Why does God condem many to hell....for eternity? (disciple, Israel, worship)

[sean98125]

God doesn't condemn us. Our own actions do.

[Simple Living]

Originally Posted by Travelling fella

The concept of eternal damnation was developed on the dark ages by the catholic church as a mean to opress and control people, it was a tragedy that the very tool of man's freedom (religion) became a tool of enslavement, many people ran away from religion because of this concept of salvation and damnation, and because of blind belief opposed to scientific meditation and personal experience.

Where is the proof of this statement? Hell is a reality quite clearly spoken of in scripture, which was written LONG before Catholicism. In fact, Jesus spoke a LOT more on hell than He ever did about heaven. I'm not a fan of Catholicism, but hell cannot be blamed on them.

if the sacred scriptures are properly interpreted hell actually means 2 things.

hell is the suffering caused by ignorance, lack of self control, bad actions and the void created by the feeling of being apart from the creator, but this feeling of being apart from him is illusory because we come from God and are eternally bonded to him, but thanks to the satanic power of cosmic illusion we perceive ourselves as separate, fortunately this is a temporary condition that will last only as much as we want to, eventually all people, even the wicked among the wicked will return to God by a natural process of evolution that will last several lifes, although it can be hastened by scientific meditation.

What do you base this on? It's certainly not scriptural, even loosely based.

hell is also the resting place of souls who have died on earth, that have accumulated a heavy amount of bad karma due to their bad actions, people who leaned more towards good will enjoy higher spiritual realms (heaven) until they are born again in order to continue their natural evolution process towards God.

in this sense salvation actually means liberation, liberation from our bodily prisons and the cycle of death and reincarnation in order to attain this liberation we need to be disciples of Christ but even an atheist can be a disciple of Christ as stated in this verse.

That's it, Jesus himself stated it, if you love one another as he loved us, we are true disciples of Christ even if we have never heard of Jesus we are practicing his teachings, and manifesting his consciousness in our being.

God is love, it is us humans by the influence of the satan that misinterpret our loving father and perceive him as a wrathful revengeful being, that's why Christ was sent to teach us how God really is, other divine masters did the same, like Krishna, Buddha, etc.

Satan's influence over mankind is what has created these erroneous concepts of eternal hell and damnation, it is also by his works that religions consider their way or their God, the only true way or God, but if you use your soul to study other sacred scriptures you will see how all true religions and all true divine incarnations speak of the same God, of eternal Light, Peace, Love, Bliss, Wisdom, Forgiveness and Compassion.

Now, I understand where you're coming from. It's not a Christian, or a scriptural view you hold, so naturally our thoughts on the subject would differ as drastically as they do.

People from all faiths and atheists should unite themselves and love each other without judging or labeling others, that's true divine love!! and that's the spirit of Christ!

This is a nice sentiment and I don't disagree that it would be a very nice thing to happen. But this is not what "true divine love" is. God is. Love is not an attribute of His. God IS love. God is the true divine love.

[ahteist2]

Hell was added to the church dogma many many years later, long after even the cannonization of the bible.

The early church did not teach it, and the refrences in the bible to it, are the results of mistranslations of certain words and the translators adding their own ideas.

So, christians hell was not part of Jesus gospel at all. That makes the question "why does god send anyone to hell" an invalid one at best.

[Towhee]

Originally Posted by Simple Living

Eternal damnation is biblical and a very real possibility for many people.

Of the statement I bolded above: I hear this a lot by people but I've always wondered what makes them say that. What are you basing this lack of eternal hell on? No one's been able to tell me more than, "I just don't believe God would do that."

That seems a very flimsy, not to mention risky, basis for a belief. What do you base it on?

You are so right.
Also what does RDSlots mean by"My God", does He/she have a differant God than the one that is author of the bible??

[RDSLOTS]

Originally Posted by Simple Living

Eternal damnation is biblical and a very real possibility for many people.

Of the statement I bolded above: I hear this a lot by people but I've always wondered what makes them say that. What are you basing this lack of eternal hell on? No one's been able to tell me more than, "I just don't believe God would do that."

That seems a very flimsy, not to mention risky, basis for a belief. What do you base it on?

I base it upon not accepting all of what I read, or hear, or am taught, even if it comes from a collection of beautifully-written myths and stories in the Bible. God, MY God, gave me a mind and free will, and I think He would see the greater injustice in my not using it. Likewise, he is not the God of my forebears who ascribed to a belief in eternal Hell.

