Can We Truly Consent to Infinite Torture?

[Simeon_Hovey]

I’m new to the group so am reading from Page 7 onwards to get caught up; being a student of the Greek Language (& advanced mathematics) I thought I would present some objective and statistical facts about the Greek words for hell. It is used:

13x between MT – Jude

10x when duplicate verses are removed

7x by MT = 58% of its usage from MT – LK

6x in reference to plucking out thine eye &etc, = 46% of its usage in MT – LK. (LK copies the verse/word from MK 3x in reference to plucking out one’s eye &etc.)

3x by MK

1x by LK

2x in the Epistles

0x in John

0x in Revelations

0x is the word defined for us

Following are the verses where the 1st 12 word/s for hell are to be found, followed by Strongs definition of the word.

MT 5:22, MT 5:29, MT 5:30, MT 10:28, MT 18:9, MT 23:15, MT 22:33, MK 9:43, MK 9:45, MK 9:47, LK 12:5, JA 3:6 all use the following term:

Strongs 1067 Gehenna: of Hebrew origin; valley of (the son of) Hinnom; a valley of Jerusalem, used (figuratively) as a name for the place (or state) of everlasting punishment.

2 PT 2:4

Strongs 5020 tartarosas: from Tartaros (the deepest abyss of Hades); to incarcerate in eternal torment.

In Revelations the word hell is not used in modern versions of the bible. In older (Elizabethan English) the term is used 3 times

1:18, 6:8, 20:13

Since you’re still with me I’ll make one last statement of fact: time does not exist. It’s no more real or tangible than any of the other abstracts we find necessary for daily use such as basic math, units of measurement (distance, weight &etc), fractals, or chaos theory; to name but a few.

The end of statisics and math.

On a personal note (since I’m not caught up with the group, proceed as you choose) it is difficult for me to comprehend an all-loving God casting people into eternal torture.

Just as my 3 years service in South East Asia convinced me that good people couldn’t be damned forever because of the religion where they were born. I take some comfort from Romans 2:13 – 16. And Viet Nam taught me that hell on earth exists.

As to God’s enigma, 1 JO 1:5 John tells us, that God is light (phos), and in him is no darkness (skotia) at all. (KJV2000)

S5457 phos: to shine or make manifest; to show or make one’s thoughts known.

This tells me that there is nothing hidden about God, and that in phos He makes his thoughts known to us.

S4653 skotia: dimness, obscurity (literally or figuratively).

This tells me that nothing about God is obscure.

In order to get some grasp of “eternity” I found that Dostoevski’s “The Brothers Karamazov”, chapter “Ivan’s Conversation With The Devil” to be very helpful. Emanuel Kant’s “7 Contra-Arguments” are also very good.

Finally, I apologize for my errors.

 

[tonyrey]

On a personal note (since I’m not caught up with the group, proceed as you choose) it is difficult for me to comprehend an all-loving God casting people into eternal torture.

Do you believe in the reality of evil?

 

[Simeon_Hovey]

Do you believe in the reality of evil?

Not only do I believe in evil… One day in a VA hospital (my legs had become paralyzed from an earlier spinal cord injury) I felt black evil appear from out of nowhere and come towards me. Somehow words like ugly, terrible, ravenously devouring, it wanted my soul and it wanted it now. Seem pale to the experience. For whatever reasons the words that came into my mind were, “What are you even doing here? Because all I have to do is say…” JESUS which I said out loud, and then the experience of how it departed: evaporated, disappeared, collapsed… and it happened just as quickly as it had come, the moment I said our Lord’s name. At that split-hair moment it was gone. (I trembled while writing this as I recalled the experience.)

I DO NOT want to come across as anything other than an ordinary Christian because I have my own daily difficulties and temptations, as does everyone. Well, being a paraplegic adds to the difficulties but praise the Lord, at home I don’t need the wheelchair and I can walk across the street to get my mail.

 

[Simeon_Hovey]

"Time has come up a few times now so I’ll throw in my 2 cents. Time doesn’t exist, just take any advanced college math theory course; it’s merely an applied theory using a mechanical/silicon device that tells the positional relation of the earth to the moon or the sun. (That’s why time travel cannot happen.) Or time is a set of ordinal numbers we use to deal with history.

I rarely bring it up because I’m rarely believed. But it’s not my opinion. At Chapman College, Orange CA Professor N. PHD said, “Until we can see it, feel it, or develop some new measuring device that can detect time then it’s still just applied theory.”

