If God was full of love he wouldn't create a situation that would obviously end in one situation. Who actually thinks Adam and Eve and all of the millions of children would not be tempted to eat the fruit when God created an assortment of evil angelic creatures to confuse them. Not to mention the incredible ignorance Adam and Eve must have had, no instances of anything bad ever happening in their whole lives. Would be impossible to even understand death let alone the tree that will give it to them either.
Anyways, I haven't read the bible without JW filtering in a while, but I feel the same way as Runningman in this. Contradiction and subjectivity confused as absolute truth is prevalent in the bible. If a person pulls out one scripture supporting one interpretation there are many scriptures that can be used to refute that. I doubt we can get a concrete answer out of this. But by all means try, this thread is interesting.
Hell - is it a biblical teaching after all?
by Hellrider 22 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Daunt
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RunningMan
My biggest problem with the original sin idea is the proportion. Adam and Eve committed an infraction roughly on par with a parking ticket - they ate a piece of fruit that had been forbidden. So, due to this minor mistake, billions of people (who had nothing to do with the mistake) have been sentenced to death - many of them in horrible ways.
But, really, as far as I'm concerned, debating God's actual intentions is like debating the color of Superman's underwear. Superman is just pretend, so his underwear is whatever color the writer says it is. God is just pretend as well, so his punishment methods are pure fabrication. -
Daunt
Amen RunningMan.
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_Atlas
I understand the JW’s argument about Hell not being consistent with a loving God…
One thing that always threw me off was the parable (ohhh sorry lurkers, I meant ILLUSTRATION) of the Rich man and Lazarus.
If Hell does not exist, in the way this story implies and describes, Why would Jesus concoct such a misleading Illustration?
Doesn’t this validate the warped image Christians ascribe to the afterlife?
It is much easier to believe a literal explanation of this, than the JWs explanation based on sybolism and interpretation…
If the JW’s position is the correct one, I’ll call this one an I L L - ustration
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RunningMan
Well, I have to agree with you Atlas. The story of the rich man and Lazarus always seemed to be a pretty clear indication of both an afterlife and hell. It seems unbelievable to me that Jesus himself would use a false doctrine in an illustration. Then add the scripture that says "fear not those who kill the body, but cannot destroy the soul", and you have a pretty strong case for immortality. But, then again, there's Ecclesiastes, but that's just an essay using a contrary position to make a point.
Jeez, you'd think the almighty could write a little clearer. -
Hellrider
My biggest problem with the original sin idea is the proportion. Adam and Eve committed an infraction roughly on par with a parking ticket - they ate a piece of fruit that had been forbidden
...God said NO !!
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Hellrider
If God was full of love he wouldn't create a situation that would obviously end in one situation. Who actually thinks Adam and Eve and all of the millions of children would not be tempted to eat the fruit when God created an assortment of evil angelic creatures to confuse them
Free will.
Not to mention the incredible ignorance Adam and Eve must have had, no instances of anything bad ever happening in their whole lives. Would be impossible to even understand death let alone the tree that will give it to them either.
God said NO !!
Anyway, what I have problem with understanding in this thing with Adam and Eve, is this: They were not supposed to eat from the tree, because:
Genesis 2:17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will surely die
What does that mean? Were Adam and Eve ignorant about what actually was good and what was evil? They didn`t know good from evil? If so, how could they know that they were comitting evil, by disregarding Gods command? My kid is almost 3 years old, but I think until he was 2, he didn`t understand when he had been "bad". And so, he did whatever he wanted to (LoL), and whenever I said NO, he would sometimes do it anyway, because he knew there would be no real consequenses. HE didn`t consider what he had done as bad, as he, at 2 years old, didn`t know right from wrong/good from bad. All he knew was that he had done something he was not allowed to, but what did he care, as long as he didn`t get punished? I guess what I`m trying to say, if Adam and Eve didn`t have knowledge, how could they be held morally responsible for their actions? Are morals completely seperable from knowledge? I don`t think so. I think there is "moral" and then there`s "knowledge", but completely seperable? No way. If Adam and Eve had no knowledge of good and evil, what they did weren`t immoral, it was simply disobeiance in pure form, not with evil intent, but in an "amoral" state, like when 2-year olds are being "bad".
