Endless said:
The answer is neither - you have probably not read the context in which Paul is writing. He is talking about physical ressurection and physical death. If you read the chapter and you will see this. Verse 21 reads:
Paul is clearly talking about ressurection from the dead when he then goes on to write....'even so in Christ shall all be made alive'. Because of what Christ did in rising from the dead - everyone will be raised from the dead - sinners and saints alike. Can i back this up with other scripture? Consider the following:
Both are ressurected, which is why Paul is teaching that all shall be made alive through Christ. This is not referring to being saved - merely to a ressurection from the dead and this is made clear in the chapter. Why else do you think that the Bible refers to people being thrown into the lake of fire as the 'second death'? Because before this they have already been ressurected and made alive again.
Actually Jesus warned people an awful lot about the dangers of hell and perishing. I think perhaps you misunderstand what the Jews understood by heaven. The first heaven was our atmosphere - what we see during the day. The second heaven was the universe or the night sky. The third heaven was the heaven that Jesus is talking about - where he is.
That is why Jesus does not talk about levels in heaven - there are none.
I
Did you ever wonder why when God is creating this universe he creates the heavens? The explanation i gave is the reason why.
Ushta Endless
I do enjoy Abrahamics like you so much , they remind me why I left Abrahamic religion as a teen. :dan: Everything you say has Biblical support. Moreover, those that know hermeneutics, will understand how truly frail, is the position of more liberal Christians, as far as the linguistics of the text go. In other words, from philological view point , its far more likely, and I mean really a lot more likely, that the meaning of the text in the original is in agreement with such literalists and fundamentalists as yourself.
That is precisely why I left Christianity, because the God the Bible depicts, in its more probable and literal meaning, is not the God that I experience on a daily basis.
The nature of the God of literal Biblical and Quranic interpretation, violates the most simple and elemental rudiments of what God must be like to be God. That is, God must be greater ,and better, than His creation. For a God that is worse , ethically, than most of his creatures, cannot be God and if it were , he would not worthy of praise, glory, worship or obedience.
Why do I say, that the God of the literalist, Christians and Muslims is ethically worse than his creatures? And please do not take offense because I do not mean any.
To put it bluntly , an all knowing, all powerful God ,that is Vengeful, Jealous, and Wrathful, is far worse than most humans, but specifically, a God that orders genocide is far worse than most of the very same creatures he judges sinful and sends to an everlasting hell of torment.
For, most humans, find genocide repugnant and even most of the Israelites ended up not fully carrying out that genocidal design given, supposedly, to Moses and Joshua. And, as a matter of fact, they were chastized for being more merciful than their God and blamed for whatecer disasters happened later.
I can only be grateful, though, for my fire and brimstone preacher. Because thanks to him I ran out of Chriatianity and by the gift of the Blessed Creator I found The Most Wise and his Manthran. Personally then, I have nothing bad to say about literalists, in fact, as I said above I am convinced that their interpretation of the Bible and the Quran is, by far, the more correct one.
My only objection is the large amount of people that are psychologically hurt by a theology of fear, guilt and sin. But that is too far away from the scope of this thread, with which I have already taken too many liberties ( I apologize Squirt the :devil: made me do it
)
Ushta to all
Ashai