 

[Simeon_Hovey]

"Time has come up a few times now so I’ll throw in my 2 cents. Time doesn’t exist, just take any advanced college math theory course; it’s merely an applied theory using a mechanical/silicon device that tells the positional relation of the earth to the moon or the sun. (That’s why time travel cannot happen.) Or time is a set of ordinal numbers we use to deal with history.

TEST.

 

[Dameedna]

Dameedna

He could yes, but He made rules and He follows them. He could change rules, but I think it is safe to say He isn’t going to.
There were ways to pay for sins before Christ.

I’m not sure what your point is here? What were you responding to?

I believe is Santa. Saint Nick was a real person. No he doesn’t come down the chimney with presents but God doesn’t fix the tv when I pray real hard either. He could yes, but He provided other means and follows His own rules.

Santa, doesn’t exist. A man who gave children presents a long time ago exists.

In the same way, Jesus was not God. He was a human, who taught other humans the way to live their lives differently.

Nothing really new here I’m afraid, except a glorious and magical myth, made out of very little at all.

Kind of proves the point really.

Knowledge of the heart. You know your heart. God knows your heart. Don’t ignore the guidance of the Holy Spirit because your head tells you it isn’t logical. God also requires that we have faith. Yes, He could take away this requirement but again I think it is safe to say He isn’t going to anytime soon.

My heart pumps blood. My emotions tell me to be afraid of every dog on the side-walk because I was once bitten. My brain tells me, that’s not particularly rational but my “heart” continues to share it’s defense mechanism with me.

Once you know how the human brain works, at least with current knowlege, pleading to the human heart doesn’t mean anything. My heart as you call it, is my brain. And I listen to it and think with it, and it tells me that you are wrong. Of course that could be a survival mechanism, or it could be a reaction to indoctrinated fear, or simply a rational mind that refuses to listen to emotions that are a response to stimuli and that only.

When I disagree with a christian, I am not ignoring the holy spirit. I am disagreeing with that christian. We can all claiim to be following the holy spirit as do those that practice polygomy and beat their wives.

I think I’ll take a more skeptical approach to the “holy spirit” views. Especially the patrionising ones that claim I dont’ “listen” to the holy spirit, when I don’t happen to agree with their point of view.

You believe there are prisons which a person must go to for the rest of their life or even to end it, if they commit a serious offense. You can have this knowledge without experiencing it yourself. Perhaps hell can be compared to prison.

You can compare hell to whatever you want. But God still chose to create a human, and create them with free-will, knowing they will make a mistake and leaves them there forever after 1 lifetime.

The ultimate resonsibility for a “hell” condition, sits with the “god” who created the free-willed human in the first place. He didn’t have to do it, but he chose to…with full knowlege of the choice.

You can say this is just the way it is. But this, is not to me, the act of a so-called loving God. Once again, nothing I’ve said is actually addressed.

Cheers

 

[JDaniel]

Part 1 of 2:

Perhaps he does, but certainly not all of the time. Then again, we probably have different ideas of what “helping” entails.

Perhaps we do. You don’t have to, but, if you want to describe what you mean here, I’ll engage it with you, as I’m sure so will others.

I’m in Indiana.

I spent a lot of time driving between Cincinnati or Columbus and Indianapolis. Nice scenery. Also, I happen to be a huge Colt fan.

I hope my posts sound more persuasive as well. I’ve been trying to tone my style down a bit.

They do. The toning down of your style adds a nice touch.

The foundry my dad works at is becoming more and more desperate. We couldn’t go on vacation this summer, but other than that, we’ve been doing fine.

It is my sincerest hope that God blesses you, your family and the foundry, for that sake of its people.

I wonder: if God would, as you say, take up everything,

Sorry. I should have been clearer. I meant take up everything as in “room” or “space”.

how can our consciousnesses be individuated?

I’m not sure if this question still applies, then.

Christianity seems to thrive off of separation and duality ("That soul deserves this, this soul deserves that, etc.) You’ll never hear a Christian say that we’re all headed down the same path or that we’re all more or less the same. If we truly had God as a commonality, it would be heresy to claim we are individuals.

Perhaps it does seem so. I don’t see it as a “thriving” though. I see that the owner of the hotel we call Earth has some (very, very few) rules. He created the hotel and he created the guests. He expects the guests to behave.

Also, having multiple gods in a religion could solve the problem of evil. You could say that these gods are good, the other gods are evil, and that they’re all trying to express their will through disasters and miracles.

