Problems with the Heaven Concept

[Sajara]

I could fathom a "loving god/father" putting seriously bad/evil people to a permanent sleep/death. And many Christians have this as part of their theology, as they cannot balance "loving father" with "eternal suffering".

To be fair, this is basically what the Old Testament teaches...it wasn't until the New Testament that the eternal damnation concepts seem to come in.

 

[dockeen]

And note that the argument that rhutchin's god is "within his rights to treat his creations in any way he sees fit", even IF accepted completely, doesn't help matters.

A god who sees fit to torture those he does not like for eternity hardly qualifies as someone a reasonable person would chose to admire, yet alone love and worship.

That is why I coined the term whoreshiper rhutchin, it refers to those that would worship any scumbag simply because he is powerful and gives them goodies.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I could fathom a "loving god/father" putting seriously bad/evil people to a permanent sleep/death. And many Christians have this as part of their theology, as they cannot balance "loving father" with "eternal suffering".

To be fair, this is basically what the Old Testament teaches...it wasn't until the New Testament that the eternal damnation concepts seem to come in.

I thought that the concept of Hell didn't come in until about 1000AD. Is there actually something about it in the NT?

 

[funinspace]

I could fathom a "loving god/father" putting seriously bad/evil people to a permanent sleep/death. And many Christians have this as part of their theology, as they cannot balance "loving father" with "eternal suffering".

To be fair, this is basically what the Old Testament teaches...it wasn't until the New Testament that the eternal damnation concepts seem to come in.

I thought that the concept of Hell didn't come in until about 1000AD. Is there actually something about it in the NT?

LOL...even Christians can't agree on the topic. Though there certainly are a few verses in the NT that are strongly suggestive of eternal torment (even if just who gets fucked isn't as clear). The Hebrew bible has only a few vague passages, that many Hellfire and brimstone preachers have tortured into supporting their dogma.

Here is one passage (this like has some others: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2011/10/04/ten-foundational-verses-for-eternal-punishment-in-hell/ ):
Matthew 25:31-46 When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” . . . Then he will say to those on his left, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. . . . And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

 

[funinspace]

And note that the argument that rhutchin's god is "within his rights to treat his creations in any way he sees fit", even IF accepted completely, doesn't help matters.

A god who sees fit to torture those he does not like for eternity hardly qualifies as someone a reasonable person would chose to admire, yet alone love and worship.

That is why I coined the term whoreshiper rhutchin, it refers to those that would worship any scumbag simply because he is powerful and gives them goodies.

While the term "whoreshiper" is entertaining, it seems more like an abused spouse defending their abuser, and explaining why its really all their own fault...

 

[dockeen]

I could fathom a "loving god/father" putting seriously bad/evil people to a permanent sleep/death. And many Christians have this as part of their theology, as they cannot balance "loving father" with "eternal suffering".

To be fair, this is basically what the Old Testament teaches...it wasn't until the New Testament that the eternal damnation concepts seem to come in.

I thought that the concept of Hell didn't come in until about 1000AD. Is there actually something about it in the NT?

LOL...even Christians can't agree on the topic. Though there certainly are a few verses in the NT that are strongly suggestive of eternal torment (even if just who gets fucked isn't as clear). The Hebrew bible has only a few vague passages, that many Hellfire and brimstone preachers have tortured into supporting their dogma.

Here is one passage (this like has some others: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2011/10/04/ten-foundational-verses-for-eternal-punishment-in-hell/ ):
Matthew 25:31-46 When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” . . . Then he will say to those on his left, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. . . . And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

And then they get into wonderful discussions about terms like aeons and the like...

It is really striking to see the vitriol that fundamentalists use in their defense of ECT. They LOVE ECT. They can not even tolerate the notion that there might not be a whole lot of people in the eternal fryer.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

LOL...even Christians can't agree on the topic. Though there certainly are a few verses in the NT that are strongly suggestive of eternal torment (even if just who gets fucked isn't as clear). The Hebrew bible has only a few vague passages, that many Hellfire and brimstone preachers have tortured into supporting their dogma.

