Marcion

This unsupported assertion is clearly just false for Christian theology. As stated before:

In Christian theology:
1) God is the creator of the universe and everything in it.
2) God is all powerful
3) God is the author of true religion (Christianity)

Again this statement is just obviously wrong with regard to Christian theology:

1) God is the judge – this is stated clearly and without equivocation in the bible numerous times.
2) The New Testament argues that acceptance of Christ’s atonement is necessary of salvation. Buddhists do not believe this, therefore they will go to hell with the unbelievers.

Once more, this is false according to Christian beliefs. The book of revelations makes a clear undeniable case that god judges and determines who goes to heaven or hell.

I’m not even sure what to make of the tautology “God just is”, so I won’t even try.

When I refer to a “Christian hell” I do so to denote the Christian idea of hell, not to say that Christians go to hell. This should have been clear from the content of my posts

I will clarify again the issue that this thread has set out to address:

How is the Christian idea of hell justified

The bible makes pretty clear who is going to be there, there is a long list of types of people who will be tortured forever.

It is clear that various religions have different ideas on hell. I am not discussing various religions, I am discussing Christianity.

This statement is just demonstrably wrong when it comes to Christianity. The bible makes it clear that unbelievers (among others) will go to hell.

These are interesting and quite creative visions of hell, but they are not biblical. The bible argues that you go to hell for either sin or lack of belief, not because we have “have prematurily [sic] forged our own metamorphosis”

My attempted translation of the above sentence into English would be something like:

How can god be responsible when we fail in our process of being born again? (this may not be correct, but it is the best I can come up with =)

The answer is that god is responsible because:

1) He is the creator of the universe and is therefore responsible for all it’s subsequent conditions (including eternal suffering of his creations).
2) He chooses to allow this suffering, even though he could have prevented it (by not creating man with such a sinful nature) or could prevent it now if he chose (omnipotence).

Amos

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But Christianity is not a religion. The -ity denotes a condition of being and only the religion is in need of understanding and therefore theology. The phrase Christian theology is coined out of protestant oblivion.

God created every thingbut since our ego identity is not a "thing" but just an illusion God did not create it. Notice that our ego was not created until Gen.3 (here called Adam) and was never formed to have a material existence.

God is omnipotent. </strong>

God is the judge when we become God and so we will judge ourselves.

At-one-ment is required for salvation.

In Budhism "anatta" is at-one-ment in the no-soul concept. That is to say, if we are one with our soul we no longer have a soul. This is the same as the Catholic idea that woman does not have a soul because woman is the soul of man (don't be mixed up with females and the no-soul concept). The "the sea was no longer" of Rev.21:1 is identical to anatta. </strong>

Christians have no belief because believers have doubt and since Christians (capital C) have the mind of God they are neither believers nor doubters.

"God is" as in "I am." </strong>

Yes I understand and I am trying to tell you that small c Christians are in hell and hence their idea of hell.

</strong>

Forever is a long time and do you supposed that this time continues beyond our time on this planet?

Yes the bible is clear and is the inspired word of God. The problem with this is that we must have an inspired mind to comprehend it. </strong>

You mean 20.000 of them and only Judaism and Catholicism have the right idea of hell.

You mean as in "I know your deeds; I know you are neither hot nor cold. How I wish you were on or the other--hot or cold! But because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of my mouth! You keep saying, "I am so rich and secure that i want for nothing." Litle do you realize how wretched you are, how pitiable and poor, how blind and naked."

Notice how the cold are OK and just as desirable as the hot. </strong>

No way, the cross of eternal salvation is for sinners only and therefore sin is good. Remember here that the laws were given to Moses for the conviction of sin and not to stop sin.

Faith is wrong. Faith is not allowed in heaven because it is accompanied with doubt. Faith and doubt are like twins and since doubters cannot enter heaved faithers cannot enter heaven. In case you wonder, that is why Peter was left stranded with no cloak of faith when Thomas the doubter was convinced. I told you before that we created our own ego to make heaven a better place to retire in. We want heaven to be a place where there is no sickness and pain so we can enjoy our worldly richess until we die of old age. Yes, it is in Rev.14:13 just below the exposition of hell (Rev.14:6-12).

If God chooses to allow suffering why is that not all people suffer?

[ September 20, 2002: Message edited by: Amos ]</p>

Marcion

Amos,

This discussion is obviously fruitless, as you will not address the points to be discussed, but continue to reply with tangential, wild, unsupported assertions of unintelligible pseudo-mysticism.

I do not mean this as an ad hominem attack, merely as explanation of why I will not continue this discussion with you.

