Why the Hell . . . .

[ThePainefulTruth]

I didn't write for what you've quoted me.

Yes, Muffled wrote it. I'm sure we can get to the bottom of this travesty of misidentification.

 

[Skwim]

I believe "Eternal" does not mean final. There are two meanings: one is never ending but the other is having no time at all. I believe the latter describes Hell. Remember people were raised out of Hell for the final judgement, so how can that be if there is no end.

Concoct whatever definitions you need to.

I believe there is no evidence that anyone is in Hell now.

So, what is your criteria for evidence? And does this mean that everyone who has died is now in heaven? Or do you envision some kind of way station for those without the necessary qualifications for either place?

I believe Hell serves as a good prison for a spirit that can go anywhere. The idea is to keep evil spirits away from the people in the Kingdom of God. It is basically why we put people in prison so they won't be doing harm to society.

In as much as you don't see any reason to believe anyone is now in hell, what difference does its function make? And even if it serves to simply contain the baddies, why torment them, make them suffer for all eternity? Does god simply get a kick out of making people suffer?


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[Skwim]

I don't believe that Hell is was originally place for Satan and sinful people to suffer and burn in hell, but more that it's the place where God is not present and with knowledge that God exists and being unable to be in His presence is surely a good suffering until you pay for your sins. The use of words like fire, abyss, darkness, worms, etc. is just to describe that kind of suffering closely, not exactly.

According to the Bible it was.


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[Raahim]

According to the Bible it was.


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Hebrew or Christian?

 

[Skwim]

Hebrew or Christian?

Christian.


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[Raahim]

Christian.


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Ahh, right - Christian. Then if it was made for Satan why was Satan (according to Christian belief) put on Earth with us humans?

 

[Skwim]

Ahh, right - Christian. Then if it was made for Satan why was Satan (according to Christian belief) put on Earth with us humans?

Gotta ask one of the believers. I'm not one of them.


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[Raahim]

Gotta ask one of the believers. I'm not one of them.


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The question is then open for believers to answer. Thank you for yours.

 

[blue taylor]

It's said that hell was originally created as a place for Satan and his angels. (From what a lot of Christians have said, evidently Satan hasn't found his way there yet, as he's still leading us good humans astray.) Fine, but then god decided to use hell as a final resting place for those of us who fail to toe his line.

So what's the deal here? Was hell going to waste with no Satan to burn? Or does god simply get a kick out of making people suffer?

Just what is accomplished by putting people in hell?


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Ask Job about God getting a kick out of torturing people. God and Satan teamed up on him.

 

[habiru]

It's said that hell was originally created as a place for Satan and his angels. (From what a lot of Christians have said, evidently Satan hasn't found his way there yet, as he's still leading us good humans astray.) Fine, but then god decided to use hell as a final resting place for those of us who fail to toe his line.

So what's the deal here? Was hell going to waste with no Satan to burn? Or does god simply get a kick out of making people suffer?

Just what is accomplished by putting people in hell?


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It is hell if we are removed from being in the presence of God. The wicked are like a cancerous tumor that has been removed, that no one will not remembered it or be sad after it has left the body. Being in God's presence bring us to life, that the feelings that we get from Him is overwhelming of gladness.

 

[Astravalon]

I don't think it's possible to be removed or separated from
the presence of an omnipresent being. So the whole "hell-
as-separation-from-God" idea is pretty much DOA.



-

 

[blue taylor]

I don't think it's possible to be removed or separated from
the presence of an omnipresent being. So the whole "hell-
as-separation-from-God" idea is pretty much DOA.



-

Makes a whole lot of sense.

 

[habiru]

I don't think it's possible to be removed or separated from
the presence of an omnipresent being. So the whole "hell-
as-separation-from-God" idea is pretty much DOA.



-

here's some verses to remember.


Psalm 51:11 Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.

Psalm 16:11 You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

Psalm 21:6 Surely you have granted him unending blessings and made him glad with the joy of your presence.

Matthew 25:10 “But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.
11 “Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’
12 “But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’

Luke 23:42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

Genesis 8:1 But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.

Genesis 19:29 So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.

Matthew 26:13 Truly I tell you, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”

Exodus 32:33 The Lord replied to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

Just what is accomplished by putting people in hell?

Nothing much. Satan has some standard horror movie stuff, but if you stop fearing him, he loses all his power. Hell gets boring after that.

Justice is achieved, for rebelling against God and sinning against Him, those who reject Him will be punished for it, and that is right and fair. But thanks be to God, who has provided a way of salvation through Jesus Christ, even though we deserve God's wrath, He sent His Son to pay the price and take the punishment His people deserved, so that they may call upon the name of Jesus, trust in Him and be saved.

But if grace exists why are people like you so assured there are people who burn in hell? Does grace only exist when you're thinking about yourself or loved ones? Have you noticed that in stories like Paradise Lost or Revelation, there are never any "strange" inhabitants of heaven or hell? Black hat villains go to hell. White hat heroes go to heaven. There is never any grace. It's ALWAYS the case of the slave whose debt was forgiven and then goes around NOT forgiving the debts of others.

