malookiemaloo

Not to understand hell is not to understand sin.

I can only answer the point personally. I know I am a sinner and deserve hell. I would have no complaints at all if God sent me there right now.

The cross and the gospel provides a way to become reconciled to god again.

Are there any unanswered questions? Hundreds!! Again, speaking personally, I leave them to God.

m

triplew00t

Well, it appears we don't understand sin, seeing as how we don't agree with your idea of hell. Perhaps, you would enlighten us on how we can understand both.

-Nero

malookiemaloo

Quick answer only, I'm afraid.

Sin (traditional meaning to fall short or miss the mark) is effectively rebellion against God. Sin results in sins. You know the old cliche 'you're not a sinner because you sin, you sin because you're a sinner'.

God hates sin because He is pure and just. We have no right to make any demands uopn Him.

A thought. Sin must be much more awful than we ever contemplate if the only way to remove it was for the Son to die on the cross. A sublime thought. The Creator becomes one of His own creatures and dies!!!


m

iccarus

Merciful? The most honest answer to this sort of question by a christian was given to me by a neo-calvinist, who solved the entire Problem of Evil with the consistant answer, "God isn't all good, nor is he merciful to all, only to the select few who are amoung the elect." Most christians don't like this answer, but it is consistant with multiple biblical stories and teachings. He essentially invisioned god as "the Godfather in the sky" nice to people he liked, but if you do something he doesn't like then he breaks your kneecaps...forever. His entire message was "Fear the lord your God"
Scary to think about the mentality that could produce this but internally consistant.

spiraling into the depths
Iccarus

Kilgore Trout

Dargo said:

Then malookiemaloo said:
Does that answer your question Dargo? Kind of sounds like the grovelling you were talking about doesn't it?. This is why I think you need low self-seteem to the point of being a self-hater in order to be a christian. No wonder they think "bad" people deserve to go to hell when they think even christians deserve to go to hell!

malookiemaloo said:
Correction: Your bible says god is pure and just. When you write about a god that you have absolutely no evidence of you can assign any properties you wish to that god. Absolute rulers love to let people know that they are good and just. That is how they get people to follow them. I don't think Hitler said in his speeches: "I'm Evil! Everything I'm doing is wrong! I don't even know why you people let me be your leader!" So saying we have no right to make demands on god is just further evidence of Dargo's point. People who made "demands" on Stalin were executed.

malookiemaloo said:
Again, this fits what Dargo said. An absolute ruler is not going to like you rebelling against him.

What you're saying is that god is perfect, god made humans imperfect therfore we fall short of his perfection and should be punished eternally for it. That would be like if a doctor genetically engineered babies with big feet and then punished them because by having big feet they fall short of his idea of perfection.

Based on the logic that people get punished for falling short of the mark, then I guess you must think anybody with less money than Bill Gates is a piece of trash. How about people who are not as smart as Einstein? I guess they should be punished also because they miss the mark. Good parents don't punish their children just because they are not as "perfect" as they are. When you do punish your children when they rebel against you, it's because you want them to learn a lesson so they will improve. There would be no point in sending your kids to eternal punishment as that is not going to make them better. Only a sick parent would want to do that. So I guess people have more morals than god.

Dargo

God punishing his creations because they are not perfect is something like a pet owner punishing his cat because it doesn't act like a dog. He should have bought a dog in the first place. In the same way, if god wanted us to be perfectly obedient he should have made us that way.

Normal

Blah blah, free will, blah blah

Wayin

Off the topic, although I must ask....
M, Do you really believe that all those lambs - goats and other creatures that where slaughtered really would have believed this (loving His creatures)... O and I`m sure those horses that had there hamstrings cut (Joshua 11:6) where so happy that there creator wanted them to suffer such a cruel death...... I'm sure all the animals loved the swimming lesson in the days of Noah too huh?
:banghead:


Such is life!
Wayin

keyser_soze

Expecting compassion from a fundy is like expecting shit to turn to gold...It's just not going to happen, and it smells up the joint.

Haran

One might need to look in the mirror with a statement like this...