Omnipotent God + Eternal Damnation = Evil God

[Metatron]

I have never received an adequate justification for the doctrine of eternal damnation here at DC&R so I'm posting it as a topic.

Many Christians claim that their God is omnipotent/omniscient. They claim that their God is a god of compassion, love, and mercy. Yet, with all of this, they claim that God punishes all people who do not accept Jesus as their savior with eternal torment in Hell, i.e. the vast majority of mankind numbering into the billions.

What possible compassionate purpose can infinite torture have? The punishment doesn't even serve a remedial purpose because the tormented one is not allowed to repent. It's only conceivable purpose is sadism.

How is this not evil?

[scorpia]

Your saying God is going to toast most of mankind forever because Christian martyrs want REVENGE? The greatest proponents of the so called religion of love and compassion want billions of people, the vast majority of which had nothing to do with their martyrdom, tortured for all time? Yikes!!!

One of the reasons. Why is it presumed that those who have nothing to do with any offence against God or them are the ones to go to hell?

And yes I will agree that they would want revenge. They have been loving and compassionate long enough why should they expected to continue it in death? The compassion was for the benefit of others and since the others did not change their mind with the compassion what's the point in continuing it? To keep your resume looking nice? Well rough luck the horseman ate it. Because you want to be accepted among society? It never gave a hoot about you, or me, and I have already given up hopes that it ever will. I never had a clue as to how a matyr or anyone of the sort could be compassionate to begin with. They act all nice then they get killed and they just take it and now you say that afterwards they should be all nice and compassionate for crying out loud you can't expect a person to hold back their need for revenge forever. Not every second of every day for years to come. Hell would be nicer than that, at least you get to see your killer suffer with you.

Afraid I've lost track of what the significance of all of this orphan business was. Also, God never died. Some fraction (assuming the term applies to an infinite being) of his Godly essence was temporarily discorporated at the time of Jesus' death. If God had truly died, the universe would have been without a God at all.

Death is not non-existance as far as I know in the Bible. It may be for the artheist, but death has been considered to be a form of "sleep".

Sort of makes me wonder if that would mean that non-existance "death" is non-existant. Maybe nothing can stop existing. Just a thought.

I shall interpret that to mean that your own beliefs make you an evil character as you potray God as.

Huh??? You'll have to explain this to me.

You were earlier listing off things you believe a parent should do. i said God does these things i.e. fits your ideals. You said that this means God is fitting your description of doing evil. So in other words this description of ypur beliefs is the same as evil.

No one has a concept of morality? None of us have a clue of what is good and what is evil? We are all completely amoral beings???????

Yes. What with that saying "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." (figuratively speaking).

On what basis is God judging us if that is true? Hitler and Mother Theresa, all the same?

Perhaps. Depending on which covenant, I presume. God may be judging people through obedience towards him/ disobedience towards him, or there's the christian doctrine that bases his judgement of who loves him and who doesn't.

If you are God you have the means to make certain all of your creations understand what is right and what is wrong so that you are not in the position of punishing someone who doesn't know what they are doing.

And what kind of "making them stop being wrong" is this? Stop them from disobeying? Make them love him?

At this point the debate goes into the whole "it's all about free will" argument, but then an unbeliever will point out the possible lack of free will for whatever reason, which is something I happen to believe somewhat. I will not however see this as a form of sadism but my reasoning for such is too personal and if the debate goes there I'd like to step out.

If you're a Jew, I suppose the Levitical Law and other important areas of the OT.
If you're a Christian, the NT covenant based on Jesus' martyrdom. (Though some Christians hold that works is also a requirement.)

Of course, an atheist may not be the best choice for deciding these things.

and there are other covenants too.

Out of curiousity, what sort of covenant would you prefer?

What does one have to do with the other? I would submit even to the "fire and brimstone" version of God out of self preservation. If I knew for a fact that unbelievers were going to be roasted like a smore over an open fire, I'd be pretty stupid not to acknowledge him.

I suppose one would worship anything if threatened.

Not a method I follow, even if it does mean I'm "stupid."

[mister_lee]

Your saying God is going to toast most of mankind forever because Christian martyrs want REVENGE? The greatest proponents of the so called religion of love and compassion want billions of people, the vast majority of which had nothing to do with their martyrdom, tortured for all time? Yikes!!!

One of the reasons. Why is it presumed that those who have nothing to do with any offence against God or them are the ones to go to hell?

And yes I will agree that they would want revenge. They have been loving and compassionate long enough why should they expected to continue it in death? The compassion was for the benefit of others and since the others did not change their mind with the compassion what's the point in continuing it? To keep your resume looking nice? Well rough luck the horseman ate it. Because you want to be accepted among society? It never gave a hoot about you, or me, and I have already given up hopes that it ever will. I never had a clue as to how a matyr or anyone of the sort could be compassionate to begin with. They act all nice then they get killed and they just take it and now you say that afterwards they should be all nice and compassionate for crying out loud you can't expect a person to hold back their need for revenge forever. Not every second of every day for years to come. Hell would be nicer than that, at least you get to see your killer suffer with you.

