You're pretty cocksure now. Wonder how you'll feel when you actually meet God.
Right back atcha.
If I'm in line behind you at the Judement, I'm going to bring a book, a big one, War and Peace, in Russian. And you'll be saying, "But... but... but... but...."
If I'm in line behind you at the Judement, I'm going to bring a book, a big one, War and Peace, in Russian. And you'll be saying, "But... but... but... but...."
I'm going with The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy six book series.
except where silly revisionists impose their own interpretation on the word by substituting the Greek or Hebrew terms which don't have the same connotations
Wow!
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
Annihilation would certainly be more humane than eternal torment. I suppose it's possible to read the Bible and find a humane God in there.
I agree. I believe that hell, if it actually exists either as a reality or a symbol, was never created for humans. Hell was created as a place for the angels who rebelled against God could exist---by default, since Heaven was off limits for them. Humans would, I imagine, only end up in hell by willfully and continually following one of these fallen spirits rather than allowing the Holy Spirit to heal and correct them.
When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, it means just what I choose it to meannothing more nor less.
Eckhart saw Hell too. He said: The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of life, your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they're not punishing you, he said. They're freeing your soul. So, if you're frightened of dying and... and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth.
Thanks for this. Interesting thought.
Whenever there's a situation where we cannot get concrete evidence, and we eventually learn what it's actually all about... it usually tends to never really be what anyone though it was in the first place. It's generally something like this... something that can easily be mistaken for many other different things.
If Hell/afterlife actually does exist. I would lend more credence to some explanation like this being closer-to-correct rather than any of the more, um... "playground" definitions of Hell floating around the various religions.
I don't mean "playground" in the sense of light-heartedness... Hell is generally described as a very horrible non-fun place to be. I mean "playground" more in the sense of the definitions being a "simple explanation" as opposed to something more complex.
I guess I'm missing the joke. What's with the books?
I don't read Russian or understand a word of it. I figure I'll have time to learn it while you're explaining to God why you believe the rubbish you believe.
If Hell is only a place where we can get away from God, sign me up.
This is funny, coming from you. You have said before that you never have believed, and yet you make some great arguments in favor of personal responsibility. In fact, IIRC, you even at one time offered to be satans defense attorney in a lawsuit against God.
In my belief, being away from God is not a good idea. It would not be such a bad idea if no other spirits came into play...but trust me, you dont want any of the competitors running the place. They may only be crouching at the door on earth, but in hell they are in the house already.
add by edit: Some believe that satan only desired his right to have a free will and that his intentions were never to become bad...the antigod, so to speak. Some humans would argue---and I could see you as one of them---that they should have a right to grow up and make their own decisions and that satan was in essence framed by rebelling against his Boss. I suppose that in conclusion, we have to decide whether to believe that evil is personified and is more powerful than us or whether we can be as gods, knowing good and evil and choosing our path accordingly in effect being our own Boss.
Edited by Phat, : added food for thought
When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, it means just what I choose it to meannothing more nor less.
You have said before that you never have believed, and yet you make some great arguments in favor of personal responsibility
This is not surprising to people who understand that non-Christians can still have morals.
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
This is not surprising to people who understand that non-Christians can still have morals.
That has never surprised me. Non Christians are often as moral..or more so...than many Christians. The primary and distinctive difference that I see--particularly here at EvC--is that one side seems to want and need an authority figure whereas the other side remains fiercely independent of such a need---going so far as to embrace the right of free will even if such a figure did in fact exist.
When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, it means just what I choose it to meannothing more nor less.
It would not be such a bad idea if no other spirits came into play...but trust me, you dont want any of the competitors running the place.
Why would God even have "competitors"? Why wouldn't He annihilate them instead of locking them up and then throwing us in with them?
Phat writes:
I suppose that in conclusion, we have to decide whether to believe that evil is personified and is more powerful than us or whether we can be as gods, knowing good and evil and choosing our path accordingly in effect being our own Boss.
And again:
quote:Genesis 3:22-23 And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
Why is it that I'm more of a Bible believer than you are?
going so far as to embrace the right of free will even if such a figure did in fact exist.
Who does this? Who acknowledges that God exists but insists on the right to ignore God?
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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