Hell is love

[Wootah]

The existence of hell is one of the best indications that God is loving.

His willingness to love his children by keeping them separate from the Devil's children demonstrates that love.

The eternity of hell is explained to my mind by the fact God is a God of life. We were created to live forever. Many other religions believe their God has the right to destroy even his children. But what security is there in that?

We all practise hell all the time. Aren't there people that you don't like or don't want to associate with? Don't we all cast people out of our lives?

Would you ever let a paedophile near your child? If yes then you don't love your child. If no then you are loving and you practise hell.

A Christian or any person arguing against hell is no different to a criminal arguing against prison.

Rebuttals?

[tam]

[Replying to Wootah in post #1]

Just perhaps a shorter post with a couple questions?

How can 'hell' be a prison meant to keep God's children safe from those who would harm them, when:

a) everyone went there who died (until Christ), including Israel?

b) Job longed to go there?



Peace again!

[JehovahsWitness]

Many other religions believe their God has the right to destroy even his children.

Are you suggesting God does NOT have the right to destroy anyone he so wishes?

MATTHEW 10:28 ESV

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

But what security is there in that?

The security that God is entirely just and will never destroy someone unless they deserve it.






JW

[JehovahsWitness]

The existence of hell is one of the best indications that God is loving.

His willingness to love his children by keeping them separate from the Devil's children demonstrates that love.

Perhaps you do not mean unspeakable TORTURE when you say "hell" because obviously one doesnt have to inflict eternal agony on someone to keep them away from (protect) the innocent.

Perhaps you could tell us what you mean by "hell"?

[Wootah]

[Replying to JoeyKnothead in post #8]

Hi Joey - you gotta admit this is funny. You are calling on God (the mods) to keep the, in this case, sheep (atheists) and goats (Christians) separate.

See - You do believe in hell and are experiencing it now .

[Wootah]

[Replying to Bust Nak in post #6]

Follow up question, again, leaving aside the question of justice aside for the other thread, could annihilation also be indication that God is loving?

Not really. If God annihilates and that is part of a loving God then a loving God could annihilate his children. There would always be that fear in heaven. But a loving God creates hell for 'not his children'. So as an adopted son I would have no fear.

Okay, often yet not always, many a loving mother have turned their own children in for crimes they've committed. The criminal is separated from the general population, yet the loving parent still keeps in touch. God isn't doing this, which goes to show that hell is also a demonstration of un-love/lack of love.

God is doing that now. Reaching out to you now. At some point, he has to say OK you can have it your way. When we were young and dating, we might ask a girl out and she says no and we keep trying but if you love her then you have to stop.

Parents are delusional aren't they? Rather than helping the people around them, they would still rather selfishly focus on their own progeny. Richard Dawkins doesn't call it the selfish gene for nothing.

Looks to me like a perfect example of God's familial love leading him to turn a blind eye to the true nature of us sinners.

Yep!

If God would be perfectly loving and justified to let all of us go to hell, and God is perfectly loving and justified to let some of us go to hell, then would God not also be perfectly loving and justified to let none of us go to hell?

How can he do that? Love requires free will. Forcing you into heaven isn't love.

[Wootah]

[Replying to nobspeople in post #9]

I agree - let's remove the Devil. God is. Are you a person that says the devil made me do it or a person that takes responsibility for your own actions? Trust me, you are going to hell for your own sins, not the devil's or Adams.

I'd urge you to be more selfish then. Lead the selfish life of Christ and the world will see you as more selfless (but they won't like you).

Probably, but we are all knowing or all powerful, so comparing any imperfect human to a perfect 'being' is intellectually dishonest IMO.

I'd agree. We can't perfectly understand God, ever. But we can work from what we do know.

[Wootah]

[Replying to tam in post #10]

Hi Tam - To be honest there are a variety views on 'what happens after we die. I try to be open to all of them.
preterist, amillenial, premillenial, postmillenial. I am not an expert on them but happy to get into them. I lean towards amillenial. I think we die and we go to be with God, at some point Jesus returns to Earth, cleans house and creates a new heaven and a new earth and Christians will live forever in the new earth in our new bodies with God and non-Christians will go to where they want to go hell.

"This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live." Deut. 30:19

I think you

And who says man was created with the automatic gift of eternal life? Adam and Eve were cast out of Eden so that they could not eat from the Tree of Life and live forever. So while they might have been created to live forever (and may yet be granted that gift, and once again have access to that Tree of Life), their own actions led to their death (and the death of their offspring).

The Bible. They were only told to not eat of one tree. They could eat of the tree of life from the beginning. It is however necessarily contingent on choosing life, choosing God. Moses and the boys in the wilderness did not choose that and so God gave them laws.

The traditions of man are numerous and I would say that we should both humble ourselves and try to weed out those traditions from our lives because we both have them. I'll even be fairer. I am using the forum to debate and test my views. You can (and are) debating back. I am afraid the cold hard calculous of hell is the best demonstration of love.

