Okay, I'm totally blowing away the whole topic of the thread....but I gotta ask if the two of you have seen another Russian movie that I saw once and I've been searching for ever since, it was a '90s movie about a woman who is searching for her long-lost father who had a one-night-stand with her mother at a Black Sea resort, and she put an ad in the paper for her birthday (or Christmas, I forgot which), and three men show up, including an actor and a cosmonaut, and each bring her the same present...a stuffed animal, and when they all meet each tries to prove to her that he is her real father, then the story ends in the morning with each man discovering an old photo of her mother and realizing to their disappointment that each is not her real father.....Anyone knows what movie I'm talking about??? I loved that flick!
Hell, Forgivness, and Redemption
by gumby 36 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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belbab
On TV (in Canada anyway) there is an ad that continually comes on and I am sick of it, where Donald Trump comes on and at the end of the ad, he, looking directly into the camera, says Your fired!
The movie Narkissos just mentionned shows documents being thrown into a fire. Symbolic no?
It is said of Russell that he put out the fires of hell. Then his followers came up with something worse and hung over the heads of humanity the threat of eternal destruction with Armageddon. I once replied to a JW who threatened me and my young son sitting on my lap with death at Armageddon , ' You can tell your Jehovah, if the only recourse for him was to obliterate with mass destruction all mankind for the vindication of his name, then He could start with me, or he could end with me, and I would go gladly while shaking my fist towards the heavens'.
Reading the Bible, I have come to the conclusion that, it is the figurative fires that are eternel not what is thrown into the fire.
There is not two kinds of fire in the Bible. One for purifying the gold, and one for destruction or eternal torment forevever. There is only a purifying fire. No one can put that fire out. Pick up a sword or a pen and you will experience a retribution of the sword or a pen. I will just paraphrase some texts: one of the apostles writes the exhortation to snatch wayward ones out of the fire. Another, do not be disturbed by the burning amongst you.
Will Hitler receive a ressurrection? I say yes, but only when someone living on earth has enough love to bring him back.
I will try to add to this later.
belbab,
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mouthy
I have not read all the post just the first question---For what it is worth MY opinion. I believe God is a God of Love...I dont believe in a BURNING hell but i feel it is a torment!! ( I have been in it when my 3 kids-hubby died) Just as the bush was burning EX 3:2 But the bush was not harmed...so the fire wasnt hurting the bush... I think it will be a cutting off. !!THAT WE CHOSE OURSELVES! I have been there done that! Havent any of you??? Where you were so upset, angry, hurting, not a friend in the world, Felt no one cared for you?? well I have been there many times... when my loved ones died & especially when I was D/F...Two years I felt like that after I was D/f . It is a horrible feeling. So I believe only those who choose to be in that postion are there. After all if we are supposed to have no tears, no pain, no suffering in the place that we are told Jesus went to prepare for us... Why would anyone want those mentioned in scripture - like murders, rapists, liars, etc:etc:to be around us again....????
In my opinion & I know most of you will hate me for this.... But I think many who have no faith & are on their own even today rightly express the saying "Oh I am suffering like Hell" Except faith would help them to feel at least loved .... O.K. so you dont understand me !!! Thats alright- few do...... -
Hellrider
Narkissos:
But I am pretty sure I would find no consolation in any authority, cool-bloodedly, torturing or even killing a convict -- especially if such an authority could have prevented the crime and didn't. Remember, the "God" who would condemn Hitler (for instance) to the flames of Hell is supposed to have been there all the time, watching it all from heaven
Yes, I know. That`s the eternal question, of course, when things like holocaust,Hiroshima, Cambodia etc, happens. Where was God? I suppose the christian answer would be "men exercise free will...and their actions will have consequenses in the afterlife...", but I have a hard time swallowing that too. On the other hand: I do consider myself a "moral realist", regardless of whether God exists or not. I believe some things are "absolute wrongs" and some things "absolute rights", and then there`s a whole lot in betweeen. And I do of course see the ethical problems with, for instance, the death penalty, as well as I see the ethical problems with the hell-doctrine. I see the ethical problem in killing someone as punishment, as they do in the U.S, China, Russia, etc, and I see the problems with the belief that God is going to fry someone in hell for his/her sins. I`m as in the dark on these issues as everyone else, but there are some things I do believe: 1) There is such a thing as "right" and "wrong", in an absolute sense. Some things are absolutely morally wrong. 2) Man has free will (I have to believe this, because otherwise, point 1) is meaningless).
The rest I have no clue about. But If there is free will, and if there is right and wrong...well...the next logial belief would be that every action we take have consequenses...heck, I don`t know... Just rambling...
Leolaia: That description of that movie rings a bell, but I can`t quite place it.
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belbab
That`s the eternal question, of course, when things like holocaust,Hiroshima, Cambodia etc, happens. Where was God?
Where was I?
At the time of the Holocaust and Hiroshima I was a young kid, located on Pacific northwest coast. My first three years at school were in a small three room country school with a total enrollment of about 100 students from grade one to grade eight. Seventy-five percent of them were Japanese kids.
Movements of people during the war led our family to the bigger city, and the Japenese families were shipped eastward to isolation cold and misery for the duration of the war. (One of the best award winning stories I have ever read, was written by Joy Ogawa, called Obasan. As a young girl she was exiled to the east, while her parents were experienced slow agonizing death at Hiroshima, because just before the war broke out, they had returned to H. for a visit and were unable to return to Canada.)
I am ashamed of my youthful attitude when the mushroom cloud was announced over Hiroshima. Like many at that time, I cheered and was exhilerated that the war was over.
I am also ashamed of the cold-blooded heartlessness of our then Prime Minister who refused to give refuge to any Jews, at the time of the Holocaust. Let the memory of him be Accursed.
Where was God?
I thank God that evidence of attrocities are recorded to this day, in writings, diaries, photos, movies etc. Because of the record, my attitudes, and also the attitudes of millions of others have changed. No longer do we learn war anymore.
As for the perpratators of attrocities, the evidence, the smoke of their torments continue for all time.
belbab
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Hellrider
Leolaia, by the way, was it you that mentioned that Gehenna valley had not been used as a dumping-place? Based on archeological exacavations-evidence? Do you have any sources for that?
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Leolaia
Hellrider....I'm sorry, I miswrote that as I mentioned later in the thread (I think), what I should have written is that there is no evidence that it was used as an incinerator, where it had fires continually burning, and where bodies were thrown into the fire. This, there is no evidence of, as John Day points out (in terms of both historical and archaeological evidence). It was used for disposing of refuse (i.e. potshards) and human waste.