I think the statement “Sinners send themselves to hell by themselves” is incorrect. Why do some Christians believe it?

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Phatmass1 said:
Heaven is not being trapped inside a Church for eternity of an unending Mass.
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Phatmass? As in the rapper called Phatmass?!!!

I remember as a younger reading the descriptions of heaven in the bible. I have to say the idea of kneeling and singing praise to God forever and ever did not seem like my kind of heaven either; but we all know that this is just an analogy. In heaven we will be giving praise to God in everything we do.
 
IWantGod said:
Phatmass? As in the rapper called Phatmass?!!!
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Phatmass as in the website haha Which you can find some of the best Catholic Hip-hop ever put out. Also if I’m not mistaken it’s free of charge now as well. Really great Orthadox high quality music. The forum used to be very active but unfortunately is dead now a days. Here’s a song from one of the artist there - YouTube
 
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Phatmass1 said:
I go to Mass everyweek and on days of Obligation. I would not want to be in Heaven if it was one long everlasting Mass that did not end and that one could not come out of. I’d like to see the honest replies of people who could say they wouldn’t mind that.
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Um, that example was not meant to be a description of Heaven. It was meant specifically to make a scenario illustrating how it is possible that:
MPat said:
everyone who is in “Heaven” is happy, everyone who is in “Hell” is miserable, and yet everyone made a choice.
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(And let’s add that no one wants to go to the other place.)

For if there is a scenario under which that is possible, then those things do not contradict each other.
 
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No one chooses hell? Here’s one who did: Saul Alinsky from an interview with Playboy magazine.
ALINSKY: … if there is an afterlife, and I have anything to say about it, I will unreservedly choose to go to hell.
PLAYBOY: Why?
ALINSKY: Hell would be heaven for me. All my life I’ve been with the have-nots. Over here, if you’re a have-not, you’re short of dough. If you’re a have-not in hell, you’re short of virtue. Once I get into hell, I’ll start organizing the have-nots over there.
PLAYBOY: Why them?
ALINSKY: They’re my kind of people.
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  1. There is Lucifer, who absolutely clearly chose himself over God, rejected Him, took about 1/3 of Angels with him (that’s a lot!) and all that, according to theology, with full knowledge of the consequences - which is also given as an argument-explanation why Satan won’t convert. In his case He knew of God existence, it wasn’t just disbelief.
  2. If you are really interested, please read for instance Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis - there is a nice explanation of how it happens that somebody closes himself/herself to God so much after all those countless choices through life that they just become, in Lewis’s language “hellish creatures” - they are too hardened in sin, they become more like Satan than like Christ. And it was all their free will (I’m certainly not talking about situations when the sinning was totally due to ignorance or warped conscience etc in traumatized people and so on, cause God knows well who chose evil, and who was just a blind person - that person may choose differently when being prayed for - whether early or in the moment of death)
  3. Judas had two options - go apologize to Jesus, beg forgiveness (and he’d get it) or … not. He chose suicide… We know from the Gospel that some sins are never forgiven - these are such as despair that excludes God’s Mercy. That’s why God so often repeats in the Bible AND through mystics that He’s merciful. That no matter what crime it was, what magnitude - if you repent, if you are sorry and believe God is good and can grant you mercy - you can be saved.
  4. Do you believe Jesus’s words? I’m asking, because He Himself talked about us choosing the narrow or wide path. Nobody is forced to go one way or the other.
    For that - one illustration. Imagine a road, up, narrow and difficult. Dangerous even, but then you have signposts all the time (commandments, evangelical advice, sacraments, teaching of the Church, examples of the saints). If you choose it, you slip, fall, get back up, God will guide you to Heaven.
    The other way is easy, comfortable, and though God seeks all those on the wrong road too, and all the help above would be available if you just turned back and chose the other road, some people just like it that way - at least at first. Every sin has bad consequences already in this life. Not only spiritual. So one can see it’s the wrong way, but still many prefer riches, fame, sexual “freedom” and power. We know how money and power corrupt… On that road there are traps, set by the Devil, that make turning back more and more difficult (anti-Church propaganda, sensual pleasures, pseudo-scientific elitist worldview, depression etc) and most importantly, the way gets lower ALL THE TIME - it’s a slippery slope at the end. So it’s more and more difficult to turn back. It’s endpoint is Hell, and you fall into it, if you do call Jesus for help - either at the very last moment, or earlier.
    You can’t get to Heaven all by yourself - but you can get to Hell, if you’re too self-centered. God can and will always help those that seek help, but He can’t force anyone to choose Him.
 
