Hell

Butch5 said:

That's the logical fallacy of the question begging epithet!

Click to expand...

So... altar calls are never question begging epithets?

It also does nothing to provide any evidence of a place called hell that is a place of eternal conscious torment.

Click to expand...

I agree.

Jane_the_Bane said:

Thatbrian, you misunderstand my intention.
As you can tell by my opening post, I am quite aware of diverse interpretations of hell, including many that do not paint God in an altogether unfavourable light.
I am mystified by Christians who do believe in something along the lines of what I've sketched in the OP, and fail to comprehend how anybody could hold such beliefs without recognizing what this implies about their image of deity.

The answer I'm seeking is not so much about theology, but about understanding a certain kind of believer better. I'd like to believe that there's some kind of redeeming quality, some angle that'd reveal how I could respect them more.

Click to expand...

Hello. Have you ever looked at the parable/story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16?
It is about the only place in the NT that shows a specific person/people in "hell"
The audience this parable is spoken to are the 1st century Jews, and more importantly, directed at the corrupt murderous Judean Rulers.

Lazarus and the Rich Man - Here a little, there a little - Commentary

The parable of Lazarus and the rich man has been the foundation for many of the erroneous beliefs about "hell" within traditional Christianity. Some have viewed it not as a parable, but as a true story Yeshua told to give details about the punishment of sinners in hell. Yet a thorough, unbiased examination of this story will show that the generally accepted interpretations of this passage of Scripture are erroneous and misleading. In this article, we will go through the parable verse by verse to determine what the Messiah was truly teaching.

Those who insist that this is not a parable but a true, literal story Yeshua told to describe the condition of the lost in hell must overlook several facts to arrive at that conclusion.
First, Yeshua the Messiah never accuses the rich man of any sin. He is simply portrayed as a wealthy man who lived the good life.
Furthermore, Lazarus is never proclaimed to be a righteous man. He is just one who had the misfortune to be poor and unable to care for himself.
If this story is literal, then the logical implication is that all the rich are destined to burn in hell, while all the homeless and destitute will be saved. Does anyone believe this to be the case?

If hell is truly as it is pictured in this story, then the saved will be able to view the lost who are burning there.

Luke 16:
14 The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, also heard all these things, and they scoffed at Him. 15 He said to them, "You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts. For that which is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.

19"Now there was a certain rich man, and he was clothed in purple and fine linen, living in luxury every day. 20A certain beggar, named Lazarus, was laid at his gate, full of sores, 21and desiring to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table. Yes, even the dogs came and licked his sores. 22It happened that the beggar died, and that he was carried away by the angels to Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died, and was buried.
23In Hades, he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far off, and Lazarus at his bosom. 24He cried and said, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me! and send Lazarus! that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue! For I am in anguish in this flame.' 25"But Abraham said, 'Son, remember that you, in your lifetime, received your good things, and Lazarus, in the same way, bad things. But now here he is comforted and you are in anguish.
26Besides all this, between us and ye there is a great gulf fixed,
that those who want to pass from here to ye are not able, and that none may cross over from there to us.'
27"He said, 'I ask you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father's house; 28for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, so they won't also come into this place of torment.' 29"But Abraham said to him, 'They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.' 30"He said, 'No, father Abraham, but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.' 31"He said to him, 'If they don't listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if one rises from the dead.'"

Click to expand...

vs 26 The "great gulf" mentioned by Abraham is nothing less than God's blinding in this age of the Jews as a whole to the truth about their Messiah! It's not that the Jewish nation won't acknowledge Yeshua as the prophesied Messiah; they cannot recognize his true identity because of God's actions! Yet because of the Eternal Father's great mercy, this state of affairs will not last forever (Rom. 11:26).

vs 28 The fact that the rich man has five brothers is a vital clue to his true symbolic identity. Judah, the progenitor of the Jews, was the son of Jacob through Leah (Gen. 29:35). He had five full-blooded brothers: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Issachar, and Zebulun (Gen. 35:23).

While the significance of this seemingly pointless detail has been neglected by scholars throughout the centuries, you can be certain that it did not escape the notice of the Pharisees and scribes to which Yeshua was speaking. They thoroughly knew their history and were extremely proud of their heritage. Yeshua wanted those self-righteous Pharisees to know exactly who he was referring to with this parable. This detail cements the identity of the rich man as the House of Judah, the Jews!

