Christianity debate, anyone? (well, god in general too)

Brian The Dog on 3/12/2007 at 18:04

To jtr7 -

Hehe, firstly let me say I have no axe to grind here, I'm just repeating what chats I have had with various theologians in pubs :ebil: .

Luke 16 is a parable (story) told by Jesus, even me with my tiny religous knowledge know that the story here is a fictional story told to get a point across. All branches of Christianity that I know of (excluding wierd cults etc) agree on this. I think that's correct, anyway.

The "lake of fire" stuff is interesting - since it's all in prophetic language, there's no reason to believe that it's actually going to be a physical lake that people will get thrown into or anything. Plus it just says that the fire is everlasting, not the dying of the people who get thrown into it.

Most of the stuff you show just says that there will be dying, people being thrown out to darkness etc, not everlasting pain. Also, there's nothing there to imply that hell is actually a place - it seems to more imply an event, if you look at Jesus' words. Not saying it's not a possibility though.

The Matthew 25 thing does indeed seem to show "evelasting pain stuff". So I may be stood corrected :) I will go and shake my fist mightily at my theologian friends in the pub :mad: . And see what they have to say for themselves. One possibility that COULD be is that their "eternal punishment" is the taking away of their "eternal life", i.e.it is a single event (their destruction) that has eternal consequences for them. But I'm not convinced at all :ebil: .

Revelation 14 was the kind of thing I suggested to them that the bible says. The replay they gave was that the word for "torment" is actually the Greek word used to describe things bobbing around in water, i.e. their "torment" is actually their corpses.

Seriously though, I don't know very much about this stuff, just gerenally interested. As fett says (and I agreed above), there are many differing opinions about this kind of stuff. As a boring mid-Anglican, I'm just midly curious from an academic point of view. Thanks for the references :D

fett on 3/12/2007 at 18:29

Quote Posted by Brian The Dog

To jtr7 -

Most of the stuff you show just says that there will be dying, people being thrown out to darkness etc, not everlasting pain. Also, there's nothing there to imply that hell is actually a place - it seems to more imply an event, if you look at Jesus' words.

This was also the leaning of the Pharisees of Jesus' day - whose theology he soundly and comprehensively endorsed on several occasions. Though they did believe it was an actual place of existence, it was viewed more as an event of being separated from god, than a place of fire and physical torment.

SD on 3/12/2007 at 18:31

Quote Posted by BR796164

Then you are an agnostic. There are so many agnostics clueless enough to believe they're genuine "atheists". :rolleyes:

You have the wrong end of a shitty stick here. catbarf is an atheist by virtue of the fact that he finds no positive proof of God, discounts his existence as unlikely and lives his life as if God was not there. He may very well be an agnostic too, but he's most certainly an atheist.

jtr7 on 3/12/2007 at 19:42

Hm. Was a button pushed, or something? I simply quoted the King James text.;) Sorry 'bout that. I said nothing of my personal belief, but I think it's not hard to see where the common belief among Christians comes from.:) We all would rather have another, kinder option in death, if we can't simply cease to exist, or enjoy some kind of afterlife.:sweat:

Also, it's no real punishment whatsoever to have your corpse bobbing around, on fire forever, like some sort of spicy Sinner Stew. The corpse cares not. There are vast numbers of people who's bodies are no longer in a corpse-state, too. I don't know why stretching the possible meaning of the text one way is worse than another. Truth or lie, proof or no proof, there will always be a significant percentage who find these concepts threatening.

If the punishment isn't forever, what's the sentence? What happens after the term is up? None of that matters, of course. Your actions and justifications good, bad, in-between have consequences, great, miniscule, and in-between. We live like that isn't a fact.

paloalto90 on 3/12/2007 at 20:46

Quote Posted by Shakey-Lo

That's irrelevant, because in either case the convicted person "cannot learn from the suffering and improve his station". That is not its intent.

The logic of the argument has to do with the nature of God,not a man/society,versus God made situation.Capital punishment and incarceration for a lifetime is not for the benefit of the criminal but to benefit society.

catbarf on 3/12/2007 at 20:58

Quote Posted by BR796164

Then you are an agnostic.

Untrue. Agnostic states that you believe the whole thing to be unknowable. I do not. I reject the existence of a god based on lack of proof.

My point was really that I'm atheist, but if there does happen to be a god then I don't mind because I think that in His view, I'd be better off than someone who just follows blindly out of fear.

Edit: Thanks SD.

Kuuso on 3/12/2007 at 21:11

What I wonder is, that why all the religious events take part in historic middle east? Why there hasn't been such earth-shaking godly events since then? As far as I know, in the end of the Bible, God doesn't say "Well, from now on, you shall be on your own without my circus".

I know some would say that "God is everywhere and his work is constantly happening", but it's still worth to argue, why all the visible stuff was done in such a strict time and place. Where are the prophets of current time and the divine interventions?

jtr7 on 3/12/2007 at 21:21

Very good point. Again, the Bible (can't speak for the other religions) speaks of this. God removes his blessing from the people when they turn their back on him. When they worship false gods, instead of him, he likens it to a wife committing adultery--actually prostituting herself, while he finds it anguishing to witness.

Also, all of God's people were concentrated in the Middle East, now they are scattered in the diaspora.

Quote:

Where are the prophets of current time and the divine interventions?

Being soundly debunked, decried, and defamed, especially when they are frauds, or mentally ill. Wolves in sheep's clothing, false prophets, and all that.

The "Prophets" have almost always been treated as such, and are often killed (or martyred, if they have followers), especially if the religious/political powers that be find them threatening. Some do the killing themselves.

