Littlefoot`
Active member
And what is the point of doing that? The heaven or lake of fire dichotomy is entirely of gods making. So why set things up that way?
Sin nature,
- Thread starter SteveB
- Start date
And what is the point of doing that? The heaven or lake of fire dichotomy is entirely of gods making. So why set things up that way?
No Steve, the issue is that I do not know what you are talking about. Why is God not capable of creating a third option? Why is it only live with him for eternity or get tortured by him for eternity. He is supposed to be all-knowing, can he not think of any other option? I can think of a couple; let people live away from God, or just let them stop existing.
Or is he powerless to engineer any other option?
You repeat this statement four times - I guess you think it clever. I do hope you are therefore able to clarify why there are only two options.
This is a forum set up to do exactly that! Are you not aware of that?
When you are telling me I believe God exists when I know for sure that I do not, I am indeed not going to pay much attention to what you say.
SteveB
Well-known member
You'll have to read the bible for yourself to understand that.
Indeed.
Again, you'll have to read the bible for yourself to see more clearly why.
I see you don't actually answer my questions.
Disappointing. I was hoping you actually cared about your beliefs.
Littlefoot`
Active member
See, I
The answer I come to when I read that is that the bible is the product of many very human people who could charitably be described as products of their times working over many hundreds of years on a work that was edited together by still more people.
The thing is, for me the idea of a just and rational and loving god throwing people into a lake of fire for all eternity for no discernible reason can (and is) quite easily dismissed as a contradiction. I don't need it to make any sense. So I'm asking as someone that thinks that god makes sense, HOW does that make any sense to you?
Guarantee? No
Make a very likely extrapolation? Unfortunately yes. As far as I can determine my consciousness is my brain. No brain no consciousness.
The answer I come to when I read that is that the bible is the product of many very human people who could charitably be described as products of their times working over many hundreds of years on a work that was edited together by still more people.
The thing is, for me the idea of a just and rational and loving god throwing people into a lake of fire for all eternity for no discernible reason can (and is) quite easily dismissed as a contradiction. I don't need it to make any sense. So I'm asking as someone that thinks that god makes sense, HOW does that make any sense to you?
Caring a lot less about this one as time goes on
Guarantee? No
Make a very likely extrapolation? Unfortunately yes. As far as I can determine my consciousness is my brain. No brain no consciousness.
I'm hoping I'm wrong. Also there are important differences between reaching a conclusion and guessing.
SteveB
Well-known member
Well, first of all, God created us in his own likeness and image. Part of that means that we live forever.
His original design was that we live forever with Him, on a world designed explicitly with our every need, and pleasure in mind.
Sadly, our first mother and father decided that they would rather die than live. So they ate the fruit and as a result, they eventually died.
Next, according to Romans 11:29, the gifts and callings of God are not returnable. There are certain things that God just isn't going to take away.
Being alive for all eternity is one of those things.
Next, there are only two options because that's all that is necessary.
A place where God is, and a place where God is not.
The place where God is, is his home.
Paradise in eternity, God will dwell among us. Thus, everything God is wil be in paradise.
Hell is a prison cell, where the ungodly go because they didn't want to know God. According to Revelation 20, even hell will be emptied, and those who did not come to Jesus will be judged according to their works, and then cast into the lake of fire.
Thus, the lake of fire is a place where God is not.
Everything that God is, does not exist in the lake of fire, or hell.
We read in the bible that God is Love. God is light (no darkness dwells in him), God is righteous, God is just, God is holy, God is true, God is peace, God is comfort, God is Joy, and numerous other attributes.
So, in hell, there is no love, no peace, no joy, no hope, no comfort, no rest, no truth, ...
So, if you actually don't want anything to do with God, he will honor your choice and leave you alone. Which means that you will go to the place where God is not.
For God to provide a third option, it will require him to sustain it. Since you don't want anything to do with him, why would he want to sustain someplace that you don't actually want him there?
It's not a matter of sustainability. It's a matter of whether you want to be with Jesus or not.
If you do, then paradise will be your eternal life.
