Doubts about Hell, suffering. Please Help!

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john doran:
touché.

but, perhaps unsurprisingly, i had thought that my responses to your objections were decisive. as i recall, you at least didn’t offer any objections to the last few posts i made concerning transfinite math and maximal power as it relates to the christian god.
I didn’t because we reached a point where all arguments were exchanged and further discussion would not add anything, but just go around in circles.
 
john doran:
Don’t even listen to oriel36. He is on my ignore list already, the very first and only one on all forums I post. I have shirts with less ignorance in my closet, just look at his thread regarding the Vatican observatory. Nuts.
 
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Mijoy2:
You believe my love is a culmination of life experience. Yet you have not ( and I suspect) cannot, define love. You imply you can tell me why I love but you cannot tell me what love is. It would seem this scientific method of yours breaks down here, even by your very own criteria. If I told you I could prove an electrical current is flowing in a conductor but could not define what electrical curent was I’d pretty quickly lose credibility with you wouldn’t I?
Not really, an electric current is just an abstraction what really happens. You have picked a very good example there, as the electric current flows in the opposite direction than the electrons of which it is made.
Imho love consists of biochemical and neuroelectrical, thus purely natural phenomena. Yet one cannot describe love on that material level. I recommend Paul Davies “God and the New Physics”. He can explain better than I.
The difference between the way you look at love and the Christian, AnAtheist, is that you believe your love resides only in the grey matter of your brain. There is very little good scientific reason for this. Why would we evolve to love? Seems poiintless. Therefore your belief is that the love you feel for others is temporal and finite. The Christian believes love eminates from God who is love.
No argument from me, except for the scientific reason. Love evolved for the same reasons why morals have eveolved. But that is another story.
Have you read any of Pope John Pauls encyclicals?
I have to admit, I haven’t. Frankly I don’t see the relevance of his writings.
Ever tried to accept what you cannot explain and never will be able to as possibly being of something beyond your ability to understand or explain?
I have accepted that I will not understand everything, but I am quite confident, that mankind will some day if it survives long enough. But that doesn’t meet the essence of your question, right? Philosophically I haven’t accepted that. I see no reason to do so, so far we have found an explanation for anything. Why should that stop anywhere?
 
john doran:
at any rate, please understand that i was not unknowingly eliding the ideas of specific and general divine intervention…

and you have yet to demonstrate that either kind of inconsistency exists.
Perhaps inconsistency is not the correct term here. Christianity claims, miracles exist, yet I do not see a single one anywhere. That is inconsistent with reality.
but what does it mean for a set of doctrines or beliefs to be “holistically” inconsistent? i can understand that only as pointing to propositions both of which cannot be true, but both of which are assumed to be true.
You could dissect a blief, and analyse the parts. Both parts may be consistent regarded in isolation, but not together. That I mean with holistic.
what test? you lost me.
I have suggested a test already. Let a firm believer (SPOKENWORD ?) pray for a miracle. According to Matthew 21:22 it will occur. If not, we have found an inconsistency.
i suspect, though, that i am going to ask you why christianity needs to pass the particular tests you set in order to qualify for epistemic respectability. or why any belief needs to pass those particular tests…
…to be objective…?
 
john doran:
Go ahead and plead with the atheist,he might even imagine that he has a valid point of view while he nothing but an empty pretensious can.You just happen to be his lapdog.

You empirical numbskulls,call yorself Catholic or atheist, are the dumbest people ever to set foot on the planet and have nothing in common with simple Christian faith or exquisite Catholic thinking.

answers.com/topic/scientific-method

Your faith is to begin in doubt and hope to end in certainties but all you ever end is pretensious exotic nonsense or dismal circular arguments that go nowhere and do nothing.The Church refused to admit knowledged- based gnostic tendencies near the Catholic tradition of simple faith and exquisite thinking but you are your fellow empirical freaks show neither.
 
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AnAtheist:
I will come back as bacteria and infect you. How about that?
Not worried. The Doctor has already written out an unlimited prescription which he has filled. “No weapon that is fashioned against me shall prosper.”
 
