The only way to know God exists is by him proving it to you

[awitch]

What if i told you there are cartoons in the next life? Would ya believe then?

Ah yes, Ned Flanders meets Veggie Tales.

I doubt they would be any good given how much Christian groups rail against cartoons. Pokemon is about demons! Frozen will turn your daughters into lesbians! Legend of Kora has a bisexual character! (spoilers), Voltron has a sort of trans character! (more spoilers), Rick & Morty uses bad language! Loud House has a married gay couple!

Besides, Mel Blanc would be in hell and I'd rather hang out with him.

 

[ImAllLikeOkWaitWat]

Ah yes, Ned Flanders meets Veggie Tales.

I doubt they would be any good given how much Christian groups rail against cartoons. Pokemon is about demons! Frozen will turn your daughters into lesbians! Legend of Kora has a bisexual character! (spoilers), Voltron has a sort of trans character! (more spoilers), Rick & Morty uses bad language! Loud House has a married gay couple!

Besides, Mel Blanc would be in hell and I'd rather hang out with him.

Lets say there is no hell and just a second eternal death. Does this make you less likely to think you have the backup plan of being tortured for eternity if you are wrong? This isn't by any means a way of trying to scare you but to tell you the truth. Hell isn't what you think it is or has been taught by a lot of people. God doesn't have a place for torturing people for eternity. If you got rid of that idea maybe you could see God like I do. You could see that he really is good and wants whats best for all of us. Of course I don't believe one could believe in the christian God by fear and i'm definitely not trying to get you to fear what you don't believe but just trying to spread some truth.

If you watch that video you will see that hell is not a place of eternal torment.

 

[cloudyday2]

@ImAllLikeOkWaitWhat , you weren't asking me, but there is a problem with the annihilation idea. Each of us is interconnected. For example, when I am with certain old friends, I experience parts of my personality that I do not experience with other people. If those old friends are annihilated, then part of me will be annihilated with them. Plus I will feel sadness. If God erases my memory to remove the sadness, then He will erase part of me. Of course, life and death go hand-in-hand. As I grow, the old parts of me die and new parts are born.

Personally, I think universalism is the only reasonable theology for Christianity.

 

[ImAllLikeOkWaitWat]

@ImAllLikeOkWaitWhat , you weren't asking me, but there is a problem with the annihilation idea. Each of us is interconnected. For example, when I am with certain old friends, I experience parts of my personality that I do not experience with other people. If those old friends are annihilated, then part of me will be annihilated with them. Plus I will feel sadness. If God erases my memory to remove the sadness, then He will erase part of me. Of course, life and death go hand-in-hand. As I grow, the old parts of me die and new parts are born.

Personally, I think universalism is the only reasonable theology for Christianity.

The problem with universalism is although it sounds nice is that it would make God unjust if he let some of the most wicked sinners and just people who rejected the payment of sins from Jesus Christ, have eternal life. I personally have no problem with universalism and wouldn't care if the hitlers stalins had eternal life. But I think its not what the bible teaches and is unlikely to be true if God is a just God which I believe he is. But if God said all people have salvation I think he would be just in doing so because who am I to question the creator of justice and fairness. He knows better than I.

Also I think there is a flaw in your objection to annihilation. You seem to think you are your old friends but you are not your personality and you are separate from your friends. You can exist without your friends existing. Also with your new resurrected body and with it a new mind you won't feel sadness because you will have understanding that you currently in your limited understanding don't have. Make sense? If you understood completely why your old friends were annihilated there would be no sadness. There will be a second death and it is one to avoid for sure.

 

[awitch]

Lets say there is no hell and just a second eternal death. Does this make you less likely to think you have the backup plan of being tortured for eternity if you are wrong? This isn't by any means a way of trying to scare you but to tell you the truth. Hell isn't what you think it is or has been taught by a lot of people. God doesn't have a place for torturing people for eternity. If you got rid of that idea maybe you could see God like I do. You could see that he really is good and wants whats best for all of us. Of course I don't believe one could believe in the christian God by fear and i'm definitely not trying to get you to fear what you don't believe but just trying to spread some truth.

If you watch that video you will see that hell is not a place of eternal torment.

He mentions Revelations 20:14 where the Lake of Fire is the second death, but nowhere does it say eternal.

But just 4 lines before that in Revelation 20:10 it explicitly says,
"And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever."

It still just boils down to speculation and wishful thinking.

 

[ImAllLikeOkWaitWat]

He mentions Revelations 20:14 where the Lake of Fire is the second death, but nowhere does it say eternal.

