Is annihilation false doctrine?

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Wootah
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Is annihilation false doctrine?

Post #1

Post by Wootah »

This is the philosophical perspective.

This all assumes a just legal system.

When someone is sentenced to go to prison they will only be able to end that prison sentence by paying the measured fine or serving the measured amount of time in prison. If that person has served their prison sentence and then you kill them you are acting unjustly.

If God is holy, righteous and just and we have sinned against God then hell is the prison we go to unless we pay for our sins against God or until we serve our time.

Problem a - is that we can never justly pay for our sins against an infinite God and so can never leave the prison.
Problem b - is that annihilation means that the sentence is over and God killed the person after the sentence was over.

Therefore Annihilation makes God unjust.

Put another way, at the point where God intends to annihilate a being it means that God regards that they have served their sentence. Therefore the being should be allowed into heaven. They have paid for their sins against God.

If they have not served their sentence and God annihilates them fails because as I just said, at the point of annihilation it means they have served their sentence.

Anecdote: I am pro-death penalty but the biggest argument against the death penalty for me is that prison lets the criminal rot for longer. Something about the execution is unjust, it is too light a punishment. I would still reply back that the cost to the state for keeping the criminal alive takes resources away from others and in a fallen world the prisoner could escape.

--

Just thinking about this.

After annihilation has the person paid for their sins?

If yes, then why aren't they in heaven?
If no, then they have escaped punishment or, worse, is God unable to justly punish?

--

Is annihilation false doctrine?
Proverbs 18:17 The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.

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tam
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Re: Is annihilation false doctrine?

Post #51

Post by tam »

Wootah wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 9:45 pm [Replying to brunumb in post #49]

The best I can offer is that most insanity is in the form of being too rational.
GK Chesterton says a lot about that: https://thekingandid.wordpress.com/2018 ... of-reason/

As you note with your agreement with William his abhorrence is emotional, not rational. This is a debating forum, which errs on the side of being rational.

However, Hell is quite rational and for those that are emotional quite loving.

It is very emotionally resonating to me that God will protect his children.
To the bold and underlined: Indeed! But that can be accomplished without eternal torment.


Peace again to you.

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Re: Is annihilation false doctrine?

Post #52

Post by Wootah »

[Replying to tam in post #52]

Hi Tam - this thread demonstrates your desire for annihilation is a desire for a back door pass into heaven.
Proverbs 18:17 The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.

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Re: Is annihilation false doctrine?

Post #53

Post by tam »

Peace to you!
Wootah wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 10:17 pm [Replying to tam in post #52]

Hi Tam - this thread demonstrates your desire for annihilation is a desire for a back door pass into heaven.
I don't see how this thread demonstrates any of that, so perhaps you could elaborate and show how you think it demonstrates what you have claimed?

Thank you!

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Re: Is annihilation false doctrine?

Post #54

Post by JoeyKnothead »

Regarding the OP...

Bringing in the Sheaves.

Now, if you'll all turn your attention to the plate, I remind you, God has him so many fingers, he starts counting him at a hundred, and don't it beat all, one of his most fave-o-rite friends was brother Ben Franklin himself!


Let's all us do declare, that debate is bound - IT IS BOUND - to the holy spirit. BOUND TO THE HOLY GHOST! In Jesus' name we pray.

Debate, in C&A must suffer! It must suffer in it's wicked need to have claims supported by the DEVIL!

We must, my Christian brothers and sisters, we MUST overrun this section of the site with our theology! With our complete and cow udderly inability to show we speak truth!

Right up til integrity rears its ugly head, then we tell how it is, we need us a whole nother thread to do it.
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Re: Is annihilation false doctrine?

Post #55

Post by Mithrae »

Wootah wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 10:17 pm [Replying to tam in post #52]

Hi Tam - this thread demonstrates your desire for annihilation is a desire for a back door pass into heaven.
Quite the opposite, I would say. The problems with the notion of eternal hell are fairly obvious, the main logical ones (in contrast to biblical proof-texts against the idea) being:
  • 1 > A very specific/skewed concept of 'justice' which rather than restitution and rehabilitation fixates almost exclusively on punitive punishment - for 'sins' which we were created/born to commit no less, "vessels of wrath prepared for destruction" - serving no purpose besides suffering (not even deterrence really since all sin, so few are 'saved' and regenerated, and even they still sin) and the apparent enjoyment of those watching them "tormented with fire and brimstone... in the presence of the Lamb"

    2 > The notion that finite sins warrant infinite punishment; the idea that even the most sadistic murderer or rapist can somehow tally up more 'debt' in a few decades than God is capable of properly punishing in centuries and millennia, and that the 'sins' of a Gandhi or a child killed young warrant exactly the same punishment

    3 > The obvious contradiction with the notion that "God is love," at least in any remotely meaningful sense, through the portrayal of actions more horrifying than even the likes of Hitler or Stalin could have dreamed up for their worst enemies; actions which in any other context would be universally regarded as those of the vilest demon
Given the ideas of a god and a life after death, in virtually any other context the concepts of both justice and love would surely incline most thinking people towards the conclusion of a deity who was "not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance," and hence ultimately rehabilitation and salvation/heaven for everyone in the long run. But the difficulty for professing bible-believers is that some passages are quite clear about this 'eternal torment' notion and others pretty strongly imply it, while few if any suggest (let alone clearly teach) universal salvation.

Annihilationism is the middle ground, the compromise between supposedly infallible Scripture and a God who supposedly loves all people and desires their salvation, but is unable to fix the curse he put on them in his garden. It's not a "back door pass into heaven" at all... it's just about the furthest those Scriptures can be made to bend in the face of logic. Bible-believers who don't want to worship a vile demon are nevertheless constrained from believing in a truly loving god; as long as they cling to their Book, about the best they can manage is a deity who at least decides at some point to stop inflicting suffering and grant the victims of his curse the sweet release of death.