Well, interestingly, there is a sect that devolved primarily from Western Catholicism that does posit two gods. One, the “good” god and the other, the “evil” god. There seem to be a couple of problems with such a line of thought though. On the one hand, there’s no strong rationale for it from scripture. And, on the other hand, logically, how could there be, for two infinite metaphysical substances, each one by itself occupying everything in the metaphysical realm, would leave no room, space or place for the other? These are just two that come to mind for me.

Everything God does is good, right? We can also agree that God created our capacity for suffering. I’m not convinced that there is any major difference between allowing suffering and causing it.

And, this is, without doubt, the primary reason many people fall away from the side, and sight, of God. Prelapsarian man existed in a state of wonderment. Adam and Eve lived without pain, without hunger, without the deprivation of paradise, and without just about every privation you could think of except one. There was all of this wonderful stuff, the earth, the trees, the animals, the weather, the food . . . but, there was no freedom to choose. There was no free will.

God had already created Angels. The Angels knew Him. They interacted with Him timelessly. Now, He wished to create a creature without angelic perfections, but, with at least one of the potential perfections of God Himself plus the angelic perfections. Remember, per definitionem, God is prolific. God is the Creator, therefore, it is in His nature to create. Why He created man to exist in the physical dimension, I won’t know at least for a while, I hope. But, He did. Remember also, that God is the embodiment (poor choice of word) of Love. Fecundity is the natural expression of Love and, vice versa.

continued . . .

 

[tonyrey]

Not only do I believe in evil… One day in a VA hospital (my legs had become paralyzed from an earlier spinal cord injury) I felt black evil appear from out of nowhere and come towards me. Somehow words like ugly, terrible, ravenously devouring, it wanted my soul and it wanted it now. Seem pale to the experience. For whatever reasons the words that came into my mind were, “What are you even doing here? Because all I have to do is say…” JESUS which I said out loud, and then the experience of how it departed: evaporated, disappeared, collapsed… and it happened just as quickly as it had come, the moment I said our Lord’s name. At that split-hair moment it was gone. (I trembled while writing this as I recalled the experience.)

I DO NOT want to come across as anything other than an ordinary Christian because I have my own daily difficulties and temptations, as does everyone. Well, being a paraplegic adds to the difficulties but praise the Lord, at home I don’t need the wheelchair and I can walk across the street to get my mail.

 

[JDaniel]

Part 2 of 2 . . .

He could have created any possible world. He chose to give man free will, I think so that man might be happier about himself and happier about his overall experience with existence. He also chose for man to be a physical being. Don’t ask me why, He just did. Knowing what the Fall and the subsequent corruption of Man, the physical being, would bring to man, He still wanted man to be able to participate in His freedom as much as could be humanly possible.

The physicality of man - that attribute of us that almost none of us are very willing to give up - is, unfortunately potentially wrought with the frailties concomitant with being physical. I think that if you were ask men to cue up if they wanted to end their existences, the line would be pretty short.

Anyway, assuming that we encourage what is good, it seems that allowing suffering is good…or is it only good when God does it?

God doesn’t “do it,” per se, He “tolerates” it as a derivative of what it is to be physical. (I know I’ll catch the whip for that statement!) But, it is true. Look, to God, His side of the death event-horizon is far more important than our side of it. If I were God, I’m sure I’d have a tough time ever understanding why anyone would rather remain here! I’m sure He doesn’t, but, in the big scheme of things, the reality that His side of the death event-horizon holds much more promise and importance for humans, has got to enter into the consideration.

And to answer the question you may ask: yes, I would sacrifice a portion of my freedom if it meant being happier.

I am sorry if you are not as happy as you wish to be. I will tell you that that is not uncommon at your age. Some young people take the most disgusting way out, never giving a second thought about the people that love them that they leave behind! But, that’s off-topic.

You will be given many opportunities to sacrifice your freedoms for potentially more happiness. Refuse to do it if asked by the government though!

Is it not the Christians who say that we are but rags before the Lord? Is it not them who say that we ought to shun earthly things? Any way we look at it, Daniel, we’re both earthly things. We have desires and limitations that are beyond our control. We carry with us tendencies that the Church condemns (a sex drive, for starters). We are considered to be so despicable that we must use Jesus as a shield just to be in the presence of God. That’s like your father only allowing you to see him if you put a bag over your head.

I understand where you are coming from. I have to admit that, at your age, I felt the same way - now that you’ve made me look back at it. For some reason, all of that has changed for me. I haven’t felt any of that for quite a few years.

