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Will you let the bible ...

RamiC

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People who say that God will torture sinners in the Lake of Fire fail to understand: sin is its own torture.
:clap:This bit needs to be emphasized. :clap:

"Do as you are told or else..." is simple matter of power over, what bullies want.

"I love you, and I understand how life works, because I am the Creator, so please stay in touch and accept my knowledge, but I would never force you." There is the reason not to sin, suffering from sin is a direct consequence of sin, because God is love.
 
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bbbbbbb

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Why conjure the severe (or severest scenarios) to apply? None of us really can travel to a black hole, it is really more possible that a black hole would be traveling toward us. If so we could not escape. And from what is known with physics we could not survive that. Modern depictions of hell that I find from anyone are not what I would speak of as being reality. Fair judgment could be applied to all, of humans. Everyone would be without excuse for not looking, earlier people are included, There must be some from earlier times that we who would be saved will find have been saved too. The difference since the gospel of Christ has been revealed is that its message is available and being spread, for much more opportunity to all those reached to respond, along with all that is made known of Christ provided to them. Earlier individuals might have only responded for themselves without a message from them that would have others more likely to come to that than they already were. Abraham would have been pretty unique with effectively spreading faith of the one true God who should be trusted. A few others who were earlier were shown doing that too, still.

With fairness of justice in judgment from God it would be fairly applied to those apart from deliverance in Christ, who bore all of what is needed for any who come to him, that they are covered in him. As God he could bear all of that, which no mere human could do, so that deliverance is available. Conjuring the most extreme sentences imagined for others would not dispense the fairness in judgment that God can and will apply to any that remain apart from the deliverance provided. The fairness amounts to the different degrees any will suffer throughout the afterlife they come to, when there is the judgment for them, that will be with fair justice to them, for each.
Who knows, indeed? We can only speculate based on the paltry number of verses in the Bible. I, for one, hardly wish this fate on anyone, even the vilest person living. You did pose the apparent conundrum of an eternal fate of being in an outer darkness as well as in a lake of fire. The God of the universe is quite capable of doing anything, I believe, and to transport a soul to one of the vast number of black holes is hardly beyond His power. The only object in the universe of which I am aware which is intensely and infinitely dark, as well as incalculably hot at the same time is a black hole. Apart from His mercy and grace in Jesus Christ, we have no hope at all.
 
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FredVB

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I think the conundrum I posted is only so for literalist views of anything in Bible passages that are as likely symbolic. The book of Revelation is full of symbolic passages, and much of what will be said of what is in any afterlife would be, as any of that goes outside of experiences any have in this world. This applies to the afterlife of the saved, too. Eye has not seen, not ear heard, not have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love God. 1 Corinthians 2:9
 
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bbbbbbb

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I think the conundrum I posted is only so for literalist views of anything in Bible passages that are as likely symbolic. The book of Revelation is full of symbolic passages, and much of what will be said of what is in any afterlife would be, as any of that goes outside of experiences any have in this world. This applies to the afterlife of the saved, too. Eye has not seen, not ear heard, not have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love God. 1 Corinthians 2:9
That, my friend, is actually yet another aspect which has caused all manner of division within Christianity. The interpretation of Revelation is a minefield, indeed. That there are very obviously many things in it which are symbolic and allegorical is obvious to everyone except to those at the very extreme end of literalism. The difficulty is determining whether or not passages which could be taken at face value are, in fact, literal or symbolic or even both, has vexed Bible commentators since, at least, the earliest centuries of Christianity. It is no small difficulty to overcome to avoid reading into the passage one's own extrabiblical thoughts and beliefs. A classic case is the woman in chapter 12 who, according to Roman Catholics, is none other to Mary, but for Protestants is the personification of God's wife, Israel, who gave birth to her son, the Church.
 
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