If you don't, then hell/lake of fire is your eternal death.
Read above.
I posted them that many times to get you to think beyond your comfort zone.
Eternity is a long, long, long time to live with the awareness of how deeply you screwed yourself, should you refuse to engage YHVH and Jesus on his terms.
We don't tell you about this because we like seeing you tormented.
We tell you because God says that he doesn't want you to perish.
He wants to save you from experiencing the consequences of your sin.
But you have to turn to YHVH from your sin and place your trust in Jesus Christ.
He'll give you everything you need to know him and escape the corruption that is in the world because of lust.
Actually, we get to tell you the truth, and then you have to decide whether you want to know the truth or not.
So far, you just keep saying that you don't want to know the truth.
I said that according to Romans 1, and psalm 19, you already know God exists.
Also according to Romans 1, and your own statements, you don't want to know God, and as such have closed your mind and the consequences of this is the darkening of your heart, and a further separation between God and you.
Littlefoot`
Active member
I have my pet cat who lives in my house.
There is a former neighbors cat who they left behind, that very much does not want to live in my house.
I still leave food out for them, and if on occasion its raining and they're in my toolshed , I store the lawnmower in the garage till tomorrow so I don't accidentally scare them out into the rain.
And if the cat was on fire , I would put them out. If my neighbors back yard where they hang out were on fire (again) I put that out.
The same with the neighborhood skunks.
Because I'm (slightly) smarter than the other critters, and can balance their desire to not live and love me with something they may want or need.
Last edited:
SteveB
Well-known member
Having a false hope is deadly.
As deadly as thinking that the flood waters won't overwhelm you, and your home.
I've seen plenty of pictures of rivers flooding, and people get stuck on their rooftops, only to have a large tree floating down river and then hit their home and then the building collapses....
Our lives are but a vapor. Like the morning dew that settles in the morning and vanishes with the rising sun and increasing heat of the day.
The great thing about Jesus is that he actually provides us with the awareness of his reality.
And he said he would come and live with everyone who comes to him and keeps his teachings.
So, you are being given the opportunity and choice to come to Jesus, and actually know that you have eternal life, or, you can live with your dead end hope.
It's why we who follow Jesus have come to him.
As Peter said when asked if he would stop following Jesus....
To whom else will we go? You alone have the words of eternal life!
Littlefoot`
Active member
There is simply no reason to believe this.
There is no argument good enough to even be considered an argument for this position.
Arguments for this position aren't pretending to be good, they're pretending to be arguments.
The idea that there is a holy, all good, all loving moral being that ordered the slaughter of amelekite children and will eternally torture you for not believing in him is so random, unevidenced, and downright contradictory that its just as likely god expects you to be an atheist, or the actual deity will be more upset at your false worship than no worship.
SteveB
Well-known member
We're not talking about you, your cat, or the neighbor's cat.
This is what happens when we die.
Everyone will experience a resurrection.
The godly/just a resurrection to life.
The unjust, a resurrection to death.
We will live in these bodies forever.
Those bodies cannot be destroyed. I'm not entirely sure the details, but what is described, God will give us a body that nothing can destroy, but we feel everything we will experience.
The end of the ungodly people is described as a miserable description.
The godly people, the final description of their lives.... it's just the beginning. And it gets better with each passing day, year, century, millennium, and paradise will last forever.
It'll never end.
Littlefoot`
Active member
In what way is that relevant?
My neighbors cat and the skunks don't want to live with and love me. That's fine. I can still provide them a little help, see to their comfort somewhat (although not nearly as much as I can with my own cat) , with little if any requirement that they want to be with or around me. I don't have to set them on fire for rejecting me. So why is god treating people far, far , FAR worse than I'm treating a skunk in my back yard?
Either
1) God chooses to have the rules set up so that there are only two options life with him or a lake of hellfire (in which case he is far from loving, or even baseline human decent)
2) The rules are so entrenched in the universe that god can't alter them, which is far from omnipotent.
Without an answer here you seem to be preaching like jello, its not a conversation you just keep going with the prepared speech regardless of my points.
