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Nickkname
Guest
You need to re-learn your Faith. Read the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Catechism: vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM
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Catechism: vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM
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PePPaR
Guest
So if one does reject God’s relationship; why must they be punished for it? Why can there not be an alternative?
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davidv
Guest
How can there be an alternative? It is the natural consequence of the actions, or inactions.So if one does reject God’s relationship; why must they be punished for it? Why can there not be an alternative?
If you carry a stone to the top of a building, what is the alternative to its falling if you let go if it while holding over the edge of the roof?
Pure cause and effect.
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richardwy
Guest
Human reasoning not only has limits it errs. While divine revelation does not err.Constantly, God is proclaimed as omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent – and ALL LOVING. God is continually pronounced as all loving and merciful. It’s one of the fundamental core beliefs in Catholicism. I WANT to believe this. But realistically, somebody who damns people to hell is not ALL loving if you ask me…
One of the few things that my neophyte reading of St. Thomas Aquinas has brought my way.
I don’t dig the whole “well it seems to me” thing. As if we’re any great shakes. And the whole internet thing is so odd. Much worse than talking over the clothes line from time to time I say.
All this is so much more than information. But, granted, I guess it starts there.
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Brendan
Guest
Perhaps you missed the part above from the CatechismSo if one does reject God’s relationship; why must they be punished for it? Why can there not be an alternative?
Their rejection of the relations IS their punishment. A loving relationship, but defintion, is bi-directional. Both must choose to be in the relationship. By the nature of Love, it cannot be forced.1035 - The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.
So if someone rejects God, there can be no relationship. And that is primary enternal punishment.
Those in that state have chosen to live without God, to live without happiness. It is their choice and God will not, in fact cannot, force love from one who does not choose to give it.
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fellowChristian
Guest
You can’t make somebody love you.
Brendan—
I think PePPaR is looking at Hell like a place.
Like God is sending you to L.A. or something.
It’s more like…
If you don’t like me why would I invite you to my party?
You know God does not control you like video game,right?
We all have choices to make.
If you want to be invited to the party you first have get to know the person.
Brendan—
I think PePPaR is looking at Hell like a place.
Like God is sending you to L.A. or something.
It’s more like…
If you don’t like me why would I invite you to my party?
You know God does not control you like video game,right?
We all have choices to make.
If you want to be invited to the party you first have get to know the person.
J
josephdaniel29
Guest
Ah that’s the key isn’t it? God does not punish for all eternity, He does not condemn anyone to hell. God does chastise us during our earthly lives while there is still time for correction but once the chance for correction is over God’s punishment ceases.So if one does reject God’s relationship; why must they be punished for it? Why can there not be an alternative?
God’s love is an all consuming fire and God offers that love equally to all, the only question is whether or not you choose to accept His love. The fire of God’s love is experienced as warmth and joy for all eternity by those who choose to accept God’s love and will and as eternal torment by those who in their pride refuse to accept God’s love and will. If we find ourselves in hell it’s because we choose to place ourselves there. God respects our free will and He offers each of us a choice and if you refuse His love it’s a choice He will respect for all eternity.
Yours in Christ
Joe
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Nickkname
Guest
Yes, hell is not meant for men. It is meant for the demons. They created hell out of their rebellion against God. Man is not meant to go to hell; man is meant to go to heaven, because God created man for himself. He is meant to share in the divine life and nature.Thankyou for a very thoughtful reply Blainetog; and all the other replies for that matter.
I might comment on the Stephen Colbert video first. Don’t really know why you showed me that but all I can say is that the author got completely owned and ridiculed lol.
Anyway…Through the replies I have received I have learnt quite a lot. And I do feel somewhat better now. But only in one respect. I think I’m starting to see that one can actually completely reject God’s love and relationship willingly. And moreover, God loves us forever. However, I still do not see the merit of hell. Fine, if someone rejects God why must they end up in hell? Do they really deserve punishment? They rejected God’s love, and as you all say that, “they send themselves to hell”. However, God can prevent one from being sent to hell. If he loves us so much and if we still reject Him, then His FINAL act of COMPASSION and MERCY and LOVE can be to wipe one from existence.
