God the father

I understand that the concept of love has changed, just as our concept of god has changed...but wouldn't you say god, him/her/itself, hasn't changed? Just like our concept of the world has changed, but the world itself hasn't changed?But, unconditional love would seem that no matter how bad the kid is, he'll always be loved and welcomed. He may not get candy, but he'll always be welcome. But candy is a temporary prize, and punishment is a temporary anti-prize. A punishment that last for eternity is not a punishment, or at least, is not a just punishment.I guess its "unconditional" and "eternal" that are giving me issues. I can totally understand punishment and "prizes," but both would be as a way to condition someone, and as such, would have to be less than eternal.

quote:

---

But, unconditional love would seem that no matter how bad the kid is, he'll always be loved and welcomed. He may not get candy, but he'll always be welcome.

---

Once our children become adults and choose their lifestyle, we still love them unconditionally; but they may or may not be welcome visitors without behavior changes.

quote:

---

I guess its "unconditional" and "eternal" that are giving me issues. I can totally understand punishment and "prizes," but both would be as a way to condition someone, and as such, would have to be less than eternal.

---

Yes it is a way to control people. The picture Jesus painted with Gehenna was the destruction of the criminal's body in the fire. The idea being that the body is destroyed so there isn't anything to resurrect. So behave so you don't get burned up as a criminal.For all we know God may have a good reason for not wanting to resurrect wicked people. Maybe the process doesn't work right with a wicked soul.

True, but I would still do everything in my power to keep the alive such that a future change in behavior would be possible.That's why I find "eternal" so distasteful.If I were God, some sort of purgatory, where a person has an eternity to change their behavior such that they might be "welcomed home" would be the more unconditioned love response. Perhaps. But wouldn't he still want to do so, he just knows doing so would be worse, and so refrains from doing what he wants?

The reason all of this even comes up is that so many people buy into the fundamentalist view of Christianity and the Bible. Yes, I believe that God speaks to us through the Bible but that does not make the Bible inerrant in terms of it being factually accurate. Any kind of in depth study of the Bible that doesn’t start with the idea that it is dictated by God will conclusively show that it isn’t dictated by God.I suggest that the fundamentalists have made Christianity nothing but a proving ground for admission into heaven, which of course means hell for those who don’t make the cut. The God that we see incarnate in Jesus is so much bigger than that. I don’t disagree that in the end there will be those that are with God and those that aren’t but it will be, as the quote I used from C S Lewis earlier says, based on human choice. Frankly I don’t believe that we actually will know much about the next life except that the choices we make in this life have eternal consequences.I think that rather than worry about who goes to hell and who doesn’t we should be considering whether or not there is ultimate justice.Let’s consider this. In 1991 a young child named Michael Dunahee was abducted not far from where I live now and never seen again. Whoever abducted him was never found. There is virtually no doubt that four year old Michaal was murdered, and nobody wants to even think about what happened to him prior to that. Does anyone here not want to see justice in some form? If we assume that life carries on in some form after this one do we really think that there shouldn’t be justice for Michael and justice for the perpetrator of this heinous act? IMHO the Christian message is that in the end perfect justice will be done. Maybe the perpetrator was horribly abused as a child himself, so who with our human limitations, knows what that justice will look like.Instead of worrying about what hell is like and who is there, I suggest that we take the Christian message that we have a just God and put our faith in that. In the end I believe that we will all see perfect justice done. In the meantime, instead of worrying about the issue of hell we should all be getting on with the mission of being good stewards of all creation, which of course includes the concept of loving our neighbour.

The OP presented the issue of eternal suffering. I showed that the Bible writings don't support that the wicked suffer eternally. Message 34
Truth About Hell

quote:

---

If I were God, some sort of purgatory, where a person has an eternity to change their behavior such that they might be "welcomed home" would be the more unconditioned love response.

---

They have a life time to change their behavior and don't, then they have an eternity to change their behavior. What's the incentive to change?What is taking place in your Purgatory to cause them to change their behavior?

