Why is hell even necessary?

[razeontherock]

Right but would you even know about any of it if it weren't written down for you? It all springs from this ancient text called the Bible, so whether or not it is credible matters. At least it matters to me because I care about whether or nor my view of reality accurately reflects reality.

But as you said to Elman, we know reality. And that is that G-d Loves us, and it is not limited to any book. How can you say, considering your position, that this is a reality you are aware of?

 

[elman]

Why do you believe God loves us? Probably because of some ancient text or texts or at least your interpretation of them. It's circular reasoning. The first you ever heard about a loving God was when you either read about him in an ancient text, or someone told you about their belief in him based on an ancient text.

I believe God is love because an ancient text says that God is love so any ancient text that says God is love is true and the rest are false because God is love. And I believe God is love because.... [repeat]

It seems more reasonable to me that I exist for a reason than to assume our existence is random and ultimatly meaningless. It seems more reasonable to me that our Creator is good and loving than to assume the Creator is evil and unloving or neither good nor evil. The reasonable conclusion is God is loving.

 

[DontTreadOnMike]

But as you said to Elman, we know reality. And that is that G-d Loves us, and it is not limited to any book. How can you say, considering your position, that this is a reality you are aware of?

How do you know that? It's not an objective thing because people who have never head of the Bible or Christianity don't know it. You can't demonstrate it to me objectively. You may be right, but how do you know and how can you tell me without using anecdotal evidence?

 

[razeontherock]

You're again looking for in a test tube type evidence? I thought we'd already covered that.

No, it's not an objective thing. Neither is it solely up to the individual as in make believe. Different people all over the globe have gotten essentially the same thing, independently.

 

[DontTreadOnMike]

It seems more reasonable to me that I exist for a reason than to assume our existence is random and ultimatly meaningless. It seems more reasonable to me that our Creator is good and loving than to assume the Creator is evil and unloving or neither good nor evil. The reasonable conclusion is God is loving.

Again, it doesn't matter what SEEMS reasonable. It only matters what is objectively true. It SEEMED reasonable that the shape of the earth on average is flat...until we found reason to believe otherwise. It SEEMS reasonable that particles fly around and behave like tiny billiard balls...until they discovered that they behave sort of like waves AND billiards balls at the same time.

And now today, it may SEEM reasonable that there must be some uncreated creator, but there's no reason to jump to that conclusion. What's wrong with admitting that we don't know?

Let's pretend we do have reason to believe in an uncreated creator of the universe. Can you REALLY say that the most reasonable conclusion when you look at the world is that it loves us? I think of all the people who believe in a god, deists are the most reasonable. If a god exists, it doesn't seem to involve itself in the world. Almost everything that used to be attributed to god can now be explained as the result of some physical process. The "god of the gaps" shrinks more and more every year. It's no longer the most reasonable to believe in a creator by defaut, and it's definitely not the most reasonable default position to conclude that it cares about us if it does exist.

 

[DontTreadOnMike]

You're again looking for in a test tube type evidence? I thought we'd already covered that.

No, it's not an objective thing. Neither is it solely up to the individual as in make believe. Different people all over the globe have gotten essentially the same thing, independently.

So then it's not my fault for not believing. God didn't give me the evidence and assurance mentioned in Hebrews 11:1 required for faith. And that brings us back to the original question then: How is hell in anyway Just if God is the one who provides one of the essential parts of a saving faith? I know, I know, "Shall the clay question the potter?" No, because clay isn't sentient, it doesn't have consciousness, emotions, self determination, or a fear of pain and death. But we do, so I think we have every right to question the potter. Even animals are treated better than that. If youre own child said she didn;t accept you as a father, would you say to her "Well your only other option is to burn and suffer eternally. I'm sorry you've made that choice?" No of course not. You wouldn't even do that to your pet dog, because dogs are alive and have feelings.

 

[razeontherock]

So then it's not my fault for not believing. God didn't give me the evidence

This does make sense to me. One of the first things I did upon finding CF was explore Calvinism. They do have explanations for all sorts of things like this that vex me, and they are rational. They just don't line up with Scripture, so I reject such a simplicity that "if G-d wanted to save you, He'd have done so all by Himself by now."

Scripture makes it clear He wants all to come to Life.


And here we have another conundrum: I profess (personal) evidence to believe, and yet I'm not perfect. Far from it in fact. I evidence this all over the place, and probably in every post I write. Once in a while G-d is able to get a point through to someone anyway, and that moment is wonderful. You profess not to have evidence to believe, and you should know. You can probably communicate your ideas more clearly than I can.

So were you formerly a Christian? You had no evidence to believe.

evidence and assurance mentioned in Hebrews 11:1 required for faith.

