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Hey thrillobyte, I really have to ask...what are you these days?! LOL. Remembering back to your older posts, I've thought you might be everything from a fundamentalist, to URist, to Liberal Christian, to a skeptical agnostic and now it sounds like you're an annhilationist...are you really on what appears to be a spiritual rollercoaster or are you just messing with us?
LOL yeah, I knew I'd have to deal with this eventually so here goes: I think I'm a spiritual mutt of some sort. I have leanings toward deism in that I absolutely don't believe God answers prayers or intervenes in human affairs. That explains all the tragedy and human misery. I don't believe a God could see the level of atrocities inflicted on millions of children every hour and claim He loves them. So He's in passive mode. But I can conceive of Jesus having existed and even dying for our sins even though it's a mystery to me why God didn't allow any solid secular evidence to be left behind of Jesus. As the Bible teaches all three form of eternal destiny equally I believe each of us has a perfect right to pick our own poison depending on how the verses grab us. So Mike will be convinced eternal torment is the right destiny; Tim will be convinced annihilation is the right destiny and Tutt will be convinced UR is the right destiny. Nobody can prove the other wrong so anybody can be right. But this particular verse convinces me that God probably will annihilate those He chooses to. That fits right in with atheists who believe they annihilate anyhow, so I'm confused why they don't just convert to annihilationism. So in sum: I definitely believe in God so I'm not an atheist. I don't believe in a God who gets involved so I'm classic deist. It wouldn't surprise me if Jesus turned out to be a real person and I am open to whether he died for our sins.
LOL yeah, I knew I'd have to deal with this eventually so here goes: I think I'm a spiritual mutt of some sort. I have leanings toward deism in that I absolutely don't believe God answers prayers or intervenes in human affairs. That explains all the tragedy and human misery. I don't believe a God could see the level of atrocities inflicted on millions of children every hour and claim He loves them. So He's in passive mode. But I can conceive of Jesus having existed and even dying for our sins even though it's a mystery to me why God didn't allow any solid secular evidence to be left behind of Jesus. As the Bible teaches all three form of eternal destiny equally I believe each of us has a perfect right to pick our own poison depending on how the verses grab us. So Mike will be convinced eternal torment is the right destiny; Tim will be convinced annihilation is the right destiny and Tutt will be convinced UR is the right destiny. Nobody can prove the other wrong so anybody can be right. But this particular verse convinces me that God probably will annihilate those He chooses to. That fits right in with atheists who believe they annihilate anyhow, so I'm confused why they don't just convert to annihilationism. So in sum: I definitely believe in God so I'm not an atheist. I don't believe in a God who gets involved so I'm classic deist. It wouldn't surprise me if Jesus turned out to be a real person and I am open to whether he died for our sins.
Well, at least your making forward spiritual progress. More than I can say for those that can't drop the fiery hell doctrine.
Now that you believe there is a God, next if possible, is the faith in the Bible. There is where all of your puzzle pieces will come together. With the Bible, faith, a bit of knowledge of history, proven discoveries of human science, common sense of the world around you, patience, a thirst to learn and your own human ability to reason you can have many of the answers you seek. It will not all be learned in a few months either. It will take years.
Originally Posted by Eusebius And let's not forget that Christ died for all mankind's sins and He ransomed all mankind. Yet, in spite of this, according to some, Jesus turns into the greatest failure the universe has ever seen. Some try to shield God from this colossal failure by vesting mankind with some sort of free-will. Their will is greater than God's in this matter so they trump God's will.
Good points.
I've heard by those who think they are in the know that God will give them a sort of spiritual lobotomy. As if that solves anything.
The Bible never mentions the word "eternal" with "separation." It is another of a long list of man-made theological noodlings.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard1965
Who'd he ransom them from?...
Hi Richard, thanks for the question. The answer is not "who" but "what."