Phatmass1 said:
I go to Mass everyweek and on days of Obligation. I would not want to be in Heaven if it was one long everlasting Mass that did not end and that one could not come out of. I’d like to see the honest replies of people who could say they wouldn’t mind that.
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raises hand I wouldn’t mind that. I mean, the not leaving part is obvious since it’s Heaven and as far as I know we’ve only been told that the angels chose to leave but nothing on the souls judged for Heaven doing so. So “could not come out of” - check We’re in Heaven which means that we’ve been judged worth and the Lord knows that it will bring us eternal happiness so it’s not like He’d even have to lock us in because we’d just stay anyway of our own free will.

Revalation shows Heaven as being as a Liturgy and if I spend an eternity in worship at mass that’s wonderful. I’ll even finally be able to give perfect worship worthy of mass which I cannot do due to human nature and distractions. Not exaggerating, just thinking about it makes my heart feel tight in anticipation and also heavy because I know that I am not worthy.
 
TheLittleLady said:
In order for sin to be mortal a person must know it is a sin and do it willingly, intentionally, and it must be serious sin.

One who truly does not know that fornication is sin, someone who was raised by libertine parents who encouraged fornication, or someone who was born in a time and/or place where they never heard any of the Gospel, they cannot be guilty of mortal sin.
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So people like psychopath can’t become a sinner, when he/she murders billions of people? And he goes to heaven after he killed billions of people because he isn’t able to do sin?
 
I am only guessing here, but if God speaks to pagans through their conscience (think of the millions of people before Christianity - or before the ten commandments, that weren’t even known to many people outisede of Israel), then God looks at the heart of such people and sees what they did with His divine inspirations. And how He talks to psychopats only He Himself knows. But it doesn’t follow they go to Heaven - there is such thing as purgatory, and it maybe that the worst cases are souls who spend maybe a thousand years in there (I think of one example about which I read in Maria Simma story, she was gifted through life with the ability to contact (which the souls initiated, not her) with the souls in purgatory). So the ultimate question is - can a particular sinner - psychopath or not - convert and love God? Even if it is at the moment of death? God only knows, but we know, He’s good and merciful.
 
Shelion said:
And how He talks to psychopaths only He Himself knows.
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Just as God created the saints God created the psychopaths too.

In this side of eternity just as God needs the saints He needs the psychopaths as well.
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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Evil
“But we cannot say without denying the Divine omnipotence, that another equally perfect universe could not be created in which evil would have no place.”

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05649a.htm
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310 But why did God not create a world so perfect that no evil could exist in it?
With infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create a world in a state of journeying towards its ultimate perfection, 314 through the dramas of evil and sin.
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For God, for the dramas of evil and sin just as need the psychopaths as He needs the saints.

At the end God will restore the health and recreates the psychopaths and with the privileged He makes them all Well Informed Battle Hardened and Refined Glorified Saints.
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311 For almighty God, . . . because he is supremely good, would never allow any evil whatsoever to exist in his works if he were not so all-powerful and good as to cause good to emerge from evil itself. 177
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324 Faith gives us the certainty that God would not permit an evil if he did not cause a good to come from that very evil, by ways that we shall fully know only in eternal life.
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301 God does not abandon his creatures to themselves.
He not only gives them being and existence, but also, and at every moment, upholds and sustains them in being, utter dependence enables them to act and brings them to their final end .
Recognizing this with respect to the Creator is a source of wisdom and freedom, of joy and confidence.
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God bless
 
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Needy1 said:
And he goes to heaven after he killed billions of people because he isn’t able to do sin?
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Every human “does” or commits sin.

