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In that case, can I ask you about the question in this thread?All it says is that we can not imagine the things God has in store for us. The bble does give hints here and there---it does say we will build houses, we will plant things, there wil be animals, there will be no 0cean, but nothing states that there will not be large lakes. At the first creation God made animals. It says the lion will lie down with the Lamb. God instructed Adam and Eve to tend the garden, so we will have gardens. It is fun to think of all the possibilties. I oftern think about it, usually when I'm in bed, I fall asleep thinking about things we will be able to do. It says we will drink the juice of the vines, so there must be cups and plates and utensils---I've allways had an interst in pottery making and hope I get to learn that. We have no end of things to do-God means for us to be productive. Not sitting around on clouds playing our harps--maybe learn to paint---besides stick figures! We can develop any skill GBod has gi8ven us over centuries. \We wiolo have a country h90me and a city h9ome at least---Jezsus said He has gone to prepasre a place for us. We willo be i9n heaven for those 1000 years first, so we have the city homes Jesus Himself has made for us. Then we come back to earth---Jesus remakes it, and we get to build our own home, or homes, wherever we want. Some things we don't know---will we be able to cook or is everything just plucked off the trees and vines ---I love to cook and wonder about that. And then therer would be pots and pans---I'll take a gold and copper set --- I love to bake, wonder if we will be able to --which then involves wheat and making flour---I can go on all night about it!!---diamond door knobs!! You can get very crazy with this---it does say the streets are paved with gold!
Honestly - yes. no support at all. I don't think you can make a case for the human soul being split into good and evil
and have never heard any Christians say such a thing.
Sounds wonderful, but would I be able to play golf? Does heaven have golf courses? Would hate to think I had to spend eternity without getting at least a few rounds in. That wouldn't be heaven, that would be hell!All it says is that we can not imagine the things God has in store for us. The bble does give hints here and there---it does say we will build houses, we will plant things, there wil be animals, there will be no 0cean, but nothing states that there will not be large lakes. At the first creation God made animals. It says the lion will lie down with the Lamb. God instructed Adam and Eve to tend the garden, so we will have gardens. It is fun to think of all the possibilties. I oftern think about it, usually when I'm in bed, I fall asleep thinking about things we will be able to do. It says we will drink the juice of the vines, so there must be cups and plates and utensils---I've allways had an interst in pottery making and hope I get to learn that. We have no end of things to do-God means for us to be productive. Not sitting around on clouds playing our harps--maybe learn to paint---besides stick figures! We can develop any skill GBod has gi8ven us over centuries. \We wiolo have a country h90me and a city h9ome at least---Jezsus said He has gone to prepasre a place for us. We willo be i9n heaven for those 1000 years first, so we have the city homes Jesus Himself has made for us. Then we come back to earth---Jesus remakes it, and we get to build our own home, or homes, wherever we want. Some things we don't know---will we be able to cook or is everything just plucked off the trees and vines ---I love to cook and wonder about that. And then therer would be pots and pans---I'll take a gold and copper set --- I love to bake, wonder if we will be able to --which then involves wheat and making flour---I can go on all night about it!!---diamond door knobs!! You can get very crazy with this---it does say the streets are paved with gold!
In that case, can I ask you about the question in this thread?
How will you feel if whatever human you love most in the whole world goes to hell while you are in heaven? While you are spending eternity doing all these wonderful things, how will you feel to know that the person you love is roasting on a spit forever?
Sounds wonderful, but would I be able to play golf? Does heaven have golf courses? Would hate to think I had to spend eternity without getting at least a few rounds in. That wouldn't be heaven, that would be hell!
I think, Halbhh (and @True Counterphobia may be interested in this as well) that you have misinterpreted Isaiah. You have to read it in context, and understand what he was saying. He was not prophesying Jesus Christ's second coming. He was not talking about Jesus at all. Isaiah was talking about the nation of Israel, not individual worshippers of God. He was saying that Israel's sins would be forgotten, and that God would forget and forgive all the things they had done wrong.
That aside, however, what you appear to believe is that in heaven, you will quite simply forget the sufferings of any loved ones you have who are in hell. Is that correct?
Just exactly what is your meaning with this?
I am being called? Why?
I think, Halbhh (and @True Counterphobia may be interested in this as well) that you have misinterpreted Isaiah. You have to read it in context, and understand what he was saying. He was not prophesying Jesus Christ's second coming. He was not talking about Jesus at all. Isaiah was talking about the nation of Israel, not individual worshippers of God. He was saying that Israel's sins would be forgotten, and that God would forget and forgive all the things they had done wrong.
That aside, however, what you appear to believe is that in heaven, you will quite simply forget the sufferings of any loved ones you have who are in hell. Is that correct?
Well, of course, as an atheist, I don't think there is a hell to describe in the first place.
And it's true, nobody I have ever met, read or heard of has been able to give a perfect description of hell.
However, many Christians have told me or written that hell is a Very Bad Place, in which the condemned soul will suffer endlessly. For the purposes of this thread, that would seem to be sufficient for me to ask Christians how they would feel if they were in heaven and loved ones were in hell.
Do you love all your neighbors? Most people fall short.and
That's nice. So that means I shall go to heaven, because I am an atheist who is a very loving person.
and
So if I understand correctly, you are saying that if you went to heaven and your loved ones - your little child, your mother, your best friend from childhood, whoever - went to hell, then you would either:
1. Completely forget about them, so that while they suffered for eternity you would be enjoying paradise.
2. Be happy that they went to hell, because you don't want them in heaven.
Is that correct?