The same thing that convinces some people to change their behavior and go back and make amends with their parents now. Time to reflect, perhaps growth, maybe just some sort of jolt to remove the veil that had been blinding them to how they were acting.I don't know, but as a loving father, I would want my child to have all the time s/he needs, up to eternity, to be able to change their mind and come back. I would never want to just say, "Oh well, they had their chance, tough luck." Perhaps just time. Maybe angelic counsellors. Maybe even some sort of court, like that seen in "Defending Your Life" (A very good movie, IMHO) where they can see clips from their life, and perhaps get a bit of perspective they didn't have before.

What if disowning you was equated with suffering for eternity?Would you chain him up in his bedroom to keep him from getting away from you or would you let him go? Would you want to have to force him into not disowning you?

quote:

---

The same thing that convinces some people to change their behavior and go back and make amends with their parents now. Time to reflect, perhaps growth, maybe just some sort of jolt to remove the veil that had been blinding them to how they were acting.

---

OK, we are talking about people who have already died. So their worst fear is already over. If they have eternity to change, they have nothing to fear and no reason to change since there is no consequence for not changing. They now have eternal life and didn't have to change their behavior. Will you threaten them with group therapy for eternity. You can say the prize is being with God, but even believers aren't "with" God. You'd have to convince them that the grass is greener on the other cloud.The parent relationship with God isn't the same as with a child you have raised. If you are a member of his family, he is the authority; but there's no two way communication or contact. Not the same bonding. They don't really have anything to reflect on. The wicked are presumably the worse of the lot, hard core, stubborn and not easily swayed. They probably don't like authority figures.

quote:

---

Perhaps just time. Maybe angelic counsellors. Maybe even some sort of court, like that seen in "Defending Your Life" (A very good movie, IMHO) where they can see clips from their life, and perhaps get a bit of perspective they didn't have before.

---

Good movie. The Hindu belief has that system. The God of Abraham is more of a tough love type of parent. Sink or swim.

My ego doesn't allow me to even consider that as a rational possibility.However, just to entertain your hypothetical, I would always allow him the chance to change his mind and return to me, even after death.

IMHO the Bible is not a book dictated by God, but a collection of writings that tell the story of how God, working through human imagination, is bringing His message of love and forgiveness to the world. The Bible is one of the ways that God reaches out to us.In that light, if there is any message that we can take from the Scriptures it is that God is patient. The ancient Jews were forever turning to pagan gods whenever it suited them, and even when they turned to Yahweh they were incorporating pagan rituals and beliefs into their worship of Yahweh. God never gave up on them. Time and time again, even to the point of visiting the Jews through His son, He kept reaching out in love and forgiveness to mankind.In Jesus we see Him preaching a message of forgiveness and even making it central to the model of prayer He gave to us. Even as a Jew living in a land being brutally ruled by the Romans He told his followers that they were to love these bitter enemies. On the cross Jesus prayed that His persecutors were to be forgiven. Peter was forgiven. Paul after persecuting Christ's followers was forgiven.The point in all of this is that we have a loving, kind, forgiving and just God. The Bible tells us that we should be a loving, kind, forgiving and just people. In my view this is the Christian message. Therefore, if what I say is correct we have no need to concern ourselves with who goes to hell and who doesn’t because we can have faith that whatever happens it will be loving, kind, forgiving and just.I would also add, that anyone who is really interested should read C S Lewis’ book The Great Divorce.

quote:

---

The point in all of this is that we have a loving, kind, forgiving and just God. The Bible tells us that we should be a loving, kind, forgiving and just people. In my view this is the Christian message.

---

Where do we see God being loving, kind, forgiving, and just in our world today? Where do we see God being loving, kind, forgiving, and just in the Bible?

