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it was just an allegory to show the logical flaw of your argument, scripture says the wages of sin is death, not endless conscious torment, how do you deal with this?
There was no flaw in my argument. The doctrine of eternal punishment does not pass the bar of your personal concept of justice, so you reject it. If you are consistent, you should also reject the doctrine of grace because that, too, is "unfair." In fact, grace has nothing to do with justice; it is purely undeserved favor, flowing strictly out of compassion and mercy. As such, it runs against the grain of our human concept of justice, which says that if you commit a crime, you should not get away with it. The gospel, however, tells us that we can get out of having to pay for our sins because someone else was punished for sinners.
I still plan to read the post in your link. I will probably do so this weekend, as today looks pretty filled up.
The odd thing in all this so called debate, or the conclusion one could come to, is that that Jesus fellow didn't know anything. Christianity should change its name to "Ifeelthatitislikeiwantittobeanity".
Sadly, there is a lot of truth to what you say. Christianity today has become by and large a subjective religion rather than one based on an objective text. Instead of submitting to what the Bible says and thinking God's thoughts after him, it has become popular to determine "truth" based on one's own personal feelings and attitudes.
It is a vicious cycle. If you don't believe in hell and it just happens to be real then you will go to hell. So then why not believe it even if it isn't true.
Then you have the problem of never truly knowing if you lived up to God's standard (for you, not himself) of conduct in order to avoid hell in the first place.
It cause me to look down on others as 'unsaved' people. And that is a bad fruit from an even uglier tree.
Ah. Pascal's Wager.
So you believe in an omnipotent, omniscient god, but one who is too stupid to figure out when you're just pretending to believe in him to save your a s s from hell.
You make the same error that universalists make: You reject a teaching because it doesn't satisfy your personal concept of justice. The flaw in that reasoning is that if our personal concepts are to be the final arbiter of truth, that assumes that we have full knowledge; otherwise we would be incapable of being the final arbiter of truth. Universalists also make the error of underestimating sin. The more I discuss this issue with them, the more I realize that they reject eternal punishment as unfair because they don't realize how horrific sin really is in the eyes of a good, holy God.
As you may have gathered, I don't believe in the existence of your made-up god.
Your position is the servile acceptance of a slave of his master's punishment, no matter how disproportionate. You obviously think that anything your god does is correct, and good, and holy, no matter how evil it is objectively.
Still, I'll play along with you a little bit.
When this god you speak of created angels, you would agree that those angels he created were holier and more spiritually aware and powerful than humans, right?
Yet even some of those angels rejected his orders, as he knew they would.
And when he created humans, he knew that he was creating weak creatures who would over and over again fail in their efforts to obey his commands.
In other words, he set humans a challenge that he knew the vast majority of humans would regularly and repeatedly fail.
And in your view, the person who created those humans, and set them a challenge they could not meet, is acting morally when he condemns those humans to eternal torture. In fact, the person who set up the universe in this was is, as you put it, holy and good.
In my view, any person or entity who would do that is unspeakably evil.
And anyone who cannot draw that conclusion is utterly devoid of any moral reasoning ability.
As you may have gathered, I don't believe in the existence of your made-up god.
Your position is the servile acceptance of a slave of his master's punishment, no matter how disproportionate. You obviously think that anything your god does is correct, and good, and holy, no matter how evil it is objectively.
Still, I'll play along with you a little bit.
When this god you speak of created angels, you would agree that those angels he created were holier and more spiritually aware and powerful than humans, right?
Yet even some of those angels rejected his orders, as he knew they would.
And when he created humans, he knew that he was creating weak creatures who would over and over again fail in their efforts to obey his commands.
In other words, he set humans a challenge that he knew the vast majority of humans would regularly and repeatedly fail.
And in your view, the person who created those humans, and set them a challenge they could not meet, is acting morally when he condemns those humans to eternal torture. In fact, the person who set up the universe in this was is, as you put it, holy and good.
In my view, any person or entity who would do that is unspeakably evil.
And anyone who cannot draw that conclusion is utterly devoid of any moral reasoning ability.
Many people are blinded by false doctrines/traditions of men. The doctrine of an eternal lake of fire for unbelievers is a result of the bible being incorrectly interpreted. God is Love and He will not torture those he created. All will eventually be reconciled to Him. Many, many Christians are finally starting to realize this basic truth about God's character.