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Leolaia
That was a very succinct post, Narkissos!
To pick apart the Society's claims, it is not true that Sheol and Hades are merely words for a generic, abstract "grave". They described a place, the netherworld, where the dead are gathered. Neither are the dead completely inactive or non-existent. The OT refers to the dead in Sheol as "Rephaim", who do have some sort of muted afterlife experience in Sheol. The NWT mistranslates this term as "those impotent in death" and none of the Society's discussions on the condition of the dead discuss the Rephaim. The NWT also misleadingly renders the Hebrew word for "know" as "conscious of" in Ecclesiastes 9:5, which is then construed as referring to an "unconscious" state of the dead. A worse example of questionable translation is kolasin "punishment" in the NT, which "everlasting punishment" is rendered etymologically as "everlasting cutting-off", which is then interpreted as referring to extermination/annihilation, not punishment. This is an example of an etymological fallacy that ignores the very well-attested meaning of the word which poses a theological problem for the Society's stance on Hell/Gehenna. Moreover, Romans 6:7 is taken out of context to deny that people can be judged and punished postmortem, in contradiction to the widespread teaching in the NT of a final judgment and punishment.
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MerryMagdalene
A very interesting perspective IMO is given on Entropy and Original Sin in The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck (hope this isn't too off-topic).
For many years I found the notion of original sin meaningless, even objectionable....I failed to perceive any inherent sinfulness in infants, nor could I find it rational to believe that young children were cursed because their ancestors had eaten from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Gradually, however, I became increasingly aware of the ubiquitous nature of laziness. In my struggle to help my patients grow, I found that my chief enemy was invariably their laziness. And I became aware in myself of a similar reluctance to extend myself to new areas of thought, responsibility and maturation. One thing I had in common with all mankind was my laziness. It was at this point that the serpent-and-the-apple story suddenly made sense.
The key issue lies in what is missing. The story suggests that God was in the habit of "walking in the garden in the cool of the day" and that there were open channels of communication between Him and man. But if this was so, then why was it that Adam and Eve, seperately or together, before or after the serpent's urging, did not say to God, "We're curious as to why You don't want us to eat any of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We really like it here, and we don't want to seem ungrateful, but Your law on this matter doesn't make much sense to us, and we'd really appreciate it if you explained it to us"? But of course they did not say this. Instead they went ahead and broke God's law without ever understanding the reason behind the law, without taking the effort to challenge God directly, question his authority or even communicate with Him on a reasonably adult level. They listened to the serpent, but they failed to get God's side of the story before they acted.
Why this failure? Why was no step taken between the temptation and the action? It is this missing step that is the essence of sin. The step missing is the step of debate. Adam and Eve could have set up a debate between the serpent and God, but in failing to do so they failed to obtain God's side of the question. The debate between the serpent and God is symbolic of the dialogue between good and evil which can and should occur within the minds of human beings. Our failure to conduct...this internal debate between good and evil is the cause of those evil actions that constitute sin....We make this failure because we are lazy. It is work to hold these internal debates....And if we take them seriously--if we seriously listen to this "God within us"--we usually find ourselves being urged to take the more difficult path, the path of more effort rather than less. To conduct this debate is to open ourselves to suffering and struggle. Each and every one of us...will hold back from this work, will also seek to avoid this painful step....
So original sin does exist; it is our laziness....No matter how energetic or ambitious or even wise we may be, if we truly look into ourselves we will find laziness lurking at some level. It is the force of entropy within us, pushing us down and holding us all back from our spiritual evolution.
And, as the Gospel of Philip says, those in fiery torment were not able to be saved because "they did not desire it." The path of salvation and evolutionary growth is difficult and challenging in the extreme. We generally find the path of least resistance, the easy way, more desireable, and we enjoy giving in to our temptations (at least I do), regardless of the consequences.
~Merry
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M.J.
nature of the soul, death, punishment, etc., are some of the easiest topics to nab a dub on. It's all built on CT Russell's distaste for the Hell doctrine which made him repudiate Christianity altogether until the Adventists taught him how to make up teachings to suit his fancy.