All the best (but just until God burns you in torment for an eternity),
Stephen
There, I thought I would fill in the blanks for you
How many here (believers) believe in the Hell fire doctrine and why??
by jam 154 Replies latest jw friends
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punkofnice
Terry -
I possess a human nature and cannot escape this nature any more than a penguin can play a trombone.
I love it! I also have a mental image now...
As a father I have always made completely sure that if I give my children instructions that it is obvious what I have requested. I don't write it down in a collection of books that have to be interpreted from dead languages, that cannot be agreed upon..................like the hellfire thang, that lead to conflict........no sirree!!
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LisaRose
Exactly. As a parent, would anyone disappear from their child's life completely, leaving only a collection of books, written by various people, in a language that their child doesn't speak, books that are conflicting and confusing and that many disagree on, and then expect that child to correctly interpret what their wishes were, and punish them for eternity in a fiery torment because they didn't guess right?
And yet, we are to believe that our supposedly loving, heavenly father would do so.
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Vanderhoven7
TWOY:
"I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord: Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary; suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen."
YES TWOY, Amen and Amen!
But again, eternal torment is not clear from the terms "eternal punishment" or "eternal fire". You quoted from Matthew 25. Let me provide the context.
Matt.25:31-33, 41-46; The Parable of The Sheep and The Goats:
When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, He will sit on His throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on His right and the goats on His left... Then He will say to those on His left, DEPART from me you who are cursed, INTO THE ETERNAL FIRE PREPARED FOR THE DEVIL AND HIS ANGELS. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and ye did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me."
They will answer, "Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?"
He will reply, "I tell you the truth, Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me."
THEN THEY WILL GO AWAY TO ETERNAL PUNISHMENT, BUT THE RIGHTEOUS TO ETERNAL LIFE.
NOTE: This formal scene includes all humanity. This is perhaps the most terrifying of all of Christ's parables, one that clearly pictures doomsday and eternal separation. Most will no doubt agree that the judgment scene in this parable and resulting punishment is final. But the question remains: Is the nature of this final punishment a conscious experience of unending pain or could this punishment simply represent destruction which is eternal in the sense that there will be no recovery from it? Let's look at the passage.
- Is Eternal Torment explicitly taught in this parable? OR
- Is Eternal Torment demanded by the imagery in this passage?
IMAGERY: There are two basic images used in this passage that have been traditionally interpreted to denote torment - "eternal punishment", and "eternal Fire. Now I think it would be fair to conclude from the text that Eternal Fire and Eternal Punishment are equivalent terms because eternal punishment in this parable is represented as a banishment into eternal fire. But do either of these combinations necessitate conscious suffering?
WHAT ABOUT "ETERNAL PUNISHMENT": Does the word "punishment" or the words "eternal" and "punishment" together imply or necessitate torment?
To Punish (according to Webster's) is
1. to impose a penalty on for a fault or crime.
2. to inflict a penalty for (i.e.. treason with death)
3. to inflict injury on: syn. chasten, discipline, correct.
COMMENT: The Greek "kolasis", used only twice in the New Testament, is the word translated "punishment" in this text. Its primary signification is to "cut off" or prune or lop off; its secondary meaning is to restrain. 13 The primary meaning here would suggest that while the righteous go to life, the wicked are forever deprived of or "cut off" from life. 14 About kolasis, Fudge says;
The Septuagint puts 'kolasis' for mikshol, which means a
stumbling block that leads to ruin. The word Jesus uses is
applied to the Egyptian plague (Wisdom of Sol.11:13; 16:2; 24)
but also to their death in the Red Sea (Wisdom of Sol.19:4).
It refers to punishment by death in I Samuel 25:31 and Ezekiel
21:15. "Punishment" may certainly include conscious pain, as
in all the examples above, but it does not have to. The same
word is applied to an idol of wood or stone in Wisdom of
Solomon 14:10, which says that, "that which was made [idol]
shall be punished together with him that made it" 15
- Could the "eternal punishment" of the wicked simply be
"eternal death" or "everlasting destruction"?