Faith IS evidence. You're missing that point of this passage

And that brings us back to the original question then: How is hell in anyway Just if God is the one who provides one of the essential parts of a saving faith?

WHOA. Now you're forging ahead as if western evangelical doctrine is literally true. (Heaven / hell repeat after me type prayer now you're saved and guaranteed heaven type stuff) Under that set of assumptions your comment here makes sense, but I never adhered to that. It has no integrity and is an over-simplification. If this is the Christianity you rejected I say bravo!

I know, I know, "Shall the clay question the potter?" No, because clay isn't sentient, it doesn't have consciousness, emotions, self determination, or a fear of pain and death. But we do, so I think we have every right to question the potter.

This is not the context of that passage. Vis:

"come now, let us reason together."

Questioning is good. The context and purpose of what you quoted is trying to tell Him how to do things. Quite different from just asking Him what He's up to. He Loves to teach us

 

[DontTreadOnMike]

This does make sense to me. One of the first things I did upon finding CF was explore Calvinism. They do have explanations for all sorts of things like this that vex me, and they are rational. They just don't line up with Scripture, so I reject such a simplicity that "if G-d wanted to save you, He'd have done so all by Himself by now."

Scripture makes it clear He wants all to come to Life.

Well I was sort of a half calvanist when I was a Christian. The explanation I came up with is this: Remember in school when your teacher would write a question on the board and said, "Ok class who wants to answer this?...anyone?" But no one raises their hand. So she says "Ok if no one is going to volunteer then I'l call on...billy." Obviously that's over simplified but you get the idea. Everyone has the free will to choose God but no one does on their own (according to Romans) so he "calls on people."

And here we have another conundrum: I profess (personal) evidence to believe, and yet I'm not perfect. Far from it in fact. I evidence this all over the place, and probably in every post I write. Once in a while G-d is able to get a point through to someone anyway, and that moment is wonderful. You profess not to have evidence to believe, and you should know. You can probably communicate your ideas more clearly than I can.

Well you and AV are my favorites around here. AV because is quirky and fun and you because you always take me seriously when others dismiss me for being a non-believer. So that's something. It doesn't matter how well you can form your thoughts if no one will listen to you because you're condescending. So you're doing good. Keep it up

So were you formerly a Christian? You had no evidence to believe.

That's right. I decided that it matters to me that what I believe accurately reflects reality. So I examined my beliefs. I wrestled with faith and won

Actually no I didn't really wrestle much. That makes it sound like I was fighting it. I was eager for my view of the universe to reflect what is real.

Faith IS evidence. You're missing that point of this passage

You're right I guess I was missing it. But that's still subjective, anecdotal evidence. It can't be measured or used to convince other people, only yourself. If you go up to someone who has never heard of any of this and say "Jesus is real and my proof is my faith in him" you won't get very far. And what about other people's faith in other gods? Some muslims seem to have pretty strong faith in Allah.

WHOA. Now you're forging ahead as if western evangelical doctrine is literally true. (Heaven / hell repeat after me type prayer now you're saved and guaranteed heaven type stuff) Under that set of assumptions your comment here makes sense, but I never adhered to that. It has no integrity and is an over-simplification. If this is the Christianity you rejected I say bravo!

Well to be honest, I rejected that type of christianity a few years before I rejected religion altogether. I walked out of my life long church for being too wishy washy and watered down. I never found another church to go to. So let that be a lesson to all of you reading this. If your kids don't go to church, they'll become evil baby-eating atheists haha

 

[elman]

Again, it doesn't matter what SEEMS reasonable. It only matters what is objectively true. It SEEMED reasonable that the shape of the earth on average is flat...until we found reason to believe otherwise. It SEEMS reasonable that particles fly around and behave like tiny billiard balls...until they discovered that they behave sort of like waves AND billiards balls at the same time.

And now today, it may SEEM reasonable that there must be some uncreated creator, but there's no reason to jump to that conclusion. What's wrong with admitting that we don't know?

Let's pretend we do have reason to believe in an uncreated creator of the universe. Can you REALLY say that the most reasonable conclusion when you look at the world is that it loves us? I think of all the people who believe in a god, deists are the most reasonable. If a god exists, it doesn't seem to involve itself in the world. Almost everything that used to be attributed to god can now be explained as the result of some physical process. The "god of the gaps" shrinks more and more every year. It's no longer the most reasonable to believe in a creator by defaut, and it's definitely not the most reasonable default position to conclude that it cares about us if it does exist.

I have said I don't know. The non existence of a loving Creator is not objecitve truth. When you refer to deists are you talking about God being everything in general and nothing in particular?

 

[DontTreadOnMike]

I have said I don't know

Oh i must have missed it. I was still in ultra debate mode

The non existence of a loving Creator is not objecitve truth.