How can you agree that they would not only want revenge, but would act upon it? Is revenge not one of the seven deadly sins? Does Jesus not preach forgiveness and to love one's enemies? are you choosing to believe these things or do you profess that the Bible supports this notion?

What does one have to do with the other? I would submit even to the "fire and brimstone" version of God out of self preservation. If I knew for a fact that unbelievers were going to be roasted like a smore over an open fire, I'd be pretty stupid not to acknowledge him.

I suppose one would worship anything if threatened.

Not a method I follow, even if it does mean I'm "stupid."

And you're not stupid, just thought I'd throw that in there even even you weren't being serious.

[twobitsmedia]

I can't disagree with a scripture. Just the interpretation of it. I still do not see anything that suggest EVERYONE is getting into heaven. You seemed to base your opinion on this happening because you "feel" it is not fair. I agree, It doesnt seem to "feel" fair to me either. But that is irrelevent. Where does the scripture say EVERYONE is getting there.

Where did "Everyone getting into heaven" come from. Not me. Most humans (the many) will die the second death and that is the end of them. Christians (the few) will become equal to the angels and live in paradise on the earth eternally with Jesus. The Bible states that no man has lived on the earth and gone to heaven except Jesus Christ.

If that is not what you are saying than I would like to know who is not getting into heaven, in your opinion, You have stated that the believer will, and then said the nonbeliever will have opportunity to repent at the judgment. Who does that leave out?

[myth-one.com]

I'm really not trying to be facetious, but how does the whole babies in heaven thing work?

There are no humans in heaven, babies or otherwise:

And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God;

Humans are flesh and blood. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. Therefore, no humans are now or ever will be in heaven. This includes humans of all ages and descriptions. You can either believe the scripture above as inspired by God, or believe the guys and gals in the cute robes. Also notice that this verse negates the "resurrection of the body" theology believed by most Christians. This theology has "inncorruptible" physical bodies rising from the graves and reuniting with immortal souls which have been waiting in heaven or hell. But if this occurs, Christians cannot then spend eternity in heaven since they are part flesh and blood and flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. Oops!

The only person who ever lived as a human and then went to heaven is Jesus.

And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.

He did not ascend as a human, but as a spirit since, once again, flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.

Since Jesus closed hell by forgiving all sin, it leaves only one destination for mankind. There is therefore no need for the Bible to tell us that we all get to Heaven. There is no other place.

What?? I need to catch my breath! Only those who believe in Jesus will be forgiven for their sins thanks to His sacrifice!!!!

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

"Whosoever believeth in him," is absolutely not all humans. It is all believers only. Nonbelievers will perish in the second death when cast into hell! The doors of hell are wide open. Christianity is a very exclusive religion. There are two groups: believers & nonbelievers and two final destinations: The Kingdom of Heaven & hell.

[Greatest I Am]

I'm really not trying to be facetious, but how does the whole babies in heaven thing work?

There are no humans in heaven, babies or otherwise:

And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God;

Humans are flesh and blood. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. Therefore, no humans are now or ever will be in heaven. This includes humans of all ages and descriptions. You can either believe the scripture above as inspired by God, or believe the guys and gals in the cute robes. Also notice that this verse negates the "resurrection of the body" theology believed by most Christians. This theology has "incorruptible" physical bodies rising from the graves and reuniting with immortal souls which have been waiting in heaven or hell. But if this occurs, Christians cannot then spend eternity in heaven since they are part flesh and blood and flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. Oops!

The only person who ever lived as a human and then went to heaven is Jesus.

And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.

He did not ascend as a human, but as a spirit since, once again, flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.

Since Jesus closed hell by forgiving all sin, it leaves only one destination for mankind. There is therefore no need for the Bible to tell us that we all get to Heaven. There is no other place.

What?? I need to catch my breath! Only those who believe in Jesus will be forgiven for their sins thanks to His sacrifice!!!!

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

"Whosoever believeth in him," is absolutely not all humans. It is all believers only. Nonbelievers will perish in the second death when cast into hell! The doors of hell are wide open. Christianity is a very exclusive religion. There are two groups: believers & nonbelievers and two final destinations: The Kingdom of Heaven & hell.

The old stick or carrot philosophy ended with the death of Jesus unless you want to believe that He only died for a portion of sin.

I believe that Jesus did not do half a job. When He took responsibility for sin, it was all sin. No half measures for God.

