gradyll said:
↑
I was asked to move this thread, so that atheists could reply so here it is:
Some people can makes sense of annihilation. But when it comes to hell fire,
and reading the sheer number of verses in the Gospels (by Christ himself) about "where the worm never dies, and the smoke of their torment." It can be alot to take in initially. I sympathize with that viewpoint. But as we show here, it would be the wrong viewpoint.
I feel that conscious eternal damnation in Hell is justified myself.
see if you had the ability to read every thought of every human, every lie, every deception, every angry word, every hate filled word, and the sheer number of them you would think twice about calling God unjust for eternal hell.
It should be quite obvious that there is an eternal punishment and that universalism is nothing more than a hopeful wish. The Universalists are not justified in picking and choosing the meaning of a word based upon their interpretations of "aion" that suits them and depending on which verse is used.
Unquenchable fire, Gehenna, where worm does not die.......Isaiah 66 and Mark 9 are rather sobering passages concerning Israel and Jerusalem.......
Also, the Jewish audience Jesus spoke to about " gehenna" would have known where Jesus was talking about in relation to Jerusalem......
Matthew 23:33 "Serpents! offspring<1081> of vipers! how? ye may be fleeing from the judging<2920> of
the Gehenna<1067>
Mat 23:37
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her!
Luk 13:34
“
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her!.............
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Isaiah 66 YLT
YLT)
Isa 66:24
21“And I will select some of them as priests and Levites,” says the LORD.
22“For just as the new heavens and the new earth,
c which I will make, will endure before Me,”declares the LORD, “so your descendants and your name will endure.
23From one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, all mankind will come to worship before Me,” says the LORD.
24“As they go forth, they will see the corpses of the men who have rebelled against Me; for their worm will never die, their fire will never be quenched,d and they will be a horror to all mankind.”
Mark 9:
42and whoever may cause to stumble one of the little ones believing in me, better is it for him if a millstone is hanged about his neck, and he hath been cast into the sea.
43‘And if thy hand may cause thee to stumble, cut it off; it is better for thee maimed to enter into the life, than having the two hands, to go away to
the gehenna,
to the fire —
the unquenchable —
44where there worm is not dying, and the fire is not being quenched.
45‘And if thy foot may cause thee to stumble, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter into the life lame, than having the two feet to be cast to
the gehenna, t
o the fire — the unquenchable —
46where there worm is not dying, and the fire is not being quenched. 47And if thine eye may cause thee to stumble, cast it out; it is better for thee one-eyed to enter into the reign of God, than having two eyes, to be cast to
the gehenna of the fire —
48where their worm is not dying, and the fire is not being quenched;
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Pulpit Commentary
This is a knowledge which the redeemed must have, and which may well produce a salutary effect on them, intensifying their gratitude and maintaining in them a spirit of reverent fear.
Their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched (comp.
Mark 9:44, 46, 48). It cannot be by chance that the evangelical prophet concludes his glorious prophecy with this terrible note of warning. Either he was divinely directed thus to terminate his teaching, or he felt the need that there was of his emphasizing all the many warnings dispersed throughout his "book" by a final, never-to-be-forgotten picture. The undying worm and the quenchless fire - images introduced by him - became appropriated thenceforth to the final condition of impenitent sinners (Jud. 16:17; Ecclus. 7:17), and were even adopted by our Lord himself in the same connection (
Mark 9.). The incongruity of the two images shows that they are not to be understood literally; but both alike imply everlasting continuance, and are incompatible with either of the two modern heresies of universalism or annihilationism. They shall be an abhorring unto all flesh (comp.
Daniel 12:2, where the word deraon is rendered "contempt"). The Jewish rabbis regarded it as anomalous that any portion of Scripture should conclude with words of ill omen. When, therefore, this chapter was read in the synagogue, or the last of Ecclesiastes, or Lamentations, or Malachi, they directed that after the reading of the last verse, the last verse but one should he repeated, to correct the sad impression that would otherwise have been left upon the mind. But Isaiah thought it salutary to leave this sad impression (comp.
Isaiah 48:22;
Isaiah 57:21).
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Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
24. And they (the worshippers) shall go forth] to some place in the vicinity of Jerusalem, no doubt
the Valley of Hinnom, Nehemiah 11:30; cf.
Joshua 15:8;
Joshua 18:16;
2 Chronicles 28:3;
Jeremiah 7:32;
2 Kings 23:10. (See below.)
the men that rebelled against me] The apostates so often referred to in the last two chapters.
for their worm shall not die, &c.] (see below)
Jdt 16:17;
Sir 7:17;
Mark 9:44 ff.
an abhorring] The Hebrew word (dçrâ’ôn) occurs again only in
Daniel 12:2.
This verse is the basis of the later Jewish conception of Gehenna as the place of everlasting punishment (see Salmond, Christian Doctrine of Immortality, pp. 355–360). Gehenna is the Hebrew Gê-Hinnôm (Valley of Hinnom), the place where of old human sacrifices were offered to Molech (
Jeremiah 7:31 f., et passim), and for this reason desecrated by king Josiah (
2 Kings 23:10). Afterwards it became a receptacle for filth and refuse, and Rabbinical tradition asserts that it was the custom to cast out unclean corpses there, to be burned or to undergo decomposition...................
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Jer 7:32
“Therefore behold, the days are coming,” says the LORD, “when it will no more be called Tophet, or
the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; for they will bury in Tophet until there is no room.
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