To be perfectly frank, and according to Oscar Wilde -- it is best to be frank when one has something unpleasant to say -- I don't think there is a Hell to compete with what life on earth can be for many. And you want me to believe God would condemn someone to an eternity of it?

Even the thief on the cross with Christ, asked for forgiveness, and did not Christ tell him he would be with Him in His Father's Kingdom? Perhaps you mean that those who seek no salvation are thus not saved? Whatever that means, or how you may choose to interpret it.

I ask for forgiveness for my transgressions, every day. I will be asking for forgiveness for this one too.

But to answer the original question: MY God does not condemn people to eternal Hell. MY God is a kind and loving God. He may expect things of me, like any father of his child, but He doesn't condemn me, or any other child of His, to Hell for all eternity. Call it 'flimsy' but I could say the same of the notion of Hell for an eternity.

[RDSLOTS]

Originally Posted by Marianinark

You are so right.
Also what does RDSlots mean by"My God", does He/she have a differant God than the one that is author of the bible??

The god who wrote the Bible must be your god, then. MY God is something entirely different.

[I LOVE NORTH CAROLINA]

Originally Posted by RDSLOTS

The god who wrote the Bible must be your god, then. MY God is something entirely different.

The God who wrote the Bible is my God, and He said in Isaiah 43:10 there is no other God, there never has been and there never will be.

[Towhee]

Originally Posted by RDSLOTS

The god who wrote the Bible must be your god, then. MY God is something entirely different.

So were did you learn about 'your god' ? Does he/she have a book ?

[ainulinale]

Originally Posted by arguy1973

I dont believe in pre-destination but there are some do.
Predestination or Free Will? Calvinism's hidden doctrine.

**i havent read the entire website other than the link posted article, so this is my disclaimer about other links on the page.

this link is written by Roman Catholics who make some errors in their assumptions. for instance, most protestants don't believe that the Roman church is completely corrupt; there have been other brands of Christianity around during the days of the apostles, like the Orthodox, Coptic, and Ethiopic churches--they never address the status of any of these.

[firstborn888]

Originally Posted by Nikk

Read the parable of the Rich man and Lazarus in the Bible.

I've addressed this parable many times in other threads and I will again here too :

The rich man and Lazarus:

The main problem with an understanding that Jesus is simply referring to what happens to 'lost' and 'saved' people in the afterlife in this parable is that NO MENTION is made about faith in God at all - only that the one man was rich and had a good life and the other was poor and had a terrible life.

The next problem is the term used: 'Hades' which is actually the best Greek could do for the Hebrew 'Sheol' (AKA: the grave, the unseen)

Throughout scripture there is no consciousness, thought, knowledge, blessing or torment in Sheol/Hades EXCEPT in this one parable spoken by Jesus (Rich man and Lazarus). The idea that upon death a person immediately goes into conscious non-ending torments/blessings originated in pagan mythology.

The idea of 'two compartments in Sheol' and 'instant reward/punishment' theory did not originally come from the Hebrews at all, but the Pharisees had such a doctrine - probably picked up while the Jews were in captivity to pagan nations. In the Pharisees version - the rich, who were (in their eyes) obviously blessed by God would be carried by angels (also un-scriptural) to their reward in the 'bosom of Abraham' (also a one time mention) while the poor beggars who were (in their eyes) obviously cursed by God were sent into instant fiery torments.

Jesus simply turned their OWN false doctrine upside down on them to show their hypocrisy.

Look for fiery torments in Sheol/Hades ANYWHERE ELSE in scripture - it doesn't exist. Sheol/Hades simply refers to the generic state of the dead (the grave) which is evidenced by it's free translation both ways (hell/grave). The good, bad and the ugly all go there.

So how did the church ever get to it's current doctrine of 'hell fire'?
Easy. The KJV translators substituted the english word 'hell' in the place of the word 'Gehenna' - and *presto* we have a fiery 'hell'.

But.... the judgment of Gehenna was never mentioned to the Gentiles even once and was never used by any apostle of Christ except once by James, referring to the tongue. So how could it possibly denote the place of non-ending torment for the 'lost' of the world? Peter never mentioned it, nor Paul, nor John. In the entire book of acts - no mention of 'hell' at all. What does that tell us?

I hope you will not take my word for it, but study this out for yourselves. The church has believed this myth for far too long.

We are here to learn about love and forgiveness and to overcome evil (by God's grace). Read Genesis 3, the 'fall' of man. No hint of eternal torment as a consequence, just the terrible consequences we see all around us every day.

blessings,
- Byron