God started with a perfect spotless Heaven. He will always maintain that Perfection.
To suggest that at the end of days, He will have His goofs over in a corner of Heaven for all to see is dumb.
God does not goof when creating souls, they are all perfect.

Regards
DL

[myth-one.com]

Where did "Everyone getting into heaven" come from. Not me.

If that is not what you are saying than I would like to know who is not getting into heaven, in you opinion, You have stated that the believer will, and then said the nonbeliever will have opportunity to repent at the judgment. Who does that leave out?

Lets consider who will get into the Kingdom of Heaven. The correct answer is: All believers.

Broken down further, those getting into the Kingdom of Heaven will include:

1) All believers who have died.

2) All believers who are alive at the Second Coming.

3) Those who died as nonbelievers and have accepted Jesus as their Savior after their resurrection as mortals at the second mass resurrection for humans. These people are now believers.

Who will be left and cast into hell and die their second death?

1) All nonbelievers at that time.

========================================
Regarding the entire human race:
1) Some will never die as a human.
2) Some will die once.
3) Some will die twice.

Those who will never experience a human death are the Christians alive when Jesus returns. These will be born again as spirits and meet Jesus in the air. The much larger group of Christians who have died and been buried over the years will die one physical death. They will be born again into eternal spiritual life at the Second Coming.

The largest group will be nonbelievers who are resurrected as humans at the second resurrection for humans after the millennium. Those who still do not accept Jesus as their Savior will be cast into hell and die another physical death. Thus, their second death.

[Metatron]

Your saying God is going to toast most of mankind forever because Christian martyrs want REVENGE? The greatest proponents of the so called religion of love and compassion want billions of people, the vast majority of which had nothing to do with their martyrdom, tortured for all time? Yikes!!!

One of the reasons. Why is it presumed that those who have nothing to do with any offence against God or them are the ones to go to hell?

Well, since I'm assuming that you believe that anyone who doesn't believe in God or who worships another god is committing an offence against God, I'd have to further assume that you believe that everyone who is not "saved" is going to Hell.
If this is not the case, please elaborate.

And yes I will agree that they would want revenge. They have been loving and compassionate long enough why should they expected to continue it in death? The compassion was for the benefit of others and since the others did not change their mind with the compassion what's the point in continuing it?

Perhaps because these martyrs were legitimately compassionate and loving? Your statement above makes it sound like their compassion was just a facade created to win over other people. If they were able to maintain that compassion even through the pain of martyrdom while on Earth, it seems strange to me that they would abandon it in Heaven when they now have their eternal reward and are free of pain. Why would compassionate people feel the need for revenge?

Because you want to be accepted among society? It never gave a hoot about you, or me, and I have already given up hopes that it ever will. I never had a clue as to how a matyr or anyone of the sort could be compassionate to begin with. They act all nice then they get killed and they just take it and now you say that afterwards they should be all nice and compassionate for crying out loud you can't expect a person to hold back their need for revenge forever. Not every second of every day for years to come. Hell would be nicer than that, at least you get to see your killer suffer with you.

Wow, this seems like a very dark view of existence. I hope your life is better than some of your posts makes it sound. I get a little depressed even reading some of this stuff.

Afraid I've lost track of what the significance of all of this orphan business was. Also, God never died. Some fraction (assuming the term applies to an infinite being) of his Godly essence was temporarily discorporated at the time of Jesus' death. If God had truly died, the universe would have been without a God at all.

Death is not non-existance as far as I know in the Bible. It may be for the artheist, but death has been considered to be a form of "sleep".

Sort of makes me wonder if that would mean that non-existance "death" is non-existant. Maybe nothing can stop existing. Just a thought.

Very well, granting your definition of death as "sleeping", was God sleeping for several days? Was the universe bereft of it's omnipotent deity for several days? No, whatever of God's essence that existed as Jesus was liberated from the physical body of a man. God was still around and therefore not dead or asleep.

I shall interpret that to mean that your own beliefs make you an evil character as you potray God as.

Huh??? You'll have to explain this to me.

You were earlier listing off things you believe a parent should do. i said God does these things i.e. fits your ideals. You said that this means God is fitting your description of doing evil. So in other words this description of ypur beliefs is the same as evil.

Perhaps I'd need to go back to earlier post to confirm, but I thought this was in context to a discussion concerning Adam and Eve and original sin. My point was that God had not yet instilled any understanding of good and evil in his creations at the time he set his injunction against eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam and Eve were in a state of innocence. They also had no concept of death and therefore did not comprehend the consequences of their actions. Developmentally speaking they were effectively toddlers who had yet to receive any sort of moral training from a parent. It is difficult to characterize their disobedience in eating the fruit as a sin when they had no idea that it was wrong. Nonetheless, God responses to this alleged sin by booting them out of paradise, eliminates their opportunity at eternal life, visits the pain of childbearing on women, and guarantees them a now limited life of pain and toil. And just to make the situation even more abusive, he visits all of these same penalties on all of their descendants for no obvious reason. These are hardly the action of a caring parent. If God were not omnipotent, we'd be calling the cosmic version of Child Protective Services to investigate potential child abuse.

