Jaguar Prince

"Metaphor" is a cheap argument, Chris. How am I to differentiate between metaphor and the real stuff?

And even if it's a metaphor, there remains that Jesus is speaking about a place of torment. The fire may not be the fire we are familiar with, but it is still some kind of fire, something that causes pain.

Anyway, hell with or without fire is just a detail. What is important is this notion of separation, of condemnation, of definitive separation and condemnation. This is abominable, isn't?

Are you still impressed by the fiery rantings of Jesus (as presented to us through the filter of the gospel authors)? Or by his more moderate statements?

I'm not. Jesus for me is totally irrelevant.

PS: I added more quotes in the post above.

Chris Weimer

An interesting note on Hellfire, it was claimed, as it is claimed now, that fire is where you are molded into perfection to see your creator, much like a smith molds iron in the fire. I think that is a very valid interpretation, especially since it never truly mentions hell being eternal.

If you give me some time, while Mark, Luke, and John are explained away, I'm coming out with extensive notes on Matthew that I've been working on. Matthew is the problematic book for universalists often because of it's constant woes to everything, but we'll see. I'm still figuring this one out.

For now, it is better to say that Matthew teaches about hell as a punishment since the Bible doesn't really as a whole. Or, as Peter said earlier, it is not a theological treatise, but a collection of individual books that were each canonised.

Jaguar Prince

An interesting note on Hellfire, it was claimed, as it is claimed now, that fire is where you are molded into perfection to see your creator, much like a smith molds iron in the fire. I think that is a very valid interpretation, especially since it never truly mentions hell being eternal.

Sounds like I Cor 3:15...

The Holy spirit is compared to fire. Jesus is supposed to baptize with fire.

Everything is ambiguous, Janus-faced: there is the fire of Heaven and the fire of Hell. Are they ultimately one? We would like to believe it.

I too would like to interpret the Bible the way you do (in fact I'm doing it all the time, it's fun!), but do you really think this is the way Jesus thought of Hell?

Or is what the original authors meant irrelevant? Only WE are important? In that case, why still pay attention to the Gospels?

Why not write our own gospel?

Jag

Chris Weimer

No, I don't believe in Jesus

Clivedurdle

Go to Hell.Go directly to Hell.Do not pass go. Do not collect £400!

NearNihil Experience

Just to add some more 'monkey wrench' into the thread,

It seems pretty obvious to me that Jesus "the Christ" was not a Universalist. "Seperating wheat from chaff," "wailing and gnashing of teeth," and one that seems to totally blow trhe idea of universalism from the God-man Himself, "blaspheming the holyspirit is an unforgivable sin."

So if Christ was not universalist, what says that about Christ-ianity, or Christians?


Or is there some way to wiggle away from this with other scriptures...which is gonna make for contradictions....

zaitzeff

I think we have a problem with matt, luke and mark. If the scholars are to be believed, Mark was written after 70AD, 40 years after the death of Jesus. If the scholars are to be believed, Mt and Luke were written between 70 and 110AD and both Mt and Luke were written using Mark and Q, plus whatever M and L wished to add or which they possessed not from Mark and Q. Mark is not universalistic and Matt and Luke are positively against it, as we find in Mt 21, Mt 25 and Luke 16. The question is, however, since we know that the Jews of Jesus day often believed in eternal conscious torment as the final state of the wicked, and since we know that some of the teachings of Jesus were transmitted over time by such Jews now converted to the belief in Christ, did such Jewish-Christian transmitters of the tradition add to it their own beliefs in eternal hell?

somewhere there is a near-death experience report in which Jesus tells the person, Read the gospel and epistles of John; he knows my love.

what we have in the New Testament is at least 3 theologies which are universalist, and others which are not. The universalist portions are the genuine letters of Paul, those of the Pastorist and the gospel and letters of John. Moreover, consider the following:
Paul believed in predestination as we find in Romans 9 and in the pseudo-pauline Ephesians 1. If Paul believed in predestination, did he also believe that God was simultaneously righteous and given to predestining men to eternal conscious torment in hell? I think not, because a God who predestines men to eternity in hell isn't worthy of worship. He might be worthy of avoiding, like you avoid a bully, but not of worship for His goodness.

predestination and the belief in eternity in hell of the unlucky ones don't go well together in the mind of those who also wish to believe God is God and to worship God. However, God's foreknowledge logically necissitates predestination!

judge

What do these have to do with torturing people for eternity though?

Jehanne

http://www.mostholyfamilymonastery.c...Salvation.html

Peter Kirby

Would anyone like to mount an argument concerning the Pastoralist (author of 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus)? I gave one in the original post.

best,
Peter Kirby