The thing is, Isaiah was not a Christian. He was an Israelite. He was not preparing the world for Christianity. He had no ideas Christianity was coming. All he was doing was giving an inspirational message about how things looked bad for Israel at the time that he was speaking, but God would make the nation of his believers great again.I would ask you how you know Isaiah isn't actually talking about the new heavens and new earth which are mentioned in Revelation.
Did I make a joke, @Halbhh ? I see you have rated my post as funny.I think, Halbhh (and @True Counterphobia may be interested in this as well) that you have misinterpreted Isaiah. You have to read it in context, and understand what he was saying. He was not prophesying Jesus Christ's second coming. He was not talking about Jesus at all. Isaiah was talking about the nation of Israel, not individual worshippers of God. He was saying that Israel's sins would be forgotten, and that God would forget and forgive all the things they had done wrong.
That aside, however, what you appear to believe is that in heaven, you will quite simply forget the sufferings of any loved ones you have who are in hell. Is that correct?
I'm not sure that reading sympathetically is the right way to comprehend a difficult piece of text. I'd recommend reading critically, and considering context, as the keys to good reading.Full context and real listening is the only way to understand. Though I've read fully through Isaiah four times, I still humbly listen.
If you listen, you read sympathetically. It's the key to good reading.
I don't think that's what Isaiah was saying.I would need more, but no matter, that hasn't happened and propably won't.
This from post 56 seems to say it all:
No, I'm afraid I do not.Do you love all your neighbors? Most people fall short.
Did I make a joke, @Halbhh ? I see you have rated my post as funny.
I don't think that's what Isaiah was saying.
He was not a Christian, and he had no idea the Christians were coming. What he was talking about was how God would make Israel great again and how its sins would be forgiven and forgotten.
NB - this post is primarily directed to Christians who believe that a literal hell exists.
So where does that leave us? Christians themselves tell us that heaven is so hellish that to endure it, one’s memory of loved ones must be erased. Alternatively, one must be distracted, forever."
But don’t imagine God would actually solve the problem and eliminate the injustice of perpetual conscious torment in hell
In the end no one knows what he’ll is like. God has been irresponsibility vague on this issue, well on all issues. The proof is in the arguments and division between Christians on this and all issues.Hi all, I’m late to this discussion, since I’m new here. Only just got my 100 posts (go me!)
Interestingly, even though the essay that is the topic of discussion here mentions the “many Christian” thinkers who have pondered the nature of Hell, conspicuously absent are those who have argued for some limited, finite Hell. So, not denying that a Hell exists, just insisting that it must necessarily be finite in nature (with reasonable sentencing, possibility of parole, etc) And this would comprise a great many thinkers throughout the church’s long history. (See DB Hart’s recent book on this issue.) The author mentions Tertullian, Augustine, jumps ahead to Aquinas and then onto Edwards. And that’s about right. If he were to trouble himself with the much more voluminous ancient Christian East, he’d have had a harder time locating defenders of eternal-Hell.
“Christians tell us...” In one sense, some Evangelicals, with their commitment to the Augustinian vision of Hell are, like Aquinas himself, in a bit of a quandary. And although Craig is a prominent Christian apologist, he is very far from speaking for “Christianity.” His memory wipe idea sounds very magical and hints at a peculiar naïveté regarding the psychology of human persons, it seems. Once we begin to explore the human person with some depth, I think we arrive at a view of humanity that is very much mutually entangled, intertwined and co-identified. As in, we contribute to the building up of each other.
Every mother has a bit of her child in her, and every child, some of her mother within. Their very selves are entangled such that it can some times be difficult to identify where the consciousness of one precisely ends and the other’s begins. So we have expressions like, “the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree..” Something similar happens in various human relationships like spouses, siblings, best friends, etc. If this intermingled mutuality of personhood can be accepted, it becomes immediately evident that memory-wiping would be, quite literally, dehumanizing. To take away my memories of my child, which themselves form me at my very core, is to take away substantial portions of me. Keep up that process and you’ll have dwindled me down to nearly nothing, depending on how many close ones in my life didn’t make the cut.
Hell only becomes unjust if we commit ourselves to the Augustinian notions of it being forever and inescapable. Thankfully, plenty of St Augustine’s peers didn’t accept his views and had rather hopeful eschatological views like a final reuniting of the entire human race back to God, in the end (eg, St Gregory of Nyssa). To say nothing of the very many other ancient, medieval and contemporary scholars who have held similar views to St Gregory and have rejected the Augustinian vision (without rejecting Hell, per se).
But as Hans Urs Von Balthasar noted in his hopeful book on this subject, the shadow of Augustine has loomed very large over the Western church. On this issue today, we are still having a hard time breaking free from the great saint’s bleak vision of the afterlife. But the author’s criticisms really only apply to the Augustinian view of Hell. There is nothing particularly odd or shocking about an immediate state in the afterlife which would be punitive and/or rehabilitative for folks who have committed horrendous evils here and gotten away with them, so long as that state has an end.
God has been irresponsibility vague on this issue, well on all issues.
The proof is in the arguments and division between Christians on this and all issues.
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