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God does not justify sinners. Those who refuse God's generous gift of forgiveness will suffer the Second Death - absolute deletion, extinction and annihilation.
One way or the other sin will come to an end.
that's me, hollering from the choir loft....
Dear choir dude: when are you going to learn to sing in spontaneous vibrations and escape the loft for the choir?
ALL death (the radical all) is swallowed up in one gigantic gulp!
Is Armageddon same as hell according to your former JW views?
They just believe the wicked (those that didn't follow the Watchtower) will be destroyed. They don't believe in a soul so when you die you are not conscious. That's not a bad as eternal torment but I still couldn't see how there was such a difference in people that some should get paradise and some should get death. People just didn't look all that evil to me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kmom2
I shared a version of this idea in the Buddhist section of "Do all Buddhists go to hell" but it is also relevant here. If I am living a Christ-like life, that means that I am aspiring to love and serve all people, even if it means emptying out myself, and even if it means in bad conditions. If by some glitch in the matrix, I end up in hell, then I will continue trying to help suffering beings there. Because isn't that my purpose, after all? If that is your mentality, then hell isn't really hell, is it?
Christians should check out Buddhist bodhisattvas for this issue, because it has always troubled me that my faith tradition has found it ethically okay for so-called saints, even the Savior of the world, to tolerate even one soul in hell. There are Bodhisattvas who decide to go to hell to help those suffering there. It's the epitome of self-sacrificing compassion in that tradition.
Thank you. I looked up that thread and I love you calling it "the heart of Christ." I'd like to get in on that discussion because I have some undeveloped thoughts on this not appropriate for this section.
I have no problem or fear in accepting the consequences of my own thoughts, deeds and actions.
One of my favorite quotes is from Sir Thomas More, Utopia: "For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them."
That's how it looks to me too. I wonder how much "free will" any of us has. We didn't determine our circumstances, our experience, our personality or intelligence or any of that. Yet it all determines our perceptions and actions.
Same here. The concept of going to hell to help suffering beings never occurred to me until mid-life, and a Buddhist mentioned it. I was like "WHAT??" I couldn't wrap my mind around it. I just kept saying "That's crazy! That's impossible!" "Good luck with that!" as we had several animated discussions, until finally, over the years, I realized that's the heart of Christ.
How do you know you will have 'access' to other people in hell though?
Even if there are lots of people that end up there, we have no way of knowing if there will be huge crowds of people (like people gather together while alive), hell may be completely different...you may not even be aware of other people that are there.
That's how it looks to me too. I wonder how much "free will" any of us has. We didn't determine our circumstances, our experience, our personality or intelligence or any of that. Yet it all determines our perceptions and actions.
Yes Dear; We have free will. I knew when I was going to sin. There were circumstantial needs I had for some things in this world, while I knew good and well God directly promised to guide me to take care of my good needs and always has. The punishment I am currently receiving for committing the sin, and for not believing is bad, but fair imo. God is always fair.
Yes Dear; We have free will. I knew when I was going to sin. There were circumstantial needs I had for some things in this world, while I knew good and well God directly promised to guide me to take care of my good needs and always has. The punishment I am currently receiving for committing the sin, and for not believing is bad, but fair imo. God is always fair.
What punishment are you receiving?
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