If the Pharisees and scribes understood Yeshua's prophetic parable, it must have astonished and infuriated them. How could the Jews become alienated from God while the elect Gentiles became the "seed of Abraham"? The implication that the House of Judah and those called from the Gentile nations were to change places would have been almost impossible for the Pharisees and scribes to believe.

The Jews pictured by the rich man in this parable are in their present state because of their unbelief, which ultimately manifested itself in the rejection of the Messiah, Yeshua. Unfortunately, this parable shows that the punishment and testing they would undergo would not immediately lead them to Yeshua. Instead of calling on the Messiah, the rich man calls on his ancestor Abraham to help ease his suffering.
======================================
The Jewish Rulers is the only group in the NT that Jesus condemned to "GEHENNA"

Is the "GEHENNA" of Matt 23:33 the "LAKE OF FIRE" in Revelation? Poll thread

Matthew 23:
15 Woe to ye Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
That ye are going about the sea and the dry/xhran <3584> to make one proselyte,
and whenever he may be becoming, ye are making him a son of geennhV<1067> twofold-more of ye-selves
33 "Serpents! brood of vipers! how? ye may be fleeing from the judging of the geennhV <1067>

I find that videos can help explain some of the more difficult passages, especially to us "Gentile" Christians, since the majority of the NT is from the Hebrew OT scriptures. So that is in essence how I read it, thru "Hebrew" eyes.

.........................
.........................
Isa 66:24
And they have gone forth, And looked on the carcases of the men Who are transgressing against me, For their worm dieth not, And their fire is not quenched, And they have been an abhorrence to all flesh!
Mar 9:
44 where there worm is not dying, and the fire is not being quenched.
46 where there worm is not dying, and the fire is not being quenched.
48 where their worm is not dying, and the fire is not being quenched;

..........................

Working off your definition of the problem of hell it seems we could state it this way:

P1- God is all powerful
P2 - God can create a world in which everyone freely chooses to give his life to God and is saved (from P1)
P3 - God is all loving,
P4 - God prefers a world in which everyone freely chooses to give his life to God and be saved (from P3)
P5- People go to hell and are not saved
Therefore there is no all-powerful, all-loving God.

Jane_the_Bane said:

To me, such a conception of hell reflects *extremely* badly on the corresponding conception of deity, and no argument from authority ("who are YOU to question an all-powerful being?????") will resolve the matter.

Click to expand...

Attempt to poison the wells by demanding an anthropomorphic mischaracterisation of God like man. You have already stipulated some of God's omni characteristics, so we certainly can appeal to characteristics that are essential attributes of the being you are defaming.

No appeals to mystery will be offered but do you really think that your or any human concept of judgement is comparable to God's judgement based on 100% infallible knowledge of each individual's intent? So we will avoid appeals to mystery, but will not be boxed into false analogies that are anthropomorphic in nature.

Jane_the_Bane said:

like torturing a dog with a branding iron for its failure to comprehend algebra.

Click to expand...

appeal to emotion and false analogy

Jane_the_Bane said:

setting up an eight-meter pit (with poisoned spikes at the bottom) for people to jump over when you *know* they'll never get further than 6 m.

Click to expand...

appeal to emotion and false analogy

Jane_the_Bane said:

extending a pardon to all who wave the right party membership card

Click to expand...

appeal to snobbery and false analogy

Jane_the_Bane said:

being sent to Cosmic Auschwitz

Click to expand...

appeal to emotion and false analogy

Jane_the_Bane said:

In short: how do you manage to reconcile this belief with anything remotely resembling justice?

Click to expand...

Good question.

If we can separate the emotional and fallacious appeals from the claims in the argument I presented above you will still have a structure to work with that is both an accurate representation of the problem and properly brings the potential incoherency to the fore sans the propaganda.

@LittleLambofJesus, Is there some reason you resurrected a 3-yo dead thread?

Tinker Grey said:

@LittleLambofJesus, Is there some reason you resurrected a 3-yo dead thread?

Click to expand...

Hi TG
I was going to make a new one, but thought it may be better to bring this one up.
There could be a lot of new members that might be interested in some of the past posts. I know I am.

