned ' to the dust of the ground. A person can Not ' return ' to a place he never was before.
Adam went from non-life to life and back to non-life. Adam became a dead soul or lifeless soul.
Doesn't the soul that sins die ? _______- Ezekiel 18 :4,20; Acts 3:23
Sinning soul Adam died. Died out of existence.
The Bible's hell does exist. Didn't Jesus go to hell the day he died?______Acts 2:27,31,32
However, ' biblical hell ' is just the grave for the unconscious sleeping dead.
- Reference verses -> Ecclesiastes 9:5; Psalms 6:5; 13:3; 117:17; 146:4; John 11:11-14
The majority of mankind will be resurrected. The exception are those committing the unforgivable sin mentioned at Matthew 12:32, and see also Hebrews 6:4-6.
During Jesus' soon coming 1000-year kingdom rule over earth mankind will see how Jesus, as King of God's kingdom, will judge Hitler.
JayJayDee
Avid JW Bible Student
You may interpret it that way, but I see God dealing with rebels in both realms. Abuse of free will was always a possibility but how the Creator addressed it was nothing short of genius.
When you have forever up your sleeve and spirits dwell in a timeless realm, you do what you have to do to deal with the ones who can cause the most damage first.....and if this settles the issue once and for all with those in the earthly realm as well, then...BONUS!
Precedents are thus set for the exercise of free will for all eternity to come, both in heaven (from where the first rebel emerged) and on earth where he found creatures to worship him as a god. Because of the way God handled this situation, there will never be a basis for rebellion and a challenge to God's universal sovereignty ever again.
Did God have a purpose for creation? If we are made with his qualities, then when do humans ever put time and effort into a massive project with no purpose or set goal in mind? Would the creator go to all this trouble just to have it turn out so badly? What kind of an intelligent, all powerful Creator would do that? Isn't it insulting his intelligence to assume that he had no purpose to it all?
I would beg to differ.
Job 1:6-12 from "The Complete Jewish Bible" speaks about "the adversary" and where he came from....
It indicates that the adversary was among the "sons of God"
See Footnote.
"It happened one day that the sons of God came to serve Adonai, and among them came the Adversary a]">[a]. 7 Adonai asked the Adversary, “Where are you coming from?” The Adversary answered Adonai, “From roaming through the earth, wandering here and there.” 8 Adonai asked the Adversary, “Did you notice my servant Iyov, that there’s no one like him on earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and shuns evil?” 9 The Adversary answered Adonai, “Is it for nothing that Iyov fears God? 10 You’ve put a protective hedge around him, his house and everything he has. You’ve prospered his work, and his livestock are spread out all over the land. 11 But if you reach out your hand and touch whatever he has, without doubt he’ll curse you to your face!” 12 Adonai said to the Adversary, “Here! Everything he has is in your hands, except that you are not to lay a finger on his person.” Then the Adversary went out from the presence of Adonai.
Footnotes:
- Job 1:6 Hebrew: Satan
He also had the power to inflict a grievous illness on Job. (Job 2:1-10)
This was a rebel angel.
You could probably count on one hand the creatures that appear to grieve the loss of their young or members of their troop or pack. Since these animals cannot communicate their feelings accurately to man, their response is interpreted as grief. Maybe it is a response to a break in their programming. Dogs get very attached to their owners or other dogs in their pack. They can show great affection and it has been observed that some (but certainly not all) pine for a time for the one with whom they have formed an attachment. But by and large, the animals that show no grief are in the majority. Animals have no expectation or concept of the future...only we have that quality.
According to the Bible, the garden and the angel and the sword guarding the way to Eden would have been there up until the flood of Noah's day. The global deluge would have swept away all markers to the garden's entrance and changed the landscape completely. Huge volumes of water fell from the canopy that surrounded the earth as well as the deep springs of underground water that rose to the surface.
This what Genesis says God used to flood the earth. Do we imagine what the threat of global warming will mean when scientists warn about the polar ice shelves melting? Will not the earth again be flooded? What do we imagine happened to all that water? Could not the Creator have drawn it up to the poles and suspended it by snap freezing it?