Hell is proclaimed to be made for the devil and NOT for HUMANS. Therefore, humans should not go there and nor do they have any right to go there.
Man dose send himself in hell. You know how? Because he rebels against God. Like the demons, he rejects God. The Lord dose everything in his power to stop man from going to hell, though. He wills no one to hell; he wills all to be saved. He gives man all the graces necessary for salvation. But ultimately, man has free-will. Man can choose to love God or reject God. If man chooses to rebel against God, than man chooses to not be with God. He chooses to seperate himself from God. And thus he chooses hell. He damns himself to hell. For hell is seperation from God.
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PePPaR
Guest
If God respected ones decision to be seperated from him then they would not be punished.God respects our free will and He offers each of us a choice and if you refuse His love it’s a choice He will respect for all eternity.
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LilyM
Guest
So if I respect your decision to take poison you’re not going to fall ill or die as a result of taking it? The suffering is an inescapable consequence of the decision, just like it is when we we decide to separate from God. So you could with truth say we punish ourselves really.If God respected ones decision to be seperated from him then they would not be punished.
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Nickkname
Guest
No. If a man seperates himself from God, he goes to hell, because hell is seperation from God. It is the state of seperation from God and it is the place of those who seperate themselves from God. Those who are damned seperate themselves from God - God dose not seperate them from himself. He wills all to be saved, not damned.If God respected ones decision to be seperated from him then they would not be punished.
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repo_man
Guest
god created hell because he loves us. there. shocking intro so i’ve enticed you.
god doesn’t love us and send us to hell, he loves us enough to allow us to go there. because what is hell? the complete and total absence of god. people who spend their lives hating god and hating his will choose to go there. if you hate god or are your own god … what kind of eternity is one in communion with god? now obviously hell isn’t going to be fun, but to these people heaven would be hell.
who is more loving: a parent who allows a hateful child to leave and go out on his own? or the parent who forces that child be with them?
god’s love is evident in that he will always forgive us and take us back.
god doesn’t love us and send us to hell, he loves us enough to allow us to go there. because what is hell? the complete and total absence of god. people who spend their lives hating god and hating his will choose to go there. if you hate god or are your own god … what kind of eternity is one in communion with god? now obviously hell isn’t going to be fun, but to these people heaven would be hell.
who is more loving: a parent who allows a hateful child to leave and go out on his own? or the parent who forces that child be with them?
god’s love is evident in that he will always forgive us and take us back.
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BlaineTog
Guest
What Lily said, though perhaps a better analogy would be of a house in the middle of a frozen tundra. If you exit the house and refuse the cries of the homeowner to come back in, you’re going to freeze to death as a direct consequence of your action to refuse warmth. This still has the flaw of pretending heaven is a place like any other, but we’ll roll with it, hopefully.If God respected ones decision to be seperated from him then they would not be punished.
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Neil_Anthony
Guest
Hi PePPaR,So if one does reject God’s relationship; why must they be punished for it? Why can there not be an alternative?
There are different aspects of hell:
- emotional pain of separation from God
- actual punishment from God
- suffering inflicted by evil beings (Satan, demons, other souls in hell?)
- This part is easier to explain. This aspect of hell is the state of the person who rejects being with God. It is just because it is simply the freely-chose state of not being with God. Also, those who do not love God could not enjoy being with God.
- Since God is just, he has to punish bad and reward good. However, we know that this punishment will be proportionate, since God is just. I suspect people in hell for minor things don’t suffer severe punishments from God. Like you, I agree this doesn’t seem right. People in hell for serious things will suffer punishment, but in proportion to what they did.
- Something we learn in this life is how awful things can get living in a world where people reject God. Imagine living in a place called hell where people have completely rejected God and separated themselves from Him completely. What a horrible place, because there is no Holy Spirit here. But it is horrible because you’re surrounded by people who hate God and you’ve all asked to be apart from God.
