Hell

[Rei]

I'm sorry I got frustrated. My thoughts came from the idea that Christians would believe in such a place that offers eternal torment for non-believers, and that when we do not provide empirical evidence for every one of our beliefs, they appear to be written off as wrong.

The premises which you challenged, the fact that Jesus is God and that He came to Earth to live among us as one of us is one premise that you must accept to understand how Slim or I view Hell and how we may still be sane and accept these ideas. In order to understand our view of Hell, you must accept the other premises (at least the potential of them) in order to understand how we can accept such an awful reality as Hell. It's like a high-school physics student refusing to accept that gravity is 9.8m/s^2 and insisting upon seeing the math before continuing on with a word problem relating to friction. I'll grant you that the existance of God isn't so easily proven as the rate of gravity on Earth, but the idea is the same. In order to understand how far a block of wood slides down a ramp, you need to accept that gravity is present and the same, the coefficients of friction for both the block and the ramp, etc. Even if you don't know my testing it yourself or seeing the math yourself, in order to understand why one would say the block slides 10cm. The same applies to concepts such as Heaven and Hell. In order to understand how we can believe in their existences, you need to accept certain premises, like the existence of a God of Love, Jesus and His sacrifice, etc.

If you do not want to start with a theistic premise, then Hell is not the topic you should be starting on, because that requires your acceptance of the existance of a god for discussion to continue.

[Boothby]

Rei,

Are you frikkin' kidding me?

"In order to understand how far a block of wood slides down a ramp, you need to accept that gravity is present..."

"The premises which you challenged, the fact that Jesus is God and that He came to Earth to live among us.."

So you accept the inherently UNPROVEABLE "existence" of God and Christ as "fact," yet you talk about "needing to accept" that gravity is present, like...maybe it isn't?

Also, I assume that Sparowhawk started with the initial premise of Hell in order to disprove it. It's a common scientific approach.

Presume "A". If "A" exists, then "B" must exist. "B" does not exist. Therefore: "A" does not exist. It's basic stuff.

Besides, I can assume that gravity is X, and then run a series of tests to determine that it is 9.81 m/s^2. Can you run similar tests on the existence of God, or Christ, or Hell? I think not. Sparrowhawk tried, and you would skewer him for it.


BTW, you have invoked my third law of theological debate:

RULE 3: Once your opponent starts using observation and logic in his foolish attempt to refute what everybody already knows to be true, you can deny that both observation and logic are valid approaches to understanding. Typical responses are, "How can we ever really know anything," and "God does not operate under the rules of logic and rationality--He is beyond them." Never, under any circumstances, attempt to explain just what the hell any of that means, because it really doesn't mean anything (that's the beauty of it). More importantly, do not try and understand it yourself, as your head may actually explode. Your opponent may respond to your first statement by asking, "then how do you know if anything is true?" To which you simply respond, "I just know."

[zeroguy]

Presume "A". If "A" exists, then "B" must exist. "B" does not exist. Therefore: "A" does not exist. It's basic stuff.

Wait, what? Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but this is certainly not correct, unless you say "if and only if A exists".

[Boothby]

That's probably more correct from a strict logical point:

If I have a dog, then I must have dog biscuits in my house

or

I have dog biscuits in my house IFF I have a dog

then:

I have no dog biscuits in my house

Therefore:

I do not have a dog.

Nope. I'm right. You're wrong. Sorry. Unless you were thinking of a different construction.

According to the IFF statement, if I do not have dog biscuits, then you can tell nothing about whether I have a dog or not. Accordsing to mine, no biscuits = no dog.

[Sparrowhawk]

In order to understand our view of Hell, you must accept the other premises (at least the potential of them) in order to understand how we can accept such an awful reality as Hell.

Even accepting these numerous and illogical premises, how you can accept such an awful reality as hell STILL escapes any kind of reason or rationality. The concept still defies any kind of logic even in the construct of the belief it belongs to.

