Announcements...

[chess]

I think that I might have given some people here some wrong impressions in the past. So, I'd just like to clear a few things up.
1. I am a Christian.
2. This means that I believe in one God, who expresses Himself as a Trinity of people - God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
3. This also means that I believe all other gods/godesses/deities-of-any-description are fakes, invented by humans or by Satan to trap people and keep them away from God.
4. In addition, I believe that everyone who isn't a Christian is going to Hell.
5. Understandably, I would really rather all you people didn't go to Hell. Hence, I'm praying for you. And I'm going to keep praying for you. Even if you ask me not to.

So, there we go.

Comments

[pling.livejournal.com]

True ... I wasn't saying I believed it, mind you, it was just a bit of trivia that I suddenly remembered :)

Re:

[twobytwo2.livejournal.com]

I thought it was just a statment, after all you said it like you recalled it not knew it well...

It is a good question...

[ruhe.livejournal.com]

To answer that - Purgatory is a non-Biblical construct. As a Christian myself, I find it inconsistent that God would condemn anyone who didn't ever hear about Godsself to hell. And yes, the Bible backs me up on this one...

[stipe.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I find it inconsistent that God could condemn anyone to hell for eternity. I don't think people appreciate how long "eternity" is.

Re:

[ruhe.livejournal.com]

Well, take the extreme, does Hitler deserve to go to hell for eternity? Vlad the Impaler?

[stipe.livejournal.com]

I've actually thought about that exact question a number of times.

First, there's the obvious statement that Hitler wasn't altogether sane. That in no way excuses him - he should certainly be punished a lot. But lets keep in mind that (working within the Christian framework) he is in part being punished for something over which presumably only God had control, namely the extent to which Hitler had control of working mental faculties.

Now, even if you don't buy that, thinking about the extent to which he should be punished, would you say a billion years of torture for killing one person would be fair? I'd say it'd be excessive, but lets say it's fair for the sake of argument. So give Hitler one billion years for every single person he killed. Assuming he was in some way responsible for six million deaths that gives us a total time of 6x10¹⁵ (or 6,000,000,000,000,000) years in Hell. That seems like a long time, but the fact is it doesn't even make a dent in infinity. It's an infintesimal amount of time in this context. You can up the time for a single death to a trillion years, or heck, even 6x10¹⁵ years, and it still won't even count against eternity.

And that's "taking the extreme," namely Hitler. I don't see how that sort of punishment could possibly be justified for someone who leads a good life but doesn't believe in God, or commits adultery in a moment of weakness. Sure, you can say that if people repent or ask forgiveness that they'll be saved, but that doesn't make me feel much better about the guy who gets killed by a bus while he's escaping with the food he's stolen to feed his family.

I have a real problem reconciling "a just God" with Hell.

[chess]

My take on the matter is that God doesn't send people to Hell; people send themselves to Hell. Hell is separation from God, which is what people think they want. What they don't realise is that seperation from God is seperation from everything good, because God *is* and is the source of good/love/etc.

[stipe.livejournal.com]

That's certainly a more reasonable explanation than some of the more traditional views.

But what if, while suffering because of their separation, someone decides "Hmm... I was wrong all along, and I'd really like to be with God now." Do they get to leave Hell?

God's all about forgiveness and redemption on Earth, so why would he be different in the afterlife? Sure, maybe if he's vindictive (though presumably he's not, since he's the source of good) he'd want to let the person stew for a while for disbelieving, but I still can't believe a just God would force someone to stay in Hell for eternity if they wanted to leave.

Good

[speccy67.livejournal.com]

A person who submerges into the ways of "flesh" ie, the material world, abandon their soul, their link to God.

By doing this, they are seperated from God by the nature and logical act of doing so.

Its an active abandonment of God by the person by their own will.

I was wondering why Original Author posted something in his journal asking about this.

Re: Good

[chess]

It's also important to remember that God is the Creator, and hence not to get too carried away in 'rejecting the material world', but to continue to appreciate the good things God has given us... otherwise, sure, I agree.