Right but what is the default position? The non-existence of unicorns isn't objective truth either but what is your default position on their existence? My default is that I lack belief in unicorns. It doesn't mean that I believe that they absolutely don't exist, I just haven't been convinced that they do. I can go a step further and say that while I don't know for certain that unicorns don't exist, I can say with a fairly high degree of certainty that they don't exist as described in Harry Potter, i.e. magical silvery blood that cures you of injury.

So, I can't say that some divine intelligence didn't create the universe, but there is also no evidence that one did. Therefore there is no reason to believe it. That doesn't mean I have a positive belief that no god exists, just that I lack belief until presented with evidence. The default position is atheist, a-unicornist, a-bigfootist, etc.

When you refer to deists are you talking about God being everything in general and nothing in particular?

No I think that's pantheism which I think is a waste of time, because if God is the universe and god created the universe, therefore the universe created itself, why not just skip a step and say the universe started with the big bang and we don't know how. There's nothing wrong with not knowing.


Deists believe that some god created the universe but now doesn;t interact with its creation because it either doesn't care or doesn't even realize we're here. Or maybe it died, possibly even during the act of creating. To me this is the most reasonable form of theism because there;s no evidence that a god interacts with the world at all. But too me it's still unreasonable. Deism only really exists because people are unwilling to admit that they don't know how the universe began. They say that the universe had to be created. But then who created the creator? Well, no one because he has always existed. Well then why not cut out the middle man and say that the universe has always existed? It's a natural human tendency to not like gaps in knowledge, so we fill them with unsubstantiated ideas like all powerful beings who actually just create more questions then they solve.

People can fill in every void in their knowledge with a god if they want but to me that's not interesting. It stifles curiosity and doesn't advance the human condition, in fact it has been known to hold us back. At one point it was believed that diseases were caused by demons or were punishments from the gods or God. Now we have germ theory and our lives are better.

I'm not against the idea of a god, but I'm more interested in what is true. If we come across a god in our exploration of the universe, or if one makes itself known to us, I'd be incredibly interested and excited. But until then, I have no reason to believe in unicorns...I mean gods

 

[createdtoworship]

Just repeating what sabercroft said. Total annihilation of the soul at death would accomplish the same thing. Are you a parent? Could you ever imagine condemning your child to suffer FOR ETERNITY simply for not accepting you as a father?

it's more than accepting me as a father, it would be loving me and doing what I said.

 

[DontTreadOnMike]

it's more than accepting me as a father, it would be loving me and doing what I said.

Oh well that makes it ok then.

 

[elman]

Right but what is the default position? The non-existence of unicorns isn't objective truth either but what is your default position on their existence?

My default postion is their existence or non existence has nothing to do with my existence. A creator would effect my existence. It would mean I exist for a reason.

So, I can't say that some divine intelligence didn't create the universe, but there is also no evidence that one did. Therefore there is no reason to believe it. That doesn't mean I have a positive belief that no god exists, just that I lack belief until presented with evidence. The default position is atheist, a-unicornist, a-bigfootist, etc.

I also cannot say for certain this universe was created by a intelligent being. I do find it unreasonable to assume we just happen to exist as the result of chemical merging and being heated up over a long period of time. I just don't belileve we are here by coincidence. When I was in my early twenties I believed in coincidence a lot, but some things happened to me that made that belief unreasonable.

No I think that's pantheism which I think is a waste of time, because if God is the universe and god created the universe, therefore the universe created itself, why not just skip a step and say the universe started with the big bang and we don't know how. There's nothing wrong with not knowing.

I agree God being everything make God being nothing in particular as far as I can tell.

Deists believe that some god created the universe but now doesn;t interact with its creation because it either doesn't care or doesn't even realize we're here. Or maybe it died, possibly even during the act of creating. To me this is the most reasonable form of theism because there;s no evidence that a god interacts with the world at all.

As I said above, I believe at one time that God existed but did not act in this world. I then experienced some things that caused me to change my view. I now believe God does interact sometimes--not always and not in everything, but sometimes.

People can fill in every void in their knowledge with a god if they want but to me that's not interesting. It stifles curiosity and doesn't advance the human condition, in fact it has been known to hold us back. At one point it was believed that diseases were caused by demons or were punishments from the gods or God. Now we have germ theory and our lives are better.

I agree with the search for truth--whatever we may find.

I'm not against the idea of a god, but I'm more interested in what is true. If we come across a god in our exploration of the universe, or if one makes itself known to us, I'd be incredibly interested and excited. But until then, I have no reason to believe in unicorns...I mean gods

I think God has made HImself or Itself known to me, but not in such a way that I can be certain--just enough to shove me off my position that He is not there and does not care.

 

[DontTreadOnMike]

My default postion is their existence or non existence has nothing to do with my existence. A creator would effect my existence. It would mean I exist for a reason.