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AnAtheist:
Not really, an electric current is just an abstraction what really happens. You have picked a very good example there, as the electric current flows in the opposite direction than the electrons of which it is made.
It’s a perspective thing.
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AnAtheist:
Imho love consists of biochemical and neuroelectrical, thus purely natural phenomena.
I probably can’t articulate well what I feel regarding this.
It doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t understand how the, biochemical and neuroelectrical love, is necassary in the evolutionary process. Why would we have evolved with a desire to love and be loved? Why not simply live to survive; live to fulfill our instincts of food, water and reproducing? Life would be so easy if I all I had to concern myself with was clubbing my neighbor and stealing his food and wife. But we love. Evolution seems to have thrown a fly in the ointment.
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AnAtheist:
I have accepted that I will not understand everything, but I am quite confident, that mankind will some day if it survives long enough. ?
With all due respect AnAtheist, I do not think you have accepted it. There is plenty of evidence for the God of the Judeo-Christian bible. Not sufficient evidence for you, I understand. However evidence none-the-less. You simply do not accept it at all (if I am not mistaken that is what seperates the Athiest from the Agnostic). You claim no belief.

AnAthiest, on a personal note, I do not make the claim that God exists beyond a shadow of a doubt. I wish I were that certain. However since coming to believe to a much greater degree then in my past years, my life is much happier and more fulfilled. To a degree that is difficult to describe. This may turn out to be all bells and whistles as you believe. But my temporal time on earth is greatly enhanced by by journey of belief (from what I believe to be an intellectual perspective as well as spiritual).

In the end, either you or I will be correct. If it’s you neither of us will ever realize it. I will have been decieved for my life but have lived a better one for the deciet. You will have wasted a lot of time in these forums. Albiet it really won’t matter since we’ll be gone and long forgotten anyway.

If I am right we will both know it. We will both realize that love is not confined to the grey matter of the brain. We will both be humbled.
 
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Mijoy2:
In the end, either you or I will be correct. If it’s you neither of us will ever realize it. I will have been decieved for my life but have lived a better one for the deciet. You will have wasted a lot of time in these forums. Albiet it really won’t matter since we’ll be gone and long forgotten anyway.

If I am right we will both know it. We will both realize that love is not confined to the grey matter of the brain. We will both be humbled.
I hope you like this commentary -

ccel.org/ccel/underhill/mysticism.iii.i.html
 
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Mijoy2:
I wish I were that certain. However since coming to believe to a much greater degree then in my past years, my life is much happier and more fulfilled.
If you feel better with your belief, then it is a good thing. But what is good for you, is not necessarily good for anybody else.
You will have wasted a lot of time in these forums. Albiet it really won’t matter since we’ll be gone and long forgotten anyway.
I don’t think it’s wasted. I had some really good conversations with a lot of interesting people here. With Carl, John Doran, Lisa4Catholics, and now with you to name just a few. It doesn’t matter to the universe, but it does matter to me.

ps: Love. I guess this is hard to understand, but just because I think love is a purely natural phenomena, that does not diminish its value in my opinion. Letters in a book are just dark spots on some paper, does that diminish the story they tell?
 
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Mijoy2:
I probably can’t articulate well what I feel regarding this.
It doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t understand how the, biochemical and neuroelectrical love, is necassary in the evolutionary process. Why would we have evolved with a desire to love and be loved? Why not simply live to survive; live to fulfill our instincts of food, water and reproducing? Life would be so easy if I all I had to concern myself with was clubbing my neighbor and stealing his food and wife. But we love. Evolution seems to have thrown a fly in the ointment.
Love makes perfect sense from an evolutionary point of view. If you want to be cynical about it, love is nature’s way of compelling us to be more successful in raising offspring.
With all due respect AnAtheist, I do not think you have accepted it. There is plenty of evidence for the God of the Judeo-Christian bible. Not sufficient evidence for you, I understand. However evidence none-the-less. You simply do not accept it at all (if I am not mistaken that is what seperates the Athiest from the Agnostic). You claim no belief.
I believe AA is far too optimistic. Even if humankind were capable of understanding it all, it’s a depressing thought to extinguish the wonder at some future date.
 