P1- God is all powerful
P2 - God can create a world in which everyone freely chooses to give his life to God and is saved (from P1)
P3 - God is all loving,
P4 - God prefers a world in which everyone freely chooses to give his life to God and be saved (from P3)
P5- People go to hell and are not saved
Therefore there is no all-powerful, all-loving God.
P1-4 would all be agreed on by all Christians.

And P5 is claimed in the NT and warned about numerous times by NT authors and Jesus.

So we better find a hidden premise somewhere or it seems that we have a sound argument and true premises for believing that an all-powerful, all-loving God exists.

But wait...what was that last feature in your OP?

"How do we reconcile this belief with anything remotely resembling justice?"

Justice is the key here.

Justice has several elements worth analyzing:
Who gets to determine what is moral standard?
To whom is the obligation of moral action owed?

Firstly, when one is punished in our world there are a lot of things that can go wrong ending up producing an injustice:

1 - Prosecutors, or police, or witnesses could lie resulting in a false accusation and punishment of innocent people

2 - Judge could be corrupt or inept leading to misjudging the law and injuring the accused

3 - Jury could be uneducated and intellectually lazy and not have much in the way of common sense much less anything approaching rationality and return a wrong verdict

But God has perfect knowledge.

He knows what the standard is, it comes from his moral nature so he knows the depth, not just type of infraction.

God knows how much a person knew before they decided to commit the crime so no dogs being asked to do algebra here.

God is the injured party. Remember that you are a product of design in this world that God made. The fact that you don't operate the way you were designed to operate is a function of your own choice.

Now even if we grant original sin (not granted by all Christians)
we still don't have a 8m jump across snake pit because all one needs to do to get across said pit is:

"that if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10For with your heart you believe and are justified, and with your mouth you confess and are saved." Romans 10:9,10

Good gosh now that wasn't nearly as difficult as jumping over an 8m pit, with poisonous snakes no less, was it?

The Bible affirms that God is Just:

"Do not be deceived; God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction. The one who sows to please God's Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life" (Gal. 6.7-8). The prophet Ezekiel declared, "The soul that sins shall die" (Ez. 18.4), and the apostle Paul echoes, "The wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6.23). You reap what you sow. You reap what you sow. This is justice in its purest form.

And that we can't approach God with our good works says nothing about God as long as he gives us a way in which to avoid having to receive justice.

Now it is also the case that one can go out on Youtube and find people who claimed to be atheists, died and went to hell, and then met Jesus who then offered them a chance to follow him.

This is not the common Christian understanding but it is data and one wonders why would they lie?

So when we add the following premises:

P-6 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life

P-7 The only people in Hell will be the ones like Richard Dawkins who say that no matter what the evidence they will never bow the knee to God.

Then we certainly have a defeater for the P2

That is man's free will seems to be a necessary condition for the type of world that God wants to create.

So it is incoherent for God to FORCE everyone to FREELY choose to be in relationship with him.

So the argument fails based on premise 2.

God's omnipotence is defined as him being able to actualize all possible worlds. He can do all things that are logically possible to do.

He can't make square circles or married bachelors or determine people's free choices.

We owe God a moral obligation due to his A: being the origin of the Good
B: being the origin of humans who could fulfill their obligation

God has provided a way of escape for every human through Jesus Christ and his work on the cross on our behalf.

The only persons who will be in Hell are those who hate God, don't want anything to do with serving or obeying him, and they will get what they want.

LittleLambofJesus said:

Hi TG
I was going to make a new one, but thought it may be better to bring this one up.
There could be a lot of new members that might be interested in some of the past posts. I know I am.

Click to expand...

Sorry. It's a pet peeve of mine. I see a "new" thread and then discover that it is, in fact, old. I feel like I've wasted my time. My preference is that one starts a new thread and, perhaps, references the old one.

But, I'm not in a position to make requests.

Feel free to ignore this.

Tinker Grey said:

Sorry. It's a pet peeve of mine. I see a "new" thread and then discover that it is, in fact, old. I feel like I've wasted my time. My preference is that one starts a new thread and, perhaps, references the old one.i

But, I'm not in a position to make requests.
Feel free to ignore this.

Click to expand...

Hi TG. No worries.
I just read the SOP for this board.

