Justify damnation, dammit!

As if calling evolution a religion doesn't make me mad enough!I have a hard time wrestling with the idea that all nonbelievers(as in non Christians in this particular case) are going to hell. Lots of monotheistic religions preach this, but how legit is this? I don't want evidence from Holy Scriptures; these were written by men and are flawed.I want to see somebody justify this alledged damnation of:1.Nonbelievers in Christ(as in atheist or of other faith)who are good people and as such deserve the salvation of Christ regardless of their ignorance2.Homosexuals3.Women who aren't content being somebody's dishwasher bitch4.People like me who even ask these questionsListen, I realize by asking this I may very well be defying God. Am I comfortable with this? Absolutely not; I'm not only a little afraid but ashamed to be risking direct conflict with Someone who's helped me through so much. However, seeing as this condemning side of God is usually mentioned in places like Leviticus(some human's opinon, has no place in a holy book) or in the gospels about Jesus(Who I do believe was real and is our savior, but I think the authors put words into his mouth), I have my doubts as to whether or not He's really like that. Frankly, condemning so many people for things that HE KNEW from our creation that we'd do is hard for me to understand.Please try to justify this. Don't use the 'God's morality is beyond our understanding' arguement; if you want me to agree with you that these people deserve to go to hell, you gotta give me a damn good reason to think so!(P.S. I do intend this to be in FFA if at all possible.)This message has been edited by Born2Preach, 07-23-2004 12:39 AMThis message has been edited by Born2Preach, 07-23-2004 12:41 AM

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Wanna feel God? Step onto the wrestling mat and you'd be crazy to deny the uplifting spirit. http://www.BadPreacher.5u.com (incomplete, but look anyway!)

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

hell comes from the hebrew word sheol. it tends to be talking about the grave, or the resting place for the dead, not the lake of fire, with brimstone and eternal torture and some devil figure poking you in the naked ass with a pitchfork.i think, in the truest biblical perspective, EVERYONE is going to hell. but i'd have to check on that.This message has been edited by Arachnophilia, 07-23-2004 01:57 AM

*shrug*The leaders of the major religions wanted a way to gain power and keep their followers in line. What better way than to threaten them with eternal damnation? Not to mention that many theists want to feel like they are special and that everyone else is wrong.

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If ten thousand persons with Ph.D.'s say porn does not harm kids this means they are secret pedophiles and brazen liars.
-Willowtree

Thanks for the input, but I was hoping somebody would try to justify this damnation MORALLY, with the assumption that it's really happening.

First of all, the only people who are absolutely positively condemned are those who have heard and understood the gospel, yet rejected it.As for the rest of humanity, I weigh between two alternatives.If a person has not had the opportunity to choose, he cannot be condemned.ORIf a person wanted to know God, God would forsee this and provide him the opportunity to choose. The simple truth is that its not who or what you are or what you do that your salvation depends on. If it depended on any of these things it would not be by grace!All it depends on is the decision to accept Christ as Lord and savior thereby accepting his gift of salvation.The truth IS: man is depraved. We cannot compare with God. Only when you are in his presence will you truly understand his greatness and holiness. And only when you evaluate yourself humbly and objectively do you realize your sins and imperfection separate you from and incomprehensibly holy God.We MUST have a scapegoat for our failures.If one thing is obvious throughout the WHOLE OT it is the sacrifical system. From the first sin to the destruction of Israel, people offered up pure sacrifices for their sins to teach them of the importance of the comming messiah who would take away the sins once and for all. You, like so many with a liberally minded interpretation, have an emotional reaction to this and choose to focus on God's love as our point of contact with him. This causes people to sort of pussy foot around the idea hell or make them say only horrible monsters of people go to hell, but again, our salavation (past tense) has absoultely NOTHING to do with what we do. God's love does not trump his righteousness and justice. All Characteristics exist fully and compatibly in Him.God's JUSTICE is our point of contact with God and his RIGHTEOUSNESS is our point of reference. We cannot be WITH God unless we share his righteousness. In the OT this was taught by the fact that NO one except the high priest could enter the holy of holies. If anyone did they would immediately die. If anyone who wasn't supposed to touch the arc did, they would die. But we as Christians are our own high priests. WE can enter the holy of holies because when we believed our sins were forever removed and God credited his righteousness to our account. Since we NOW share God's righteousness through belief in his son who was provided by the love and grace of God, God's JUSTICE is satisfied. This is the doctrine of propitiation.If God accepted those who rejected him, his righteousness and justice would be violated and he would not be God. You probably won't like to hear this, but don't make the mistake of many, and assume your viewpoint is the same as God's. This is the epitome of arrogance. The fact that God knows what will happen doesn't change anything. Your emotions about it don't change anything. God is Holy and he cannot be less than holy. Your time-bound viewpoint and emotions drastically hinder your ability to comprehend his viewpoint.If you don't like it, if you think that this is not fair, if you think that I'm discouraging critical thought, if you think God is arbitrary, then thats between you and God.

