The Problem of Hell

[Desertsailor]

We know, I have already posted this earlier in this thread. Thanks for the reminder

If we truly have free will, ALL of the stories in the Bible where God “speaks” to prophets should be taken as false. Why? Because God is tampering with free will. It is the same reason why God can’t reveal himself to any of us, because then he is effecting OUR choice to reject him or accept him.

The omniscience of your God already implies that we do not have free will. Free will is an illusion created by your God. If God was just really smart and didn’t know whether or not his creations would accept or reject him, then I have no problem. Your God, however, knows all. He doesn’t create anything without a purpose.

First you say it is nuts that God created sin, yet suffering is a gift from God? Suffering is the result from sin, so if suffering is a gift from God, sins are also a gift from God.

And no one is angry with God, but your personal/traditional Abrahamic God has flaws in his definition.

What god do you worship?

 

[lemondiesel]

What god do you worship?

Not the Abrahamic God, that is for sure. I do not worship, or idolize, any sort of personal/tradition God.

 

[tonyrey]

If we truly have free will, ALL of the stories in the Bible where God “speaks” to prophets should be taken as false. Why? Because God is tampering with free will. It is the same reason why God can’t reveal himself to any of us, because then he is effecting OUR choice to reject him or accept him.

Nonsense! If you have children who don’t know how to find you and you leave messages for them you’re not interfering with their free will. They are **not forced **to look for you if they choose not to…

The omniscience of your God already implies that we do not have free will. Free will is an illusion created by your God. If God was just really smart and didn’t know whether or not his creations would accept or reject him, then I have no problem. Your God, however, knows all. He doesn’t create anything without a purpose.

We can very often predict what people are going to do without **affecting ** their decisions.

First you say it is nuts that God created sin, yet suffering is a gift from God? Suffering is the result from sin, so if suffering is a gift from God, sins are also a gift from God.

False! Sins are not a gift from God. Sins are the result of an **abuse **of God’s gift of free will.

When suffering is necessary it is not evil. Even when it is unnecessary it can be transformed by love. Jesus chose to die for us to demonstrate that suffering may be used to overcome evil. “Fear not those who kill the body…”

And no one is angry with God, but your personal/traditional Abrahamic God has flaws in his definition.

The flaws exist in your interpretation of Christianity…

 

[Cristiano]

…The omniscience of your God already implies that we do not have free will. Free will is an illusion created by your God. If God was just really smart and didn’t know whether or not his creations would accept or reject him, then I have no problem. Your God, however, knows all. He doesn’t create anything without a purpose…

This is a loaded statement. Can you please prove the first sentence, I am not clear how you get to that conclusion.

 

[Desertsailor]

Not the Abrahamic God, that is for sure. I do not worship, or idolize, any sort of personal/tradition God.

In other words you worship Mammon.

 

[lemondiesel]

Nonsense! If you have children who don’t know how to find you and you leave messages for them you’re not interfering with their free will. They are **not forced **to look for you if they choose not to…

True, but God knows where they are (omniscience) so He can go get them whenever He wants, or is God not capable of such things?

We can very often predict what people are going to do without **affecting ** their decisions.

No we can make an educated guess, using probability and chance, without the subject knowing. But please remember, We is much different than God, because we are not “omniscience” like your God. He already knows what we are going to do.

False! Sins are not a gift from God. Sins are the result of an **abuse **of God’s gift of free will.

When suffering is necessary it is not evil. Even when it is unnecessary it can be transformed by love. Jesus chose to die for us to demonstrate that suffering may be used to overcome evil. “Fear not those who kill the body…”

You guys are really missing the point here. Sins are the result of suffering caused by free will. Now if God is omniscience, he already knows your plan of action, He knows what road you will take. So when we sin, God all ready knew we were going to. THUS, making sin an attribute from God.

So God makes us suffer but tells us just to hang in there until our time is up? Seems like a selfish move to me.