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Sarpedon
Guest
What do you think the suffering is hell is?If a mother has a child. She will love that child forever despite what that child does. Even if her child rapes, murders, steals, bombs cities and whatnot; the mother will continue to LOVE that child forever. Yes, she may be distraught, forever saddened, and angry with her child?s actions ? but her love will never cease, and she will always welcome her child into her love. Furthermore, she would not want ANYTHING BAD to happen to her child regardless of the things he has done. WHY? BECAUSE SHE LOVES HIM FOREVER AND HER LOVE WILL NEVER CEASE. This is what love is!
The primary suffering of hell is being separated from God. At judgement, the damned realize how infinetly perfect and vast God’s love for them is and realize that they can never accept this love because of the hardness of their hearts… this is the suffering of hell.
Have you ever noticed what happens when you do something really bad to someone and that person responds with love? No anger, no resentment, just love?
You feel really bad.
You feel even more crummy than you would if that person had responded with resentment and simmering anger. Why?
The reason is that when someone responds to our bad actions with love, we feel all the more actutely how we have hurt the person, who is not willing to hurt us in return.
When those in mortal sin go before God, they realize how great God’s love for them is. God freely gives them this unconditional, unfathomable love, which they have completely rejected and thrown away. What’s more, God will not stop loving them even now. Nothing will break His love for them, but they have completely rejected that love. This is the primary suffering of hell- having freely rejected God’s unconditional and unwavering love.
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catholicbuckeye
Guest
God loves you even if you are steeped in mortal sin. It is the sin He is offended by…also, consider the mother that loves her child no matter what. Doesn’t that loving mother, if she is a good mother, punish her child for doing wrong, so that child will not go down the wrong path in life? But if the child leaves the mother, ignores the pleas of that mother, doesn’t that child suffer the consequences of their actions?Honestly, the more I think about it, the angrier I get. I somehow feel called to deepen my understanding of my faith. But some things annoy the blits out of me.
Constantly, God is proclaimed as omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent – and ALL LOVING. God is continually pronounced as all loving and merciful. It’s one of the fundamental core beliefs in Catholicism. I WANT to believe this. But realistically, somebody who damns people to hell is not ALL loving if you ask me…
If a mother has a child. She will love that child forever despite what that child does. Even if her child rapes, murders, steals, bombs cities and whatnot; the mother will continue to LOVE that child forever. Yes, she may be distraught, forever saddened, and angry with her child’s actions – but her love will never cease, and she will always welcome her child into her love. Furthermore, she would not want ANYTHING BAD to happen to her child regardless of the things he has done. WHY? BECAUSE SHE LOVES HIM FOREVER AND HER LOVE WILL NEVER CEASE. This is what love is!
And when I hear such things as, “Thou shalt be condemned in hell and burn forever”, or “Thou shall be engulfed in eternal flames for eternity” – I seriously get angry.
WHO IS MORE LOVING HERE?
The mother who loves her child forever and forgives her child forever and will always welcome her child?
Or
A God who loves ALL; but if they trespass against him he will condemn thee to hell for ETERNITY?
There is no mercy in condemning someone to hell. Even though God forgives sins through the Ministry of the Church, I cannot see how our God can condemn people to hell. No matter who it is, no body deserves to go there. Even if a murderer killed my entire family I would never want him to be in a pit of fire for eternity. It just isn’t right. Plus, looking at the world now, the utmost majority of the world does not follow the word of God, they do not go to Church, they do not confess their sins, and they continually sin throughout their lives. - These people, according to the Bible will go to hell. Moreover, it basically even says if you’re a good and loving person you will still go to hell if you don’t follow the word of Christ. Right…
Might I add that people will be argueing that, “God does not send people to hell; they send themselves.” Well there doesen’t have to be a hell in the first place. If God is God, he is the ALL POWERFUL God and therefore hell does not need to exist. Moreover, he should bring his children back to him as intended - God being the alpha and omega; or beginning and end.
Anyone who loves another person WOULD never even consider damming someone into hell for eternity. It’s just not right. And this is what seriously pisses me of about my faith and I’m trying to find a deeper meaning in all this, but I can’t.