Hey B2P, I don't think you're going to be a good preacher.For one thing, if you intend to be a preacher of certain religion, you have to be absolutely fanatical about your faith and declares everybody who disagrees with you to be wrong. Otherwise, what's the point of preaching your religion if you're going to say, "well... it's possible that some other religion may be the right one..."If you change your mind, you can always come and help me take over the world This message has been edited by Lam, 07-23-2004 04:14 AM

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The Laminator

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I guess if we behave ourselves, we can all be saved: This verse shows that good deeds and following the commandments are enough to go to heaven. Although other parts of the bible say the exact opposite.Actually, this one is for those who've never heard of Jesus: John makes it very clear. There's no way to reach heaven without accepting Jesus. So infants, and (f.i) Inca's living before the Spanish arrived are doomed.Lucy

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"Death & Dead" were found 827 times in 751 verses.Thats a Whole Lotta Suffering

If there is a God, he damn well better not send me to hell. I had no control over how I was made, so the fact that my mind is too logic-based to accept religion unquestionably is no fault of mine. How does it make sense that I be sent to hell for something I have no control over? The only decent argument I've heard to this is the all-too-common "one day God will show you the way, and you will convert", lol.But honestly, I think this viewpoint stands true for everyone. We have no (or VERY little) control over our mindframe on such issues as religion. How many people must be going to hell for how they were born? Just another issue that increased my skepticism towards the Bible and Christianity.

Ok preacher, you've established that you believe the Bible is just another book and not inspired of God so that seems to be the message you've ordained yourself to preach here in town. Since you don't believe the Bible is from God, you have no part in the Bible perse. Why does the creature need to justify anything his creator does? We who believe the Bible to be inspired of God know that we all came from one of the three sons of Noah and that our early forbears all had the knowledge of God. We also know that God warned our forbears that if they didn't warn and teach it all to the kids, they would cause the kids and their descendentents to go astray and loose out. That's the way the creator set it up and no matter how any of us creatures like it, if we want the blessings the Bible brings, we assume the responsibilities also as well as the consequences.We Biblical fundamentalists preach both heaven and hell because they're both in the book, the pearly gates on the one hand and the hot eternal brimstone on the other. Jesus, our Lord himself preached a firey hell to the certain rich man. That's why we're so preachy. We hate the idea of a burning eternal hell or any of you, our friends going there, but hey, the creator calls the shots, not us. We're caught up in existing under his rules. We are also blessed with the ability to enjoy eternal life and share it to the extent that we are willing and able to make that sacrifice so others will hear. Why do you think the prophets, preachers and apostles of the Bible all suffered so much to spread the message of God as set forth in his words? Many suffered terrible deaths. I'll tell you why. Unlike the message you preach, they cared enough for their fellow citizens to preach to them of impending judgement and reward for the just. Unlike you, they believed in the God of the Bible, regardless of what they thought of his policies.I've been in the book for 59 years now and it's proved to me to be inspired with all the fulfilled prophecies and archeological finds like the Exodus crossing, etc. I'm going with the safe approach attitude toward Jehovah, the God of the Bible. I go literally and if I'm wrong, no problem. Nobody including myself is the worse off for that choice. I'm enjoying the blessings of the Bible so much so that I'm willing to expend much energy to share them with all I can.

Wanna have a fight, just you and me? You can have a bible as your weapon and I can have a baseball bat as mine Hehehe. Just joking.