From about your age until I was about 21, I know that I went through a dry period that we used to call, the “search for our own identities.” Until I was about 22, I had no idea why I was here - on earth, at that time and place, with the people I was with, seemingly uncared about by my parents, siblings and friends. Participating in fun exercises was a way to put all of that out of my mind, a way to sublimate.

Then, one day, out of the blue, I met the girl of my dreams, we married and had three incredible children. Prior to meeting her, I wouldn’t have believed that could happen to me for a moment. Sometimes I think we’re too darned impatient. Believe me, when you’re young, time seems to bog down and last forever. As you get older, it gets faster - by the day! My advice to you is to not wish for time to speed up.

All of the things you brought up in your last paragraph will be answered for you in due time. You will know that you felt, to some extent, wrongly about them today AND you will remember that I told you you would. This is what friends do - and, I consider you a friend.

It makes sense that we want to confront God nose-to-nose, and toe-to-toe. We have so much power. No one, not even God, can tell us what to do. Humility seems like the refuge of the weak. It is not. At a point in the future, you will recognize that it is humility that puts men on an even ground with Almighty God. You will like the feeling. But, it will be different from pride. It will be 180 degrees from arrogance. And, you’ll remember that I told you so.

Can you imagine the power of participating with God in the rightful procreation of own children? When the time is right. If I had it to do again, I’d have 20 children! (My wife has passed on at a young age.) I can’t get enough of my three as it is. When I say that to people I get the question, “But, how would you afford it?” I couldn’t afford the first one, but, somehow we managed. Then the second one came as a surprise. And, the third, well we certainly couldn’t afford three. Somehow, we managed and, in fact, by the grace of God - not that I deserved it at that time - we flourished. I could easily have afforded many more children. Can you imagine a house full of 20 children? Can you imagine the amount of love in such a place? But, I was an idiot.

So God is an employer and I’m one of his employees…What product are we making? What are we producing that God couldn’t snap his fingers and make himself? It is selfish to create animals, require that they renounce their animalistic natures, and command them to work for you. As a rule of thumb: if it sounds ridiculous, it is ridiculous. To me, this plot sounds ridiculous and petty.

No, God is not an employer. It was the “fairness” thing I was emphasizing. Re-read my paragraph with the right emphasis on it. None of what you’re thinking it meant is what it actually meant.

jd

 

[tonyrey]

Not only do I believe in evil… One day in a VA hospital (my legs had become paralyzed from an earlier spinal cord injury) I felt black evil appear from out of nowhere and come towards me. Somehow words like ugly, terrible, ravenously devouring, it wanted my soul and it wanted it now. Seem pale to the experience. For whatever reasons the words that came into my mind were, “What are you even doing here? Because all I have to do is say…” JESUS which I said out loud, and then the experience of how it departed: evaporated, disappeared, collapsed… and it happened just as quickly as it had come, the moment I said our Lord’s name. At that split-hair moment it was gone. (I trembled while writing this as I recalled the experience.)

I DO NOT want to come across as anything other than an ordinary Christian because I have my own daily difficulties and temptations, as does everyone. Well, being a paraplegic adds to the difficulties but praise the Lord, at home I don’t need the wheelchair and I can walk across the street to get my mail.

What a fascinating and moving account of your experience! After that its reality must be overpowering. I had a similar but far less dramatic experience. I befriended a woman who was determined to commit suicide yet she was terrified of being on her own and followed me around like a dog. Usually she said nothing for hours on end but one day something I said provoked her and the look in her eyes was so evil I felt a fear I’ve never experienced before or since. I managed to keep her alive for three months but eventually she walked to her death along a railway track. She had arranged for her son to be adopted by a lawyer and his wife. Six months later the wife committed suicide! Sheer coincidence? Those incidents and several others led me to the conclusion that the poor woman must have been possessed.

But my belief in hell is not based on such experiences. It is based on the inexorable consequences of free will. If it enables us to defy and reject Him by choosing to worship and deify ourselves we can do so indefinitely. God does not cast anyone into hell. The damned love themselves, live for themselves and say “To heaven with everybody else! Let the sycophants fawn and flatter their God but we are self-sufficient and we prize our independence. We don’t need some One to tell us what to do and who to love. He was a fool to share His power with us but now He can’t take it back. We’ve been given power and we intend to keep it forever and ever. Amen!”

