Jobar

In response to Mageth's list of refs to Hell, Post-it replied:quote:
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Revelation 14:11, And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night...
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This also doesn't contain men, only a handful of Satan's own.

Here's an idea which is new to me, but perhaps not to this forum- please, if it has discussed before by some of the old hands on this forum, point me to it.

Even if Hell is only for 'Satan's own' it is a valid argument against God's omnibenevolence. Why should any of the angels- God's creations, even as you and I, according to those that believe in angels- be condemned to suffer eternally for behaving in a manner which an infinitely knowledgeable God would foresee even before His creation of them?

If any least one of God's creations winds up in eternal fire, if Lucifer himself has no hope of redemption, ever- then God must be responsible for eternal pain.

tergiversant

Amen to that. What kind of loving parent tortures his children? How in hell (pun intended) is that just?

[ June 03, 2002: Message edited by: tergiversant ]</p>

ishalon

lol

1]hell = unjust

2]unjust = ungodly

3]:. the bible should not be believed in.

4] an omni-god would not allow his children to follow a fake book for millenia

5] :. there is no god

Jobar

Very concisely stated, ishalon. Welcome to the II! (Except, maybe #3 and #5 should be switched?) J.

[ June 06, 2002: Message edited by: Jobar ]</p>

infiniteblue

Tergiversant,

Reconciling a loving and just God with Hell was one of my most agonizing tasks as a fundamentalist Christian. In fact, I declared myself an Agnostic last summer because of it.

Strangely, Hell doesn't seem to bother most Christians very much at all. They may occasionally shudder at it, but they mostly focus on Heaven and fellow Christians. As long as they themselves are saved and they can blame unbelievers for "choosing to reject God," they can get on with the positive aspects of Christianity.

How did I become sensitive to the Hell issue? I grew up in the Churches of Christ sect which effectively denies salvation to anyone outside the sect. I didn't even become aware how limiting this was until my parents sent me to a mainstream evangelical Christian high school. Suddenly, my upbringing was telling me that all but five or so students at this school were aimed directly at everlasting torment. I was definitely a fundamentalist of fundamentlists!

When I went to college, I met many unbelievers who were no worse than the believers I grew up around. These people didn't weren't rejecting a God they deep-down believed in or were trying to ignore this God so they could revel in sins. They just didn't believe.

I started to complain that God didn't make the truth clear enough to make their faith decision a matter of eternal life or death. I still have this complaint, but back then it was compounded by the intensity and infinity of Hell.

I finally decided that I couldn't love a "mafia boss" God. Sure, he'll do everything for you if you're on his good side. Slip up, and he'll torment you forever. I decided that, all in all, humanity would be better off without God. After all, no afterlife for everyone is better than great afterlife for few and terrible afterlife for most. So, at the beginning of last summer I declared myself an Agnostic. I wanted to be a Christian, but I couldn't...especially with the Hell problem.

Then I found out about Conditional Immortality.

Conditional Immortality is a Biblical interpretation where the saved get to live in Heaven forever, but the damned don't get tormented in Hell forever. They do get judged by God for their sins on Earth. This punishment may even involve some literal torment. However, this punishment ends sooner or later and the damned soul is destroyed out of existance.

My sharpest complaint about Christianity was rendered null as I studied and came to believe that Conditional Immortality is indeed the Bible's teaching on the subject. I even gave God the benefit of my doubt on my other complaints for about five months as I declared myself a believing Christian again.

Recently, my other doubts and complaints about Christianity have gnawed away at my faith again. I still think it's unfair of God to demand we embrace fundamentalist Christianity in this lifetime with the confusion in the religious world...even if it were true. The myriads of Christian divisions testify against a God who supposedly isn't "the author of confusion." I don't think I'll ever be a Christian again. I also don't think I'll ever be a "strong" athiest or agnostic.

A major player in the downfall of my faith was Hell. Interestingly, a major player in my original decision to become a Christian was Hell too.

Having said all that, I hope no one will mind if I consider myself something of an amateur expert on the subject of Christian Hell doctrines.

I'll write a note after this about general Christian Hell concepts, then one on Conditional Immortality. I figure a solid handle on this topic could be useful to believers and us infidels alike.

- Garren

[ June 08, 2002: Message edited by: infiniteblue ]</p>

infiniteblue

Note: this message is a case of a long, confusing first attempt...then a quick sum-up on the second try.

The word "hell" in English is a lot more fuzzy than some people think. The King James Bible bears a lot of the blame for this. You see, that translation took one Hebrew and three Greek words and translated them all as "hell." This creates boatloads of confusion.

If you haven't heard any of this before, I highly recommend doing a couple of Google searches on these words:

* Sheol (Hebrew)
* Hades (Greek)
* Gehenna (Greek)
* Tartarus (Greek)

...hrm, supper time. I promise to come back and finish rewriting this note tonight. It's pretty basic stuff, but so many people get confused over it that it's really a pre-req to any discussion about the afterlife.

...ok, I'm back.

Evangelical theologians recognize the Old Testament's "Sheol" as identical to the New Testament's "Hades." A good way to think about this place is to call it "the Grave."

Everyone goes to "the Grave" when they die. The saved go to Hades/Sheol, and the damned go to Hades/Sheol. Everyone.

On Judgement Day, everyone is taken out of the Grave and either go to Heaven or Hell. So, the Grave is a temporary holding place for the dead until Judgement Day when they'll go to their Final State.

The King James Version -- among others -- muddied all this when both the Grave and Hell (the Final State) are called simply "hell." Obviously, there's a great deal of difference between the two.