To the audience:

I had read previously the claim that Amos was a bot, which I had initially dismissed, but is there the possibility that this is true? The responses he gives seem to be targeted around certain key words, and the sentences used to seem to me to have a tonal similarity to a number of chat bots I have read about in AI literature.

Anyone have any ideas on this?

Amos, if you are a real person, I apologize for this characterization, but I believe that if you are a person, this reaction you have elicited from me is the primary goal of your bizarre posts.

Amos

But Marcion, I am trying to tell you that God does not torture the majority of humanity and I am explaining in very simple way why and how your opinion is wrong in this regard.

Question for you. What is a bot and what is AI literature?. I know literature very well but never heard of A1 literature and my dictionary does not know what a bot is.

The reason why you think my posts are bizarre is because you do not like the answers I give you.

[ September 20, 2002: Message edited by: Amos ]</p>

Amos

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The Laws were given to Moses for the conviction of sin. They were inspired by the God of Moses to convict man of sin in effort redeem the benevolent first nature of man. To redeem this prior nature of man the second malevolent (human) nature must be isolated and to do this the Laws must be written upon the heart of man (as if in stone) so the inner man can convict the outer man of sin (Gal.3:17, "for in seeking to be justified you have been shown to be sinner [by the inner man]).

Sin is an inspired religious concept needed only to redeem the inner man and set free the God idenity in which man was created.

It is based on this concept that the cross of eternal salvation is for sinners only which at once means that we become the judge (and not God) and we will annihilate our own sinful nature as we learn to walk by our own God identity that has been set free.

luvluv

It's only fair that we state that we do not know, and have not been given, a detailed account of what hell is actually like. Therefore we would be premature to reject entirely the notion of a place seperate from and lesser than heaven where those who do not want to go to heaven are sent. If this is all hell is, then I don't see how that's inconsistent with God's goodness. Some people might not want to go to heaven. Heaven is necessarily the best possible place, so the place where those who don't want to be in heaven end up is going to be necessarily worse. Those in that other place are going to experience the pain of longing for heaven, even though they are not willing to pay the price to be there. That's about all we know for sure about hell. Everything else, the torture, the eternal duration, hell fire, all the bells and whisltes, is largley the product of imagination. The Bible never literally addresses the exact attributes of heaven (the parable of Lazurus comes close, but I think we can safely deny this as being a literal interpretation. It's safe to say that heaven does not reside in Abraham's bossom).

It would be premature in the extreme for someone to disbelieve in God because of the existence of hell. You would be far more prudent to disbelieve in someone's idea of what hell is. I am a Christian and I personally do not believe that hell is an eternal torture chamber. I still manage to believe in the Christian God.

K

luvluv:

It's fine to believe what you think makes sense. Although, that means I'm also perfectly justified in rejecting the Christian God with the caveate that I'm sure, if He does exist and really is just, He'll welcome me into Heaven because of the moral life I've led.

luvluv

If leading a moral life is the criteria that gets one into heaven and if you are capable of achieving the level of morality required to gain entrance to heaven on your own.

I don't think leading a moral life here has much of anything to do with whether or not you are allowed into heaven. I think it has at least as much to do with your willingness to submit to God's way of life while you are in heaven. What I mean to say is that there are perfectly moral people who nontheless do not wish to ever be told what to do. They demand complete autonomy of action. I don't see how such people could function in heaven.

Heaven is not the reward for a life lived here, in my opinion, it is the next step in our growth. Even if you were moral here, would you be willing to subject yourself to the kind of morality heaven requires? As a Christian, I have reason to believe that subjecting yourself to that level of morality involves a personal relationship with God and a significant abdication of my own desires and impulses. Every moral person might not necessarily be willing to do that. So, from a Christian perspective, it is far from evident to me that morality alone is enough. A submitted relationship to God would also seem to be required, and this is beyond the capacity of a lot of moral people.

K

luvluv:

But now you're going back to Christian dogma instead of what makes sense. There is no reason to believe that God requires submission any more than there is reason to believe that Hell is a place of torture and anguish. A just and benevolent God certainly couldn't require submission any more than He could torment those who didn't submit for all eternity. If you are going to use Christian dogma for the Heaven entrance criteria, why do you find it ok to go offroad on the doctrine of Hell?

luvluv

I'm not off road at all. The Christian doctrine does not give any explicit information about what hell is beyond my description above. You can attribute most of our conception of what hell is to Dante and some rather injudicious itenerant preachers. There is no in depth orthodox source on the exact nature of hell, but there is an in-depth orthodox source on how one enters heaven.

You're right though, I have been assuming that we are talking about the Christian version of heaven and hell. There may be explicit accounts of what hell is in the Koran or in the Talmud for all I know.