All mankind are enslaved to sin and death. Christ ransomed all mankind from that enslavement. All mankind will be freed into immortality and incorruption due to what Christ did.
Hi Richard, thanks for the question. The answer is not "who" but "what."
All mankind are enslaved to sin and death. Christ ransomed all mankind from that enslavement. All mankind will be freed into immortality and incorruption due to what Christ did.
Did G-d ever say that mankind was enslaved to sin?...
It's hardly ''my system.'' I didn't write the Bible. First, let's forget the 'grudging, terrifyingly angry' picture of God. The Bible uses anthropomorphic language in which God is described in human terms and with human characteristics which He doesn't really have in order to make His attributes and policies somewhat comprehensible to the finite human mind. God is absolute righteousness and justice, and the execution of His justice in carrying out the demands of His righteousness is referred to as His wrath. God doesn't actually have the human emotion of anger, nor does He hate. But being absolute holiness, God must punish sin and evil.
The only way to explain why God chose to set up His plan the way He did is that in His wisdom and foreknowledge and omniscience He determined that this was the best way to accomplish His purpose, which as I said, is both to bring many sons into glory while at the same time resolving the angelic conflict. In giving both angels and man volition, He knew exactly how it would all play out. And in order for volition to be a reality God had to let it function. Of course there are times when God has to step in and overrule the decisions of men in order to preserve the human race and keep it from destroying itself, but aside from that, God allows volition to function.
Regardless of what anyone may think about why God does things the way that He does, and regardless of not being able to understand why He does things the way that He does, it must be remembered that He is Sovereign and He has the right to do things His way, and that His way is in accordance with His perfect righteousness, His perfect wisdom, and His perfect love.
Sorry for the delay, forgot to press send yesterday.
It may not be your particular 'system' as far as something you devised yourself, but whether it is the system actually promoted by God and the Bible I'm not convinced of when there is so much debate on the topic with so many good arguments on both sides that from my view, rarely get the upperhand against their opposing side. It still just sounds like your reasoning boils down to "God had his reasons due to the angelic war"...which is really just another theologically fancy way of saying "God works in mysterious ways"...which really isn't the best explanation when dealing with what appears to the average un-indoctrinated person to be a moral/justice travesty.
Why do I use the word travesty? Consider the following: Vlad the Impaler is still considered a hero by Romanians for warding off enemies by grotesque fear and having little to no crime in his city...but he was an extremely sadistic and sick ruler who was a master of the most brutal and perverted tortures ever devised. He once even had someone brutally impaled for his shirt being too short...sound extreme? I think most people not born with an a near psychotic love of 'deterrence and punishment only' forms of justice would say that goes well beyond extreme...God on the other hand essentially had people born into (through original sin and/or arguably geographically in many ways) deserving the never-ending torment of the fallen angels (who I suppose have such robotic unchanging hatred of God that he somehow had to make their torment never ending)...I don't know about you, but that sounds infinitely more extreme than the preceding example to me and not just something I'm willing to brush under then carpet by saying "God works in mysterious ways" in the fanciest theological words possible.
This is also really about what we end up telling people to bring them to Christ and what works and what doesn't...hundreds of years, we've been telling mostly uneducated simple people: "Believe in Jesus. He loves you and forgives your sins. If you don't, his father will send you to a state of eternal isolation and/or torture" And they were like: "Oh no! What must I do to be saved?! Although my Country's leader has be threatening us with public burnings for not following his religion, I don't want to burn forever!" or something like that...today, our more educated people well aware of History, the current worlds religions and justice systems are hearing the same thing and saying something more like: "....Jesus sounds nice but his father sounds worse than Hitler...wait, they're technically the same person?!...I think I'll go back to my Unitarian Church now...". Its really not a good situation for ETer or ESer (Eternal Separation) evangelism today and for good reason. Thus, Annihilationists, URs, and liberal Christians are becoming more and more prevalent and the number or people you're going to have all out forum wars about scripture with is only going to increase.
