How do you know God disagrees with me?

[Earthling]

There are some good things in the Bible. That does not mean it is all without error and inspired by God.

But go ahead and keep loving and worshipping your bigot God. Why should I believe such hatred anyways?

Exactly my point.

 

[Jumi]

Go to a Christian forum and start a thread asking "Is hell eternal"? You will get an enormous amount of responses stating it is. I have anyway.

English-speaking forums are probably like that.

 

[Spiderman]

Exactly my point.

People with your system of faith make up a tiny percent of Christians.
I don't know that your God is the real God.

You don't even follow the Bible. Whenever I bring up something like "God hardened pharaohs heart" you come up with some long explanation that God didn't do what the Bible repeatedly says he did. You offer an unbiblical explanation that you pulled out of your whatever.

It's pointless talking to you because whenever I give you a direct quote from Scripture that doesn't tickle your itchy ears, you come up with some long explanation of why the verse doesn't mean what it says.

 

[Earthling]

People with your system of faith make up a tiny percent of Christians.
I don't know that your God is the real God.

You don't even follow the Bible. Whenever I bring up something like "God hardened pharaohs heart" you come up with some long explanation that God didn't do what the Bible repeatedly says he did. You offer an unbiblical explanation that you pulled out of your whatever.

It's pointless talking to you because whenever I give you a direct quote from Scripture that doesn't tickle your itchy ears, you come up with some long explanation of why the verse doesn't mean what it says.

Well, you have to understand something about me at this point in my life. I've been doing this on forums for about a quarter of a century. I'm tired. I'm not as good at it as I used to be. I don't enjoy it as much. But sometimes it requires a lengthy explanation. I can give you the short explanation. When God pulls his holy spirit away from someone because they don't deserve it the Bible sometimes puts it in a way that sounds like he made the person do it, when what it means is that he caused it by not protecting that person or supporting their efforts. Like Saul, like David in the beginning of this thread where he took the census. God didn't make them do it, but he took away his power from them which resulted in them screwing up. (1 Samuel 16:14)

Hey . . . no hard feelings, ok?

 

[Spiderman]

Well, you have to understand something about me at this point in my life. I've been doing this on forums for about a quarter of a century. I'm tired. I'm not as good at it as I used to be. I don't enjoy it as much. But sometimes it requires a lengthy explanation. I can give you the short explanation. When God pulls his holy spirit away from someone because they don't deserve it the Bible sometimes puts it in a way that sounds like he made the person do it, when what it means is that he caused it by not protecting that person or supporting their efforts. Like Saul, like David in the beginning of this thread where he took the census. God didn't make them do it, but he took away his power from them which resulted in them screwing up. (1 Samuel 16:14)

Hey . . . no hard feelings, ok?

No hard feelings. Love your enemies. Reconciliation is a good idea!

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I want everyone to be purified, sanctified, and reach the first degree of beauty, power, perfection, wealth, joy, and euphoric bliss in heaven.

I wouldn't burn my worst enemy in hell. How do you know God doesn't feel the same?? Yes, that's what I thought, you don't know.

But wait a minute...the Bible says this...the Bible says that...the Bible says x,y,and z....the Bible says A LOT OF THINGS!!!

Everybody and their fairy God Mother believes different things about what the Bible actually says and there has been much bloodshed over who interprets it correctly and who is a heretic and which books are actually inspired.

For many centuries Christians accepted the Apocrypha. The first Christian Bible contained those books and the largest most ancient Christian denomination by far, believes those books are the word of God.

Who's right, who's wrong??

Nobody knows! Everyone says they are right. How do you know I'm not right??

I'm wrong when I blaspheme God, but if indeed God burns people in hell forever and ever and ever for not believing the right Dogmas or being confused (because God refuses to speak to them), well, such a cruel unjust God deserves to be despised as any psychopathic bigot deserves to be despised.

But how do you know God is not nicer to people than myself? How do you know I don't inspire God to change his mind?? You don't know. Moses got God to change his mind.

Just because the Bible says something, I can prove none of you actually follows the Bible. If you do, you deserve to be locked up and are a threat to society and liberty.