It's not simply rejecting belief in Him but a rebellion and hatred towards Him personally, and if God is infinitely worthy and objectively deserves our praise then it is morally wrong to not do so.

But is He infinitely worthy? He floods an entire planet one time and then gives out laser-guided karma to certain individuals. Hell, He ADMITS wrongdoing in Job! He kills some poor dude just trying to keep the Ark of the Covenant from falling! Where is grace?

The book of Job is one big FU to thoughts of this nature. Jonah's story is another. Life is more complicated than "good goes to heaven, bad goes to hell".

We can keep telling ourselves whatever we want to escape accountability, but all will be held to account for their actions, and all deserve the wrath of God.

Grace? Grace? Looking for it ... where did that go? Under the couch cushions? Did God leave it in the car?

And if your teenage child rejects your beliefs, an does what he/she wants to do, are they rebelling against you? If you believe your 17 year old should have a 10:00 curfew and he/she doesn't agree with that belief and stays out until they're ready to come home, would you consider that teenager to be rebelling?

The bible demands you kill your child. Be the first to pick up the stone.

Disagreeing with God's morals doesn't make God cease to exist or cease to be the judge that will hold all to account. And thinking His judgements hateful or foolish does not make them so.

So God cares deeply about morality but doesn't want you to question it? If you tell your teenager to kill a gay person (given your earlier passages), does your teenager NOT have a right to question the morality of such? Should God have let Abe kill Isaac?

Because God opened my eyes to see the glory of His Gospel, the glories in the teachings and life of Jesus of Nazareth, who by His death purchased my salvation though I did not deserve it and gave me life as I was dead in my sins.

Jesus taught you to relish in the damnation of others while only paying lip service to grace?

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

Translation: "Like the GOP, we enjoy low information people because they are the only ones stupid enough to believe all the crap we're handing out."

Don't have the time or the desire. Want to sum it up?

Like the works of CS Lewis, often confused for actual biblical concepts.

Instead of inflicting disobeying people with blindness for the rest of their lives, or giving them a lisp, god has chosen to send them to suffer in hell after they die. So why Hell? What is accomplished by expressly making people suffer in hell, and for eternity no less?

And why does everyone forget Jesus' "double jeopardy" type statement? He says that if you do good things in public, you already have your reward on earth, so no gold stars for you in heaven. Is this also the case in hell? If you are punished here on earth for your crimes, no angry face sticker for you in hell?

Look, let's say that I create AI. I build robots, androids, that can think for themselves. I develop their programming. I set their parameters. It is all my doing. I know, when setting these parameters that certain ones will be more aggressive and more likely to rebuke authority than others, I know because I am the designer, yet I STILL flip that switch on. I am thus responsible for whatever wrongdoing they may do. Me. It makes no sense then for me to scold or punish the very life that I brought about and programmed for doing EXACTLY what already knew it would. If I didn't want it to behave that way, if I didn't want it to do certain things, I obviously should not have designed it like that. Saying I don't approve of what it does doesn't cut it...I made it. Saying I will punish it for who I made it to be is just sadistic. If I made a life that I KNEW would be a certain way and then turn around and say I was going to torture it for being that way, well that's just sadistic and cruel and makes me a very malevolent designer doesn't it?

This is what happens when you don't program sense into AI

I know. Many do. The fact that they're tacitly fine with it is troublesome. They talk about 'no atheists in foxholes' yet have no issue with even the most genorous clean living atheist being tortured for eternity without raising a bleat.

While rewatching Star Wars and Clone Wars, it occurred to me that at least the Sith kill when they are angry. It bothers me the Jedi preach emotional control, so all those people they are killing (and it becomes more obvious throughout the stories that the droids are sentient as well, especially if you've skipped some memory wipes) are being killed WITH LITTLE EMOTION ABOUT IT. Essentially they are being trained to be sociopaths with an undeserved sense of morality.

Choice...people have the option to either trust God and spend eternity in His presence or follow Satan and be eternally separated from God.

My God is omnipresent. The lie is that we can be separated.

Ive Jewish folks say hell is a Greek idea, is this correct Greeks created it?

They had afterlives which sucked, which was like hell. But this is where the word comes from

Perhaps they rejected him because he did not do any miracles, or anything the Messiah was supposed to do?

I've seen it said before that if the apostles had been lying, people would've called them on it ... BUT THAT'S PRECISELY WHAT HAPPENED.

I do not necessarily rely on authorities. So, probably I would test it. For instance, by strangling some other soul with the strings of my harp and see what happens.

I recently had a dream where some people and I were fleeing darkness and ended up in a white room. An old man told me to go see the Tree of Life (I know, I know: sucker bait). As the resident sucker, I did so and the roots wrapped around me. To get fruit of immortality, it has suck the lives of anyone who goes near it. I was mummifying pretty quickly. The old man revealed himself to be Set. I was impressed. Satan only goes with the usual stuff. This was rather novel (for me, anyway). So I prayed to the Tree of Life and convinced it that a mere mortal won't provide NEARLY the sustenances of a god, so the roots wrapped around a shocked Set and I laughed and laughed, saying that as an immortal it should take about a thousand years to be digested ... so ... yeah ...

