well sometimes what we talk about here we base on what we know.
the things that we theorize about based on some level of fact are still not really in the catagory of ‘sophistry’ in my opinion.
but when we theorize about things like this, about heaven and hell, and God and those big questions that we cant never begin to answer. on some level all of that is sophistry
"All forgiving"? He certainly seems forgiving, but [i]all [/i]forgiving?I don't recall the Bible saying so, and it's not as though we can take everything we think is cool, stick 'all' in front of it, and claim God is like that, can we?
Also, if God exists, He exists in [i]reality[/i], and the reality is a lot of horrible things happen to a lot of undeserving people. Would the God who created the world I know create something like hell? I can't say it's out of the realm of possibility.
All forgiving? No, not under the theology of hell and damnation, anything but! In fact, most of the brands of Christianity descended from Calvinism teach of a God that is “loving” and “forgiving” only by way of a tangled maze of sophistry. Their God is an unyielding tyrant, who hates us for sinners from the moment that we are born. Who would immolate babies in their cradles! The only thing that this God forgives is conversion and submission. Then anything is justified for the believer. (Under strict Calvinism, not even conversion guarantees this notion of God’s “love” and “forgiveness”). Under this idea, God is just biding his time, waiting for the day when he will destroy all of creation in one last fiery holocaust. (The blanket hatred and desire for destruction of all that is reminds me too much of some other biblical character). (Actually, it also reminds me far too much of Islam).
Nevermind that when confronted with an explicit statement of their beliefs on this matter (in a disapproving manner), the fundamentalists go into full spin cycle to justify or mollify this, but people like Johnathan Edwards and John Bunyan have pretty much also stated their wonderful beliefs in a perfectly similar manner, and are hailed as champions of the faith.
I cannot accept the doctrine of hell. Love has a definition. Forgiveness has a definition. Mercy has a definition. Justice has a definition. They cannot be bent into pretzel knots to fit any twisted character trait. They certainly cannot frame an infinite torture camp for the “enemies” of God, or even for those who disbelieve (God is curiously unforgiving to those who find themselves in hell after having provided no compelling visible evidence as to which of the world’s myriad religions (all of which have endured for centuries to millenia in their respective time) he actually wanted you to believe to begin with).
If it wasn’t a hideous revolt against love and justice, I would still disbelieve because it is an insultingly transparent attempt at philosophical coercion and mind control.
Frankly, I find the doctrine of hell disgusting.
What about the doctrine of malaria? Hell is somewhat easier to claim disbelief in, I realize, but would the pinnacle of Love, Justice and so on (as you envision them) have created either one?
Malaria is lifelong but not eternal. The concept of Hell is the pinnacle of Suffering. I suppose you could argue that a perfect being that would create suffering would perfect it, too.
So, perhaps these questions are off track.
Better questions might be,
Is hell a state or a place?
What can we learn from the idea of hell?
Is heaven an entitlement, hell the contingency for breaking our unsigned contract with god?
Does the punishment meet the crime?
QK
Btw Uccisore,
Interesting that you have Nick Cave’s excellent Red Right Hand as your sig. Love that song.
It is interesting because the phrase “Red Right Hand” is a reference to Milton’s Paradise Lost. This of course is also about Hell.
QK
Hell exists, but there is no demon with a pitchfork, or anything like that.
and Hell does not exist after you die, hell exists now, or at least it can if you allow it to.
think about Heaven as being in the ‘light of God’, and think about Hell as being ‘far away from the light of God’
this can happen to a person where they are in a state of sorrow and terrible distraught and have abandoned their faith and have buried themselves in sorrow, they have left the ‘light of God’ and they have moved into Hell, Hell on Earth.
in that same sense you can make Heaven on Earth as well.
if you stay in the ‘light of God’, and take your dreams and make them a reality while remaining in the ‘light of God’ you can achieve Heaven on Earth, which is perhaps the only kind of heaven you can ever achieve.
however this is all sophistry, and its coming from the mouth of an athiest.
it’s ok your quiet unique for being irrational 
.
i do not argue,i say what i have too,as should everyone else,and we should remain calm about our beliefs/philosophies.