Jesus came into this world to demonstrate that God has made Himself vulnerable to rejection and hatred not only in this life but also in the next. Is that inconceivable folly? No, it is the folly of love which is infinitely more fulfilling than worldly wisdom. Most people don’t associate God with suffering - except atheists who regard it as a disproof of His existence - but a God Who suffers is, paradoxically, our greatest consolation. When we suffer, as we all shall sooner or later, we know we are not alone…

 

[liquidpele]

Jesus came into this world to demonstrate that God has made Himself vulnerable to rejection and hatred not only in this life but also in the next. Is that inconceivable folly? No, it is the folly of love which is infinitely more fulfilling than worldly wisdom. Most people don’t associate God with suffering - except atheists who regard it as a disproof of His existence - but a God Who suffers is, paradoxically, our greatest consolation. When we suffer, as we all shall sooner or later, we know we are not alone…

That is an interesting viewpoint… thanks.

 

[tonyrey]

That is an interesting viewpoint… thanks.

Thanks for your thanks! Whatever we believe we can’t go far wrong if we have a positive outlook on life. Suffering is an evil but a far greater evil is indifference to the suffering of others. All of us can do something to alleviate it and even prevent it…
(Just after I wrote that, a poor “devil” came to the door trying to sell small items to make a living - and gave me a chance to practise what I preach!)

 

[Mel_Stones]

Dameedna,

Tradition, faith, and eye-witnesses mean nothing to you.
You have faith in yourself alone - personally don’t see the logic in that because we can’t help but be shaped by others.
Let’s just agree to disagree because neither is going to convince the other of anything.

Peace.

 

[tobias]

Many Christians argue that Hell is an acceptable punishment because, by sinning, people consent to being punished there.

They do not simply acept the punishment, but are in rejection of the alternative.

They say that God tells us what will happen if we sin without confessing and that this is sufficient warning.

Yes, it is written on every human heart.

Curiously enough, they are also eager to gush over God’s infinite qualities and our lack of comprehension of these qualities. They say that we can only grasp finite concepts, and that sounds fair enough. However, they don’t seem to carry this over to the concept of Hell. Hell, in almost every Christian denomination, is supposed to be a place of eternal torture.

Actually it is ‘eternal torment’, not torture. All are tormented by their failings, but some lay them at the feet of a savior in submission, while others pridfully hold onto them. This is a finite reality that has eternal consequences.

This means that if you are sent there, you are tortured for an infinite amount of time. If we can’t conceive of infinity, we cannot possibly be expected to fully understand eternal torture. I think it’s fair to say that if we don’t understand a stipulation in a contract, we shouldn’t be able to sign that contract. It’s only courteous of one party to withdraw the contract upon seeing that the other party doesn’t fully grasp the conditions.

If we are to accept your premise, then we must concede that a life sentence in prison for murder isn’t fair. We have conceptualization of time, and the punishment of incarciration, but have not the experience of such a life sentence. How can we possibly ‘fully grasp’ exactly how horrible it is unless we experience it?
Should we withdraw that part of the societal contract?

Thus, God shouldn’t offer us the choice between infinite torture or infinite happiness, as they are both items in a contract that we cannot conceive of.

If I offer you a vaccine for a virus you have and you reject it, it’s not that I offered you life or death. I only offered you life. Your rejection of the cure doesn’t mean I offered you death.

 

[Oreoracle]

Actually it is ‘eternal torment’, not torture.

My bad, Boss!

If we are to accept your premise, then we must concede that a life sentence in prison for murder isn’t fair. We have conceptualization of time, and the punishment of incarciration, but have not the experience of such a life sentence. How can we possibly ‘fully grasp’ exactly how horrible it is unless we experience it?
Should we withdraw that part of the societal contract?

As I said earlier, we humans don’t have the luxury of perfect knowledge, so we can’t expect to use contracts that assume such a luxury. God, however, can offer us perfect knowledge. Considering that the decision of where to preside forever (or what state to exist in forever) would be among the most important an individual could possibly make, it only seems fair that God should offer us perfect knowledge to make the decision. Otherwise, we are guessing to an extent.

If I offer you a vaccine for a virus you have and you reject it, it’s not that I offered you life or death. I only offered you life. Your rejection of the cure doesn’t mean I offered you death.

Certainly, but you’re comparing apples and oranges. God would have designed me in such a way that I will die. God isn’t some good samaritan that is just offering me an antidote. More accurately, he would have to be someone who has poisoned me and is dangling the antidote above my head while saying that he will only give me the antidote if I worship him. Otherwise, I will have to suffer the consequences he has made possible (and inevitable).

