Using a book with dubious credibility as evidence doesn't exactly bolster one's case. Maybe that's just me though.
Does hell exist?
by notverylikely 79 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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EverAStudent
notverylikely wrote: “So using this method, you haven't provided any proof that hell exists. Cool.”
EveryAStudent previously posted:
“Faith, by definition, is not based on ‘proof’ (because then it would not be ‘faith’ would it?) but it is based on evidences.
“There is evidence, not proof, that Jesus is the Messiah and the Creator. There is evidence, not proof, that Jesus will deconstruct this present cursed universe and will create a new eternal one in which He, the Father, and all bellievers will live together forever (Revelation 20-22).
“Similarly, there is evidence, not proof, that Hell is the ongoing eternal abode of unbelievers. Nothing there ceases to exist, not even its worms die, but neither do they live in any positive sense. That hapless eternal existence is called the second death for a reason.
“Is it unfair that unbelievers should spend an eternity existing in Hell? Since unbelievers hate the holy God, they would find eternity with Him intolerable. Although they will find Hell terrible, it will be more acceptable to them than spending eternity with a God whom they hate. So, is giving unbelievers a more tolerable existence really unfair, or, is it merciful?”
--- end of quote by EverAStudent
I believe that it was the point of my post to state that Hell is not provable. Nonetheless, there is an abundance of biblical evidence for it.
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THE GLADIATOR
EverAStuden: This is becoming a silly discussion.
It always was but this is the most sensible thing you have yet said.
The ability to separate imagination from reality is the beginning of wisdom.
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notverylikely
However, if one insists that they have the authority to dictate that the Hebrew language word tsaphah can only mean "to peer into the distance" then they might have a point to make. However, since more scholarly authorities on the Hebrew language have written that the word tsaphah has an entire range of common meanings, I am forced to reject notverylikely as such an authority. In this instance, it is not the Bible which is mistaken or contradictory. Eli, though blind, was on watch for, anticipating, and waiting for the arrival of the ark.
So, your point is that I am wrong, even though I directly quoted the Bible, and to prove me wrong, you said that words have many differents meanings so how do we know which one is right? I am not the one insisting it has only one meaning, I am illustrating the point that NO one really knows which meaning was intended.
Also, if you don't like that example of the bible being contradictory, you can take your pick of others. Two examples are completely different numbers for the number of people killed because King David did a census or the bread and wine narrative. In Mathew and Mark, they get the info that someone is a betrayer and then they do the bread and wine, in Luke, they get the info and THEN eat.
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Terry
JUSTICE is getting what you've earned and what you deserve as well as not getting what you haven't earned and don't deserve.
Are we on the same page?
God is a god of JUSTICE.
JUSTICE is about reaping what you sow. JUSTICE is about restoration and replacing what has been lost; repairing what is broken and compensation for what has been taken illicitly.
Death is a high price to pay for a living being. All values end at death, after all. No opportunity exists once life ceases.
What does eternal torture in Hell accomplish as far as JUSTICE is concerned?
A lifetime of wicked deeds is how many years at most? Yet, eternal punishment is an imbalance in either restoration or compensation for damage.
You can tell an awful lot about a person by their SENSE of JUSTICE!
The willingness to believe in a place of eternal torment as a just sentence by God toward human beings is interesting psychologically.
What sort of person is able to get their mind around that as A GOOD THING? As an act of a supreme being?
We have people who would never dream of water-boarding a terrorist because it is torture and good people (us, the good guys) should never sink to such methods to extract important information. Yet, many of those same people are okay with God doing far worse far longer.
Belief in eternal punishment says a whole lot more about the one believing it than it does about Hell itself!
Besides, the non Jewish and non Christian world of primitive pagan religion came up with Hell first. Kinda weird co-incidence-isn't it--that pre-enlightenment PAGANS had the exact same idea as Almighty god???
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LittleSister
"L'enfer, c'est les autres"
"Hell is other people"
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre
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LittleSister
“hell is other people” has always been misunderstood. It has been thought that what I meant by that was that our relations with other people are always poisoned, that they are invariably hellish relations. But what I really mean is something totally different. I mean that if relations with someone else are twisted, vitiated, then that other person can only be hell.