[Boothby]

That's why the Jews don't have a hell.

They just have mothers-in-law.

Ba-da-bump!

[Dr. Mobius]

I used to enjoy watching you play with the believers, but not so much anymore. Either you lost your charm or I lost my rose-colored glasses or something because now you sound like a bit of an a******.

[anonshadow]

In response (sort of) to the original post:

One of the biggest problems I have with Christianity is the theories about the afterlife.

Hell--a place where people burn and suffer, forever--bothers me, especially if the Christian God is supposed to be a forgiving one, and especially if he accepts it when people repent. Why is it okay for living people, but hey, once you snuffed it, too bad for you? The person who died at twenty had less chance to repent than the person who died at ninety, so what kind of fairness is inherent in that? It just doesn't make any kind of sense to me, which makes me, well, not believe it.

And, while not directly connected to hell, the end of days apocalypse s*** just tries my patience. No, honey, you're not going to be taken up to heaven by Jesus, and neither am I. We are not going to get a "get out of jail free" card for all the problems on earth, and you need to get out of your fantasy world and start really trying to fix this, because it's all we've got.

[Boothby]

Dr. M,

You talkin' to me?

Because I realize I've lost a great deal of patience in dealing with people who hold on to faith-based beliefs (beliefs that pride themselves--ignoring for the moment that pride is a sin--on being, by definition, unsupportable), and present them as some sort of "universal truth," and then question knowledge based on study and testing and the scientific method as somehow being inherently unreliable.

God exists. Jesus is His only begotten Son, sent to earth to (blah blah blah).

versus

How do you really know that gravity exists? How do you know that anything really exists? How do you claim to even know that the sun will come up tomorrow?

There is no polite word for this type of person.

[zeroguy]

Nope. I'm right. You're wrong. Sorry. Unless you were thinking of a different construction.

According to the IFF statement, if I do not have dog biscuits, then you can tell nothing about whether I have a dog or not. Accordsing to mine, no biscuits = no dog.

Yes, I was reading it incorrectly at the time. Sorry. (p->q ^ ~q) -> ~p. It is still correct with an IFF, though.

[Fish Tank]

Hey maybe next week the Pope will decide Hell doesn't exist anymore.

[jotabe]

If the Pope says that Hell doesn't exist, then God has no choice but to make it so.

See Dogma (the movie).

[Fish Tank]

Hmmm maybe the Pope should say he is Spider-man... or abolish Cancer and AIDs.

[Matty]

Or the Pope could say that if you enter a certain church, you will automatically go to heaven. A mildly funny series of events acted out in deadpan could result.

[Satya]

Even looking back through the rosy-lens of hindsight, and being a completely different person than I was when I started this thread, and not necessarily believing or thinking the way I did at the time...

This was one of my greatest creations. =D

[Crazy Tom: C Toon]

Hell--a place where people burn and suffer, forever--bothers me, especially if the Christian God is supposed to be a forgiving one, and especially if he accepts it when people repent. Why is it okay for living people, but hey, once you snuffed it, too bad for you? The person who died at twenty had less chance to repent than the person who died at ninety, so what kind of fairness is inherent in that? It just doesn't make any kind of sense to me, which makes me, well, not believe it.

And, while not directly connected to hell, the end of days apocalypse s*** just tries my patience. No, honey, you're not going to be taken up to heaven by Jesus, and neither am I. We are not going to get a "get out of jail free" card for all the problems on earth, and you need to get out of your fantasy world and start really trying to fix this, because it's all we've got.

First of all, it is because God is a merciful God that we don't ALL go to hell. Everybody sins; therefore, everybody deserves to go to hell. Also, being saved is not just a random chance. God chose the people going to Heaven or Hell. Therefore, if God wants a three-year-old to be saved, he WILL be saved before he dies, no matter what. If God does not want somebody else to be saved, then no matter how long that person lived, it would not happen.