Spong is an educated man so I don't think he really believes that the church invented hell. He has to know the belief was around before Christianity and that Christ did speak about it. I think he was just trying to make a point as to how it has been used by the church to control people. I think when Jesus spoke of it he was using rabbinic hyperbole drawing on the myths and beliefs that were common in his day and that his audience could relate to. I don't think he meant it to be taken literally anymore than when he told people to pluck out their eye if it was causing them to sin.
"Hell is the Invention of the Church"
by leavingwt 62 Replies latest jw friends
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leavingwt
If I were a believer, I'd want a bonafide personal revelation on this topic. The difference between being eternally dead and being tormented for eternity couldn't be greater. How'd you like to get that one wrong?
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I quit!
We know that people who torture other people and try to keep them alive so they keep torturing them are deeply distured. How about a god who acts that way? I find it alarming that people who believe that god is love and can also believe in eternal punishment.
I think when C.S. Lewis wrote the "Great Divorce" he was trying to understand hell and what would keep people in a place like that.
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PSacramento
Whether it is viewed as a literal place or a "sate of mind", the "fact" about hell that most seem to be forgetting is that God doesn't put anyone there, they put themselves there by their acts AND their lack of repetance.
"Hell" is the palce where there is no Holy Spirit and the light of God doesn't shine, it is the complete absence of God and one must choose to go there and one chooses by their actions and not repenting come judgment day/their death.
God gives US, all of US a choice, the choice to repent and be one with God forever or to NOT and be without God, as always, the choice is ours and the responsibility is ours and the consequences are ours.
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leavingwt
I quit -- Do you realize that a sizable number of Christians alive today believe that God predestines bilions of people (mostly Asians) to burn forever for all eternity. They have absolutely no problem with a loving God doing this. Moreover, many Christians believe in the Divine Command theory. Simply put, WHATEVER God does is the very personification of love and justice. WHATEVER he does. If we don't perceive his actions are just and loving, the problem is with US.
They don't make any sense to me, but these ideas are very popular.
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designs
Was Spong addressing how Hell morphed in the Christian religion. In the Jewish Faith several ideas coexisted for centuries, during the emergence of the Kabbalah era when superstition was running rampant ideas of what Heaven and Hell were like became very vivid.
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leavingwt
"Hell" is the palce where there is no Holy Spirit and the light of God doesn't shine, it is the complete absence of God
By that definition, I'm already there. I gotta tell you, it's not all bad.
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poppers
"Hell" is the palce where there is no Holy Spirit and the light of God doesn't shine, it is the complete absence of God and one must choose to go there and one chooses by their actions and not repenting come judgment day/their death.
Yet, every definition I've come across of God includes the concept of a God that is omnipresent. The difficulty to begin with is that nobody knows for certain what "God" is, and because of that people create concepts about God, hell, and so forth and then they substitute the concept for reality. Face it, nobody knows what God is; they only have certain beliefs to give shape to the unknowable, and those beliefs vary widely. Who's the "authority" on this, and what is that authority based on?
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Dogpatch
Designs says,
Dogpatch-
It actually says 'man' they were more advanced than is generally known, especially in western Christian circles, who think they know Judaism from the Pauline writings
You know in the 20 years I have been inviting 'Evangelicals' to go to a Synagogue or just become friends with a Rabbi to talk over things I can't think of one who has accepted. The lads at evangelicals-and-jws almost gaged on the notion vis a vie Luther and Calvin. No wonder their views of Jews and Jewish progressive philosophy are so skewed.
Please rephrase this to make it understandable.
I was taught a lot about medieval and earlier Judaism by a pastor friend who knows Hebrew fluently and took us to Israel for 3 weeks to study archeology and Biblical-era Judaism. He knows quite a few Hebrew scholars as well, and visits them.
What does evangelicals, JWs , Lutherans and Calvinists have to do with this?
Randy
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PSacramento
By that definition, I'm already there. I gotta tell you, it's not all bad.
God is with you my brother, that I know.
Yet, every definition I've come across of God includes the concept of a God that is omnipresent.
Ah yes, well, if you wanna look at ominpresent as EVERYWHERE at the same time (not everywhere and anywhere one chooses to be) then I would have to re-write what I said and say, " The absence of God's love and grace" to be more "technical".
The point was that it was NOT of God's doing but a choice of Man.