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Having a conversation with someone who can speak for themselves, from their own perspective is meaningful...I feel the same as you Alan...no point in conversing with anyone who cannot speak in their own words...I can recall some members right now who have been reprimanded for cut and pasting the same websites over and over again... hummmmm...?
Everyone will choose to believe whatever they are convinced is the truth about what the Bible teaches. I posted on this forum to give people an alternate point of view. Had I known that one existed I never would have had a twelve year nervous breakdown 1966-78 over my inability to love a god who would allow anyone to WANT to or have to suffer forever rather than eventually reach out for the salvation that God has provided. I'm 70 years old now.
THE FOLLOWING HAS, AND ALWAYS WILL BE TRUE REGARDING THE DEBATE ABOUT ETERNAL TORMENT
The argument about “eternal hell” nearly always gets bogged down with the words, “My Greek scholars are more reliable than your Greek scholars,” and the result is nearly always a stalemate.
My Greek scholars are Louis Abbott and the many Greek scholars he quotes in chapters three and twelve.
AN ANALYTICAL STUDY OF WORDS An Analytical Study of Words
If you think it glorifies God more to let some of His creatures suffer forever, or annihilate them, then you keep believing that.
But if you think it glorifies God more to eventually meet everyone on the level of their greatest and deepest need which is a change in their stubborn will, then know that there is plenty of evidence in the Bible that that is exactly what God is like.
Paul spread THE truth so how can someone spreading "untruth" be ok let alone set us free? Now don't get me wrong I understand the Holy Spirit saves us inspite of bad teaching and even making an untruth work for His glory and our good but that does not negate what the OP is doing is wrong or that we should support it.
I respect your thinking and how you want to handle it, like I said I have battled with it myself but I can only do what scripture tells me.
There are many who unhook their intelligence and reasoning power to blindly obey what they THINK the scriptures reveal about our spiritual purpose and destiny. That does not mean THEY have the TRUTH and everyone else has untruth. Such arrogance is best kept to oneself, Fundy . . . no THINKING rational person will credit it . . . and it just screams ignorance and self-righteousness.
Paul spread THE truth so how can someone spreading "untruth" be ok let alone set us free?
That was my point. Certain Member believes, quite sincerely to the best of my knowledge, that UR teaches the Scriptural truth, the same truth that Paul believed and taught. I understand that you don't agree with him, but that doesn't make what CM is doing pragmatism.
When Jesus talked about how the Lost are suffering in the fires of their damnation, how did he describe it?
He said it was so unending nasty that even one drop of water from a dipped finger would be seen as the greatest thing that the damned could be in pointless hope to receive....
Actually He didn't describe it as "unending", so you are adding that into scripture.
Quote:
The lake of fire is not talking about just a normal lake with a burning oil slick on the surface....rather the lake of fire is talking about a lake filled from top to bottom with raw fire....and that the Lost are plunged into the deepest depths of this horror forever.
Again, this is only your interpretation of the "lake of fire". The scriptures do not describe it as you do. It is simply a "lake of fire". Why a "lake"? Why not an ocean? Why not a volcano of lava and fire? I believe you yourself said Revelations is a book of symbols. Why are those in the lake of fire tested (as in with a touchstone - one of the meanings of "torment")? And why is there brimstone in this lake? Do you realize brimstone (sulfur) is a purifying agent? There is a purpose for the lake of fire, and its not simply for "God's glory" or to cause eternal pain.
Do you think it is really literal physical fire? Think about this. Fire burns things up. Fire does not torture forever. It may torture for a few moments, but anything longer than that and the victim usually passes out.
Actually He didn't describe it as "unending", so you are adding that into scripture.
I never EVER add to the Text...
I stick very close to the Text,,,
"And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us."
Kids what this verse teaches is that you can not leave hell ....
So what I said is supported in the Text.....
Do you think it is really literal physical fire? Yes, while there may also be a lot of use of the symbol in Revelation, there is also a basic understanding that we should not run away from in our rush to make everything happy and nice...
Fire means fire.
Burn means to burn.
Think about this. Fire burns things up. I seem to remember a bush that didnt get burned up...LOL
So fire burns up things, but Not everlasting things....
Fire burns but can not burn up an everlasting thing like a everlasting body of flesh and bone...
When we rise up out of our graves we are changed.
Our mortal bodies of flesh and blood are changed to become everlasting bodies of flesh and bone.
Then the believers rise up off the earth to meet the Lord in the air so that where Jesus is we will be forever.
The Lost are tossed into the lake of fire where they burn...forever....
"And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us."
Kids what this verse teaches is that you can not leave hell ....