The Bible says, "Faith of a mustard seed moves mountains"...anyone seen a mountain budge? The Bible says, "Those who believe in Christ will hold venomous serpents and poison will not affect them. Those who believe in me will do the works I do and greater works. Ask anything of the Father in my name and it will be done for you. Delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Nothing will be impossible for you!" And so on and so forth.

The promises in Scripture don't get fulfilled and no one seems to know how to interpret Scripture, so don't even think you can tell me I'm wrong because some ancient text loaded with confusion and contradiction says something. The Bible leads people to opposite opinions. Each person often has Scripture to back up their opposite beliefs.

How do you know the Qur'an isn't the word of God? Roughly 1.6 billion people believe it to be the word of God and probably the vast majority of them are willing to go to their death rather than renounce it. Maybe God wants to speak to everyone through the Qur'an.

Just because you have the courage to die for your belief in the Bible doesn't mean anything. Many Muslims are willing to lay down their lives for the Qur'an.

So, bottom line is, I have just as much reason to believe that all people will be purified and perfected and eventually reach heaven, because "God is love. God is our Father". Many Human Fathers are willing to take a bullet for their children...even the ones who really cause them grief. If God is love, no human father can outdo him in generosity, right?

How do you know I'm wrong? Yep...you don't know! God loves his enemies. I mean, how is loving your enemies throwing them into a lake of fire? Unless of course, they want to be thrown in a lake of fire...

Maybe you need to stop even looking at the bible, and start looking outward. When you know how you feel about the people and the world around you, you will know quite enough to get on with your life, and if there were a god, you would know just about as much as he does.

The Bible is so dangerous for you because you insist upon reading it "as if" it were actually the "Word of God." You see the contradictions, and you recognize immediately that those contradictions invalidate that notion of being God's Word, but you don't accept it. And for that reason, you remain in perpetual confusion.

Here's the only real truth you need to know: every religious text ever written -- like every novel, every history, every play, every poem, every textbook -- was written by humans, and are therefore just as prone to human error. And when you know that, you can let it go and start believing your heart.

 

[osgart]

Thats an interesting experiment, to see if hell could repent the most hardened of hearts.

After a few billion ions, they might just break down.

 

[1robin]

Most Christians I've met believe hell is eternal. Christians have been preaching that hell is eternal for so long because Jesus said The Condemned will go off to Eternal punishment.

My view on Hell has them going off to eternal punishment as well. Isn't having your soul annihilated so that you cannot enjoy God, love, peace, contentment, your relatives, etc...... forever, not an eternal punishment?

It is true many Christians believe what you say because most Christians don't know their bible as well as they should. A very long time ago the Catholic church among a mountain of mistakes decided to attempt to scare people into going to church. You can't imagine the wrong impressions people have today about the bible that have their roots in Catholicism. I think the catholic church has done more damage to Christianity than any organization in history. So the Catholic church decided to interpret literals as allegory and vice versa to scare people into filling their offering plates. Another mistake they made was to sell salvation. They used to have a saying when the coin in the bowl rings to heaven the soul springs. Or look at Martin Luther's 99 thesis if you want just a small sample of catholic sins.

The rich man in the fires being tormented was interacting with Abraham. The fire was not killing him.

That is not a literal event, it is a vision. It all depends on taking allegory as allegory and literals as literal. Also keep in mind my view of Hell allows that Hell may be a real place for a long period of time. I just believe that Hell as an actual place comes to an end. Let me give you a few verses.

Does God utterly destroy people's souls:
New International Version
Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

They go to Hell and God annihilates their soul.

Does Hell go on as a real place for eternity:
New International Version
Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death.

This second death being annihilation.

Also keep in mind that God is omnipresent. That means that God would have to exist in Hell forever. Doesn't make much sense does it.

Also keep in mind that most of those verses are descriptions of the valley of Gahanna which was Jerusalem's garbage pit. The fires there were kept continuously burning to burn up all the trash. You will find the verse about fire and brimstone make a lot more sense if kept in mind. And keep in mind that having your soul annihilated is an eternal punishment. Having to hang out in Hell for as long as time lasts is not an eternity it is what is called an unbounded finite. Lastly keep in mind that God is just and no one's lifetime of sin (not even Hitler of Stalin's) deserves an eternity of punishment. Hope this helps and try to strip out what the Catholic church has done for thousands of years to pervert the bible for their own self interest.