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Heaven and Hell

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Heaven and Hell
aletheist
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Posted 10/23/09 - 06:17 AM:
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#11
Christianity teaches that heaven and hell are not, strictly speaking, about reward and punishment; rather, they are about relationship with and alienation from God. At death, your situation with respect to God is made permanent--if you have a relationship with God, that condition continues forever (heaven); if you are alienated from God, that condition continues forever (hell).

Moral imperfection (sin) causes alienation from God, and each of us has chosen to act in a way that is contrary to God's perfect (holy) nature; thus, we are all alienated from God and deserve hell. However, God's desire for each of us is a mutually voluntary love relationship with him as Lord, which is why he granted us the free will to reject him. Because of his grace and mercy, he became human and took the punishment that we deserve to satisfy his own justice and offer forgiveness to all. The resurrection of Jesus confirmed his identity and the efficacy of his death on our behalf; God himself has done everything necessary to reconcile us. Those who believe this good news (Gospel) have a restored relationship with God (salvation) and receive heaven.

So--Christianity is not, fundamentally, about living by God's rules; it is about knowing God personally. We follow him, not because we fear hell, or even because we desire heaven; rather, because we love him and want to be more like him.
"Be attentive, Be intelligent, Be reasonable, Be responsible." - Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984)
throng
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Posted 10/23/09 - 06:54 AM:
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The thing with 'choosing to love God' is God is not a definable thing that anyone can choose to love, and the imagery that exists in our minds is merely the most divine imagining we can conjure. Would a man so love his own mental images?

The Truth is the essential human connection with divinity, and it flows freely as an underlying formless constant as inspiration flows uninterupted and wholesomely, whereas deception requires a hesitation and an invention.

Worship is being true to your being, and no reason or justification is required for instinctive truthfulness.

The potential with in a human ranges from abject torment to heavenly bliss, and there's a range to consciousness's potential. Heaven and hell describe the absolute extremes of consciousness, but I say there is a huge multitude of heaven/hell realms that express the potential's range.

Edited by throng on 10/23/09 - 07:10 AM
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Ghosthack
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Posted 10/23/09 - 08:48 AM:
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I love it when people say 'Christianity believes this...'. It's a reification fallacy. It would be like saying 'America believes democracy is the best government'.

People who call themselves Christians have different views on heaven and hell and salvation. Many don't believe that hell is any type of place we go to or that it is eternal punishment. There is very little discussion of hell in the Gospel beyond the fact that it is a terrible place/state. There are other Christians who believe that in the end all are saved even the devil himself.
GeorgeHawkins
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Posted 10/23/09 - 12:14 PM:
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Your avoiding addressing my point.

The thread is about the concept of heaven and hell. Or more specifically the concept of post mortem retribution for actions in life that you then tell people about in life and how in doing that you wreck gods way of seeing who's good and who's bad from there actions in life. If you really belive in god perhaps the best thing you can do is keep quiet about it and start preeching that people do whatever they feel like. Or that there is a god and he does judge people but don't say by what critera. So it could be he favours the brave, the strong, the clever, the kind, the cruel..

That would be a most interesting thing to do on people who havent been conditioned by the neo-christian morrality.

Also id be interested in hearing exactly how you manage to continue to believe that the mind continues beyond the destruction of the physical brain when people who suffer damage to it loose a part of there mind and we know what part of the brain does what.
"What I understand by "philosopher": a terrible explosive in the presence of which everything is in danger." - Friedrich Nietzsche.
throng
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Posted 10/23/09 - 12:40 PM:
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GeorgeHawkins wrote:
Your avoiding addressing my point.

The thread is about the concept of heaven and hell. Or more specifically the concept of post mortem retribution for actions in life that you then tell people about in life and how in doing that you wreck gods way of seeing who's good and who's bad from there actions in life. If you really belive in god perhaps the best thing you can do is keep quiet about it and start preeching that people do whatever they feel like. Or that there is a god and he does judge people but don't say by what critera. So it could be he favours the brave, the strong, the clever, the kind, the cruel..

That would be a most interesting thing to do on people who havent been conditioned by the neo-christian morrality.

Also id be interested in hearing exactly how you manage to continue to believe that the mind continues beyond the destruction of the physical brain when people who suffer damage to it loose a part of there mind and we know what part of the brain does what.



Jeez, if the subject is heaven and hell, it's really a post brain subject. If we say it's all brain then there's no topic.

I'm sure judgement is wholly a human and egotistical phenomena, so folks make judgements on themselves. I guess they have too.

I think religious belief is a symptom of conditioning, because belief is taught and learned from scripture. 'Neo-Christian' Hahahaha. I'd never heard of that. I love the colourful terminology. Very good.