Quizkid:
The way I see it, malaria is billions of [i]undeserving[/i] people suffering for a finite period of time, throughout the entire course of human history. Let's assume that hell is billions of [i]deserving[/i] people suffering eternally, after the close of human history. I don't see one as dramatically, poignantly worse than the other. My point is that trying to define God as [i]so loving [/i] that he would never create hell, but just enough of an S.O.B that he would create malaria is walking an extremely fine line. Put another way- if there's a solution to the Problem of Evil, I suspect it resolves the Problem of Hell just as well.
I think the question of what we are entitled to will draw different answers from different cultures. Anyone who has the ability to post in this forum is living like a [i]sultan[/i] compared to the average person of 100 years ago. Hence, I can only imagine that what we consider ourselves entitled to is subject to change. I think the idea of hell, and a God that would create such a thing, is much easier to believe in for people who lose like 1 out of every 3 children during birth, and die of all these hideous diseases we've banished with antibiotics. I think such a people could even call such a God good.
I am composing an answer. It does require some thought. (Though if you win this argument, it is only at the cost of your God’s proclaimed character. All praise is then, by your argument, merely obsequeous and fearful lying, and He is, in fact, some sort of fiend infinitely worse than any mortal sadist.)
MRM1101
I await your response with fear and trembling!
The way I see it, malaria is billions of undeserving people suffering for a finite period of time, throughout the entire course of human history. Let’s assume that hell is billions of deserving people suffering eternally, after the close of human history. I don’t see one as dramatically, poignantly worse than the other.
As you have stated it, the difference is that one group deserve suffering and one group don’t. Surely the undeserved suffering is therefore much worse. But I question your assumption that malaria is an undeserved suffering.
My point is that trying to define God as so loving that he would never create hell, but just enough of an S.O.B that he would create malaria is walking an extremely fine line.
I think you are confusing 2 different issues. God didn’t create malaria but he did create hell as punishment for the person who did.
I think the question of what we are entitled to will draw different answers from different cultures. Anyone who has the ability to post in this forum is living like a sultan compared to the average person of 100 years ago. Hence, I can only imagine that what we consider ourselves entitled to is subject to change. I think the idea of hell, and a God that would create such a thing, is much easier to believe in for people who lose like 1 out of every 3 children during birth, and die of all these hideous diseases we’ve banished with antibiotics. I think such a people could even call such a God good.
That’s an interesting point and I agree for the most part. I think the reason we have difficulty accepting hell is that we think of ourselves too highly - surely we deserve better. This may well be a product of our comfortable lives.
Ned Flanders:
Yeah, I thought of that after the fact, certainly some of the people with malaria deserve to suffer. Call it [i]random[/i] suffering then- suffering without regard to whether or not the person deserves it.
You’d have to explain this out for me. Are you saying that the Devil created malaria, and hell is for him, or are you saying that Man created malaria through the Fall, or something else altogether?
Yes random is better. And some people obviously suffer more than others. Usually the assumption is that those who suffer are undeserving of suffering. I think the opposite is true. Those who don’t suffer much deserve to.
I’m not saying that the devil or man created anything. I’m saying that infectious diseases were not a part of God’s creation but have been introduced through the fall by the activity of the devil perverting Gods creation. Many human pathogens are closely related to harmless organisms that sometimes even provide us with useful symbiotic benefits, Salmonella and E. coli being one example. I think God created hell for the devil but he will also use it to punish humans who reject his ways.
Matthew 25:41"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
Hell is just a word,Reality is much much worse.
No quoting Event Horizon.
The whole hell thing works like this.
God created heaven, filled it with buddies, and then found that all of his creations were not trustworthy, so he punished them by sending them out of heaven.
However, god would like to have heaven full of people that he can spend time with again. Instead of just placing you there, though, he decided to make a testing ground to determine which of his creations are really appropriate for heaven.
So, he made the earth, gave people choice over their actions, and waits for the eye blink that is your life to be over. When it is, he either has a new buddy, or not.
Hell is where you go for rejecting god’s offer of friendship.
I don’t see why i shouldn’t,the doc did make a point.
Yes, but that quote has become so cliche, that it’s meaning has become useless.
Additionally, we can only assume that hell is some kind of “reality.” It may, in fact, be a non-reality. In other words, i will suggest that reality requires existence and there is strong support in the Judeo-Christian texts that hell is the lack of existence and, thus, not a reality. That would then make the quote inapplicable.