No one has a concept of morality? None of us have a clue of what is good and what is evil? We are all completely amoral beings???????

Yes. What with that saying "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." (figuratively speaking).

How can we have good intentions if we don't know what good is?

On what basis is God judging us if that is true? Hitler and Mother Theresa, all the same?

Perhaps. Depending on which covenant, I presume. God may be judging people through obedience towards him/ disobedience towards him, or there's the christian doctrine that bases his judgement of who loves him and who doesn't.

You do realize that this appears to make God himself into an amoral being who literally does not care in the least whether anyone is good or evil but whose only concern is that his creations maintain a slavish devotion to himself.

If you are God you have the means to make certain all of your creations understand what is right and what is wrong so that you are not in the position of punishing someone who doesn't know what they are doing.

And what kind of "making them stop being wrong" is this? Stop them from disobeying? Make them love him?

Nothing to do with making them do anything. I'm merely stating that God could clearly let man know exactly what he deems good and what he considers to be evil. Man then can choose whether or not to obey.

At this point the debate goes into the whole "it's all about free will" argument, but then an unbeliever will point out the possible lack of free will for whatever reason, which is something I happen to believe somewhat. I will not however see this as a form of sadism but my reasoning for such is too personal and if the debate goes there I'd like to step out.

Well then I will attempt to avoid probing into this area. Perhaps you can affirmatively state what you believe God's purpose is for eternal damnation if you do not believe sadism is involved.

Out of curiousity, what sort of covenant would you prefer?

Well one of the keystones to a covenant should be verifiable evidence that all partners to the covenant exist. You wouldn't enter a legal contract with a partner that you do not know exists, why should this be different? I think that if we know God exists and he emphasizes his attributes of love and compassion rather than the threat of eternal damnation, I believe the vast majority of mankind would happily sign up for this covenant of devotion to a verifiable God of Love.

What does one have to do with the other? I would submit even to the "fire and brimstone" version of God out of self preservation. If I knew for a fact that unbelievers were going to be roasted like a smore over an open fire, I'd be pretty stupid not to acknowledge him.

I suppose one would worship anything if threatened.

Not a method I follow, even if it does mean I'm "stupid."

Never claimed that you're stupid. I claimed that I would be stupid to reject a God who will toast me if I do not.

[myth-one.com]

The old stick or carrot philosophy ended with the death of Jesus unless you want to believe that He only died for a portion of sin.

I believe that Jesus did not do half a job. When He took responsibility for sin, it was all sin. No half measures for God.

God started with a perfect spotless Heaven. He will always maintain that Perfection.
To suggest that at the end of days, He will have His goofs over in a corner of Heaven for all to see is dumb.
God does not goof when creating souls, they are all perfect.

These "Goofs" of which you write, do they include those who never heard the name Jesus (through no fault of their own), those who died before Jesus paid the price of their sins (some fairly nice individuals -- Abraham, Moses, David, etc), infants who died before accepting Jesus, abortions, and mentally incompetents?

The goofs are not God's, the goofs are because of men and their false beliefs!

Jesus died for all but one of our possible sins!

God never created one soul. He created mankind as a living breathing physical being which dies.

Man then invented the "soul."

[Metatron]

The largest group will be nonbelievers who are resurrected as humans at the second resurrection for humans after the millennium. Those who still do not accept Jesus as their Savior will be cast into hell and die another physical death. Thus, their second death.

Question: Will this group of resurrected non-believers be aware that it is Jesus that has resurrected them? Will they have proof of his existence or are will we still be relying on the leap of faith? Will the resurrection be unambiguously from God or open to interpretation as the miracle of another deity?

If the resurrection is obviously from Christ, the non-believers would become believers unless they were delusional. Virtually all of mankind would achieve Heaven.

[twobitsmedia]

Where did "Everyone getting into heaven" come from. Not me.

If that is not what you are saying than I would like to know who is not getting into heaven, in you opinion, You have stated that the believer will, and then said the nonbeliever will have opportunity to repent at the judgment. Who does that leave out?

Lets consider who will get into the Kingdom of Heaven. The correct answer is: All believers.

Broken down further, those getting into the Kingdom of Heaven will include:

1) All believers who have died.

2) All believers who are alive at the Second Coming.

3) Those who died as nonbelievers and have accepted Jesus as their Savior after their resurrection as mortals at the second mass resurrection for humans. These people are now believers.

Who will be left and cast into hell and die their second death?

1) All nonbelievers at that time.

So the only ones who are not going to heaven are the nonbelievers who have not died when the second coming occurs.?