The flaws exist in your interpretation of Christianity…

mine and others, and there are many flaws and problems I have with Christianity. We are talking about the concept of Hell right now, which Christianity didn’t even create.

 

[lemondiesel]

In other words you worship Mammon.

You are kidding right? I do not worship wealth or personal greed. I worship morality, which Jesus of Nazareth, Muhammad, and Buddha all taught.

 

[fhansen]

So God knew from the beginning that He would be damning some souls and saving others?

**God knew from the beginning the fall would occur. The decision would’ve been whether or not to create beings with free wills at all. Whether or not to create beings who’re responsible for their actions. And this implies that an objective morality must exist.

We’re talking about principles. We can get into theological arguments over whether or not one goes to hell if they happen to commit one serious unconfessed sin prior to death, or about what hell is like or what damnation means exactly. But God, of all beings, isn’t stupid or petty-He judges by the heart, He’s patient and kind and merciful beyond our own capabilities or ability to fathom. And He’s also just. He desires that His created beings have the freedom to choose love and goodness and righteousness for themselves but won’t force those things upon them-else they wouldn’t really be free at all. He wants us to share in His own goodness-for others to know the beauty of Himself by freely choosing to become like Him themselves.

Catholic theology isn’t wrong. But it’s about truths and principles that we more fully understand as we mature ourselves as a people. And some things we just won’t know until the end. In any case we simply don’t know what a perfectly just and perfectly loving God will do. We only know that it will be perfectly just and perfectly loving.

**

 

[tonyrey]

They are not forced to look for you if they choose not to…

You were arguing that revelation interferes with free will - which is not true. If He “goes and gets them” that **would be **interference.

We can very often predict what people are going to do without affecting their decisions.

No we can make an educated guess, using probability and chance, without the subject knowing. But please remember, We is much different than God, because we are not “omniscient” like your God. He already knows what we are going to do.

That does not alter the fact that foreknowledge does not **entail **coercion.

Sins are not a gift from God. Sins are the result of an abuse of God’s gift of free will.

When suffering is necessary it is not evil. Even when it is unnecessary it can be transformed by love. Jesus chose to die for us to demonstrate that suffering may be used to overcome evil. “Fear not those who kill the body…”

Sins are the result of suffering caused by free will.

Sins are** not **the result of suffering caused by free will. They are the result of the **abuse **of free will.

Now if God is omniscient, he already knows your plan of action, He knows what road you will take. So when we sin, God already knew we were going to. THUS, making sin an attribute from God.

When we have children we know they will eventually sin but we are not responsible for their sins. Neither is God. Sin is not an attribute but a choice.

So God makes us suffer but tells us just to hang in there until our time is up? Seems like a selfish move to me.

God does not make us suffer. He has created a world in which suffering is inevitable because that is the price of sensitivity. We cannot have it both ways. Either we are machines or persons with sensations, feelings and emotions. Unnecessary suffering is caused by the **abuse **of free will. Would you prefer to be a robot in a world of robots?

The flaws exist in your interpretation of Christianity…

Mine and others, and there are many flaws and problems I have with Christianity.

Are there no flaws and problems with **your **interpretation of reality?

We are talking about the concept of Hell right now, which Christianity didn’t even create.

The teaching of Jesus on the subject is quite clear.

 

[Desertsailor]

You are kidding right? I do not worship wealth or personal greed. I worship morality, which Jesus of Nazareth, Muhammad, and Buddha all taught.

Wrong about Buddha and Muhammad.

You’re talking about Judeo-Christian morality. You worship the morality of Jesus but not Jesus. You’re slipping off the deep end.

 

[Zatzat]

Wrong about Buddha and Muhammad.

You’re talking about Judeo-Christian morality. You worship the morality of Jesus but not Jesus. You’re slipping off the deep end.

I assure you, there is nothing unique within Christianity. The ancient Egyptians aslo worshiped the king of kings, yet another murdered and resurected Deity, the God of life and death…Osiris.