Jane_the_Bane started this thread, and from what I understand, it should be non-Christians that start threads on this board for Christians to respond.
[I believe I got that right.]
In which case, do you want to start new one?

Non-Christians: Read and Agree before Posting

Ran77 said:

I also have a question. The rules state:

"As a general guide for posting topics, non-Christians who are challenging Christianity should offer arguments as to why Christian beliefs are incorrect or untrue."

Rather than start with a specific argument as to why Christian beliefs are incorrect can I post a question to get the Christian belief on a topic first and then proceed to offer my arguments as to why I find them incorrect?

Click to expand...

LittleLambofJesus said:

Hi TG. No worries.
I just read the SOP for this board.

Jane_the_Bane started this thread, and from what I understand, it should be non-Christians that start threads on this board for Christians to respond.
[I believe I got that right.]
In which case, do you want to start new one?

Non-Christians: Read and Agree before Posting

Click to expand...

A fair response.

I'm not interested enough in the topic to start a thread. (I just like to see what others are up to.)

It seems other Christians start threads here--there are several on the front page as we speak. I wouldn't worry a whole lot about it.

OTOH, as I said a moment ago, your response is fair. You are operating within the stated SOP.

Carry on.

duplicate

Transferring conversation from a different thread...

InterestedAtheist said:

Interesting point. Obviously, I do think "emotional appeal" is a logical fallacy - and yet...
When it comes to the case of saying "Do you think that this person, or any person, deserves to be tortured, in the most horrible ways, for eternity...
Well, I have to say, "Are you mad? Nobody deserves that!"

Would you disagree? If so, why?

Click to expand...

Nobody deserves eternal punishment? Are you claiming that no human being has done anything that would merit eternal punishment? I'm still trying to understand your objection.

zippy2006 said:

Transferring conversation from a different thread...



Nobody deserves eternal punishment? Are you claiming that no human being has done anything that would merit eternal punishment? I'm still trying to understand your objection.

Click to expand...

The only person that would deserve eternal punishment is one that spent eternity doing evil! Even Hitler doesn't merit eternal torture. After a few hundred years, one would tire of hearing him scream.

Jane_the_Bane said:

Just punishment is not about "deserving it". That's revenge, and it just perpetuates a cycle of violence.
The most common purpose of punishment is (re-)socialisation, or - a testament to our relative helplessness - protecting society from those we cannot safely release without potential harm to others.
We may also compel an arsonist to pay for the damages he caused, so that the burned-down houses might be restored.

Eternal damnation serves none of these functions, and bears no commection to a viable concept of justice. God needs no preternatural prisons to protect people, re-socialisation is an impossibility if the culprit is kept there eternally, and not even a single victim of a mass murderer is brought back or recompensated by torturing the offending party.

Also, if we go with "sola fide", heaven will be filled with German protestants who participated in the holocaust, while the vast majority of murdered Jews, Roma, homosexuals, communists and so forth will be in hell because they "denied Jesus".

Click to expand...

so when someone gets punished for raping and killing a pregnant mother, the courts are showing revenge? I don't think so, I believe the court is showing justice. Not revenge.

zippy2006 said:

Nobody deserves eternal punishment? Are you claiming that no human being has done anything that would merit eternal punishment? I'm still trying to understand your objection.

Click to expand...

As human beings we are bounded in both time and place. That is to say, we are finite. On the other hand we think of God as completely unbounded. God exists outside of both time and space. God is present everywhere and at all times. That is to say, God is infinite. This is the orthodox theistic understanding of God. To compare the finite to the infinite is beyond our human comprehension. Even to compare a grain of sand to Mount Everest falls far, far, far short. All of this brings up a number of questions in my mind.

The first question being “How is it even possible for a finite creature to offend an infinite God?” Could a grain of sand offend Mount Everest?

The second question being “Even if it were possible for the finite to offend the infinite, would the infinite punishment of a finite creature be just?” I will attempt to craft an analogy. You are in a park enjoying a picnic lunch when you glance down and notice an ant crawling across your sandwich. You are offended. How do you react? You have a number of options. You could ignore the ant. You could brush the ant away. You could move to a different location. You could kill the ant. You could kill the entire ant colony. You could capture the ant and confine it and proceed to torture it for several days until it finally dies. That last option is quite inadequate as a comparison to hell because hell is infinite in duration whereas the ant can only be tortured for a finite length of time.