WHAT ABOUT ETERNAL FIRE: We've come across this imagery before. But does "eternal fire" clearly denote either conscious experience, or a continual burning flame which causes endless suffering? Or could "eternal fire" simply be a metaphor for eternal destruction? Interestingly, because something is eternal/everlasting in scripture does not necessitate endless perpetuity of action. For example, the scripture speaks of "Eternal Judgment", Hebrews 6:2, not in the sense that the final judgment scene will be reenacted day after day for eternity, but that a final judgment will be made that will have eternal consequences for the wicked.
- Similarly, rather than denoting an endless process of ongoing
torture, could "eternal fire" be descriptive of a destruction
which is unending in the sense that it is eternally irreversible?
- In other words, could the consequences of the fire be eternal
and not the burning process itself?
The passage in Jude 7 (NWT 2013) that you quoted would support this conclusion.
" In the same manner, Sod′om and Go·mor′rah and the cities around them also gave themselves over to gross sexual immorality* and pursued unnatural fleshly desires;+ they are placed before us as a warning example by undergoing the judicial punishment of everlasting fire.
Are the cities still burning today...or are the totally destroyed? There is the example of what ultimately happens to the wicked. The example is what we can see, not what we can imagine based on misinterpretation of God's word, the Bible.
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Terry
I always wondered about Zombie movies, "If they are dead, why don't they continue to rot until there is nothing left but bones?"
Which is silly to apply a logical question to an obviously fictional premise!
TO BURN something means to have a chemical reaction which imposes a "cost" on the material being burned, i.e. it loses part of its'constituency as fuel!
A person is quite flammable. People who spontaneously combust (usually smoking in bed) burn until the fuel (fat, clothes, flesh, etc.) burn away.
So--what is wrong with this hellfire scenario? You can't ask logical questions about it or imposed reasonable answers.
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TheWonderofYou
For me, only since my contact with JW the matter of hell became an issue. As you know anyway the majority of catolics and protestants in our country, the dogma of the hell is not picked up as central they attend a confirmation class and get the catolic catechism for young people “YOUCAT”,published 2011 as a gift ( http://www.youcat.org/youcat/what-is-youcat/the-most-important/) and then children may retheme, nor taught in any religious education at school. Furthermore before teenis get confirmed with 14, ad the book for themself. But there is no duty anymore to learn the answers by heart. So my child is 14 now and I am educating her catolic, I asked her she never heard the word “hell” before. The catolic education is not in all countries the same i think. There are countries which are more conservative. So people here do not think about hell-stuff at all their whole life. So the whole matter has become an issue for theologians and those who want to go deeper into the issue only. (JW use it for propaganda against the churches).
In the YOUCAT you find question 161 (translated by me):What is the hell? The short answer:
Hell is the state of eternal separateness of God, the absolute absence of love. -
TheWonderofYou
Sorry:
For me, only since my contact with JW the matter of hell became an issue. As you know anyway the majority of catolics and protestants in our country, the dogma of the hell is not picked up as central theme, nor taught in any religious education at school. Furthermore before teenis get confirmed with 14, they attend a confirmation class and get the catolic catechism for young people “YOUCAT”,published 2011 as a gift ( http://www.youcat.org/youcat/what-is-youcat/the-most-important/) and then children may read the book for themself. But there is no duty anymore to learn the answers by heart. So my child is 14 now and I am educating her catolic, I asked her she never heard the word “hell” before. The catolic education is not in all countries the same i think. There are countries which are more conservative. So people here do not think about hell-stuff at all their whole life. So the whole matter has become an issue for theologians and those who want to go deeper into the issue only. (JW use it for propaganda against the church).
In the YOUCAT you find question 161 (translated by me):What is the hell? The short answer:
Hell is the state of eternal separateness of God, the absolute absence of love. -
TheWonderofYou
TWOY i will study your wise informations, give me time , english is not my mother language and
it is not so easy at all to speak about this matter in general.
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designs
Haven't seen Stephen around for awhile but subjects like a literal Hell seem to fascinate him.
Could their be a sadist lurking inside him.
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barry
About 20%of evangelical christians believe in annihilation and also two archhibishops of canterbury have entertained the idear.
Many churchman believe the bible is realy describing a separation of the wicked from God and that is just like torture.
Adventists believe in a hell of fire for the wicked but a fire that lasts for a time only as a punishment for the wicked.