Long story short: never be afraid to think outside the box

Or do you envision some kind of way station for those without the necessary qualifications for either place?

Whenever I've gone to heaven in dreams, there is usually a path of sorts. You don't just magically end up in heaven. There's a walk first. [/QUOTE]

 

[Riders]

I know I'm changing the topic but quick question.

Matthew 25:10 “But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.
11 “Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’
12 “But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’
Why virgins?
How would anyone know that the women were virgins ,did God give them special sight, like a psychic can see inside the mind weather someones a virgin or not?

To me the only thing that makes sense is that theyre not talking about lack of sex but rather young women, calling them virgins meaning young.

I know Christians will disagree with me, but it doesn't make sense, I know some will say God wrote this and he knew weather or not they were virgins.

Say its true, its God inspired that's how they knew, the persons virginity had nothing to dow ith the conversation at all, they added that in.

In other words if you say God wrote that for no purpose in the conversation except to talk about weather someone has a sex life or not your saying God is a pervert.

WHat purpose does God have for sitting around having a conversation telling folks whos virgins whos not, that's sick and its noones business. I guess Gods a pervert. Ok I'm shutting up might start a new thread about that.

 

[habiru]

I know I'm changing the topic but quick question.

Matthew 25:10 “But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.
11 “Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’
12 “But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’
Why virgins?
How would anyone know that the women were virgins ,did God give them special sight, like a psychic can see inside the mind weather someones a virgin or not?

To me the only thing that makes sense is that theyre not talking about lack of sex but rather young women, calling them virgins meaning young.

I know Christians will disagree with me, but it doesn't make sense, I know some will say God wrote this and he knew weather or not they were virgins.

Say its true, its God inspired that's how they knew, the persons virginity had nothing to dow ith the conversation at all, they added that in.

In other words if you say God wrote that for no purpose in the conversation except to talk about weather someone has a sex life or not your saying God is a pervert.

WHat purpose does God have for sitting around having a conversation telling folks whos virgins whos not, that's sick and its noones business. I guess Gods a pervert. Ok I'm shutting up might start a new thread about that.

It says that God only know the heart, He doesn't pay no attention what our mouth speaks. The heart tells all about us. But about being a virgin, even if you lusted in your heart, you have done it. But as it also says that we are all not perfect, and that is why we are under grace, but not under the laws anymore.

Matthew 9:4 Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, “Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts?

2 Corinthians 3:14 But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. (If it weren't for God's grace, we still will be covering up our true feelings)

 

[Astravalon]

here's some verses to remember.


Psalm 51:11 Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.

Psalm 16:11 You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

Psalm 21:6 Surely you have granted him unending blessings and made him glad with the joy of your presence.

Matthew 25:10 “But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.
11 “Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’
12 “But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’

Luke 23:42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

Genesis 8:1 But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.

Genesis 19:29 So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.

Matthew 26:13 Truly I tell you, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”

Exodus 32:33 The Lord replied to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my

Anything suggesting that one can be outside the presence of an omnipresent
entity is illogical.


-

 

[بِسْم الله]

Most likely because it is quite a large part of a belief system that blatantly makes no sense, especially when that same belief system purports to have a loving god. Of course it would spark questions. Not for validation, but probably more just to get people to realize just how much it does not make sense.

Can love and punishment not exists hand in hand. Can we not agree that America's core beliefs of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness for all is the epitome of love? Aren't the laws which protect our freedoms out of the spirit and essence of love and good will. Now the kicker, what happens when a criminal violates those laws. Won't he or she be punished. Are we to say that because our government would punish those who oppose love and peace that our philosophy as Americans is contradictory to itself. Or would we say that both sides of the coin ( love and punishment) serve a purpose?

 

[Astravalon]

Can love and punishment not exists hand in hand. Can we not agree that America's core beliefs of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness for all is the epitome of love? Aren't the laws which protect our freedoms out of the spirit and essence of love and good will. Now the kicker, what happens when a criminal violates those laws. Won't he or she be punished. Are we to say that because our government would punish those who oppose love and peace that our philosophy as Americans is contradictory to itself. Or would we say that both sides of the coin ( love and punishment) serve a purpose?

Again, the punishment our government would dole out isn't for all eternity.

-

 

[بِسْم الله]

It says that God only know the heart, He doesn't pay no attention what our mouth speaks. The heart tells all about us. But about being a virgin, even if you lusted in your heart, you have done it. But as it also says that we are all not perfect, and that is why we are under grace, but not under the laws anymore.

Matthew 9:4 Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, “Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts?

2 Corinthians 3:14 But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. (If it weren't for God's grace, we still will be covering up our true feelings)

I frequently find this statement very confusing. Ive heard people say "we are under grace not law". I then ask them if they believe in sin. Of course the answer is yes they believe in sin. So I try to highlight that sin can only exist if there is a LAW and then that law is broken. If we weren't under law sin wouldn't exist