Or so you were assured by an authority figure as a small child, and so you blindly believe it.
I do not believe any of that.
That - if we assume God exists - is his choice. What you are saying is that for those who reject God he would rather torture them for eternity in fire than take away the gift of immortality.
It is interesting that Genesis specifically says God chose to withhold that very gift:
Gen 3:22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”
But no one ever send this is coherent, right?
Sure, because God wants to torture forever all those who reject him. He has decided there are only two necessary so he can have his petty revenge.
Or non-existence.
Or here. This is neither heaven nor hell, so we know there is a third option given we live here.
And that he tortures for eternity those who reject him to punish them. A pretty twisted love.
And yet he tortures for eternity those who reject him to punish them.
He is all-powerful, so sustaining a third option is negligible effort for him.
Why would he want to, rather than have people suffer for eternity, well supposedly "God is Love" and "God is righteous, God is just, God is holy, God is true, God is peace, God is comfort, God is Joy, and numerous other attributes." and preventing suffering falls under a lot of that.
You just said "For God to provide a third option, it will require him to sustain it." Make up your mind Steve.
I appreciate this belief of yours is incoherent, but seriously you are making this too easy for me.
stiggy wiggy
Well-known member
Congratulations. Your nerdy narcing of ferengi to the Authorities for the "crime" of copy/pasting without attribution resulted in the removal of the entire Marco Polo thread. When you saw the results of your tattle-taling, did you receive the same sense of satisfaction that you used to receive in grade school when you would volunteer to "take names" for your teacher when she left the classroom, and you successfully got a fellow classmate in trouble? Too bad. It was an interesting thread.
Do not paint me as the bad person here, stiggy. ferengi was caught in the wrong. The T&Cs on the site she copied from explicit allow the text to be reproduced elsewhere - as long as the author gets the credit. She could have copied the text and credited the author, and all would be good. ferengi could have chosen to do that, but instead she chose to post it so it looked like her own original text. Personally, I call that dishonest.
Maybe ferengi will learn from this, and in the future she will properly attribute a text to the original author, rather than pretending it is her own work. I mean, I doubt it, but...
stiggy wiggy
Well-known member
Do you find it ironic that the strongest atheists make the best Pharisees?
Do you think what ferengi did was honest?
stiggy wiggy
Well-known member
How would I know? Maybe he forgot to give attribution. Maybe he didn't know the rules. Maybe he didn't care. What's it to me? He's not my child. His morals are his concern, not mine. I have enough problems keeping my own self moral without sticking my nose into other people's.
If CARM gets sued for copyright infringement and closed down all of us who post here will suffer. There is a reason the mods do what they do.
It is possible ferengi did not know the rules or forgot, but that does not mean CARM will not get sued. On the other hand, my reporting it and the mods deleting the thread does stop that happening. And who knows, maybe next time ferengi will learn from this experience and do the right thing next.
And yet here you are commenting on my moral choices. I guess you just stick your nose in when you want to score points.
stiggy wiggy
Well-known member
Ferengi isn't profiting financially from his copy/paste job. So what would be the grounds of this lawsuit, the fear of which you are pretending motivates your narcing?
So your narcing was motivated by a desire to educate ferengi.
Not really. Nothing immoral about being a nerd. Just annoying. But I find it interesting that you think pointing out self righteousness is self righteous.
And what points did I supposedly score? How do I redeem them?
No. She is just trying to look clever by pretending the article is her own work.
You do not need to make money from something to infringe copyright.
No, to protect CARM. I very much doubt ferengi will learn anything from this.
Ah, I see. You will not comment on whether something is morally right or wrong, but you will comment on whether it is annoying to you. As long as we are clear that you are not saying I am in the wrong here, that is fine. To be honest, I can live with it if what I do is annoying to stiggy wiggy!
Furion
Well-known member
You appear to be doing the job all by yourself.
Was she wearing socks at the time?
Seems an easier thing to know than her motivations.
If you don't want thought of as a bad person, quit being an insufferable pharisee.