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The Laminator

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You're missing the entire point of what Jesus was saying.Jesus said, "There is none good but One."Jesus gives him some of the ten commandments, which the young man said he has obeyed, but remember what Jesus said back in Matt 5"You have heard it said..., 'Do not murder...', but I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgement.""You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."There never has been a person who has not been angry or not committed lust or not rebelled to a certain extent against his parents, or lied, or who hasn't failed to treat his neighbor with love. Jesus said these things so that the man would realize his own sinfulness.But this man was righteous in his own eyes, so Jesus cut straight to this man's biggest problem, his wealth.The man cared more about his wealth, the things of THIS world, than worshiping the Lord who stood before him. People's obsessions with STUFF is often what keeps them from accepting Christ. BTW he is not showing that wealth is BAD.He is showing that the man cared more about his wealth than eternal life: "When the young man heard this, he went away very sad, because he had great wealth."When given the choice between choosing Christ and choosing wealth, he apparently chose wealth. There is a principle called isogogics, which only works if you believe the Bible is the inspired word of God. You take the crystal clear passages and use them to interpret the less clear ones. Ah, but Jesus paid the penalty for the sins of ALL, so if a person doesn't have the opportunity to choose for or against Jesus, God's grace demands that the person go to heaven. This is why children and infants go to heaven. For the Incas, I'm not so sure what happens.This message has been edited by Hangdawg13, 07-23-2004 11:32 AM

You have no control over your will?You think your mind is more logic-based than mine?The only difference between you and I, is that I believe in Christ and you do not. It is a choice. It is not something one is forced to by his own human logic, though if you do believe it all makes sense. If human wisdom brought a person to Christ, then it would not be fair to all the dummies out there. It is a choice, plain and simple. If you believe fully, everything about it makes sense.The rich man's wealth is a stumbling block to him just like the wisdom of those who are wise in their own eyes is a stumbling block to them.

Hi Lam. In ideological warfare the Bible serves me well. I did hear of a WWII soldier who's NT in his pocket saved his life though. Now as for physical warfare between us, I'd have prayed ahead, so perhaps if you swung your bat with all your might and I ducked, the bloomed thing might swing right around and hit yourself in the back of the head so as for the need for me to administer the Biblical principle of compassionately tending to your wounds inflicted upon yourself.

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I have a hard time wrestling with the idea that all nonbelievers(as in non Christians in this particular case) are going to hell.

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I've always struggled with this one as well. It seems the criteria has changed over time, especially with the transition from the OT to the NT.In the OT, the Jews are the chosen people. The OT is not about conversion, but about keeping the chosen people in a position of power. Those nations that were not of the chosen people were conquered. It seemed that in the OT the judgement was here and now. Take the Noachian flood for example, or Soddom and Gammorah (sp?). God judged them as they lived on the earth, not when they reached heaven. It would seem that if a culture was on land promised to the Jews it was tough luck, you either run away or die. Those that were not in the way of Jewish expansion were left alone (except in the case of Noah's flood).From my readings, it seems that the promises of God, and the judgement of God, was an earthly thing. The wanderings in the desert are a perfect example of this. The Jewish people started to worship pagan gods (Golden Calf) and God's punishment was that no one alive at that time would ever reach the Promised Land. It wasn't until that generation died did the Jews enter and conquer the Canaanites. The "heaven" was the Land of Milk and Honey, and the judgement for not following God's edicts was the inability to enter this land.We then move to the NT, where the promise of eternal life is now very important. At the time, the Jews were under the thumb of the Romans, as was most of the known world. The idea of the Jews conquering the Romans was not an option, at least to the Jews of the time. However, a "promise land" after your death was something the Romans could not touch or control. This was a very powerful idea, a strong incentive for those longing to once again be in God's favor. And again, it seems that only the chosen people will be allowed to enter. This time, however, it will not be decided by ancestory but by the intercession of Jesus on your behalf. Nationality no longer matters, as is obviously demonstrated in the Great Commission set out in Matthew (IIRC). The Apostle Paul also lays out the new covenant in his efforts to bring pagan and heathen cultures into the christian fold.I would say that there is a major paradigm shift between the OT and the NT, but the results are the same. Those that are not part of the "plan" are damned. It is only through God, or through the intercession of Jesus, that one can reach the promised land or promised rewards. Of course, I could be totally off my rocker. Don't take my word as final, as I might be missing a piece of the puzzle. However, this is what I took away from my readings and the way I understand the theologies of the Old and New Testaments.