The Fear of Hell

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Magdalena59 said:
It sounds more to me that you are NOT someone who doesn’t believe in God but are someone who DOES believe in God but you are angry at Him for some reason. Reading some of your past posts they do not seem to show an argument of why you believe there isn’t a God but more that you think God is mean, which shows that you have a misunderstanding of who God is and do not understand God’s love.

I hope and pray you continue reading and learning and draw closer to Him.
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I was angry with god until I realized that what I had been taught did not add up. Since that time I am very much at peace. So far as belief in god…of course I do, just not the Christian version thereof.
 
BarbTh said:
Thank you - we can now come from the same place or definition of “evil”. 🙂

And what do you mean by “they must be contained”?
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We must have laws and sanctions that will, hopefully, limit their damage.
 
oldcelt said:
BarbTh;12749794:
With logic and reason, and remember, the are religions on earth that precede Catholicism. So, the texts of writers who are attempting to prove their beliefs are of little use to those of us who do not share their basic concept of god.
The Church claiming infallibility on faith and morals is quite suspect, given its own history. Plus…when did they get the memo that they are infallible? Or did they reason it out based on their existing belief structure?
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1 Timothy Ch 3: . [14] These things I write to thee, hoping that I shall come to thee shortly. [15] But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.
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And also read Catholic Answers’ Tract: “Papal Infallibility” for a better understanding of what Papal Infallibility actually means catholic.com/tracts/papal-infallibility . Infallibiliy of The Catholic Church in Faith and Morals is biblical and comes from Jesus Himself in Scripture. It certainly is not a claim to moral superiority ‘on the ground’ or amongst all Catholics, including hierarchy, nor has it been reasoned out based on our existing belief structure, whatever you might precisely mean by that. 🙂

I very much agree with Matgdalena59’s post and will be keeping you in prayer too 🙂
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oldcelt said:
I’m not one to accept another human being telling me that something is a mystery when I can see a simple answer to the problem. Declaring something a mystery is basically saying that a person should believe a doctrine because they say so.
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Neither am I, oldcelt. And I understand where you are coming from. I mean it. I was tormented by the questions and ended up reasoning to myself with secular information until I finally ‘fit’ all the pieces of the puzzle. I picked the convenient answer and I thought I was at peace after that. I wasn’t.

Until I try to remember that I am merely a human being while God is a mystery Himself. We cannot explain God in any other way, unless He choose to reveal Himself which He did many times.
oldcelt said:
These questions are too important to allow for such statements to stand unchallenged.
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This was where I used to be adamant about too, because I wanted to rely only on my own intellectual capabilities before deciding to trust Him.

Where were we when God laid the foundations of the earth? Have all aspects & areas of science finally came up with an unified conclusion that billions of galaxies do truly exist, how & why did it really came about as a fact, instead of some theory? If man cannot find definite answers to such phenomena in his own realm which can be seen, apart from relying on educated guesses, how could we explain God when He is unseen?

Can you find a ‘simple’ answer when he fed thousands with a few loaves of bread and fishes, or when he raised the dead, turned water into wine, the crippled were healed, the demons were cast out of the possessed? Neither science nor reason have answers to those either because science and human reasoning belongs to the realm of man and not the Divine.

If we can prove everything about God so easily, especially the mysteries which the Church declared, then God won’t be omnipotent and boundless but merely some alien. That, or we are on the same level as God.

Or are we choosing a convenient answer & falsely calls it a simple answer because we wilfully rejected God & His ways, when we do not have answers due to our limited intelligence being nothing as compared to the Divine?
 
GuyNextDoor said:
Neither am I, oldcelt. And I understand where you are coming from. I mean it. I was tormented by the questions and ended up reasoning to myself with secular information until I finally ‘fit’ all the pieces of the puzzle. I picked the convenient answer and I thought I was at peace after that. I wasn’t.

Until I try to remember that I am merely a human being while God is a mystery Himself. We cannot explain God in any other way, unless He choose to reveal Himself which He did many times.

This was where I used to be adamant about too, because I wanted to rely only on my own intellectual capabilities before deciding to trust Him.

Where were we when God laid the foundations of the earth? Have all aspects & areas of science finally came up with an unified conclusion that billions of galaxies do truly exist, how & why did it really came about as a fact, instead of some theory? If man cannot find definite answers to such phenomena in his own realm which can be seen, apart from relying on educated guesses, how could we explain God when He is unseen?

Can you find a ‘simple’ answer when he fed thousands with a few loaves of bread and fishes, or when he raised the dead, turned water into wine, the crippled were healed, the demons were cast out of the possessed? Neither science nor reason have answers to those either because science and human reasoning belongs to the realm of man and not the Divine.

If we can prove everything about God so easily, especially the mysteries which the Church declared, then God won’t be omnipotent and boundless but merely some alien. That, or we are on the same level as God.

