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tonyrey
Guest
There’s no doubt in my mind that innocent does mean innocent and no one is punished for events over which they have no control. causa finita est!
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tonyrey
Guest
Not if we choose to be independent…
Might is not right! Love is not love when it fails to respect freedom.
God fails only in the eyes of the world. He loves those who reject Him, has compassion for them and never fails to respect their freedom - without which we would all be incapable of love.
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tonyrey
Guest
tonyrey;13316006:
God is the Creator not the Destroyer.
, it entails “compensations.” Then, I say “no way, there is no evidence in any scripture or private revelation anywhere to support that assertion.” Then, you say “private revelations don’t matter, Jesus loved children, and sinners on earth seem to have fun, so why would the fun end in hell?” Then, I say “sinners aren’t actually having fun, they’re miserable. God can’t allow this to endure endlessly.” Then, you say…:hypno: :yawn:
I am done with this conversation, I have to get back to work!!!
Hell is pointless. QED.You are fully entitled to your opinion, of course, but if we are reasonable we should admit we are not infallible and not entitled to state dogmatically: “Hell is pointless. QED.”
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arte
Guest
This is completely off thread but I was interested in both of your comments. I just wanted to add something which I think is important. Although the religion of most of the soldiers involved in US/western military going to war are Christian, they are not going to the war in the name of Jesus or Christianity. They do not shout “Jesus is Great” when shooting at the enemy.
However, when Muslims go to war particularly in recent decades, they are mainly going to war in the name of Allah (God). I include violent acts by the many Islamic terrorist groups or individuals as going to war. I also include planning of these Islamic terror acts as going to war. Unlike “Jesus is Great”, we are all familiar with “Allahu Akbar” (God is Great). Hasantas, it would be fair to say that Muslims have a virtual if not total monopoly on religious inspired violence. Do you agree? Further to this, could you please give me your thoughts on Sharia Law? I am not being disrespectful or confrontational; I just wanted to know your thoughts on the above questions because you are obviously a devout follower of Islam.
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tonyrey
Guest
God never needs human sacrifice. Jesus chose to suffer and die for us to liberate us from the power of evil. He quoted Hosea:
It is certainly not the Church’s teaching that the Jews were responsible.
The real question is whether you accept His teaching…
Then how do you explain the blood-stained history of mankind and the lust for power at all costs?
The fact that we are not God’s slaves and can choose to pay the price of independence for as long as we choose…
The writers of the Old Testament were not infallible.
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You
Guest
By an act of their own will, like the act of the demons will, to be apart from their Maker. Freedom means choosing. Choosing acting. Acting remittance.
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inocente
Guest
Eternity is a long time. Any human with a will powerful enough to reject God’s love after the first thirty trillion years have gone by, and then after the second thirty billion trillion years, and then the third billion trillion gazillion years, should imho get a free upgrade.
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davidv
Guest
Why do think there are years going by in eternity?
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inocente
Guest
Unconditional love doesn’t depend on our choices or any other conditions.
If God’s love ultimately fails to win some over, then God will know He is not omnipotent, He will know that his love is less powerful than human obstinacy. Even after an eternity has passed by, God would look at them and know His love has failed, know there is a more powerful force than His everlasting love.
(I’m not arguing, just pointing out the logical consequence of your statement).
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inocente
Guest
If you take eternity to be an absence of time, there can be no suffering since there is no time in which to sense or think or feel anything. But then I can’t see how your “Is the human will powerful enough to reject Gods attempt at reconciliation? I believe it is.” could possibly work, since without time passing there’s no time for God to attempt reconciliation, or for the human to reject it.
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PumpkinCookie
Guest
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davidv
Guest
Why are any of these things dependent on time?
Why do you think I implied that reconciliation is possibly after this life? “now is the acceptable time.”
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You
Guest
If their eye is dark then they are dark within and will not see the upgrade…
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OneSheep
Guest
Yes,
We need to hear more of your voice, instead of their voice.
The way I see God, also, is that He sees that whenever we kill or expel, we do so out of blindness and ignorance. I, too, can be blind and ignorant.There is a possible contradiction between v.40 and v.41, but I think what is said that when a person avenges himself, God still forgives him. I agree with this.
So, the difference is that Jesus does not advise #1. He says to forgive. (remember the “eye for an eye” section) As you know, though, Christians can be very retaliatory also. Ghandi said, “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, and the whole world ends up blind and toothless” or something like that. I can’t verify that quote, but I think you get the idea.
Would you agree that #2 and #3 are better than #1? I do agree that self-protection is very necessary, but #2 an #3 are more in the ways of peace, right? Perhaps we need an example.
The way I look at it, people of the OT in those cases saw that their actions were needed because otherwise they would continue to suffer poverty or weakness. They certainly had to believe that God approved of their violence. Those times are gone, though, those times disappeared when the world became a smaller place, and there are more ways to solve conflict. Why can’t all those factions in Syria just forgive, get together, and talk? But no, they do not think of forgiving.
