WinAce

... isn't a one-size-fits-all torture, but contains varying levels of punishment?

This is for my questionnaire, specifically, question A5:

"Would you consider a being who didn't do this and is instead content with at least 60% of humanity spending eternity in hell [3], with no chance of ever being forgiven and the exact same punishment being administered to child rapists, medieval inquisitors, Hitler and your friendly neighborhood agnostic, worthy of human worship?"

I'm composing a rebuttal to J.P. Holding, who wrote:

So, what I'd like to ask is--is this agreed upon by most every Christian denomination, in which case I commited an error, or is Mr. Holding pulling only the verses which support his position out of his butt without any real Christian consensus on the 'Biblical position'?

Thanks for any help.

Plebe

Each sect of Christianity has it's own interpretations and of course from direct reading of the texts you can find various descriptions. You might want to go into the search engine here at Infidels and key in "Zoroastrianism", "Zoroaster,""Hell Origin" and read various articles some of my favorites being Joseph Wheless "Forgeries in Christianity" and "Beyond Born Again" by Robert Price Clicking around the Net I found this scholarly coverage which supports Price's conclusions regarding the last book of the New Testament-Revelations just click the link:
<a href="http://www.beliefnet.com/story/61/story_6111_1.html" target="_blank">http://www.beliefnet.com/story/61/story_6111_1.html</a>

ex-preacher

Your second option is the correct one. There is no consensus among Christians (or within the Bible) on the nature, duration, purpose, or even existence, of hell.

Peter Kirby

My perception is that, given that an argument is being constructed for the non-existence of the biblical god based on the alleged fact that hell is the same for everyone in biblical Christianity, the burden of proof would fall on the person who states that the doctrine of equal punishment for all who go to hell is found in the biblical writings. If unambiguous references for such a doctrine of equal hell do not exist, then this particular argument for the non-existence of the biblical god is flawed. It would help anyone responding to such an argument if there were passages declaring different levels of hell, but to demand such references would be something like shifting the burden of proof, unless of course the Christian is basing some further argument on a doctrine of a layered hell instead of simply rebutting a particular argument for the non-existence of the biblical god. It is possible that my understanding is incomplete because I do not know the context of this exchange.

best,
Peter Kirby

Amos

The biblical position for hell is easy to find and is juxtaposed with heaven in Rev.13 and 14.

But your idea of hell is wrong and rapist do not go to hell for rape nor do priests go to hell for molesting children, yet ordained female priests can easily go to hell for unlawfully entering the sanctuary (I added this last line for dramatic effect).

Hell is when you "enter the race" but can't seem to finish it and you are content with suffering while here on earth. If you ever visit the Baptist board ask if it is mortifying to suffer at the foot of the cross.

Ether

I honestly don't know how a woman that has read the bible can be a christian. I for one think that women should be the first to oppose christianity.

[ September 01, 2002: Message edited by: Ether ]</p>

Steven Carr

Assuming eternity is infinite in length, how can there be different degrees of infinite suffering, each exactly matched to whatever sins people did in their life?

Naturally, Glenn Miller's essay is a Holocaust-deniers type of word-twisting.

Glenn twists away Revelation 20 as follows 'The eternal torment mention is applied only to the Devil, the Beast, and the False Prophet—not to their followers (who are said to be devoured by fire from heaven in verse 9). The devil is clearly an angel, but the Beast is difficult to identify as being an individual human or a group of humans or a nation or a “movement” or a spirit (the biblical data in Revelation and the other Johannine literature is all over the map on this one).'

But, curiously, Holding says Revelation 18 applies to all people, although using Miller's 'logic', the justice in Rev. 18 is only to be applied to Babylon the Great.

Steven Carr

I'm not sure how Miller and Turkel will get around the problem.

Suppose torment is eternal. Then all will get the same punishment. No matter how large a punishment one person gets, all others will get just as much , given enough time.

So , if they insist on different punishments, then torment will be finite. What happens when that period is up?

WinAce

Thanks for the replies, all. I wrote a reply and reworded the question to avoid having to justify anything Biblically

Sauron

Be forewarned that if you do respond to Robert Turkel (who hides behind the pseudonym of Holding), you cannot be assured that he will either quote you correctly, or link to your original argument. He will cut snippets from your response, but will not link to the full text, in order to prevent his readership from having full disclosure and thus making up their own minds.

In addition, other II members have written such rebuttals on different topics, only to have Turkel go back and clandestinely edit his original posts. The result was to invalidate the the II member's response, and make it appear as though the II member totally missed the mark. Several people who have decided to respond have gone to the trouble of archiving Turkel's original posting, so as to prevent Turkel from creating a 'moving target'.

Yes - that's the kind of 'christian' you are dealing with here.

[ September 02, 2002: Message edited by: Sauron ]</p>