Or are we choosing a convenient answer & falsely calls it a simple answer because we wilfully rejected God & His ways, when we do not have answers due to our limited intelligence being nothing as compared to the Divine?
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I have never rejected god. Only the the version represented in my upbringing. I believe that god is an infinitely simple force. So simple, that I find it difficult to wrap my mind around him. So, god remains as a major role in my life; just not religion.
 
oldcelt said:
I have never rejected god. Only the the version represented in my upbringing. I believe that god is an infinitely simple force. So simple, that I find it difficult to wrap my mind around him. So, god remains as a major role in my life; just not religion.
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May the Force be with you. 🙂
 
oldcelt said:
And you 🙂
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😃

Alright humor aside, I recognize what you stated as the primal force (without any consciousness of its own) of all that was created, which abide in the laws of nature. Where does this primal force come from?

If the primal force is the source of all that was created without any consciousness and laws to govern it, surely there should be chaos.
 
GuyNextDoor said:
. . . If the primal force is the source of all that was created without any consciousness and laws to govern it, surely there should be chaos.
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I can make a table. I built a radio from scratch fifty years ago. I have put together computers.
I cannot make a cat, a tree, or a bacterium.
Everything I do, anything I can create is less than what I am.
Where do I come from? I who can think, feel, perceive; I who exists.
Surely He has to be as beyond me as much as I am beyond a chair.
 
Aloysium said:
I can make a table. I built a radio from scratch fifty years ago. I have put together computers.
I cannot make a cat, a tree, or a bacterium.
Everything I do, anything I can create is less than what I am.
Where do I come from? I who can think, feel, perceive; I who exists.
Surely He has to be as beyond me as much as I am beyond a chair.
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I concur.

For the life of me, I couldn’t even build a Lego dollhouse for my daughter, much less a table and a computer! 😛
 
GuyNextDoor said:
😃

Alright humor aside, I recognize what you stated as the primal force (without any consciousness of its own) of all that was created, which abide in the laws of nature. Where does this primal force come from?

If the primal force is the source of all that was created without any consciousness and laws to govern it, surely there should be chaos.
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The level of consciousness is an unanswerable question when it comes to deities. I envision a force with consciousness, but can offer no proof. In the final analysis, I guess I just don’t believe in a god who created everything directly. That places too much responsibility on the deity for a variety of negative notions.
 
Aloysium said:
I can make a table. I built a radio from scratch fifty years ago. I have put together computers.
I cannot make a cat, a tree, or a bacterium.
Everything I do, anything I can create is less than what I am.
Where do I come from? I who can think, feel, perceive; I who exists.
Surely He has to be as beyond me as much as I am beyond a chair.
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I’m not sure I would use the term beyond. Remarkably different is closer to my belief.
 
oldcelt said:
The level of consciousness is an unanswerable question when it comes to deities. I envision a force with consciousness, but can offer no proof. In the final analysis, I guess I just don’t believe in a god who created everything directly. That places too much responsibility on the deity for a variety of negative notions.
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Did you notice where you landed on, oldcelt? Another unanswerable question to which no one could offer you any answers all over again. Another ‘mystery’. The answers you have been seeking outside the Church did not help you progress but rather, it seemed to have brought you squarely back to where you were, except its further from the Church this time.

How did you ended up finding this unanswerable question to be acceptable when you couldn’t accept the fact before that the Church couldn’t give an answer to a mystery?

Perhaps its more convenient to believe away the existence of hell, so we don’t feel the guilt of the things we want to do in life and live ‘hidden’ from an all-knowing God? Well at least that was my case.

😊
 
GuyNextDoor said:
Did you notice where you landed on, oldcelt? Another unanswerable question to which no one could offer you any answers all over again. Another ‘mystery’. The answers you have been seeking outside the Church did not help you progress but rather, it seemed to have brought you squarely back to where you were, except its further from the Church this time.

How did you ended up finding this unanswerable question to be acceptable when you couldn’t accept the fact before that the Church couldn’t give an answer to a mystery?

Perhaps its more convenient to believe away the existence of hell, so we don’t feel the guilt of the things we want to do in life and live ‘hidden’ from an all-knowing God? Well at least that was my case.

😊
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The mysteries of which I speak are not meant to back a particular doctrine. They are simply a fact. We cannot know with any certainty the un-observable, so I arrive at my beliefs through observation here on earth.
 
oldcelt said:
The mysteries of which I speak are not meant to back a particular doctrine. They are simply a fact. We cannot know with any certainty the un-observable, so I arrive at my beliefs through observation here on earth.
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I assume you chose a position whereby God must reveal Himself to you visibly or else you refuse to have any trust in Him in who He says He is, since the Holy Church could not explain a mystery of God?
 
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