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fellowChristian
Guest
Why should our Creator our Lord and our God respect us? The creatures?If God respected ones decision to be seperated from him then they would not be punished.
When it comes to God we have no “rights”. We lost all the gifts that God gave us when Adam fell.
We turn our back on God when we sin.
It’s like walking out of well lit room into the darkness.
We make the choice to walk out of the light.
God has given us so much. We can never repay Him.
He never wanted us to walk in the dark.
He gave us the sun and called it day.
He gave us the moon and the stars and called it night.
Yet we continue to walk into the dark.
M
marksbaird0211
Guest
I don’t understand what planet you come from! No offense meant, but the child murders that are happing in New Zealand are horrible and disprove your theory about love. Firstly you need to know what love is… A Mothers love for her child is co-dependent and often protective, this is natural. God gives us eternal life so what does suffering or death mean, the Salvation of the Soul is the most important thing in life. Hell had better exist because IA want the pedophiles, murders, rapists, greedy pigs in this world to know that there is consequences to actions.Honestly, the more I think about it, the angrier I get. I somehow feel called to deepen my understanding of my faith. But some things annoy the blots out of me.
Constantly, God is proclaimed as omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent – and ALL LOVING. God is continually pronounced as all loving and merciful. It’s one of the fundamental core beliefs in Catholicism. I WANT to believe this. But realistically, somebody who damns people to hell is not ALL loving if you ask me…
If a mother has a child. She will love that child forever despite what that child does. Even if her child rapes, murders, steals, bombs cities and whatnot; the mother will continue to LOVE that child forever. Yes, she may be distraught, forever saddened, and angry with her child’s actions – but her love will never cease, and she will always welcome her child into her love. Furthermore, she would not want ANYTHING BAD to happen to her child regardless of the things he has done. WHY? BECAUSE SHE LOVES HIM FOREVER AND HER LOVE WILL NEVER CEASE. This is what love is!
And when I hear such things as, “Thou shalt be condemned in hell and burn forever”, or “Thou shall be engulfed in eternal flames for eternity” – I seriously get angry.
WHO IS MORE LOVING HERE?
The mother who loves her child forever and forgives her child forever and will always welcome her child?
Or
A God who loves ALL; but if they trespass against him he will condemn thee to hell for ETERNITY?
There is no mercy in condemning someone to hell. Even though God forgives sins through the Ministry of the Church, I cannot see how our God can condemn people to hell. No matter who it is, no body deserves to go there. Even if a murderer killed my entire family I would never want him to be in a pit of fire for eternity. It just USN’t right. Plus, looking at the world now, the utmost majority of the world does not follow the word of God, they do not go to Church, they do not confess their sins, and they continually sin throughout their lives. - These people, according to the Bible will go to hell. Moreover, it basically even says if you’re a good and loving person you will still go to hell if you don’t follow the word of Christ. Right…
Might I add that people will be arguing that, “God does not send people to hell; they send themselves.” Well there doesn’t have to be a hell in the first place. If God is God, he is the ALL POWERFUL God and therefore hell does not need to exist. Moreover, he should bring his children back to him as intended - God being the alpha and omega; or beginning and end.
Anyone who loves another person WOULD never even consider damming someone into hell for eternity. It’s just not right. And this is what seriously pisses me of about my faith and I’m trying to find a deeper meaning in all this, but I can’t.
F
fellowChristian
Guest
I know it’s sad but a mothers love is not always perfect.Sometimes it doesn’t even exist.
You know the saying…
Just because you have a piano doesn’t make you a pianist.
Just because you have a child doesn’t make you a parent.
You know the saying…
Just because you have a piano doesn’t make you a pianist.
Just because you have a child doesn’t make you a parent.
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Nickkname
Guest
I’d rather have them receive the Mercy of God, so that they may join the choirs of angels in heaven in an endless hymn of praise.IA want the pedophiles, murders, rapists, greedy pigs in this world to know that there is consequences to actions.
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