What about Hell... - Page 4

Quahom1 · 07-13-2005, 06:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Proph 1

Mee,

You still didnt answer my question. Here, I'll repost what I said last:

Here's an not so extreme senero: A rich slave owner gets bored of his wife, and begins to rape his female slaves. Not only that, just for fun he rapes the young female children of the slaves, in front of them. This makes him feel powerful, as the slaves can do nothing to stop this evil. One day, after doing things like this for many years, this adultrous, slave owning, child molester, suddenly dies. He lived life as evil as he wanted, because it was "fun" to him. Then, according to you, he just ceases to exist? Tell me Mee, where's the justice? I ask you this because there are real cases of this, even TODAY! Do you HONESTLY believe people can be as evil as they want in this life, and not have some sort of punishment? Do you think that by simply earsing them [evil people] from existence, they will feel any sorrow; moreover anything?
Honestly Mee, what does the Bible say?

The Bible doesn't say anything. We don't know what the man's final thoughts were. Only God does. We get angry because there is no human justice, so we assume God will punish. In fact we demand it (not a very smart thing to do).

On the other hand, there is the little old lady from Pasedena, who never physically harmed a soul, but her hatred is formidable. She dies, and we say "What a sweet old woman." God sees things differently.

To assume is folly. Life is not so cut and dry.

BTW, your graphics leave something to be desired...

v/r

Q

Devadatta · 07-13-2005, 07:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lunamoth

Acknowledging the source of those gifts and having God and Jesus and the Spirit in our lives during this lifetime is the everlasting life.

This speaks best to the question, at least for me. Some of the other posts appear to be speaking of "eternity" in the popular sense of "a very long time", when in the strict sense eternity is rather a dimension altogether outside of time (see Meister Eckhart, among others). So to think literally of hell or heaven as an endless succession of pains or pleasures is incoherent. The factor of time is integral to everything we might imagine about any possible human experience.

So I would say that, strictly speaking, both hell and heaven are inconceivable, and that the various descriptions of them we find in the tradition are figurative of our wishes, fears and desires for justice and meaning.

Notice that I'm not necessarily saying that hell and heaven don't exist - I'm only saying that they're probably nothing we imagine them to be.

As far as eternity is concerned, as you point out, it's there for the taking.

To see a world in a grain of sand
And heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
William Blake

Quahom1 · 07-13-2005, 08:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Devadatta

This speaks best to the question, at least for me. Some of the other posts appear to be speaking of "eternity" in the popular sense of "a very long time", when in the strict sense eternity is rather a dimension altogether outside of time (see Meister Eckhart, among others). So to think literally of hell or heaven as an endless succession of pains or pleasures is incoherent. The factor of time is integral to everything we might imagine about any possible human experience.

So I would say that, strictly speaking, both hell and heaven are inconceivable, and that the various descriptions of them we find in the tradition are figurative of our wishes, fears and desires for justice and meaning.

Notice that I'm not necessarily saying that hell and heaven don't exist - I'm only saying that they're probably nothing we imagine them to be.

As far as eternity is concerned, as you point out, it's there for the taking.

To see a world in a grain of sand
And heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
William Blake

Time is also a man made construct...

Devadatta · 07-13-2005, 08:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quahom1

Time is also a man made construct...

Agreed.

truthseeker · 07-13-2005, 10:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Proph 1

He lived life as evil as he wanted, because it was "fun" to him. Then, according to you, he just ceases to exist? [...] where's the justice? [...]Do you HONESTLY believe people can be as evil as they want in this life, and not have some sort of punishment? Do you think that by simply [erasing] them [evil people] from existence, they will feel any sorrow; moreover anything?

The Fact is, whether you chose to believe it or not, the Bible makes it clear that Hell is a literal place. And because of that, God stood in our place, and paid the price for our sins. It is indeed a great insult to say that hell isnt real. Why? Because, you'd have called God a liar.

It is our concept of hell that is the problem here - what makes this a discussion.
Could it be that all this condemnation and punishment and the whole bit is a way that man would handle the situation because we are influenced by the evil spirit as well as the Holy Spirit as we are in the flesh? I don't assume God would handle things the way that mankind does. We want to believe so much that we have figured God out and just because we want a man, like the one described, to suffer endlessly, God would be "just" for us and punish, punish, punish.
Why can it not be sufficient for a man of such to be completely erased from existence for us to be satisfied? Completely erased from memory so that he would cease to hurt another being. It is the accuser in us that wants someone like him to be tormented like his slaves were tormented. It is sufficient for a man like that to be thrown in the sea of forgetfullness; it would be our own issue should we keep him alive by refusing to forget him.

Quahom1 · 07-15-2005, 05:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by truthseeker

It is our concept of hell that is the problem here - what makes this a discussion.
Could it be that all this condemnation and punishment and the whole bit is a way that man would handle the situation because we are influenced by the evil spirit as well as the Holy Spirit as we are in the flesh? I don't assume God would handle things the way that mankind does. We want to believe so much that we have figured God out and just because we want a man, like the one described, to suffer endlessly, God would be "just" for us and punish, punish, punish.
Why can it not be sufficient for a man of such to be completely erased from existence for us to be satisfied? Completely erased from memory so that he would cease to hurt another being. It is the accuser in us that wants someone like him to be tormented like his slaves were tormented. It is sufficient for a man like that to be thrown in the sea of forgetfullness; it would be our own issue should we keep him alive by refusing to forget him.

That is an interesting point you make. There are people who use banishment as a form of punishment for serious offenders. They judge the felon as "persona non gratta" and ignore him. After about three weeks of being ignored by the tribe, the convicted wander off into the wilderness and die.

Very effective deterrent for the rest of the tribe to stay in line.

Man can not exist alone, or else he ceases to exist.

v/r

Q