johntheapostate

Yet it does have textual support. Is one to interpret scriptural text going further than using a plain reading of the text. Is an interpretation with only the criteria that it does not endanger the integrity of ones personal god concept valid. Even if it stretches the plain meaning of the text. Where does one draw the boundary between creative interpretation and falsehood. Who decides.

Dave Roberts

It does exist, and you'll be worse off in Heaven

http://www.religioustolerance.org/hell_tem.htm

Chili

But don't go to the Epistles for support because they were written for the believers to reinforce their faith.

Just start comparing mythologies and see if they tell the same story. A good argument here is that voodoo fits into Catholicism, so does Zen Buddhism and all others because it can overshadow them all.

Actually, interpreting scripture is always wrong until it is prior to us by nature and we read about it afterwards in the bible.

Roland

I always figured that the concept of hell came to Judaism through Zoroastrianism when the Persians overthrew the Babylonians and liberated the exiled Jews.

Maybe I'm wrong.

Dave Roberts

Quite possibly you are correct sir

http://www.askwhy.co.uk/judaism/0270ZoroastInf.html

The Fate of the Soul
For Zoroaster, Ahura Mazda had revealed a message that was a matter of “life and death�—the fate of the soul after death. It depended on its earthly existence. A person’s every act, word and thought affects the judgement of their soul after death. The sum total of anyone’s thoughts, words and deeds determine the fate of their soul in the other world.

Everyone’s life falls into two parts—its earthly portion and that which is lived after death. At the “Last Judgement�, the record of people in life is judged, but meanwhile many people will have died. This is where the idea of heaven comes in, as a place for the Righteous to tarry until the end of “Time of Long Dominion�. This is the proper belief of Christianity, but they have abandoned it for a spiritualism, so simplistic and popular that ministers and priests dare not correct it. The lot assigned to anyone after death is the result and consequence of their life upon earth. Works on earth are strictly reckoned in heaven by Mithra, assisted by the spirit of justice. All the thoughts, words and deeds of each are entered in the book of life as credits—all the evil thoughts, words and deeds, as debts. After death the soul arrives at the Cinvato peretu, or accountant’s bridge, over which lies the way to heaven. Here the statement of his life account is made out. The souls of people were judged on their deeds in life and divided into three categories. If they has a balance of good works in their favour, they were righteous and passed forthwith into paradise and the blessed life. If their evil works outweighed their good, they have chosen the Lie and were cast into the Abyss of torment and woe, falling under the power of Evil, where “the pains of hell are his portion for ever�. Should the evil and the good be equally balanced, the soul passed into an intermediary stage of existence, a type of pugatory, and its final lot is not decided until the last judgement.

The course of inexorable law cannot be turned aside by any sacrifice or offering, nor yet even by the free grace of God. Ahuramazda had appointed these rules out of his grace to humankind but he was not subject to whims and fancies so would not bend to entreaties of any kind. Zoroaster made no allowance for repentance and remission of sins, though Zoroasatrian churches now do, perhaps influenced by Christianity. An evil deed could never be struck out by any means, repentence, indulgences, prayer or god’s fancy. Wicked actions cannot be undone, but an evil deed in the heavenly account can be atoned for by a surplus of good deeds. Once evil was done, it was entered into the Book of Life and the best that the evildoer could then do in life was to try to balance it out with sufficient good work to merit a favourable judgement.

In several places in the Avesta but notably Vendidad 19:27ff, Ahura Mazda answers Zarathustra’s question about the fate of the soul after death. While the demons responsible for putrefaction attack the dead body, for three days and nights the soul lingers, one each for Good Deeds, Good Words and Good Thoughts, and on the dawn of the fourth day, when Mithras appears on the mountains as the sun rises, it departs.

Zoroastrians had no reactionary idea of original sin. The Wise Lord would reward the good act, speech and thought, and punish the bad—people were judged in heaven for their works on earth. Mithras was the heavenly judge, a role that later Christ assumed. Everyone’s works and deeds were entered in a Book of Life as a balance sheet of credits and debits upon which the judge would pass his judgement.

The dead soul journeyed to the bridge to heaven where the book was opened. The honest and the deceitful have both to be assessed at the account-keeper’s bridge where their deeds are measured. Each person meets his actions in life (Daena) in the form of a fifteen year old girl who is more beautiful or ugly depending on the balance of the person’s good and bad deeds, though this girl is merely an illumination in Vendidad 19:27. The girl is likely to be the origin of the houris of the Moslem paradise.