To me the concept of hell flies in the face of any concept of a just and compassionate God. Hell would seem to be an entirely human invention based on a vindictive concept of retributory justice. Perhaps we have the wrong idea of hell. Perhaps we have the wrong idea of justice. Perhaps we have the wrong idea of God. I completely reject the concept of hell as it is traditionally understood in most Christian churches.

Over 50 years ago during a spiritual retreat, the leader (a Jesuit priest) tried to envision eternity in this way: "Imagine the Himalayan mountain range, the most massive range in the world, standing in places almost six miles high. Once every 100 years a butterfly wafts over them and strikes a rock with its wing. When those butterflies have worn the Himalayas down till they are as flat as Saskatchewan, then the first fraction of a second of eternity will have passed." Eternity is totally beyond the capacity of the human mind to comprehend! Now imagine a condemned soul suffering the most agonizing possible pain continuously for all eternity. Got the image? I certainly have! And it is an image that I find totally incompatible with the notion of a loving and compassionate God. A God who could inflict such a punishment on even the most vile and evil human being would not really be worthy of our respect, our worship or our love. I do, however, believe very strongly in God's justice but even more strongly in God's love and compassion. I will leave it with confidence in God's care.


When most modern Christians think of hell, they without thinking almost always have Dante's lurid medieval fiction in mind. Hell is never mentioned in the Bible --- no, not even once. Sheole, Ghenna and Hades are but none of them carry the freight of hell. Hell is not a Biblical doctrine but rather is a conflation of all the understandings above.

Jane_the_Bane said:

If the point of the punishment is hurting the culprit, and that suffering is an end instead of a means, then yes: it is revenge. Socially accepted, legally regulated, but still recognizably revenge.
Outside of sinister theocracies, totalitarian states, and a few backwaters, there are few societies which embrace that kind of punishment. Torture has been outlawed in most places, so have dismemberment and executions, and prisons commonly serve the double agenda of keeping dangerous people away from the general populace, and trying to redeem them for a re-integration to society when their sentence is over.
Prison systems that focus on humiliating, demeaning and dehumanizing inmates produce the highest recidivity rates, because the criminals have learned to act like the beasts they were treated as.

Click to expand...

what makes you think hell is demeaning, or dehumanizing? As far as recidivity rates are concerned: The gospel has changed more lives than prison systems. So I don't understand your point.

Jane_the_Bane said:

If the point of the punishment is hurting the culprit, and that suffering is an end instead of a means, then yes: it is revenge. Socially accepted, legally regulated, but still recognizably revenge.
Outside of sinister theocracies, totalitarian states, and a few backwaters, there are few societies which embrace that kind of punishment. Torture has been outlawed in most places, so have dismemberment and executions, and prisons commonly serve the double agenda of keeping dangerous people away from the general populace, and trying to redeem them for a re-integration to society when their sentence is over.
Prison systems that focus on humiliating, demeaning and dehumanizing inmates produce the highest recidivity rates, because the criminals have learned to act like the beasts they were treated as.

Click to expand...

I find it troubling that in an analysis of criminal justice, you do not mention the fact that there is a victim even once. Our concerns are isolating dangerous people, potentially reintegrating them, but the wronged party does not enter into the equation at all, except perhaps in terms of economic restitution, since in our capitalistic society all wrongs can be set right by throwing money at them.

Retributive justice actually is a legitimate aspect of criminal law, and not simply in totalitarian states. This doesn't require torture, prison abuse, and other horrors, but I do not think you can lay claim to an enlightened concept of justice while ignoring that there are in fact debts that need to be paid--and not simply with a fine. This focus on the criminal's rehabilitation to the complete exclusion of the actual crime they've committed strikes me as dehumanizing to the victims.

I think you need a more balanced approach to criminal justice, one that doesn't erase the victim from the picture almost entirely. It isn't justice to pretend nothing happened.

On a related note, I wonder what you would even make of white collar crime, where there is no violence. Should we fine corrupt officials and not make them serve any prison time because there is no risk of physical harm? Perhaps force them to attend classes on professional responsibility which they will no doubt ignore entirely? I don't know how you could make sense of prison time for financial crimes at all while avoiding the notion of punishment.