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Re: Is annihilation false doctrine?

Post #56

Post by Wootah »

[Replying to Mithrae in post #56]
3 > The obvious contradiction with the notion that "God is love," at least in any remotely meaningful sense, through the portrayal of actions more horrifying than even the likes of Hitler or Stalin could have dreamed up for their worst enemies; actions which in any other context would be universally regarded as those of the vilest demon
There is no contradiction being presented. You will know it is not contradictory when you see it and see ourselves as we really are. There really is no place other than hell for the likes of me. Thank God for Jesus.

Know thyself.

You might like this thread. Hell is love: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=38486
Proverbs 18:17 The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.

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Re: Is annihilation false doctrine?

Post #57

Post by Bust Nak »

Wootah wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 7:21 pm That doesn't make sense. I can believe the world exists and is destroyed every time I blink.
You can believe that, and I can say that I believe that without actually believing it; you are required to believe in Christianity, but you are only required to say in your judge analogy. Payment is payment, whether I believe it or not in the judge analogy, which fails to address the point that payment is payment, if and only if I believe it under Christianity.
I think you are saying that recreating the person would mean they were still under sentence. Therefore they should be in hell. How is letting someone out of prison just unless they have paid their fine?
It's not just.
How is killing someone just after letting them out of prison unless letting them out was unjust?
It's not just either.

The point was annihilation is neither of these, instead it is the punishment itself, they are punished with annihilation, hence just. Undoing the annihilation, undoes the punishment, hence unjust. The persons in question no longer exist after annihilation, hence the question of being in heaven is not applicable.

In other words, I am disputing this premise: "annihilation means that the sentence is over and God killed the person after the sentence was over." No, the killing isn't something after the sentence was over, instead it is the entirely of the sentence.

What is the logical incoherence you see in what I said?

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Re: Is annihilation false doctrine?

Post #58

Post by Wootah »

[Replying to Bust Nak in post #58]
The point was annihilation is neither of these, instead it is the punishment itself, they are punished with annihilation, hence just. Undoing the annihilation, undoes the punishment, hence unjust. The persons in question no longer exist after annihilation, hence the question of being in heaven is not applicable. What is the logical incoherence you see in what I said?
First I want to give you credit (1000 mpg tokens to you sir). In two threads you are the only one following the line of thought. I mean it. I feel like I am debating myself here.

Imagine: You are in prison for murder. At the point of execution either in the prison or if I cruelly let you outside and then execute you, at that point, the sentence is logically complete otherwise you would be in prison. The execution would be unjust because the just thing to do is leave you in prison to serve your sentence.

Execution in this life or annihilation in the next is unjust. We do it in this life because of realistic issues such as expediency, or the danger of keeping a murderer alive. God doesn't have that excuse.

You can argue that annihilation is worse than prison but if I was annihilated I wouldn't know. How is that just? Why not just a godly lobotomy so the murderer doesn't remember themselves?

New thought: Wouldn't annihilation be the same place unborn babies are? How is that fair to unborn babies? Annihilation seems beset by reductio ad absurdum.
Proverbs 18:17 The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.

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Re: Is annihilation false doctrine?

Post #59

Post by Mithrae »

Wootah wrote: Thu Jul 22, 2021 4:13 am [Replying to Mithrae in post #56]
3 > The obvious contradiction with the notion that "God is love," at least in any remotely meaningful sense, through the portrayal of actions more horrifying than even the likes of Hitler or Stalin could have dreamed up for their worst enemies; actions which in any other context would be universally regarded as those of the vilest demon
There is no contradiction being presented. You will know it is not contradictory when you see it and see ourselves as we really are. There really is no place other than hell for the likes of me.
That's not an argument of any sort - not even biblical, let alone logical or factual - just an assertion that you must be right and one day I'll be sorry I doubted you :lol:
Wootah wrote: Thu Jul 22, 2021 4:13 am You might like this thread. Hell is love: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=38486
Your thread assumes that God is either incapable of reversing the curse of sinful nature he supposedly laid on humanity, or simply unwilling to do so. Either way, it's obviously not love for those being tortured for eternity. It's not even love for believers being tormented here and now by the thought of what supposedly awaits their nonbelieving children, family or friends. Maybe in 'heaven' God will erase their memories of their loved ones to make it all okay :? Or maybe he'll change their perceptions even more fundamentally, so that they too relish the thought of their dear sweet little boy or girl writhing in agony for day after day... year after year... century after century.

I'm sure many folk when they hear about some vicious murderer or child molester think that prison or death are too good for them, they deserve to be tortured as bad and worse than they did to their victims; but I'm equally sure that almost all of us who aren't already hardened killers or sociopaths ourselves would relent within a day or two from the horror we'd be inflicting on our victim for no purpose beyond simple vindictive suffering. It seems the deity imagined by some of the biblical writers doesn't even measure up to the most mediocre standards of human compassion and justice.

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Re: Is annihilation false doctrine?

Post #60

Post by Wootah »

[Replying to Mithrae in post #60]

I think it is quite obvious in the long run how things turn out. Like two brothers at 50 or like a rocket ship to the moon that is off by just one degree but after 238,855 miles it has missed the moon by a wide margin.

But you aren't pointing out a contradiction. You are just using the word.

The best I can help you is to point out that one parent can be loving by giving their child lollies and tv and another discipline and good food. In the short term, one parent is seen as loving and in the long term, the other is seen as loving. It is true that these issues are clearer over time. Hence why I am debating with you. Choosing wisdom is not easy, I know, and I wish I had listened to others more.
Proverbs 18:17 The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.

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