If a person does not know it is a sin (really not know, instead of just fooling yourself “I did not know”), if they are truly impaired, if they were forced to do it, all of these things can determine if they are culpable (guilty) for the sins they commit.

It is not my job or your job to determine who is in or not in mortal sin, who is or is not in hell.

I rejoice in the mercy of God that even the most heinous sinner could one day be in heaven because they were not guilty or because they repented. It gives me hope that I might get there.
 
I say this with the knowledge that English is not your first language, so I assume that this was not your intent, but the title of this thread seems to imply that you not only disagree with the idea that sinners send themselves to hell, but also that people who say that are doing so maliciously, with an intent to deceive, rather than simply being mistaken.
 
Latin said:
For God, for the dramas of evil and sin just as need the psychopaths as He needs the saints.
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We could be going down a rabbit trail, but, God is complete, he “needs” nothing.
 
Getting back to your question:
"I think the statement “sinners send themselves to hell by themselves” is a lie
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In your opinion, how do people end up separated from God,
AND,
how do people end up united to God in the beatific vision?

If you could answer this question it would clarify the discussion, because it is not clear if you don’t believe in hell, or just can’t understand how someone ends up in that state.
 
TheLittleLady said:
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Latin:
For God, for the dramas of evil and sin just as need the psychopaths as He needs the saints.
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We could be going down a rabbit trail, but, God is complete, he “needs” nothing.
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Well put it that way, the dramas of evil and sin needs the sins of the psychopaths and our sins.

Thank you TheLittleLady.

God bless
 
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If we were sitting over a cup of coffee I’d bring up post hoc ergo propter hoc-ish, but, I don’t want to go too far afield on this 🙂 Have a good day. Catch you on anther thread sometime!
 
Hell comes from satisfaction with a lesser good over a greater good, specifically God. Now, such a choice may indeed be considered foolish. However, someone who goes to hell knowingly makes this choice, because they choose to turn inward.

Consider Satan, who was not ignorant or subject to passions like we humans are — and these are the primary causes of sins for us.

Nevertheless, Satan was able to reject God. Why? He was content with himself. He was satisfied turning inward and saw no need to latch on to something greater than himself out of love.
 
I have struggled with the idea of how anyone - angel or man - could knowingly reject God even if they knew that was where their true happiness and fulfillment would be found.

There are two options:

(1) Indeed we do choose hell out of ignorance. And that’s that. We developed flawed lives, but they are genuine lives that have hell as their consequence, anyway. Oh well and so be it.

OR

(2) Someone, even knowing where his fulfillment is in God, still would rather choose inward and let go of true happiness. Selfishness sounds better to this person.

The first choice makes hell a natural consequence, but it makes out God to be a poor parent who was unable to lead his children to their true destiny.

The second choice seems to counter the fact that humans and angels were made for the true good. Why would anyone deliberately reject the good if they were also wired to choose the good?
 
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goout said:
In your opinion then:
How do people become separated from God?
And how does one attain union with God?
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goout said:
In your opinion, how do people end up separated from God,
AND,
how do people end up united to God in the beatific vision?

If you could answer this question it would clarify the discussion, because it is not clear if you don’t believe in hell, or just can’t understand how someone ends up in that state.
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Firstly, I think, God or Angels would throw the damned to hell, by force, if either Catholicism or Islam was the truth. Like the Rev stated.
20:15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
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Secondly, I think a faith that unite people with God is a gift from God, if that faith is belonging to the one true religion the truth.
 
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