I also cannot say for certain this universe was created by a intelligent being. I do find it unreasonable to assume we just happen to exist as the result of chemical merging and being heated up over a long period of time. I just don't belileve we are here by coincidence. When I was in my early twenties I believed in coincidence a lot, but some things happened to me that made that belief unreasonable.

I agree God being everything make God being nothing in particular as far as I can tell.

As I said above, I believe at one time that God existed but did not act in this world. I then experienced some things that caused me to change my view. I now believe God does interact sometimes--not always and not in everything, but sometimes.


I agree with the search for truth--whatever we may find.

I think God has made HImself or Itself known to me, but not in such a way that I can be certain--just enough to shove me off my position that He is not there and does not care.

Ok awesome. And if I ever have a similar experience, maybe I'll believe too. But until then, from an outsider's perspective, it's just anecdotal.

 

[createdtoworship]

Oh well that makes it ok then.

Hell is perfectly good and holy.

 

[DontTreadOnMike]

Hell is perfectly good and holy.

So you would sentence your child to eternal torture of a finite lifetime of rejecting you?

 

[createdtoworship]

So you would sentence your child to eternal torture of a finite lifetime of rejecting you?

yes, if they had the same situation that we do with God. Namely that salvation is free. But if they love darkness rather than light it just means that God already knew they would love hell more than heaven anyway. So yes I would send my child to an eternal fire. If I could read their mind and predestinate.

 

[DontTreadOnMike]

yes, if they had the same situation that we do with God. Namely that salvation is free. But if they love darkness rather than light it just means that God already knew they would love hell more than heaven anyway. So yes I would send my child to an eternal fire. If I could read their mind and predestinate.

That's evil. If God is real and if he were to appear to me in the flesh and tell me he agrees with what you said, I would still say it's evil. I don't think a god like that deserves worship. Hopefully god isn't like that. A loving and just god wouldn't send deceived, misguided souls to hell to be tortured forever. He wouldn't even eternally torture purposefully rebellious souls for a mere 80 years of rejection. A perfect being doesn't need revenge, it wouldn't need anything. It would loose nothing by just wiping out the non-believers. Hell is a sign of a spitefulness, vengeance, jealousy, in other words; imperfection.

TL;DR: Abraham should have said no.

 

[oi_antz]

That's evil. If God is real and if he were to appear to me in the flesh and tell me he agrees with what you said, I would still say it's evil. I don't think a god like that deserves worship. Hopefully god isn't like that. A loving and just god wouldn't send deceived, misguided souls to hell to be tortured forever. He wouldn't even eternally torture purposefully rebellious souls for a mere 80 years of rejection. A perfect being doesn't need revenge, it wouldn't need anything. It would loose nothing by just wiping out the non-believers. Hell is a sign of a spitefulness, vengeance, jealousy, in other words; imperfection.

TL;DR: Abraham should have said no.

Hi Mike, I'm new to this thread, it is big. Can you show me the Bible passages that say God will "eternally torture purposefully rebellious souls for a mere 80 years of rejection", my understanding is that souls will perish in the lake of fire to exist no longer. Those who have committed crimes will be punished and those whose names are in the lamb's book of life will go to live forever with Jesus as their Lord in the new earth. I'd like to know why you believe that non-believers will be "eternally tortured", it contradicts my own belief. I'll start reading the thread from the beginning but it is long so I might not absorb it all. I hope we can grow in understanding together.

 

[oi_antz]

Ok Mike, I've read through the thread, some of it was just bickering. Let's try to get an answer by putting our brains to work. I have seen one major error in your position. If you can sort this out then you could be able to take your favorite parts of that remote island you crashed into (post #33) and keep on sailing. The problem I see is that you've believed that the majority of churches are preaching the right doctrine. The problem here is that you've probably only absorbed very small proportions of what the church leaders were preaching, you've probably heard these fragments in an improper context, and it is even possible that the preachers were entirely wrong. So you need to cut that loose and look toward the definitive source of Christian doctrine: the Bible. What I've noticed about this matter in the Bible is that ever since the very beginning it is about life and death. Remember that Adam and Eve were warned that they would die for their sin? So we have to face death. Does that mean that we are tortured forever? Certainly not. It means we completely die altogether. Cease to exist. Thinking doesn't happen. Everything you ever loved about life is gone. Everyone who ever loved you has lost you forever. That is the second death spoken of in Revelation 20:14.

So we need to get this straight first of all. Is your concern actually based upon biblical fact or is it based upon hear-say? In order to get to the bottom of this we are going to need to investigate scripture and think about what it means. I hope you aren't afraid to do that. Would you mind posting the verses that you are concerned about and let's see whether God really is the evil person you have come to think of Him as being.