Here is one passage (this like has some others: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2011/10/04/ten-foundational-verses-for-eternal-punishment-in-hell/ ):
Matthew 25:31-46 When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” . . . Then he will say to those on his left, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. . . . And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

OK, so nobody actually goes to Hell until after Jesus's return. I guess that means that any Christians who say that people go to Hell straight away when they die are committing blasphemy by directly contradicting an extremely clear and straightforward passage from the Bbile. This will, I assume, get them thrown into Hell when Jesus pops by to sort everyone out.

 

[Sajara]

Same thing with going to heaven right away...

 

[funinspace]

LOL...even Christians can't agree on the topic. Though there certainly are a few verses in the NT that are strongly suggestive of eternal torment (even if just who gets fucked isn't as clear). The Hebrew bible has only a few vague passages, that many Hellfire and brimstone preachers have tortured into supporting their dogma.

Here is one passage (this like has some others: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2011/10/04/ten-foundational-verses-for-eternal-punishment-in-hell/ ):
Matthew 25:31-46 When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” . . . Then he will say to those on his left, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. . . . And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

OK, so nobody actually goes to Hell until after Jesus's return. I guess that means that any Christians who say that people go to Hell straight away when they die are committing blasphemy by directly contradicting an extremely clear and straightforward passage from the Bbile. This will, I assume, get them thrown into Hell when Jesus pops by to sort everyone out.

Yeah, something like that…at least as far as anything is “clear” within the totality of the Christian Bible. My favorite spin on who’s going to hell, is that the only people going to eternal torment, are the people who think their particular God is just in sending untold billions to such a fate. And there are no one-way or two-way mirrors into hell. But then, God, feeling that 6 days of shitting bricks is more than enough, pulls the plug and annihilates them. Then she rejoins us on the beach, with everyone sipping their favorite beverage

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

And note that the argument that rhutchin's god is "within his rights to treat his creations in any way he sees fit", even IF accepted completely, doesn't help matters.

A god who sees fit to torture those he does not like for eternity hardly qualifies as someone a reasonable person would chose to admire, yet alone love and worship.

That is why I coined the term whoreshiper rhutchin, it refers to those that would worship any scumbag simply because he is powerful and gives them goodies.

Their God decides to arbitrarily hate some. Jacob I have loved, Esau I have hated. And Romans 9 extends this to other people, the greater potter's hated pots, made for destruction. Predestined from the beginning. God is petty, nasty, hateful, not as proclaimed, a God of love. A god with the disposition of a nasty second grader. Not a perfectly good, exceptionally wise being. This is a flawed God with a heavy dose of anthropomorphization of an ugly kind. Ancient Christian thinkers attacked pagan Gods for their failings of this kind, but did not try to extend this sort of critique to their own failed God. And still won't admit that this does not make their God worthy of worship, which they all find so very important. I simply cannot believe in such a primitive concept of God, with these failed human attributes. And I have never debated a Christian who seems to get it.

 

[dockeen]

Same thing with going to heaven right away...

I understand, to a degree that one. I have seen the comfort families seem to get from the notion that loved ones
are already reunited in heaven with Jesus when it is used at funerals. Doesn't make it "biblical", but I understand the
desire to bring comfort.

What I despise are the "clever" phrases that many xtians like to throw out about hell, like:

- God doesn't send anyone to hell, they send themselves

- Hell is a place with a door, locked from the inside

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

I could fathom a "loving god/father" putting seriously bad/evil people to a permanent sleep/death. And many Christians have this as part of their theology, as they cannot balance "loving father" with "eternal suffering".

To be fair, this is basically what the Old Testament teaches...it wasn't until the New Testament that the eternal damnation concepts seem to come in.

Supposedly, The Israelites start with 75 shephards in Egypt, and stay 430 years. Egyptian religion believes in an afterlife, a heaven ((The Western Lands) and a hell (Duat). But there is no sign of an afterlife in the Exodus. No heaven, no hell. And nobody seems to miss these. No complaints heaven has been denied to them by this strange God.

 

[Kharakov]

- Hell is a place with a door, locked from the inside

With every single proselytizer in history taking turns knocking while you try to sleep through a hangover on a hot, muggy, unusually sunny summer day with the power out- no AC (pun), and your blinds were ripped down in the party the night before, so the blazing sun is just beating through your eyelids mercilessly.