Eden could still exist somewhere but its exact location is lost for now.
How "scientific" is your belief in God?
Where do you draw the line between belief and fact and how do you know where God does?
The Bible tells you what the future will be for those who keep the faith....so where does that leave you apart from wishful thinking?
I am always interested when people say they have studied the Bible extensively.....with whom did you study and with what pre-conceived notions did you read the words of scripture.
The Pharisees in Jesus' day were teachers of God's word, but centuries of corruption had altered things significantly. The same is true of Christendom.
So have you really studied the Bible....or only their version of it?
One large difference between Moses and Joseph Smith was that Moses' writings were in total agreement with the Creator's purpose, whilst Joseph Smith departed from it completely.
You have to ask how Moses knew the order in which the creation took place. Evolutionists by and large agree with the order of things stated in Genesis, beginning in the sea and the sky, then going onto land dwelling animals and finally, man. Was it guesswork, or something more? (2 Tim 3:16, 17)
"There is One who dwells above the circle of the earth, And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers" (Isa 40:22)
How did Isaiah know that the earth was a "circle" (this word can also translated as "sphere")
How long was it before man knew that the earth wasn't flat?
How did Job know that the earth was suspended in space?
"He stretches out the northern sky over empty space,
Suspending the earth upon nothing." (Job 26:7)
It's OK...I just wanted you to know that there is another side to this story, which is also rational.
Neo Deist
Th.D. & D.Div. h.c.
If there were rebels (meh...) then God created them that way. He created the dark and the evil alongside the light and good. According to many, He is supposedly omniscient and omnipotent, which means He knew what would happen but made them that way regardless.
For deists, we view God as transcendent. It is not our place to understand His intent, or to rationalize His actions.
The CJB has nothing to do with Orthodox Judaism. It was a Messianic Jewish translation for a Christian sect.
The Adversary in the Book of Job was performing his role and duty that was assigned to him by God. Apparently you missed the part where God brought up Job for testing, and He stated the rules that "Satan" had to follow. If God is omnipotent, then nothing happens without His divine permission. So is Satan under God's authority or not?
You just reversed your previous assertion, and followed it with more speculation.
More speculation followed by a fairy tale about a global flood. Incidentally, every major science argues against a global flood. Perhaps it was more regional, such as when the Mediterranean Sea flooded the Black Sea area. There is scientific evidence for that event.
The Noah's Ark story has so many holes in it that I won't even begin to dismantle them here. That will be another thread.
Deists observe nature and attribute its creation to God, because it appears too perfect to be random. Beyond that, we don't give much thought about organized (revealed) religion. Humans are hardwired from birth to be moral (knowing right from wrong).
In the same category as those who have never heard of God, because God chose to put them in some remote location. It's not their fault they were born there. What kind of diabolical deity would eternally torment someone for something that deity was responsible for in the first place?
If God wants me to have an afterlife, He will make it so.
It certainly wasn't the Watch Tower.
You have to ask how Moses knew the order in which the creation took place.
It's OK...I just wanted you to know that there is another side to this story, which is also rational.
Genesis has two different accounts of creation that contradict each other. It is assumed that Moses (if he even existed) wrote the first few books of the Bible. It is far more likely that the "children of Abraham" simply copied/amended older stories from older cultures, that have strikingly similar details.
The only problem is that none of your side can be proven by science in any shape or form (Ken Ham is NOT science). Much of the Bible was written by anonymous authors, many of which repeated stories they had heard elsewhere (such as the Gospels) which make them hearsay at best. You have to take it on blind faith that the Bible is true and accurate.
The sooner we can colonize other planets, such as Mars, the better. "Satan" is not a god, and thus limited to earth as he can't be omnipresent. Revelation even states that he will be cast down to the earth. By leaving this mudball, we can escape his grasp!
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NulliuSINverba
Active Member
Keep in mind that most Christians will also insist that their god is not just merely loving, compassionate, and benevolent, but all-loving, all-compassionate, and all-benevolent.
Square that with any concept of eternal torment.