 

[Dameedna]

Dameedna,

Tradition, faith, and eye-witnesses mean nothing to you.
You have faith in yourself alone - personally don’t see the logic in that because we can’t help but be shaped by others.
Let’s just agree to disagree because neither is going to convince the other of anything.

Peace.

You responded to my comments, and yet did not address what I said at all.

I’m not trying to convince anyone. I’m asking for a response to specific issues.All I seem to get is rhetoric and platitudes. No actual answers.

Here’s the thing. If God created humanity, then God is ultimately responsible for it, and every choice we make and including our existance and our free will. Within that knowlege God would have held, he would have created individuals, knowing they would “by choice” suffer eternally. And Yet god went ahead and created them anyway.

You have not addressed this at all. I cannot “agree” or “disagree” with you, until you recognize the issue itself.

Cheers

 

[liquidpele]

You responded to my comments, and yet did not address what I said at all.

I’m not trying to convince anyone. I’m asking for a response to specific issues.All I seem to get is rhetoric and platitudes. No actual answers.

Here’s the thing. If God created humanity, then God is ultimately responsible for it, and every choice we make and including our existance and our free will. Within that knowlege God would have held, he would have created individuals, knowing they would “by choice” suffer eternally. And Yet god went ahead and created them anyway.

You have not addressed this at all. I cannot “agree” or “disagree” with you, until you recognize the issue itself.

Cheers

But you’re putting a burden on God that we don’t even hold to ourselves. You claim we have suffering, but every day people have babies. Surely we should hold them responsible for bringing life into this world so it could suffer? Even if God knew the kind of suffering that would occur, perhaps there would be some kind of reasoning behind why he still did it. It’s all speculation, thus I think trying to hold God responsible is like trying to nail jello to the wall.

 

[Dameedna]

But you’re putting a burden on God that we don’t even hold to ourselves.

Are you saying that I am holding a God more accountable than a human?

I hope so, because that’s exactly what I’m doing.

You claim we have suffering, but every day people have babies. Surely we should hold them responsible for bringing life into this world so it could suffer? Even if God knew the kind of suffering that would occur, perhaps there would be some kind of reasoning behind why he still did it. It’s all speculation, thus I think trying to hold God responsible is like trying to nail jello to the wall.

This is why humans choose not to have babies. If they brought a child into the world, they could not feed, then they would be irresponsible.

That’s exactly right. It would be wrong of me to have a child willingly when I was not able to care for it fully.

Are you agreeing with me?

 

[Bob_Crowley]

Who created Hell? Was it God or the Devil? God certainly evicted the devil and his followers from Heaven, and in some sense bound them, in some sort of abyss. However when evil is confined and yet unrestrained, it turns on itself. I think it would be a fair bet to say that in most prisons in the world, it is the inmates who make life most miserable for others, rather than the authorities.

That’s not to say there is no authoritiarian injustice in penal institutions - in fact, I’d thnk there was quite a lot, but the mere fact that hardened criminals are locked up with people of lesser evil, would not auger well for the relatively innocent caught up in this system.

In Hell, the totally depraved demons would terrorise imprisoned humans, who are a mixture of good and evil. Adolf Hitler was an absolute mongrel to a great many people, but he was good to some, and he even enjoyed the innocent company of his dog.

In other words, who does the torturing? God and His angels, or the Devil and his demons? I think it would be the latter.

That does not negate the “lake of fire” which appears to be the Devil’s final punishment. Having sated his evil appetite on so many others, he has to be punishe somehow. I think the “fire mixed with glass” is God’s sentence on him.

The whole topic is unpleasant. But we have been warned.

 

[liquidpele]

Are you saying that I am holding a God more accountable than a human?

I hope so, because that’s exactly what I’m doing.

This is why humans choose not to have babies. If they brought a child into the world, they could not feed, then they would be irresponsible.

That’s exactly right. It would be wrong of me to have a child willingly when I was not able to care for it fully.

Are you agreeing with me?

I guess it depends on your definition of responsibility. I don’t see the idea of God as one that says he has to take care of us. We’re not babies to him in my opinion. Would a mother be responsible for her daughter’s crimes? What about her daughter’s scrapped knee, or lung cancer that her daughter gets from smoking?

At some point (the point also being debatable, so I won’t specify where it is), it’s no longer the parent’s responsibility. My point is simply that if you assume God doesn’t baby us, then we should not condemn such a thing because we’re pissed off about our own issues. If, and maybe this is what you were implying, you assume that we’re helpless without God, then I suppose I would agree with your analysis.