The KJV has the saved and the damned all going to "hell" which is then emptied and both "hell" and the damned are thrown into hell (also known as the Lake of Fire).

vs.

Modern versions have the saved and damned all going to "the grave" which is then emptied and both "the grave" and the damned are thrown into Gehenna (also known as the Lake of Fire).

Many modern versions don't even use the word "hell" at all! The translators realize that the word has been hopelessly confused, so they use more accurate translations.

What is "Tartarus?" This is the word used by the Romans to describe the section of Hades where the especially bad would go to be tormented. The Romans also recognized a place called the "Elysium Fields" within Hades where the especially just would live in happiness.

In the Bible, "Tartarus" is used only once to describe a place where angels are held in chains of darkness awaiting judgement. Elysium is never named explicitly.

Interestingly, Jesus' story of The Rich Man and Lazarus tells of two men who both die. One is tormented in Hades while the other one -- in a seperate section -- feasts with Abraham in a place called "Abraham's Bosom." It's probably a good guess to identify the tormenting area as Tartarus and the feasting place as Elysium.

It's important to note that neither men in this story are in their Final State of Heaven or Hell. They're merely in the Grave, awaiting Judgement Day.

Jesus himself spoke of both Hades and Gehenna. The KJV unhelpfully translates both as "hell." Gehenna though, is identified by most scholars as identical to the "Lake of Fire" in John's Revelation. This makes a lot of sense considering Revelation says that Hades will give up all its dead for Final Judgement and then will itself be thrown into the Lake of Fire. Hence, the muddled "hell being thrown into hell" that I already mentioned.

Realizing that Hades is different from Gehenna makes the answer to this common question obvious:

"Why does the Bible say that Jesus would be in paradise with the thief on the cross, and the Apostles' Creed that Jesus 'descended into hell?'"

Simply put, Jesus descended into the Grave which contains both Tartarus and a paradise. Jesus died and went to where all dead people go. He didn't go to the place where the damned go after Final Judgement.

According to the Bible, Jesus bore death, not eternal condemnation...which is why he's kicking around in Heaven rather than in the Lake of Fire.

The grand importance of learning all this is simple:

References to the Grave (Sheol/Hades/Tartarus/Paradise) must not be confused with references to Final Judgement Hell (Gehenna/Lake of Fire).


All of this is a basic, shared belief among evangelical theologians who differ on the nature of Final Judgement Hell. So, if you want to argue the merits of Traditionalism, Conditionalism, and Universalism...you need to understand everything I wrote above as common ground. This is the vocabulary and core concepts ya need to go on, k?

- Garren

[ June 08, 2002: Message edited by: infiniteblue ]</p>

tergiversant

Thanks for the summary of Biblical theology about the afterlife. Of course, there are some various interpretations to be had, e.g. many Christians do not believe that they will go to Sheol/Hades at all, but your recap was very well-done. I thank you.

When I make arguments regarding whether God is loving and/or just to consign his creations to eternal perdition, I try to refer only to the "post-final-judgment" state of hell, that is, Gehenna or the "Lake of Fire."

As you indicated, the views on this range widely, from universalism, to annihiliationism, to eternal torment. Some Orthodox theologians suggest that Heaven/Hell are both the experience of the presence of God, which is wonderful for saints and horrible for sinners.

tergiversant@OklahomaAtheists.org

<a href="http://www.OklahomaAtheists.org" target="_blank">ATHEISTS of OKLAHOMA</a>

"Atheists are OK."

[ June 10, 2002: Message edited by: tergiversant ]</p>

tergiversant

But whatever one's view of the final state of unbelievers/sinners, one must either claim that their eternal state is both loving and just, or else that God is not universally loving and just to all of his creations.

Since most popular notions of hell depict treatment that is neither loving nor just, while most popular notions of God depict him as both loving and just, many believers must wrestle greatly with this problem, performing hermaneutical and semantic gymnastic feats of the first order.

Most often they fall back on the argument that unbelievers/sinners "chose" their own horrible fate. This is very like saying that the folks in the WTC chose their own fate by going to work on the morning of September 11th, and reveal more about the speaker than anything else.

Taffy Lewis

tergiversant:

Are you afraid of death or do you consider it to be a bad thing?

infiniteblue

Tergiversant,

Thanks for the vote of appreciation. It helps to know that people notice when I babble on about something.

You mentioned the "choice" to go to Hell. I can hardly believe how prominent this response is among Christians.

I guess a God who stays ambiguous until after a person dies, then jumps out and says, "Surprise! The Christians were right about me! Oh well, too late for you" isn't the kind of God Christians can be proud of (even though they preach Him weekly).

In fact, a former roommate of mine told me that everyone knows that God is real. I asked him why unbelievers don't see it that way. He replied that unbelievers know the truth, but then they decide to be ignorant.

My litmus test is this: if an unbeliever were to die and be shown the scene of Final Judgement (believing it real) and not register any increase in surety of God, then that unbeliever really would be one of these "unbelieving believers" my friend speaks of.

I figure if I'm not sure that I'm sure about God, then I'm not sure about God. (can that be formalized?)

Anyway, one of the major things that makes me an unbeliever is this sort of Argument from Unbelief.

Most believers and unbelievers think it unjust for God to punish people for ignorance. That's why it's so important to Christians that unbelievers first believe, then make the informed decision (while believing) that they will now not believe.

I prefer Agnosticism now. For one thing, it offers affirmation to those of us who recognize unbelief as a real thing.

- Garren