I think we refer to the soul when speaking of eternity, damnation or heavenly, so the mind that thinks is probably not the issue. It's to do with a basic principle that awareness continues in the absence of thought. (I guess)
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GeorgeHawkins
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Posted 10/23/09 - 03:49 PM:
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If life was a test god wouldent tell us the rules.

Thats how I originally put this.

Don't want anyone nabbing off with that either.
"What I understand by "philosopher": a terrible explosive in the presence of which everything is in danger." - Friedrich Nietzsche.
Ghosthack
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Posted 10/23/09 - 09:48 PM:
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Life is not a test. It's not like God is trying to quiz us. He isn't some interested test administer intrigued by who passes and who fails.

I don't understand your assertion. It seems contradictory. God sent Jesus as the intercessor so that through him we are saved which indicates God's interest in our salvation but then at the same time you believe that God is disinterested in whether any person is saved, only how many are saved and how many are damned. Your ideas don't correspond to any mainstream Christian beliefs at all.
GeorgeHawkins
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Posted 10/24/09 - 11:31 AM:
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In the Bible there's a bit where Heaven and Hell are places with big spoons that you can only feed the person sitting opposite with. In Heaven everyone feeds each other but in Hell everyone tries to feed themselves. What's being said there is that the difference is the sort of person in each place. Presumably everyone's too polite to eat with their hands.

Therefore part of what God intends to do is separate one type of person from another.

Obviusly this is a part of the Bible that neo-Christians like to play up since the stuff that Christians used to believe about the eternal torment and fiery brimstone doesn't play particularly well anymore.

But still God is wanting to seperate the good from the bad based on their actions in life. Telling people about it therefore undermines the whole thing because (and we'll forget about the eternal torment and fiery brimstone for the time being) bad people would want to go to the place where they'd be fed.

Clearly the test of who's good and who's bad is an aspect of life as far as God's concerned because that's the criteria God uses to decide who goes where. So I maintain that if God was real and wanted to seperate the good from the bad in this way sending Jesus to tell us all what type of behavour God favours is the last thing he'd do.

Perhaps Jesus was really the anti-Christ who was sent with the intention of messing up God's test.

Edited by Incision on 10/24/09 - 11:41 AM. Reason: illiteracy
"What I understand by "philosopher": a terrible explosive in the presence of which everything is in danger." - Friedrich Nietzsche.
aletheist
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Posted 10/25/09 - 02:17 PM:
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GeorgeHawkins wrote:
In the Bible there's a bit where Heaven and Hell are places with big spoons that you can only feed the person sitting opposite with. In Heaven everyone feeds each other but in Hell everyone tries to feed themselves.
Huh? What Bible are you reading? Where (chapter and verse, please) do you find this "bit"?

GeorgeHawkins wrote:
Clearly the test of who's good and who's bad is an aspect of life as far as God's concerned because that's the criteria God uses to decide who goes where.
No, all humans are "bad" (i.e., morally imperfect) and deserve hell (i.e., permanent separation from God); but out of love, mercy, and grace, God made it possible for humans to have a restored relationship with him (i.e., eternal life).
"Be attentive, Be intelligent, Be reasonable, Be responsible." - Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984)
GeorgeHawkins
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Posted 10/25/09 - 09:54 PM:
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aletheist wrote:
Huh? What Bible are you reading? Where (chapter and verse, please) do you find this "bit"?


Hmm. Ok perhaps its not in the actual bible. I can't seem to find where it is in it if it is after a short search but you can't tell me its not part of neo-Christian thaught. www.llerrah.com/realdifferences.htm Because it clearly is.


Found these in the actual bible tho:

Matthew 13:42: "And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."

Matt 25:41: "Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."

Mark 9:43-48: And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched."

Luke 16:24: "And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame." This is a plea described as coming from an inhabitant of Hell.

Revelation 20:13-15: "...hell delivered up the dead which were in them...And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire."

Revelation 21:8: "But the fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone."

Matthew 8:12: "...there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Matthew 13:42: "... there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."

Matthew 13:50: " there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."

Matthew 25:30: "... there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Matthew 25:46: " And these shall go away into everlasting punishment."

Mark 9:43-48: "...it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched"

Revelation 14:11: " And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night..."


No, all humans are "bad" (i.e., morally imperfect) and deserve hell (i.e., permanent separation from God); but out of love, mercy, and grace, God made it possible for humans to have a restored relationship with him (i.e., eternal life).


So what if someone who really wanted to go off and do some sex killing found the thaught of the gnashing of teeth un appealing and so lived as a good Christian? He/She (hopefully she) would end up doing sex killing in heaven and so would really spoil heaven for all the people who were good because of compassion and love and that sort of slop.
"What I understand by "philosopher": a terrible explosive in the presence of which everything is in danger." - Friedrich Nietzsche.
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