Annihilation is quite wicked as is being demonstrated there. Only Bust Nak seems to be trying to argue the view and save you in that thread.

We need to sort out heaven hell and sheol. Let's find a new thread for that.

[Wootah]

[Replying to JehovahsWitness in post #13]

In hell. Why not just destroy without hell?

Of course, God cannot destroy whenever he wishes. He isn't Allah, the god of will. God is a God of his word and he justly cannot destroy any sinless being.

The God you are searching for is far more wonderful than you imagine.

[Mithrae]

1 - As stated on previous threads, "hell" (the word translated from sheol/hades) is simply the world of the dead, where the dead (all who have died except for those in Christ) await the resurrection of the dead (and subsequent Judgment). At that time 'hell' (Hades/Sheol) is EMPTIED OUT of the dead in it, great and small. Such ones then receive the resurrection of LIFE or the resurrection of judgment and the second death. Rev 20:11-15; John 5:28, 29

viewtopic.php?p=1045039#p1045039

Not quite: In the New Testament, the KJV misleadingly translates three different words mostly as "hell," namely hades ('hell' 10 times and 'grave' once), gehenna ('hell' 9 times and 'hell fire' thrice) and on one occasion tartarus (or tartaroo 'cast down to hell').

"In Greek mythology, Tartarus (/ˈtɑːrtərəs/; Ancient Greek: Τάρταρος, Tártaros) is the deep abyss that is used as a dungeon of torment and suffering for the wicked and as the prison for the Titans." Fitting that the author of 2 Peter would use it as a term for the imprisonment of rebellious angels.

Hades seems to be the NT equivalent of sheol, which as you note is (mostly) described in the Tanakh and translated in other versions as simply 'the grave,' with neither suffering nor enjoyment, although it's worth noting that in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus even Hades is described as a place of suffering for the wicked (Luke 16:23) and respite for the righteous. All other references seem to be consistent with Hades being basically just 'the grave' however, and as you've noted the author of Revelation claims that Hades will be cast into the lake of fire.

Gehenna is not a Greek word, it's the Aramaic name for the Valley of Hinnom (Gehinnom) in which the kings of Judah sacrificed their children by fire (Jer. 7:31, 19:2-6). Unsurprisingly, as a theological concept Gehenna is a place of eternal fire and punishment, presumably the lake of fire and eternal torment described by Revelation, and likely eased into Jewish/Christian mythology by the claimed fate of "everlasting shame and contempt" found in Daniel:

• "Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt" (Daniel 12:2)
  
  "it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched" (Mark 9:47-48)
  
  "it is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into the hell of fire" (Matthew 18:9)
  
  "The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell" (James 3:6)
  
  "they will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever" (Revelation 13:10-11)
  
  "Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels' . . . . And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life" (Matthew 25:41 & 46)

If one seriously wanted to cling to the notion of biblical inerrancy and 'harmonize' all the divergent passages, I'd say it's much easier to interpret the references to destruction of the soul, eternal life vs. second death etc. as shorthand/metaphors for the general nastiness of hell, rather than trying to change explicit references to eternal fiery suffering into some kind of temporary suffering or annihilation.

So that puts bible-believers who don't want to worship the evil demon portrayed in passages like Mark 9 and Revelation 13 in a bit of a pickle; do they accept the claims of biblical authors, do they instead insist on a just and loving God, or do they try to make some kind of compromise between the two? It's noteworthy that even many eternal suffering advocates nevertheless still reject or 'reinterpret' the fiery torment and try to water it down into the suffering of separation from God (as if that were any less cruel).

[Purple Knight]

Would you ever let a paedophile near your child? If yes then you don't love your child.

What I'll call the New Way, which is arguably more moral (it certainly seems to be) would say that if you don't let the paedophile near your child, then you don't love the paedophile. And you should love him. If he rapes your child, oh well; forgive him and don't judge. There are absolutely Christians who believe in the New Way, and personally I think there's a lot of support for it in the Bible.

There is also some support for what I'll call the Old Way in the Bible. An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. People who break rules should be punished, rapists included, and in some cases they're forced to raise and provide for the baby by marrying the mother. The vast majority of the support for the Old Way is in the Old Testament.

My personal opinion is that the New Way is probably right. I was taught not to care what others had; that it's a form of selfishness and greed. I cared a lot when I was a kid and I went through a conservative (or at least, anti-welfare) phase because I didn't like that the welfare kids always had the nice shoes while I made do with $7 tennis shoes from Walmart because my parents worked and they couldn't afford better. I was beat up for it a lot so I think it's sort of natural response to be envious and upset.

The only reason I would want the kids who knocked my teeth out and broke my leg not to go to Heaven is spite. If I can't rid myself of that spite, then I'm the one who belongs in Hell.