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eptatorata:
Love makes perfect sense from an evolutionary point of view. If you want to be cynical about it, love is nature’s way of compelling us to be more successful in raising offspring.
From an Athiests point of view is it reasonable to think of the process of evolution to be stupid?

Can a process be non-sensical? I never thought much about this. But your post inspired the thought.

Evolution will use* love *to fuel itself to continue creating creatures that will expire. Wow, this is profoundly without meaning. I think I have just been inspired to go in my back yard, build a beautiful shed, then burn it down.

Someone once said, it takes more faith to be an atheist then a believer. This is not just a cleaver play on words.
 
Message of Divine Mercy

The message of mercy is that God loves us “all of us” no matter how great our sins. He wants us to recognize that His mercy is greater than our sins, so that we will call upon Him with trust, receive His mercy, and let it flow through us to others. Thus, all will come to share His joy. It is a message we can call to mind simply by remembering ABC.
  • ***A – **Ask for His Mercy. God wants us to approach Him in prayer constantly, repenting of our sins and asking Him to pour His mercy out upon us and upon the whole world. ***
  • B – Be merciful. God wants us to receive His mercy and let it flow through us to others. He wants us to extend love and forgiveness to others just as He does to us.
  • *C – Completely trust in Jesus. God wants us to know that the graces of His mercy are dependent upon our trust. The more we trust in Jesus, the more we will receive. *
marian.org/divinemercy/
 
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AnAtheist:
If you feel better with your belief, then it is a good thing. But what is good for you, is not necessarily good for anybody else.
I wouldn’t dispute this. But I would doubt it.

AnAthiest, I hope you continue to question, cause that means you are continuing to think.

I too was Atheistic (excuse me if that is not a word). One day I was awakened by the thought that I may be wrong. Probably not, but may…be. This was a bit troubling but nothing I couldn’t handle. After all I was too smart to believe this hocus-pocus nonsense.

Then seemingly out of the blue I came to the realization that I had neglected the (potential) faith of my daughters, now late teenagers. I began to use my well trained math skills to consider this dilema. Sooooo, if there is something to this nonsense, albiet sooo remote, I played a large part in my childrens etenal life. My two lovely wonderful daughters that I’d die a thousand deaths for.

Not from a believers perspective but from a purely mathematical perspective (because I love my girls so intently), I decided I needed to do something about this. The data was troubling. It may be a 6-sigma possiblity but if I am wrong, and all those praying Christians are correct, I have played a part in something I cannot even begin to fathom. So I decided to make believe I believed. Of course this is not completely accurate; a more precise statement might be I decided to play the part and humble myself and see what this is all about.

My daughters curfue was about 11:30 . Just the time Howard Stern was on on Friday nights. Sooo on Friday nights they’d come home to see thier old man sitting in front the TV laughing hysterically at Howard and his witty wonderful humor. After I made my decision they began to come hometo see thier old man listening intently to Mother Angelica.

You know something, one can get hooked on Mother Angelica quite quickly.

I began to read with a new set of eyes. As it turned out my daughters, after much mockery of my new… pastime, and after many a laughs at thier dad “doing God stuff again”, was inwardly, exploring themselves.

Between this last Easter and the Easter before they were confirmed into the Catholic Faith. I cried like a baby (when I was alone of course).

I know this is just a bunch of useless data. A datapoint of one. No statistical value.

There is something to this AnAtheist.

P.S. I hope, as time passes you don’t put too much emphasis on scientific method. I am an electrical engineer and after working in the industry for 25 years, and enjoying it considerably, I am much more moved by watching the beauty of Gods created ocean then I am moved by state of the art electronics. in fact, with time, it becomes quite a bore.

I hope I see you around these threads. I enjoy your (name removed by moderator)ut.

By the way, Stern is not really funny when you really listen to him. He is mean and bitter.
 