Further, the golden rule of Jesus, is found throughout the world, in various cultures and religions…

Nothing is new and nothing is unique.

 

[lemondiesel]

Wrong about Buddha and Muhammad.

No, actually.

 

[Desertsailor]

No, actually.

Buddha taught that women are a little above the family dog because they can talk and cook and make good family slaves.

Muhammad taught that it’s ok to beat your wife and rape and murder your daughter.

lemondiesel, have you graduated high school yet?

 

[Desertsailor]

I assure you, there is nothing unique within Christianity. The ancient Egyptians aslo worshiped the king of kings, yet another murdered and resurected Deity, the God of life and death…Osiris.

Further, the golden rule of Jesus, is found throughout the world, in various cultures and religions…

Nothing is new and nothing is unique.

Oh sure! Can you prove the Egyptian god rose from the dead. We can prove Jesus did.

 

[Zatzat]

Oh sure! Can you prove the Egyptian god rose from the dead. We can prove Jesus did.

Yes of course.

“The Egyptians of every period in which they are known to us believed that Osiris was of divine origin, that he suffered death and mutilation at the hands of the powers of evil, that after a great struggle with these powers he rose again, that he became henceforth the king of the underworld and judge of the dead, and that because he had conquered death the righteous also might conquer death…In Osiris the Christian Egyptians found the prototype of Christ, and in the pictures and statues of Isis suckling her son Horus, they perceived the prototypes of the Virgin Mary and her child.”
*
^ E.A Wallis Budge, “Egyptian Religion”,Ch2,ISBN 0-14-019017-1*

 

[Zatzat]

Buddha taught that women are a little above the family dog because they can talk and cook and make good family slaves.

Muhammad taught that it’s ok to beat your wife and rape and murder your daughter.

lemondiesel, have you graduated high school yet?

Please, you’re practically begging lemondiesel to crack open the Old Testament…and you don’t want him to do that.!

 

[Betterave]

Yes, but you you **know **you are going to eat spaghetti, you just have not done it yet. You knew you were going to eat it once you ate it. [Is this supposed to be a joke?]

Once the spaghetti is made, you know the outcome of it. You know it will end up in your belly ]

This does not make sense and does not address the point I made. Please try to read what I wrote again more carefully and hopefully you will stop repeating the same mistake:

Simple point: If I know (and even if I had known for all eternity) that I will eat spaghetti tomorrow if my wife makes spaghetti for dinner, and I know that she will, this does not imply that I have already eaten spaghetti tomorrow and that I am actually the one who will make it.

 

[Betterave]

Good point…if now lasted forever and that was hell…I’d be Ok with that. Of course there are a lot of people in the world who don’t live priviliged lives and their hell may very well be down right miserable.

It was a question (Aren’t there people in this life who reject God and are happy, or are at least not experiencing the total suffering of hell?) not a point. And the question had an obvious answer: yes. Why do you think it’s a point, in particular a good one?

 

[Betterave]

Please, you’re practically begging lemondiesel to crack open the Old Testament…and you don’t want him to do that.!

That’s true. It would be off-topic and would surely not be edifying for any of us. I’m pretty sure LD is no more qualified to comment on the OT than you are.

 

[Betterave]

Yes of course.

“The Egyptians of every period in which they are known to us believed that Osiris was of divine origin, that he suffered death and mutilation at the hands of the powers of evil, that after a great struggle with these powers he rose again, that he became henceforth the king of the underworld and judge of the dead, and that because he had conquered death the righteous also might conquer death…In Osiris the Christian Egyptians found the prototype of Christ, and in the pictures and statues of Isis suckling her son Horus, they perceived the prototypes of the Virgin Mary and her child.”
*
^ E.A Wallis Budge, “Egyptian Religion”,Ch2,ISBN 0-14-019017-1*

This is ridiculous. You’ve proven something about Osiris with this quote? Get back on topic (all of y’all) and Zat, forget about even trying to get away with this kind of ridiculous claim here. There are way too many intelligent people here for that to happen.