Well in the first place we see He cared enough to create us. As I said in the last post that regardless of how badly the Israelites behaved He faithfully kept reaching out to them, and that all climaxed by the gift to the world of Jesus. In Him we have God’s message of love that focused all of His love, kindness, forgiveness and justice into one man.Jesus consistently preached a message of love and forgiveness saying that all of the law and the prophets were based on love of God and neighbour. In Matthew 25 He essentially tied in the love of God with the love of neighbour so that when we love those in need we are in reality loving God. As Rob Bell says in the title of his last book, Love Wins.As far as today is concerned we can focus on the evil that exists or we can focus on the good. We can focus on things like the tsunami or we can focus on the love of the world that reached out to the victims. We can focus on the hunger in parts of the third world or we can focus on third world relief. We can look at the evil of cancer or we can look at the wonderful advances in medical research. There is no desire for the vast majority of people to depart this life any time soon.Nobody is going to question the fact that the world is a not a perfect model of love, kindness, forgiveness or justice, but I would contend that it is closer to that model now than it was in the past. God has chosen the route of working through His human creation to bring His model to the world. We are a work in progress but we do seem to be progressing. Edited by GDR, : typo

quote:

---

Then you should have used his definition.
But instead you decided to dishonestly attempt a juvenile 'gotcha' where you use a definition completely different to everyone else.
But you knew this - which is why I accused you of deceit.

---

You were not deceived.
There was no definition given in Message 48 and the definition in Message 77 doesn't deal with what an omnipotent parent would do.You were not lead down a garden path concerning the meaning of omnipotent and there was no gotcha. You were simply asked why omnipotence makes a difference and why an omnipotent parent would do more? Message 59, Message 63, and Message 65.
There should be some basis or rationale for your opinion.Since you didn't provide any more explanation, the only way to keep the discussion going was to provide my opinion and provide links and definitions to support my opinion, which I did in Message 70.Omnipotence has nothing to do with whether one would or could do any more to help their "child" survive or succeed in life. Again we are talking about adults and the parent/child analogy used in Christianity.

quote:

---

And when it comes to discussions you value stupid semantic tricks over honesty or accuracy.

---

Words change over time. I find it useful to try and understand how the authors used the words. If you feel my knowledge of the past is inaccurate, you are free to give a counter opinion and your rationale for that position. Disagreeing with me or having a different style of debate doesn't make my argument stupid, dishonest, or inaccurate.If one claims that God can do whatever we can imagine, there still has to be some basis or rationale for that opinion.Besides authority, power seems to be the operative word in the definition Message 77. What is power? What is the basis or rationale that power means anything we can imagine?

quote:

---

You will need to explain every single word as you cannot be trusted not to switch meanings half way through the discussion.

---

I'm usually pretty good at providing links to unusual words as I did in Message 70. As for omnipotent, I didn't make a claim to it's meaning, so there was nothing to switch from. I just hadn't given my opinion on the issue yet.I don't feel the Bible supports the idea of eternal torment, but the God of Abraham is portrayed as an authoritarian. Parenting Styles
1 Authoritative parenting
2 Authoritarian parenting3 Indulgent parenting
4 Neglectful parentingABE: I'm sorry you felt deceived. That was not my intent.Edited by purpledawn, : ABE

Maybe you should read the 2 similar accusations that Theodoric and Rahvin made. And this would be a confession of disingenuous debating.There is no point discussing anything with you because you don't decide the meaning of words until you need to win the argument and then you find an obscure meaning so that your previous claims don't look wrong.

Oh stop. Any all-powerful being has the power to control, at the very least, its own actions. And there is no logic in construing omnipotence as also being control over the actions of others. Absolutely no Christian whatsoever takes it to mean that. And it certainly has no place in the 'God as father' belief.Besides, few Christians even take to the notion of an superbly omnipotent God; the idea seems, ironically, more popular with Atheists.So if you want to babble on about some ridiculous tri-omni super deity, you're probably in the wrong thread. This thread is about the Christian God, in particular the characterizing of him as a father with all the powers and restrictions such a role entails.Jon