meritocrat

Why would a 'loving God' seek to eternally punish people for not believing in him?

Besides, what would one DO in heaven?

Badfish

Well that was the deal, he offers eternal life and if you reject his son, then you get punished.

Heaven is supposed to be like utopia, it is Paradise, imagine the best thing you can and then imagine that feeling ten fold.

Other than that, I'm not sure.

Ronin

~ starring Marlon Brando as God.

Won't her head blow off?

More christians should promote this idea.

meritocrat

How can you 'be sure' when the Bible doesn't give a wholly accurate description of heaven?

kctan

Carrot & stick thingy. No reward & punishment means no one will believe in such a religion.

Ronin

Belief in heaven is very difficult without a greedy desire for it.

All scams need a hook.

azazel

From a socio-anthropologic standpoint. The afterlife is merely an extension of earthly law. Take the ten commandments, they're based on the egyptian hammurabi's code. the message was "we'll get you for your crimes, even after death". because earthly punishment simply wasnt enough of a detterent against crime. it's other purpose was to give hope to the opressed masses who would never experience "the good life". there's a direct connection between strong peity among the masses and oppressive regimes (such as monarchies and dictatorships). Stalin of course was an exception, but they were brainwashed into believing that things wee getting better all the time (think Orwell's Animal Farm)/

Rousseau_CHN

The time to be happy is now
The place to be happy is here
And the way to be happy
is to make others happy
And to build a little heaven down here

I ate Pascal's Wafer

Yeah, the whole concept of heaven and hell seems to be a mechanism to keep the masses in line. Earthly punishments can only go so far, and it doesn't work if there was a suicidal attempt to kill the leaders as you cannot punish the dead. However, if people believed that there was some type of punishment after death, then they are less likely to want to take part in that assasination attempt.

That said, I also do not see how a supposedly loving deity would actually create a hell to torture finite entities for eternity. Xians will try to say that God doesn't send anybody to hell, but we choose to go there ourselves. However, the fact that hell even exists and that fallible beings can find their way to hell seems to contradict this notion of a loving god. If hell really was meant for Satan and his friends, then it would seem like a loving god would be doing everything in his power to keep his little finite pets from going to this place--and that would include actually bringing them up to heaven himself.

-Nick

Tercel

Yup, it's what I do say.

Not at all: It is the very existence of a loving God which creates hell. This loving God is the source of all love, light, joy and life. He is unimaginably loving and endlessly forgiving to all. But He is the source of love and life. When we sin, we are acting in a way contrary to his love: We are separating ourselves from Him, breaking our union with Him. This brings death.
But God loves us so much that not only does He forgive our sins out of hand, but He Himself took on a human form and lived and died as humans do so that He might reunite humanity with Himself. Since our union with Him was broken and we were dead in our sins, separated from the source of life, He restored our union with Him by becoming one of us and sharing in our humanity.
Yet we can still destroy ourselves. I do not doubt that there will be some who in their heart of hearts are only evil and hate-filled, those in whom there is only darkness. They only hate, they only lust, they cannot accept love or compassion, but can only return the love of God with hatred and flee into the darkness to escape his love and light. As Jesus said: if the light within you is darkness, how dark indeed that is. Hell is not some punishment imposed by a vicious evil God, Hell is a state of being - of being completely lacking in good, of only being able to return love with hate, of being completely wretched and of knowing and hating yourself for it. I have heard it said "the gates of hell are barred from within", and I would agree. Hell is not a punishment, there are no instruments of torture - none, that is, apart from you. You merely have yourself and as much love and joy and companionship as you desire for all eternity... and if that is torture then what does that say about you?

Hell is simply a consequence. After a semi-eternity there will only eventually be two types of beings: Those of light, who delight in love for one another and God, and those of darkness who hate everything and hide in darkness away from everyone and everything nursing their own pain and self-pity into eternity.

And it is not God, in His love, that decides this: For He merely loves all His creation boundlessly and endlessly. Like the sun, He shines on the good and evil alike - diseased eyes feel pain, while those with healty eyes rejoice at the beautiful light. The difference is entirely in us who receive, not Him who gives.