DragonHawk1959
Member
Congratulations! I was beginning to wonder if anyone on the Web had ever bothered to link Sheol and Hell. I would add though though that the name seems to derive, or be related to, the Hebrew word for the garbage pits dug outside of cities. Hence it was a place outside of the light and warmth of the city of God. This may also be why hell is frequently referred to as : "The pit" and may explain hell being inside the earth.
SkylarHunter
Active Member
I was about to write a reply but you already said it all...
Thank you.
I debunked the firey, brimstone, Dante's Inferno, for myself years
ago but don't tell a fundamentalist Christian there is no hell as they get mighty
upset saying to deny hell is to deny God and is blasphemy.
I tend not to discuss religious topics with fundamentalists. They get cranky quick.
SkylarHunter
Active Member
don't tell a fundamentalist Christian there is no hell as they get mighty
upset saying to deny hell is to deny God and is blasphemy.
I tend not to discuss religious topics with fundamentalists. They get cranky quick.
Too late... I actually had that argument with a priest once. The conversation finished like this:
Priest: "You are an heretic. You are going to burn in hell!"
Me: "Ok, I guess I'll meet you there."
You can imagine how well the church and I get along.
Nada
#
All of that would be true except that the Bible's whole scenario from Genesis to Revelation explains all of the reasons for the present condition of man and this earth, as well as the outcome of the whole thing. Its a story about rebellion and free will and the wisdom of the Creator in how he proves that it wasn't a flaw in his design.
What you are describing is Christendom's version of events....that has nothing to do with the Bible. It has been corrupted over many centuries. It is no reason to discount what is written in the scriptures.
It's not about God's power and what he could do if he wanted to. Do you honestly think he looks at this earth and thinks..."what a lovely family...I'll just let them continue to take such good care of each other and their planet"
He had a purpose in putting us as material beings on this material earth. He isn't done yet. What he purposed in the beginning will yet come to a successful conclusion.
I don't know how a deist explains the present situation.
According to God's word, the adversary was the first of God's intelligent creatures to abuse his free will. Not content to keep his rebellion to himself, his desire for worship led to him involve the only other creatures who could give him what he wanted.
This rebel never challenged God's power....what he challenged was God's sovereign right to set reasonable limits for his human creatures.
Animals operate by instinct. They need no intervention or instruction from him to continue living because their lives are governed by a programming that enables them to live and perpetuate their species on their own. They have no conscience, no concept of the future and no morals.
Humans are the only creatures designed to reflect God's qualities and his moral values. They alone are accountable to him for how they use (or abuse) their free will. By giving humans alone the choices he allowed, based on their intelligence and ability to contemplate consequences, they were given only one rule in Eden. It imposed no hardship on them whatsoever....but disobedience to this one command would introduce aging, suffering and death.....something humans were never designed to experience.
If a rebel spirit had not been influential in creating a desire for the fruit (or what it represented) humans would still be living forever on earth right now. There would have been no death, no sin, no suffering.
Whether you take the Edenic scenario as real or metaphoric, it explains why we have the situation we do on this planet, when everything in us is screaming that it is all wrong! The Bible writer Solomon said that "man dominates man to his injury".....who can deny that?
We have a collective, inbuilt expectation about how life should be...and this isn't it.
What we lost in Eden was everlasting life on a paradise earth, in peace, security and happiness. The Creator is not stupid. Giving humans free will was not a mistake...it was a precious gift. So when it was abused, the Creator used it as a opportunity to teach and to demonstrate for all future rebels, (both in the spirit realm and on earth) what happens when we disobey the one who made us. Independence is an attractive thought, but in practice, when someone exercises his free will to the detriment of others, nothing good ever comes of it. Man is not designed to exercise domination over other humans. As soon as you give man power over others, it corrupts him every time....be that in a political or a religious setting.
If you dismiss the Bible's reasonable explanation, where does that leave you? What answers are you able to glean and from what sources do you get them?
Being in a perpetual state of "I dunno" Would drive me nuts!
I love your comment! I especially appreciated the part where you stated,"We have a collective, inbuilt expectation about how life should be...and this isn't it."