Jenesis on 3/12/2007 at 21:55

Quote Posted by paloalto90

Hell does not exist because.....
if you assume that God is a God of Love then suffering must have a purpose.
Even from a human point of view to suffer without reason would be cruel.If according to current Christian doctrine the soul is stuck in hell forever then there is no purpose to the souls suffering since he cannot learn from the suffering and improve his station.
Of course you could bieleve that if God exists he is just a cruel bastard and enjoys punishing people.

The argument against Hell because God is love (1 John 4, both verses 8 and 16) is a well-worn one, but it has a fatal flaw, which is that it doesn't account for so much of God's character. Allow me to illustrate this by looking at things from the other end.

The Bible clearly states that God is a God of justice. There are a loads of references I could give, but let's go for (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ezekiel%2022;&version=31;) Ezekiel 22. So, God judges the wicked. It is also clear that everyone is wicked ((http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=genesis%206:5;&version=31;) Genesis 6:5, (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=genesis%206:5;&version=31;) Romans 3:12). We could argue, then, that if God is just, and all people are wicked, then everyone will be judged and go to Hell.

But obviously this isn't right, it's not what the Bible teaches (thankfully!). The entire New Testament blows that argument right out of the water. Where have we gone wrong? We've forgotten that God is a God of love, and so sent his Son to die in the place of sinners - God took the punishment we deserved upon himself - so that we could be saved from Hell. The Bible teaches that we can't deal with our own sin - we're already guilty, and no number of good deeds will cancel that out, leaving us completely stuck if we consider only God's justice. But because of his love, we have Jesus, and the promise that he'll deal with our sin if we will trust him.

Similarly, to argue solely from the position that God is love is to forget that he is a God of justice, that he will not let evil continue and will deal with it as it deserves.

Although the ideas of God's love and God's justice might seem to conflict, they are not irreconcilable. So often in the Bible we see both of these parts of God's being expressed at the same time, most spectacularly when Jesus, God the Son, died on the cross, God the Father's justice falling on him because of his love for us.

Strange though it may at first seem, then, God's sending people to Hell is a result of love as well as justice. God loves his creations, and he will not let evil afflict us forever. He has created Hell to deal with evil, a place where it can be locked away from his people for all time. Thus, those who persist in evil and will not turn away must also be sent there. Don't think that God gets any joy or even satisfaction out of this - look at (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ezekiel%2033:11;&version=31;) Ezekiel 33:11. Those who choose to die, as that verse puts it, will be separated from God.

Here, then, is also the answer to the question 'Why doesn't a God of love put an end to suffering?' It is because the end to suffering is God's justice - the end of this world, and the punishment of those who persisted in evil and would not turn back to God. In his love, God delays his judgement, to give his creations more time to turn back to him, to trust in Jesus to take the punishment for them, and so to escape God's wrath. It is because God loves us that the suffering in the world, which has its root in us, continues.

Indeed the suffering has another purpose - precisely that of bringing us back to God. Read (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=hosea%202:2-13;&version=31;) Hosea 2:2-13 - because Israel turned from God, he will take away all the blessings he has given her so that she will realise they came from him, and that she needs to turn back to him. And when she does, God's tender love will be seen - (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=hosea%202:14-23;&version=31;) Hosea 2:14-23. Hosea 2 is a beautiful chapter, showing God's loving discipline to bring people back to himself, and his incredible blessings upon those who do. But to share in them, we must turn back to him.

There's a sermon that was preached at my church recently on Hosea 2 (http://audio.stag.org/mp3/200710071700.mp3) here if you want to hear something rather more substantial on it, and the question of why God doesn't just fix the world. 3.8MB, just over half an hour long including a lengthy reading at the beginning (Hosea 2:2-3:5).

fett on 3/12/2007 at 22:06

Quote Posted by Kuuso

There's a really long answer for this, but in a nutshell, the OT starts focusing on the Hebrew (Jewish) people in about Genesis chapter 12 when God selects or 'calls' Abraham to father a nation that God will use to reveal himself fully to the world. Think about it: From the Jews come not only the biblical text, but most of our modern commentary on that text, plus the supposed Messiah who saves man from eternal separation from God. So the focus of the Bible is primarily on Israel and the after effects of the Messiah that came into the world through the bloodline of their patriarch (Abraham).

Let me restate lesson 1: Gentiles are dumbasses. The reason Western society doesn't get the import of the bible as a piece of literature (much less as a social or spiritual commentary) is because its culture, original language, and figures are foreign to us. Translating it into English has only served to broaden that gap - not close it, unfortunately. The bible is not, nor does it claim to be, addressed to the United States, yet in typical fashion, Westerners think the world revolves around them and therefore miss the entire point. Aside from a few books (Jonah, Nahum, John, Luke, Acts, and some of Paul's letters) the collection is written for and by Jews who had a common liturgic language. The bible isn't meant to be easily understood outside of that context. Therefore Jesus' declaration that only those who 'seek' (meaning to desperately search out) the truth will find it. In other words, the high points don't appear on a bulleted list on the 2nd page.

Remember what I said in an earlier post - the events of the OT, both miraculous and mundane served a purpose beyond the events themselves. They were generally for the sole purpose of preserving the Jewish commonwealth from which Messiah would come. Once that purpose has been accomplished (which most Christians and the NT writers certainly believe it was), there is no more need for miraculous, earth-shattering events whereby god intervenes to save a nation (parting of seas, decimating armies, annihilating enemy armies with the jawbone of an ass, etc.)

In fact, God does say at the end of the Bible that there is nothing more to say since all has been revealed in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. The closing statements of Jesus and all four gospel writers make this perfectly clear - the rest of the NT concerns either the life of Paul, or commentary on the OT and the gospels. Revelation is prophetic and therefore doesn't speak much to the time between the ascension of Christ and the rise of the psuedo (Anti) Christ. Once the earthly work of Mesiach is completed, there is nothing left to say on the matter except 'wait for my return.'