Anyways, Is tradition really worth all this? LOL! I try to stay objective on afterlife issues because I acknowledge that I ultimately don't know what will happen..but God gave me a brain he expected me to use and my brain tells me that tradition is greatly losing the moral and logical battle and ET and ES believers are essentially 100% dependent on what they think are better scriptural arguments which really don't seem any better to me at all based on what I've seen debated on this forum. You may think URs and Annihilationists have to resort outrageous scriptural gymnastics to make the bible say what they want, but taking a step back from my upbringing and trying to look at it objectively the past several years, I find it hard to see the traditionalists explanations any less acrobatic. But keep on fighting this battle if you will, but from what I can tell, thanks largely to the inability to really give a good explanation of why God would have chose this beyond extreme justice system without implying he works in mysterious ways, the war is progressively getting worse for your side. Just my take on it.
"Then Jehovah said to Cain: ...sin is crouching at the door, and its craving is to dominate you; but will you get the mastery over it?” Gen 4:6, 7
More of your JW distortion of the Bible. The actual verse is:
Genesis 4:6-7New American Standard Bible (NASB)
6 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? 7 If you do well, [a]will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.”
The bold actually means: the desire is on your side. It is from our animal nature trying to please us or enhance our survival, but we must learn to control it using our knowledge of Good and Evil.
More of your JW distortion of the Bible. The actual verse is:
Genesis 4:6-7New American Standard Bible (NASB)
6 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? 7 If you do well, [a]will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.”
The bold actually means: the desire is on your side. It is from our animal nature trying to please us or enhance our survival, but we must learn to control it using our knowledge of Good and Evil.
Sorry for the delay, forgot to press send yesterday.
It may not be your particular 'system' as far as something you devised yourself, but whether it is the system actually promoted by God and the Bible I'm not convinced of when there is so much debate on the topic with so many good arguments on both sides that from my view, rarely get the upperhand against their opposing side. It still just sounds like your reasoning boils down to "God had his reasons due to the angelic war"...which is really just another theologically fancy way of saying "God works in mysterious ways"...which really isn't the best explanation when dealing with what appears to the average un-indoctrinated person to be a moral/justice travesty.
Why do I use the word travesty? Consider the following: Vlad the Impaler is still considered a hero by Romanians for warding off enemies by grotesque fear and having little to no crime in his city...but he was an extremely sadistic and sick ruler who was a master of the most brutal and perverted tortures ever devised. He once even had someone brutally impaled for his shirt being too short...sound extreme? I think most people not born with an a near psychotic love of 'deterrence and punishment only' forms of justice would say that goes well beyond extreme...God on the other hand essentially had people born into (through original sin and/or arguably geographically in many ways) deserving the never-ending torment of the fallen angels (who I suppose have such robotic unchanging hatred of God that he somehow had to make their torment never ending)...I don't know about you, but that sounds infinitely more extreme than the preceding example to me and not just something I'm willing to brush under then carpet by saying "God works in mysterious ways" in the fanciest theological words possible.
This is also really about what we end up telling people to bring them to Christ and what works and what doesn't...hundreds of years, we've been telling mostly uneducated simple people: "Believe in Jesus. He loves you and forgives your sins. If you don't, his father will send you to a state of eternal isolation and/or torture" And they were like: "Oh no! What must I do to be saved?! Although my Country's leader has be threatening us with public burnings for not following his religion, I don't want to burn forever!" or something like that...today, our more educated people well aware of History, the current worlds religions and justice systems are hearing the same thing and saying something more like: "....Jesus sounds nice but his father sounds worse than Hitler...wait, they're technically the same person?!...I think I'll go back to my Unitarian Church now...". Its really not a good situation for ETer or ESer (Eternal Separation) evangelism today and for good reason. Thus, Annihilationists, URs, and liberal Christians are becoming more and more prevalent and the number or people you're going to have all out forum wars about scripture with is only going to increase.