Why?
Because…when we think about ourselves, when we try to know ourselves, … we use the knowledge of us which other people already have. We judge ourselves with the means other people have and have given us for judging ourselves. Into whatever I say about myself someone else’s judgment always enters. Into whatever I feel within myself someone else’s judgment enters. … But that does not at all mean that one cannot have relations with other people. It simply brings out the capital importance of all other people for each one of us.
(From the Imago playbill
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Yizuman
Hell is a jail, it's the lake of fire you really wanna worry about.
God's justice system isn't all that different from our own justice system here on earth. You commit a crime, you go to jail until you have your day in court. If found guilty, you go to prison.
Die in your sins, you go to jail (hell), until you have your day in court. If found guilty, you go to prison (lake of fire).
People mistake the idea that hell and lake of fire is one and the same place. it's not...
Rev 20:14-15 "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." (book of life refers to people who are saved by accepting Jesus as their Lord and Savior and their sins are forgiven, their names are then written into the book of life).
Yiz
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Terry
God's various ideas, plans, purpose and strategies are very RUBE GOLDBERG in conception.
Nothing is ever simply DONE and finished. One thing causes another thing which requires yet another thing to do such and so until yet another contingency reacts to a flub-a-dub and the dominoes all fall down and Armageddon comes!
Sounds more like a committee of bad writers without a clue.
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cameo-d
Welcome to HELL......
Revelation 9
2 And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace;
Bottomless pit= something that seems never ending.
Surely you can relate to this. (If not, go talk to Restrangled for awhile.) Have you ever had a week when each day brought a major problem? Maybe it lasted longer than a week. Things just keep seeming to snowball? It just seems like the worries and headaches will never end! Just one right after the other. This is what a "bottomless pit" is like! You are on a roll and things just don't slow down. You are bombarded.
Perhaps you even have a bottomless pit of WT literature. I mean, the stuff keeps coming. It just piles up to where you can't even read it all. And then when you have a four foot stack of it, then the bound volumes come out and you have to get one of those, too. Those WT presses just spit, spit, spit. And then...well, thank goodness they finally ran out of colors of the rainbow or you'd be buying another bookshelf this year. WT literature---the bottomless pit of paper.
And the new light? Well, that just keeps coming, too. The rules are endless. They just keep making them up. Every time there is a new toy on the market they have to make a new rule for it. Any medical changes on the horizon, they have to make up a protocol. Now you can see why elders stay so busy with busy-busy work. The pit is bottomless. There is always a new change to be made or a new regulation to be made-up.
Great furnace=big mouth of hot air
Have you ever seen an actual furnace? A pot-bellied stove, even? Here is a furnace used in glass making:
I would like to show some other metaphors that uphold the idea of the Great Furnace and the big mouth of hot air.
The Hell Mouth is the entrance to hell, envisioned as the gaping mouth of a huge monster. It made it's first appearance during Anglo-Saxon times under King Alfred, in the late 800's and then spread all over Europe. Medieval theatre often had a hellmouth prop, sometimes employing mechanical devices which were meant to scare the audience, in an effort to dramatize the entrance to hell.
This is a woodcarving from Shakespearian times. Look for some clues as to what lives in the Hell Mouth.
I think Domo was modeled after the Hell Mouth. I first saw him in the 7-11 last year. Right away I knew he was evil!!!! More evil than a Smurf!
Now, you ask, "What's Domo got to do with it, other than his mouth does look like the above furnace?"
Well, I am glad you asked. Here is the other Duomo. (Notice there is one additional letter, but it is still pronounced the same way.)
Milan Il Duomo
The Duomo, which traditionally symbolizes the city of Milan, is the most extraordinary example of Italian late Gothic art. It ranks third in terms of dimension after the Saint Peter's Basilica at the Vatican in Rome and Seville's Cathedral. Located in the very heart of the city it represents both the core of the city and the unavoidable destination of countless visitors from Italy and abroad.
Now, can you see why the Great Furnace is a BIG MOUTH OF HOT AIR!!!!!!! Welcome to Hell.