So what I said is supported in the Text.....
You added "unending"; the text does not say that.
Saying "nor can anyone cross" does not mean "unending". It simply means no one can cross while there. For all we know the rich man might be annihilated later. Or maybe people will be taken out of hades at one point. In fact we know that hades is thrown into the lake of fire, so hades is indeed not permanent.
And you are mixing terminology again - "hell" is an ambiguous term because people use it to mean "hades", "a place of eternal torment/fire", and the "lake of fire".
And then there is the larger problem here that you are treating Luke 16 as a literal description of "hell" (hades), when it is obviously a parable. Elsewhere we are told that there is no knowledge in hades, hades is silent, no device or works are in hades, etc.... so how can than the rich man literally be in hades talking (not being silent), thinking (having knowledge), hoping for a drink of water (works), etc?
A literal interpretation of Luke 16 invalidates many other scriptures.
Do you think it is really literal physical fire? Yes, while there may also be a lot of use of the symbol in Revelation, there is also a basic understanding that we should not run away from in our rush to make everything happy and nice...
Fire means fire.
Burn means to burn.
Revelations is a book of SYMBOLS. It tells us that in the chapter 1 verse 1.
Lets look at some of the descriptions throughout that most people would agree are symbols:
Chapter 2: Will God literally punish the church of Ephesus by removing a literal candlestick?
Chapter 3: Will Christ literally turn people (who overcome - the elect) into stone pillars in the temple?
Chapter 4: Was a literal trumpet "talking" with John?
Chapter 5: Is Jesus Christ literally a "Lion," an "animal?"
Chapter 6: Are these literal "horses?" Do the literal stars of heaven fall on the earth? The smallest known stars are a million times larger than the earth.
Chapter 7: Were angels literally holding back four "winds" on four literal "corners" of the earth? I thought the earth is round without corners? Can one literally wash his clothes "white" in red "blood?"
Chapter 8: Will an angel cast a literal mountain burning with fire into the sea?
Chapter 9: During the fifth trumpet will it literally be impossible for mortal men to die?
Will there be literal locusts shaped like "horses?" Locusts that literally have "hair like a woman, teeth like a lion, and breastplates of iron?" LOCUSTS with breastplates of "iron?"
Chapter 10: Did John eat a literal book? That was literally sweet in his taste buds, but literally bitter in his stomach? Why would anyone "eat" a literal book?
Chapter 11: Are God’s two witnesses that prophesy, literally two olive trees and two candlesticks?
Chapter 12: Will there literally be a pregnant woman "clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars?" Was this same woman able to literally "fly into the wilderness with wings of an eagle?"
Chapter 13, Will there be a literal lamb that will speak like a dragon? Just how do dragons "speak" anyhow?
Chapter 14, Does Babylon cause all nations to literally drink of the wine of the literal wrath of her fornication?
Chapter 15, Are the seven last global plagues and catastrophes really contained in seven literal tiny gold vials or bottles?
Chapter 16, Is Jesus Christ going to return to this earth as a literal "thief"? Will every island and mountain on earth literally disappear?
Chapter 17, Will there really be a woman who will ride a literal scarlet coloured beast, having seven heads and ten horns. Can whole nations literally fornicate with a harlot?
Chapter 18, Will the entire social, political, and economic system of the world literally collapse in just one hour because one literal city (Babylon) is destroyed?
Chapter 19, Will a literal prostitute "corrupt" the entire earth? Will a literal "lamb" marry a literal "wife?" Will the King of the universe really wear clothing dripping with literal "blood?" Is God’s wrath a literal "winepress?"
etc.
Hopefully you can see that these are all symbols. Yet in Rev 20, after reading 19 chapters of SYMBOLS, why should we assume that a "lake of fire" is a LITERAL lake of fire?
Certainly it is not a literal lake, because a literal lake has WATER in it. Seems to me all that water would put out the fire. Think about this some more.
we are told that there is no knowledge in hades, hades is silent, no deviceworks are in hades, etc....
Under the sun....
The dead know nothing "under the sun"...
Under the sun the dead are deaf and dumb.
Under the Sun the dead know nothing.
But the term "under the sun" means here on the earth.
This same term is used a lot in the book of Ecclesiastes.
What does "Under Th Sun" mean?
It means the mortal life...the stuff limited to the human existence on the earth.
We look at a dead body and it dont do much
We listen to a dead body and it dont say much
But we should NEVER twist the phrase "Under The Sun" to carry over and be talking about the reality of Heaven.
Thus there is no problem or error in the account that Jesus taught about what heaven was like for a guy named there.
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hummmmm...?