God “commands us” in our genetics. We have the will to survive. I think you agree, though, that we can all live as one.
continued…
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You
Guest
An eternity without time is not static. It would be akin to your dreams which are not happening in time. In eternity events happen without the restriction of time or distance.
The angels commuting between eternity and earth otherwise would cause severe delays.
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OneSheep
Guest
So, again there may be one possible difference. In Christianity, God calls us not to punish, but forgive from the heart. This is not to be confused with protecting society from murderers or creating laws to discourage people from doing evil. We can still forgive as we do all of these things. We are called to forgive and let go of our negative feelings toward one another, to understand one another. Even in war, we can forgive the enemy. In fact, I had a very interesting conversation with an American soldier the other day. When we are angry, we do not have a “cool head” and make terrible mistakes in battle. He said that they were encouraged by their commanders to see the enemy as people with families just as they have. The ultimate “seeing” is through the eyes of forgiveness. I’m not sure many soldiers are able to maintain such forgiveness…
So, yes, God’s justice is infinite, but then we go back to the question: Does any person knowingly and willingly reject God? In my observations, the answer is no. People who reject God do not know what they are doing, they do not understand, they may be blind with anger (as are some atheists). So, does our Just God see their lack of awareness and forgive?
This is a very, very common statement made by Christians, Muslims, and Jews, and even the non-religious.
Jesus said:
New International Version
And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins."
Mark 11:25
So forgiveness is really between a person and their God. Here is what I have to say to people, as I forgive Stalin or Hitler, for example:
“If you resent my forgiveness of Stalin, please forgive me. I would not have found the need to forgive Stalin if I did not care deeply about his victims. I have no intention to disrespect your hurt, anger or make a claim that I am speaking for you. My forgiveness is not meant to condone what he did. My forgiveness is what I must do in order to let go of my anger and hatred, to end a grudge, to make things right between me and God.”
Yes, we both see this evidence, but infidels reject. However, they reject because they do not understand, they do not know what they are doing. Can you think of an example of any person knowingly and willingly rejecting God? Try to be specific, and we can investigate.
And the Church has never claimed that any person is in hell, though it is expressed as a possibility. Yes, Allah knows best.
Thank you, hasantas, you are a very thoughtful person with whom to have this discussion.
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pocaracas
Guest
Not sure I’m comfortable with that sentence…
Are you saying that atheists should be killed, because they behave in an immoral way towards god? Or am I reading it wrong?
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tonyrey
Guest
tonyrey;13326606:
I admire your honesty!
If endless hell is an article of faith for you, then I guess you could say “only God knows the point of hell” or something like that.
I would modify that by saying:
There is a very good reason to believe eternal hell has a point because even in this world there are people who prefer to suffer if they can live for themselves rather than make sacrifices for others who need their help. Selfishness is a deep-rooted weakness that is hard to resist and control. It is all the more sinister because it can easily develop into a systematic policy of exploiting others in order to obtain wealth and power. As Kant pointed out, other people become means to an end rather than ends in themselves. Yet selfishness incurs its own punishment because it inevitably leads to isolation, frustration and loneliness. Power is useless if it is restricted to ourself without any effect on others: it is then that we become our own worst enemy without any possibility of escape from ourselves - unless we regret what we have done or failed to do and wish to make amends. Then there is hope because we become liberated from ourselves by love for others and are no longer slaves but enjoy the glorious freedom of our Father in heaven…
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hasantas
Guest
It is because of poor English.
For instance when some kill other the punishment could be life imprisonment. And act of killing may take one or two minutes. Human’s mean life is 60 or 70 years. The punisment of act of killing mankind may be life imprisonment. And rejecting God mean to kill eternal essence and attributes of God as morally. The punisment(imprisonment) of killing of human maybe as much human’s life time. So killing God’s(ofcourse as morally) may be punisment (imprisonment) of Hell forever. So everlasting Hell imprisonment can reconcile with our justice on the world to understand God’s infiniite justice. Otherwise I do not mean to kill any one. Killing is the one of the major crime and sin which could cause to send killer to Hell. We have not right to kill others. But we have to advise each other to do good deeds. My advise for atheist is to not be so courageous and adventurous to reject God. They do not gain anything by rejecting. If they accept God that would be first step to approach God. They have not to do anything and just they will say that we recognise God existence.
If someone do not reject God so there should be a way of salvation for him. The conscience desire and wants eternity. Nobody wish to be destroyed forever and death is not being destroyed forever but is changing the worlds. Soul take out of this world and take into other world by death.
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arte
Guest
Unless they are extreme masochists, no one is going to choose everlasting suffering over everlasting happiness.
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