As you may have gathered, I don't believe in the existence of your made-up god.
I actually don't believe that you really disbelieve. I accept the Scripture's testimony that all people know that God exists, but they suppress that knowledge. So if by "I don't believe" you mean "I suppress the truth," then I agree. But I doubt that is what you meant.
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Your position is the servile acceptance of a slave of his master's punishment, no matter how disproportionate.
That, of course, assumes that it is, in fact, disproportionate. If sin against a holy God is of infinite offense, then an infinite punishment is not disproportionate.
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You obviously think that anything your god does is correct, and good, and holy, no matter how evil it is objectively.
Again, another assumption, this time that EP is evil.
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When this god you speak of created angels, you would agree that those angels he created were holier and more spiritually aware and powerful than humans, right?
Yet even some of those angels rejected his orders, as he knew they would.
And when he created humans, he knew that he was creating weak creatures who would over and over again fail in their efforts to obey his commands.
In other words, he set humans a challenge that he knew the vast majority of humans would regularly and repeatedly fail.
And in your view, the person who created those humans, and set them a challenge they could not meet, is acting morally when he condemns those humans to eternal torture. In fact, the person who set up the universe in this was is, as you put it, holy and good.
In my view, any person or entity who would do that is unspeakably evil.
There are some problems with your argument. First of all, God does not punish people for being weak; he punishes them for deliberately refusing to obey him, a conscious choice to reject him.
Secondly, you conclude that God is "unspeakably evil" for punishing people for being unable to meet a "challenge." Let's clarify: Man is not willing to obey God; that is what makes him responsible and, therefore, punishable. Again, it is a deliberate, conscious refusal to obey God that is what God punishes.
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And anyone who cannot draw that conclusion is utterly devoid of any moral reasoning ability.
Either that or your argument doesn't work, being built on incorrect premises.
Again, it is a deliberate, conscious refusal to obey God that is what God punishes.
Either that or your argument doesn't work, being built on incorrect premises.
So, do you believe then, that many people will be spared eternal punishment if they don't deliberately, consciously refuse to obey God, as opposed to someone who was never raised to believe in God and therefore did not give it much thought? In other words, an example would be a teenager who dies in a car wreck and wasn't raised in church, but was a good person and did not decide to refuse to obey God. Another example is a Muslim who chooses to obey God according to what they were taught. They didn't deliberately, consciously refuse to obey God. Right?
Or, do you believe that there are only two choices and nothing in between: either you obey God according to Christian beliefs, or you deliberately, consciously refuse to obey Him? If so, your argument doesn't work, being built on incorrect premises.
So, do you believe then, that many people will be spared eternal punishment if they don't deliberately, consciously refuse to obey God, as opposed to someone who was never raised to believe in God and therefore did not give it much thought? In other words, an example would be a teenager who dies in a car wreck and wasn't raised in church, but was a good person and did not decide to refuse to obey God. Another example is a Muslim who chooses to obey God according to what they were taught. They didn't deliberately, consciously refuse to obey God. Right?
Have they ever told a lie? Have they ever hated people? Have they ever dishonored their parents? Have they loved God with all their heart, soul and strength? IOW, have they kept God's law perfectly? If they have disobeyed any of these laws, then it was a deliberate, conscious refusal. Even if they don't have knowledge of the Mosaic law, the work of the law is written on their hearts, so all people innately know right from wrong.
Scripture clearly states that all have sinned, so all people have violated these moral codes. Therefore, the teen who died in a car wreck, in your example, is not really a "good person" when held up to the standard of God's law.
Have they ever told a lie? Have they ever hated people? Have they ever dishonored their parents? Have they loved God with all their heart, soul and strength? IOW, have they kept God's law perfectly? If they have disobeyed any of these laws, then it was a deliberate, conscious refusal. Even if they don't have knowledge of the Mosaic law, the work of the law is written on their hearts, so all people innately know right from wrong.
Scripture clearly states that all have sinned, so all people have violated these moral codes. Therefore, the teen who died in a car wreck, in your example, is not really a "good person" when held up to the standard of God's law.
So you know for a fact that every human being who has not been taught the particulars of your moral code, as set forth in your bible, has deliberately and consciously disobeyed what your god would have told them to do if they had read it in your bible.
As I say, you are unqualified to make any kind of moral judgments of any person's actions.
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It was late and I was tired. Not sure what happened there.
All will eventually be reconciled to Him. 