The account-keeper’s bridge has many paths across, some being broad and some as narrow as a razor’s edge. The truthful souls take the broad routes and the lying souls have to try to balance their way across on the narrow routes. The truthful are therefore able to cross into heaven easily but the false find it impossible to cross and fall into the Abyss. The concept of the bridge will be based on the rainbow, seen as a bridge to heaven, and appears in Islam as the Arch of Al-Sirat.

The souls of ones with a positive balance walked across into paradise, first the heaven of good thoughts, good words and good deeds and then to the final destiny, the House of Songs, the home of Ahura Mazda—paradise. Those with a negative balance fell into the chasm or Abyss to suffer the pains of hell—not eternal torture in flames but, in the later tradition, 9000 years of intense loneliness in the frozen northern wastes. The mistaken idea of eternal burning comes from the fate of the wicked world at the End of Time when the Last Judgement occurred.

No bad thoughts, words, and deeds, are ever forgiven. Everyone is free to choose between Truth and Lies, between Good and Bad, but the choice has grave consequences. There is no relief from this by intercession, prayer, incantations, magic formulae, belief in any favoured doctrine or being born into any particular ethnic grouping. God has laid out His rules and they shall apply to all dead souls without favour.

Humanity does not have this knowlege and is too easily ensnared by the evil powers. People cannot distinguish between truth and lies, and so Ahuramazda in his grace sent a prophet to lead them by the right way, the way of salvation. Zoroaster was fit for the mission, and felt within him, the call of Ahuramazda. In calling him, Ahuramazda was making a last appeal to humanity before The End. Like John the Baptist, Jesus and his apostles, Zoroaster thought the fulness of time was near, that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. He often spoke directly with God and His archangels. Zoroaster called himself a prophet (manthran), a priest, and a saviour (saoshyant, the helper of those come to be judged by their deeds).

The Gathas say little regarding ritual practices of Zoroastrian doctrine. The Gathas are essentially eschatological—revelations concerning the last things, future lot whether bliss or woe, concerning human souls, promises for true believers, threats for misbelievers, and confidence that the future will be triumph of the good.

LSHAFC2004

Maybe it doesnt exist. But if it did, the contracdictions in 2 Peter of total blackness and the gospels portrayel are flame or ridculous. Which one is right? and Hel inside the Earth? That really seems a bit to much.

johntheapostate

In much the same way that you take liberties in interpreting scripture to fit a presupposed belief, Paul also felt he was authorized to contort Hebrew scriptures to fit his beliefs.

I don't know you well enough to say that you believe your creative interpretation is correct to the exclusion of all others, but Paul did seem to hold this belief.

Here is a post from the Calvinism thread that illuminate the nature of Paul's creative interpretation and what resulted from that.

Not everything in this post may apply to this thread, but here it is.

LSHAFC2004

Whos Paul?

johntheapostate

Paul wrote the Epistles in the New Testament. He brought Christianity to the Gentiles and was often vehemently opposed to the Jewish leadership of the Jesus cult in Jerusalem. As only the Gentile branch of Christianity survived, Paul is in many ways the real founder of modern Christianity.

Chili

Oh but Paul has the freedom to do what he wants when he starts a new religion as long as he leaves the old religion behind and builts a new one that returns to its Genesis when believers come full circle in the new religion . . . as they surely would if it was inspired by Peter.

The passages you cited were his caution against false prophets that were prevalent in those days and were given free reign again after the Reformation.

But they were servants of the angel of light and Paul was correct in demonising them. They were the wolves in sheep's clothing that promoted the Jesus movement. Paul wanted Catholics to be Catholic and wanted to protect his flock from these marauding wolves that tried to bring a false Gospel to them. So here we go. This new gospel promised freedom in Christ and circumcision in the law which is a contradiction in itself for in the Gospel of Paul it was for liberty that Christ freed us and therefore Paul urged the true believer not to take on the yoke of slavery a second time. Go to Gal.5:1-4 and read "It was for liberty that Christ freed us. So stand firm and do not take on yourselves the yoke of slavery a second time! Pay close attention to me, Paul, when I tell you that if you have yourself circumcised, Christ will be of no use to you! I point out once more that all who receive circumcision that they are bound by the law in its entirety. Any of you who seek your justification in the law have severed yourself from Christ and fallen from Gods favor."

Yes, it is a fine line between these two gospels but the difference between these two is enormous and is the difference between heaven and hell.Yes, seed in the singular paved the way for Catholicism as a new religion and that erased thousand of years of history from its past but does not include the persecution of Jews since the past was erased. Where and when things go wrong is when the Gospel of Christ is perverted by those who read the scriptures with curious eyes and think that they have freedom in Christ while they remain yoked to the law that convicts them of sin. These were the "saves sinners" of those days, they are those the Church has fought against since its beginning, and have found full freedom again to pervert the Gospel of Christ after the Reformation.