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Hermione:
…I am having trouble understanding why God does nothing to stop this. God loves us, Jesus died for us, but why doesn’t He do anything to help those innocent people who are suffering so terribly?..
God has done something for us-- he has given us free will and he has given us a perfect example, namely Christ.

To be without God, separated from God eternally-- this is one explanation of what hell “is”.

So, the choice is left to the human. Choose God (love) or not.

(I am just paraphrasing from the many sensible words I have read on the matter, with a smattering of my own explanation.)

One of the best things that I have heard goes something like this-- “God loves us so much that he will not force us to love him; therefore, one can choose, again and again, forever, to refuse God’s love”. That state is hell.

The Church has noted that hell does exist and that it is eternal; however, the Church makes no assumptions regarding the judgement of God and who goes to hell.

Despair is to be avoided at all costs.

Hope is a gift to be cherished dearly.

Rest assured, that God’s mercy, bought with the blood of Christ, is limitless, up to and far beyond our understanding.

As someone said, there is GOOD NEWS too!!!

HTH.

May Christ Be With You Always,

–Mark
 
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AnAtheist:
If there are miracles in this world, show me one.
Why don’t you google padre pio? There are plenty of miracles right there, and that was just one man…and by the way, hundreds of thousands of people witnessed his miracles…

and if you post links, please make them reputable, which means no abc, nbc,[media] etc, or things from

There are extensive books written on this man, and his Gifts of the Holy Spirit…so there should be plenty to research…
 
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TheGarg:
Why don’t you google padre pio? There are plenty of miracles right there, and that was just one man…and by the way, hundreds of thousands of people witnessed his miracles…
You may call that a miracle, I call that self-inflicted wounds in religious delusion. Then some stories were made up or exaggerated to sell that miracle to the public. And big business it is: padrepioshrine.com/Padre_Pio_Blessing_Oil.htm

Oh, wait, they don’t sell it, they ask for a donation:whistle:
 
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Philthy:
Sounds like you’ve made a lot of progress clarkal…:rolleyes:
Philthy,

Your attempt at sarcasm was poor, insensitive, and extremely insulting.

I can only shake my head at such comments.

clarkal
 
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mkamoski:
One of the best things that I have heard goes something like this-- “God loves us so much that he will not force us to love him; therefore, one can choose, again and again, forever, to refuse God’s love”. That state is hell.

May Christ Be With You Always,

–Mark
Whoever told you that is incorrect.There is not the slightest trace of solemnity in the following passage from the Theologia where a Christian is expected to visit hell after coming to know something of the Eternal Joy.How great is God that we suffer so little for such a great reward,where we do not learn patience but learn to live with our impatience,where humiliation is just a productive a state as its opposite condition.

ccel.org/ccel/anonymous/theologia.v.XI.html

It is wrong for Catholics to place emphasis on hell when it really is a condition only particular to those, who by a gift of God, enter the Christian Way and to be pragmatic,the exploitation by those atheistic numbskulls who can’t believe in anything and don’t know anything natural or Spiritual, they always find the lowest denominators in Christians who make a fuss over things like sin,literal interpretations of Eden,hell and so on.

ccel.org/ccel/anonymous/theologia.v.XX.html
 
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oriel36:
Whoever told you that is incorrect.There is not the slightest trace of solemnity in the following passage from the Theologia…

It is wrong for Catholics to place emphasis on hell…
Oriel36–

This link to an answer in the “Ask An Apologetic” may help to shed some light and better explain some of what I was trying to paraphrase.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=47098

Regarding “solemnity”, perhaps I have been misread. I certainly did not mean to imply hell was anything such.

Eternal separation from God, to be forever without love, and so on, would most certainly painful to one’s soul and body. Hell is real and hell is eternal. Those are simply facts revealed thus far. Who is in hell? To date, no one seems to know.

However, I agree that one can overemphasize negative concepts.

In the end, it seems there is a middle-ground for the Catholic, far from Presumption but also far from Despair. Balance, yet again.

The good news is Christ.

Yours in Christ Jesus,

–Mark
 
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