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Moderator cut: orphaned
I have had many Christians say to me that they want to believe and obey God so they don't go to hell. These same people say God would not make anyone love him they must decide to love Him on their own. What kind of love is based on fear? If you became a born again Christian so you won't go to hell you don't love God for the right reason. I don't care if you say that you came to love God for other reasons the fact that you believe that God will send you to eternal torture if you don't love him is love based on fear.
Have you ever burned yourself? It is very very painful. Now think of that pain all over your body forever. Think about it, not for hundred of years or thousand of year or even billions of years but forever. What kind of monster would torture someone with that much pain forever no matter what they did. God is not a monster.
I relate that to my own father. When I was a kid I got my butt warmed up a few times( deserved everyone I got and got away with more that I got caught) as I got older no more spankings but I lost privilege's and got grounded for transgressions. Did I ever fear my father? No, I feared the punishments but not my father because I knew no matter what I did he would not hurt me, he loved me and I loved him. But like 1 John 4:19 says he loved me first. Like any good parent my father loved me from the beginning. As I grew and learned I know that all the punishments he mete out to me was for my benefit to make change my heart and become a better person. I loved him(and my mother) with all my heart but it does not change the fact that they loved me first.
God loved us first. Can you imagine any good loving parent who would torture their children for not loving them back? Oh God will make sure we are chastised properly so that we repent and change our heart, but like any loving father, only better, God will not cause us permanent damage or never ending pain.
God is not a monster and He will chastise us when we need it to change our heart but does not want us to love him out of fear, which is not really love. God is love
Hell is a construct of man to frighten him into loving and obeying God. It is not needed and in fact it disrespects God by making him into a merciless monster who tortures for the pleasure of it. No transgression no matter what deserved eternal torture.
Last edited by Miss Blue; 07-23-2013 at 06:29 AM..
Reason: thread you mention was closed
Thanks much for your input on this thorny question, sschulz. If you've spent any appreciable amount of time around here you'll know that we've gone over the issue of hell so many times we could pave a road to there with all the sentences. I don't know if this particular question has been brought up before but it has rankled me for a long time because I don't get the sense of it and God is nothing if not totally logical and loving.
Doing a search of the phrase "infinite God, infinite punishment for sin" which is the dogma that surfaced sometime between Augustine and the 13th century I came across this which coincidentally ask the same thing(I'd never heard anyone pose the same question before):
Quote:
Why is there any need for such a place?
The most common apologist reply to this is that God has “no choice” but to create a Hell where he could send those who die in their sins. This argument, however, is plainly ridiculous. Of course God would have a choice – he is all-powerful, is he not? He can do anything he wants. If he wanted to, he could choose to forgive all people of sin unconditionally and let everyone into Heaven. He could reincarnate people until they get it right, so no one has to be condemned. He could make the people who refuse to worship him cease to exist. Even assuming he could not do any of these things and there must be such a place as Hell where nonbelievers go, there is no reason why it has to be a pit of torture – it could just be a limbo, or a realm basically like Earth, where unbelievers could simply go their own way. But, if we are to believe many theists, despite having all these other options God chose none of them, and instead decreed that those who die without believing in him are condemned, with no forgiveness and no second chance, and made a place of endless torture for them to go to. This idea is such a grotesque absurdity it hardly needs refutation; it is in blatant contradiction to everything else we are supposed to believe about God. Again, if there was such a place as Hell, it could never be the creation of a merciful, loving or just deity, but only of an evil sadist. Only a god who enjoys the torment and suffering of others would create such a place or allow it to exist, yet both atheists and monotheists agree that there is no such god.
Now this response goes a little farther than I care for it to go; it gets into the same tired old business of "what kind of a monster would...." etc but this person does pose the same question that rarely gets raised in these discussions: isn't separation from God; from the joy, comfort, and especially the indescribable love He brings to His children punishment enough? No one can imagine being separated from that kind of love once their spirit has tasted it.
I read thrillobyte's thread asking about why God made hell a fiery place of pain, and he did not want us who believe in universal salvation to not respond with God would not do that. It made me think about trying to explain hell without disavowing it, couldn't do it but it opened up another idea.
I have had many Christians say to me that they want to believe and obey God so they don't go to hell. These same people say God would not make anyone love him they must decide to love Him on their own. What kind of love is based on fear? If you became a born again Christian so you won't go to hell you don't love God for the right reason. I don't care if you say that you came to love God for other reasons the fact that you believe that God will send you to eternal torture if you don't love him is love based on fear.
Have you ever burned yourself? It is very very painful. Now think of that pain all over your body forever. Think about it, not for hundred of years or thousand of year or even billions of years but forever. What kind of monster would torture someone with that much pain forever no matter what they did. God is not a monster.
I relate that to my own father. When I was a kid I got my butt warmed up a few times( deserved everyone I got and got away with more that I got caught) as I got older no more spankings but I lost privilege's and got grounded for transgressions. Did I ever fear my father? No, I feared the punishments but not my father because I knew no matter what I did he would not hurt me, he loved me and I loved him. But like 1 John 4:19 says he loved me first. Like any good parent my father loved me from the beginning. As I grew and learned I know that all the punishments he mete out to me was for my benefit to make change my heart and become a better person. I loved him(and my mother) with all my heart but it does not change the fact that they loved me first.
God loved us first. Can you imagine any good loving parent who would torture their children for not loving them back? Oh God will make sure we are chastised properly so that we repent and change our heart, but like any loving father, only better, God will not cause us permanent damage or never ending pain.
God is not a monster and He will chastise us when we need it to change our heart but does not want us to love him out of fear, which is not really love. God is love
Hell is a construct of man to frighten him into loving and obeying God. It is not needed and in fact it disrespects God by making him into a merciless monster who tortures for the pleasure of it. No transgression no matter what deserved eternal torture.
What benefit would someone derive out of frightening people into loving and obeying God
Vizio, you seem convinced.
How do you know it exists? Because you think an English bible says so?
I can read Greek. I'm convinced of what it says.
Quote:
Is it possible this 'horrible thought' has been created by man through misunderstanding/mistranslation/misinterpretation and a desire to control others?
No. It isn't.
All of Christianity has taught the existence of hell for 2000 years. I'm sorry if I don't believe you're smart enough to have suddenly figured it out here in the 21st century and all of Christianity has been wrong all this time.
Vizio, you seem convinced.
How do you know it exists? Because you think an English bible says so? Is it possible this 'horrible thought' has been created by man through misunderstanding/mistranslation/misinterpretation and a desire to control others?
Vizio, you seem convinced.
How do you know it exists? Because you think an English bible says so? Is it possible this 'horrible thought' has been created by man through misunderstanding/mistranslation/misinterpretation and a desire to control others?
How do you know it doesn't ?.... the concept is found in other religions (current and ancient) besides in that terrible source.
Speaking of that source ... the Bible happens to be quoted as truth when convenient from your crowd.
All of Christianity has taught the existence of hell for 2000 years. I'm sorry if I don't believe you're smart enough to have suddenly figured it out here in the 21st century and all of Christianity has been wrong all this time.
Interesting that there isn't anything in the Scriptures regarding it...Jews don't have hell and christianity started as a sect of Judaism...
What benefit would someone derive out of frightening people into loving and obeying God
Control.... and if you don't think that is the wooly genesis of eternal torment you don't know people. You can see it in pretty much all aspects of adherents' posting.
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