Forgiveness

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|aaron|

Instead, I say, "God is going to put sinners in Hell.  It is unjust and
cruel to punish people forever."

The latter method takes up less space and is much less awkward,
but can lead to the kind of confusion you are suffering from.

Good night...

STOLTZFUS
My confusion, as you call it, is not a result of the way in which you
phrased or didn't phrase the assertion.  My problem is that you refuse
to take a biblical perspective on the issue of judgment and punishment
because you refuse to believe in the Bible.  There are two ways we can
be consistent here, and only two.  First, we can start by saying that
the Bible is true, that what it says about the relationship between God
and man is accurate, that therefore what it calls unrepentant sinners
face eternal condemnation, and that eternal condemnation is a bad
thing.  The ONLY atheist alternative is to say that the Bible is false,
neither God nor sin exist, there is no judgment, and there is no hell.

POOBAH
Aaron was using a technique that you no doubt have used in your math classes
at the university. He *assumes* something is true, and then based on that
assumption shows it is absurd or contradictory. In this way, he shows that
the set of assumptions is incoherent. As it is, the point still remains that
it is infinitely cruel to punish someone eternally for finite "offenses" and
you have done nothing to address that fact. An omnipotent deity could have
made perfect afterworlds for everyone to live in. My perfect afterworld, for
example, would have my family & pets there, and no fundies to impose their
irrational point of view on others. If I can imagine such an afterlife, why
couldn't an infinitely compassionate, all-powerful deity do the same? Why
must my choice be insipid choirs of angels or a lake of fire?

In your worldview, the fact that God *chooses* to allow unbelievers to
evidently exist in some angst-ridden existential abyss for eternity is still
cruel, because he could have provided a better fate and chose not to. The
fact that I am living a very happy life now without him shows that such a
thing is possible.

As for taking the biblical perspective on judgement and punishment, perhaps
you could actually make an on-topic post for a change and explain to us why,
if Hell is nothing more than us poor atheists choosing to live apart from
God for all eternity, why all of the metaphors in the New Testament anyway
are of God/Jesus *judging* (act of comission, not the act of omission you
would imply) sinners, and then throwing sinners into a lake of fire, locking
the door and throwing away the key? I would add that your "biblical
perspective on the issue of judgement" isn't shared by many Christians, who
would hold a view closer to the one I just described. Why the difference?

If your version of "Hell" was right, there would be nothing to prevent a
dead unbeliever from changing his mind and entering God's presence would
there? The fact that I doubt you allow for this possiblity means that I
think the Biblical definition is more accurate, wouldn't you? And how
exactly can a soul be left without the presence of an omnipresent deity?
More incoherent definitions.

I think you go to so much effort to define a "nice Hell" in which God simply
washes his hands of sinners because you can't deal with the cognitive
dissonance of an all-loving God who kicks the shit out of the vast majority
of humanity for all eternity. Well, that's the contradictory world-view you
signed up for. Deal with it.

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