Anyways, Is tradition really worth all this? LOL! I try to stay objective on afterlife issues because I acknowledge that I ultimately don't know what will happen..but God gave me a brain he expected me to use and my brain tells me that tradition is greatly losing the moral and logical battle and ET and ES believers are essentially 100% dependent on what they think are better scriptural arguments which really don't seem any better to me at all based on what I've seen debated on this forum. You may think URs and Annihilationists have to resort outrageous scriptural gymnastics to make the bible say what they want, but taking a step back from my upbringing and trying to look at it objectively the past several years, I find it hard to see the traditionalists explanations any less acrobatic. But keep on fighting this battle if you will, but from what I can tell, thanks largely to the inability to really give a good explanation of why God would have chose this beyond extreme justice system without implying he works in mysterious ways, the war is progressively getting worse for your side. Just my take on it.
I'll make my best attempt to explain the 'why' of it all, the way that I see it based on Scripture and reasoning. Your statement that my reasoning boils down to "God had his reasons due to the angelic war," is backwards. Actually, the angelic conflict exists because God allows it to exist for His own reasons. God could have immediately sent Satan into the lake of fire, but He chose not to. Instead, God allowed and is allowing this angelic conflict to rage throughout human history. The question is why?
God has a purpose which He intends to, and will accomplish. And He has a plan which will achieve His purpose. Everything that God does is ultimately for His own glory. Being perfect and infinitely holy, God knows Himself to be worthy of all praise and glorification. This is not arrogance on God's part, but is simply a recognition of the truth.
I must also bring up the point that God had a reason for creating both angels and man with volition. And the reason why is not difficult to understand. God wants a reciprocal relationship with His moral creatures. And there can be no true relationship with robots or puppets. Therefore the need for angels and man to have volition, to have the ability to make choices. But for volition to be real, for it to be able to function, God must allow angels and man to make volitional choices that are contrary to His will. In human history the sovereignty of God co-exists with the volition of man.
Because God allows angelic and human volition to function, because again, there wouldn't be true volition if He didn't allow it to function, He must allow rebellion and sin and evil, with all of its consequences to play out in human history until He brings it to a close in His own time.
And by allowing rebellion and sin and evil with all the suffering and tragic events that result in human history because of those things to play out, God will ultimately demonstrate the utter futility of both angelic and human rebellion against Him. And all for His own glory which He as the creator and sovereign ruler of creation is worthy of. Though human history from our perspective has been a long affair, from God's perspective, all of human history from its beginning to it's future conclusion this side of eternity is not even a drop in the bucket. At its conclusion, God's holiness will be demonstrated and vindicated to all of creation, and those who chose for God will be with Him forever while those who chose against Him will be forever separated from Him in terms of relationship.
Regarding the issues of annhilationism and Universalism, I believe that it's been demonstrated that the Bible does not teach annihilationism simply by the fact that even after a thousand years, it is said of the beast and the false prophet that they will still be in existence in the lake of fire, and that they will continue to exist afterwards. And in post #95, it was demonstrated that the beast and the false prophet are human.
Universalism is ruled out by the fact that there are those who will not see life (John 3:36). This does not mean cessation of existence, but only that there are those who will not have the kind of life - eternal life, which is life in a saving relationship with God with all the blessing that comes with it. Those who will exist in the lake of fire (whatever its nature) will exist forever apart from the blessing and joy that those who possess eternal life will have in the eternal state.
You ask if tradition is worth it. It is not tradition, but truth which is worth proclaiming. Well, I'll end this post here, and I'm not sure that I can add anything to my explanation for ''the why of things.'' You may not agree with my view, but there it is.
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LOL. Remembering back to your older posts, I've thought you might be everything from a fundamentalist, to URist, to Liberal Christian, to a skeptical agnostic and now it sounds like you're an annhilationist...are you really on what appears to be a spiritual rollercoaster or are you just messing with us? 