But just 4 lines before that in Revelation 20:10 it explicitly says,
"And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever."

It still just boils down to speculation and wishful thinking.

The second death is the final death. It seems you don't think the bible can be understood or that since there are multiple understandings theres no way to find out the truth. I think if you believed there was a way to find the truth you would believe in the bible. There is an answer to every contradiction you find. Instead of finding something that seems to contradict it would be best to dig deeper and find out the solution to the contradiction. John in revelation spoke in a lot of figurative language and expressions so its a difficult read to know when he is being literal or not and I think a lot of people just reading it will be confused by 20:10 and then seeing 20:14 talking about the second death.

The second death is eternal there is nothing left after the second death. I'm sure there are others here who could explain what seems like an apparent contradiction better than me but all of the contradictions that I have seen nonbelievers bring up have reasonable answers for. If they didn't christianity would be dead.

 

[Wordkeeper]

Do civil rights not matter to you?
Does your environment not matter to you?
Does your family not matter to you?
Do you not matter to your employer?

When you pass, these things are of no benefit to you. When those who inherit them pass, they stop being beneficial to them too.

Countless individuals and groups have labored for stuff that were soon forgotten or found inconsequential after they passed.

Finally, the consensus was nothing mattered.

Epicureans decided that the life was best spent in avoiding pain by finding happiness in things one enjoyed.

Stoics decided that happiness was found in being virtuous.

Most decided that life was too boring or painful for the payback received at the end of it all.

So then, how are your actions and the paybacks accrued different from these descriptions?

 

[awitch]

When you pass, these things are of no benefit to you.

That's right. They matter when I'm alive. And that's why life has value and meaning.[/QUOTE]

 

[cloudyday2]

The problem with universalism is although it sounds nice is that it would make God unjust if he let some of the most wicked sinners and just people who rejected the payment of sins from Jesus Christ, have eternal life.

That confuses me. Care to elaborate?

 

[Wordkeeper]

That's right. They matter when I'm alive. And that's why life has value and meaning.

[/QUOTE]

What matters is the end. At the end, you don't exist. Whatever you worked for is lost. What a waste of time and effort.

This is the summation of your world view.

 

[ImAllLikeOkWaitWat]

That confuses me. Care to elaborate?

With univeralism even the most wicked of sinners in this world like hitler stalin receive eternal life. That seems pretty inconsistent would God being a just Judge of salvation.


I see I wrote just people which was a typo. The point I was trying to make is one you are surely aware of, if God is a just God how could he let wicked people in who also rejected his son. You could make a case for him letting in good people who did not hear enough about the gospel but not wicked people who rejected his son. So with that in mind I don't think univeralism is probable although like i said it sounds nice.

 

[cloudyday2]

With univeralism even the most wicked of sinners in this world like hitler stalin receive eternal life. That seems pretty inconsistent would God being a just Judge of salvation.


I see I wrote just people which was a typo. The point I was trying to make is one you are surely aware of, if God is a just God how could he let wicked people in who also rejected his son. You could make a case for him letting in good people who did not hear enough about the gospel but not wicked people who rejected his son. So with that in mind I don't think univeralism is probable although like i said it sounds nice.

But one key point of Christianity is that Mother Teresa and Adolph Hitler are both sinners. I would welcome Hitler into heaven, because I know that everybody is a product of their environment and genes.

 

[Robban]

What if i told you there are cartoons in the next life? Would ya believe then?

.

So, Bill and Ben were old friends,
they both loved football.

Then came the time when Bill passed on,
Ben missed him and wondered how he was doing in heaven.

Suddenly, about six months later,
Bill appeared to him in a dream.

"Wow Bill, fancy seeing you again,
how are things up there, do they have football?"

"Hi there Ben, well, good news and bad news."

"What's the good news?"

"There is football up here."

"Oh, wonderful, what's the bad news?"

"Tomorrow you are in goal."

 

[ImAllLikeOkWaitWat]

because I know that everybody is a product of their environment and genes.

I assume you don't believe in free will? If you do then you would realize regardless of environment and genes people have hearts that God looks at. Some are good some are evil but none are the same. David was a sinner but had the heart of God. He was a good man. It's not about being a sinner everyone but one sinned. What it is about is your heart. God says he judges people not by the outside but by the inside. Thats what matters to God at the day of judgment. If you have a good heart you can have a rough environment and terrible temperament and genes etc and still be a kind loving person. So sure environment and genes are important but theres more to the story and God isn't making eternal judgments on people based off of things they don't control but things they do control.