Ohh, wait, that's just a normal Sunday.

 

[Sheshbazzar]

I could fathom a "loving god/father" putting seriously bad/evil people to a permanent sleep/death. And many Christians have this as part of their theology, as they cannot balance "loving father" with "eternal suffering".

To be fair, this is basically what the Old Testament teaches...it wasn't until the New Testament that the eternal damnation concepts seem to come in.

Supposedly, The Israelites start with 75 shephards in Egypt, and stay 430 years. Egyptian religion believes in an afterlife, a heaven ((The Western Lands) and a hell (Duat). But there is no sign of an afterlife in the Exodus. No heaven, no hell. And nobody seems to miss these. No complaints heaven has been denied to them by this strange God.

One might figure out that the Israelites never were slaves in Egypt, and that Abrahamic religion really didn't know much of jack-shit about Egyptian religious beliefs, or of any heaven or hell until many centuries after the OT was compiled, when they finally cobbed their 'heaven' and 'hell' and dualistic theology from Zoroastrianism and the pagan Greek death cults.

 

[rhutchin]

By the way, we are still waiting on you to provide us with references in the scientific literature (specifically in the geological sciences) where the researchers have concluded that the entire planet was covered by a flood of water tens of thousands of feet deep in the last few thousand years. We know you got nothing, so we are not holding our breath.

I can't even find articles in the scientific literature concluding that there could not have been a flood. I don't think scientific research places priority on the issue.

 

[rhutchin]

It's pretty clear from what rhutchin wrote that he believes it's actually a good thing because God says so. To rhutchin, Might Makes Right . We're make moral judgments based on our moral sense of what is right and wrong, while rhutchin's judgments are based on fiat - what God says defines what's good or bad, and fuck you, you're fucked if you think otherwise.

That's basically the situation. God created the universe, and He sets the rules. Until someone comes along who can nullify those rules, those rules prevail.

 

[rhutchin]

What would cause a person to believe in an afterlife unless they are given some basis for doing so? The Bible does this. Without the Bible, people would believe that they live and they die and that is all there is.

Unless, you know, your all-powerful God who can do anything effortlessly took the trouble to get off his butt and provide some more convincing evidence than an out-of-date, self-contradictory, rambling anthology of puff pieces which is demonstrably wrong in many, many ways.

Apparently, God has provided all the evidence He wants. He seems not to care much about what you think leading us to conclude that He is not interested in spending eternity with you in heaven.

 

[rhutchin]

What would cause a person to believe in an afterlife unless they are given some basis for doing so? The Bible does this. Without the Bible, people would believe that they live and they die and that is all there is.

People believed in an afterlife long before the Bible was written - the guys who built the pyramids never heard of the Bible, but they clearly believed in an afterlife. So the Bible is not necessary for such belief.

Regardless of the source of this belief, the more important question is "Is belief in an afterlife a good thing?".

I would say that it is not - unless the afterlife exists as described.

There is no afterlife; the Bible is therefore a bad thing, because it persuades people to believe something untrue, and to waste their one and only life in pursuit of a lie.

Within the Biblical context all human populations are derived from the people who got off the ark. Thus, they all started with the same information that changed over time.

No one can prove that there is no afterlife; they can have faith that there is not.

 

[rhutchin]

I think Rutch is trying to imply that without God, we have no real moral code, thus we cannot justify calling anything in The Books 'bad.'
He's saying we can't explain why eternal torment is bad, without first establishing a godless morality foundation and proving that it's worth a shit.

Without the Bible, there are no absolutes. Whatever moral code exists would be relative and differ from one group to another.

Once you impose an absolute moral code on all humans, which an entity like God who sits outside can do, then penalties can be established for violating that moral code.

 

[jonJ]

Apparently, God has provided all the evidence He wants. He seems not to care much about what you think leading us to conclude that He is not interested in spending eternity with you in heaven.

So all that stuff about a loving, caring compassionate God who desperately wants us to believe so we can be saved was just bullshit? Yeah, I was already getting that impression.