 

[cloudyday2]

I assume you don't believe in free will? If you do then you would realize regardless of environment and genes people have hearts that God looks at. Some are good some are evil but none are the same. David was a sinner but had the heart of God. He was a good man. It's not about being a sinner everyone but one sinned. What it is about is your heart. God says he judges people not by the outside but by the inside. Thats what matters to God at the day of judgment. If you have a good heart you can have a rough environment and terrible temperament and genes etc and still be a kind loving person. So sure environment and genes are important but theres more to the story and God isn't making eternal judgments on people based off of things they don't control but things they do control.

As a Christian, aren't you supposed to consider yourself just as deserving of hell as Hitler? You mentioned a few posts back, that you could tolerate good non-believers going to heaven, but you could not tolerate evil non-believers like Hitler. In God's eyes, you and I are just as evil as Hitler - maybe even more evil. So if any non-believers go to heaven, then all non-believers should go to heaven, and universalism is sensible.

 

[awitch]

What matters is the end. At the end, you don't exist. Whatever you worked for is lost. What a waste of time and effort.

This is the summation of your world view.

That's correct, I won't exist. But what I've worked for still matters for the people I knew who still live. Some people do waste their lives making bad choices and while I'm far from perfect, I'm doing pretty good. Life is valuable because we only get to go around once.

 

[cloudyday2]

@awitch and @Wordkeeper my therapist told me about logotherapy which may be applicable to the discussion. The idea is that many psychological problems are healed by finding meaning in life. Viktor Frankl, the inventor of logotherapy, was a survivor of Auschwitz and that experience inspired logotherapy somewhat.

Here is a nice quote:

According to Frankl, "We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by creating a work or doing a deed; (2) by experiencing something or encountering someone; and (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering" and that "everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances"

Logotherapy - Wikipedia

 

[awitch]

@awitch and @Wordkeeper my therapist told me about logotherapy which may be applicable to the discussion. The idea is that many psychological problems are healed by finding meaning in life. Viktor Frankl, the inventor of logotherapy, was a survivor of Auschwitz and that experience inspired logotherapy somewhat.

Here is a nice quote:

Logotherapy - Wikipedia

Sounds very reasonable to me. I'd say this sums it up nicely: "Our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life.", but it's all about scale. If you scale it up too much, well, then...

 

[Wordkeeper]

That's correct, I won't exist. But what I've worked for still matters for the people I knew who still live. Some people do waste their lives making bad choices and while I'm far from perfect, I'm doing pretty good. Life is valuable because we only get to go around once.

Why should it matter that the fruit of your efforts benefit someone else? It is illogical. The whole point of effort is self benefit. In fact, only if you yourself thrive can you benefit others. Six feet under results in futility. You didn't do yourself any good, you're not going to do anybody any good.

Even those who benefit from the superficial fruit of your life will stop benefiting when they go six feet under too. And there's no guarantee that your legacy will retain its value. Kodak stock anyone?

Bottomline, you are just leading an inconsequential life:

Quote
Traditionally, Jewish people have considered the study of the Bible truly living out one's "eternal life." A story is told about a rabbi who spent years in study of the Scriptures, and then walked past farmers tilling their land. He remarked, "they have abandoned lasting life (chayei olam) and involve themselves instead with fleeting life (chayei sha'ah)." 2

Eternal Life - Chayei Olam

 

[Wordkeeper]

@awitch and @Wordkeeper my therapist told me about logotherapy which may be applicable to the discussion. The idea is that many psychological problems are healed by finding meaning in life. Viktor Frankl, the inventor of logotherapy, was a survivor of Auschwitz and that experience inspired logotherapy somewhat.

Here is a nice quote:

Logotherapy - Wikipedia

That sounds like Epicurus. Hmm...it IS Epicurus!

Quote
Here we see one of Epicurus’ techniques for obtaining happiness even in the most miserable situation: instead of dwelling on the pain, recollect one of those moments in the past when you were most happy. Through enough training of the mind, you will be able to achieve such vividness of imagination that you can relive these experiences and that happiness. This idea is well illustrated by Victor Frankl, the Viennese psychiatrist who suffered four years in various concentration camps, including Auschwitz. Frankl writes that one of the few things that was able to give him a feeling of happiness was conjuring up an image of his beloved wife, and engaging in imaginary conversation with her. As he writes: "My mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise." (Frankl 1984, p. 57).

Epicurus