Crockett
1000+ posts
07/22/11 03:16 PM
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Rob Bell wrote and interesting book entitled "Love Win" He adresses and issue that has given me lots of problems. Why would a God who just, mighty and loves us condemn most of us to burn in hell forever if we don't believe a certain way. Does mass murderer Henry Lee Lucas who repented before his death get a free ride to heaven while courageous, gentle justice-seeking Mahatma Ghandi is punished forever. Bell suggests believing the latter is absurd and justifies his premise with scripture.
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Coelacanth
2500+ posts
07/22/11 04:28 PM
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In reply to:
...courageous, gentle justice-seeking Mahatma Ghandi is punished forever
I have no idea whether Gandhi will be "punished forever" or not, but I'm wondering: how much do you actually know about Gandhi? Beyond the movie version, I mean?
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Dionysus
5000+ posts
07/22/11 04:39 PM
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In reply to:
I have no idea whether Gandhi will be "punished forever" or not
Let’s assume for the moment—likely a safe assumption—that Gandhi was not a ‘born again’ Christian. If true, wouldn’t it be consistent with your faith that he is spending eternity in hell? I’m not trying to put words in your mouth, just curious with respect to this comment.
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Coelacanth
2500+ posts
07/22/11 04:50 PM
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Romans 2: 13-15
13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. 14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.)
It is not for me to judge Gandhi. But God's judgment, whatever it is, will be righteous.
But it just seems strange to me that Gandhi is repeatedly put forward as the prime example of the pure-hearted primitive. It seems to me we could find a better example than a racist pervert who abandoned his wife and children and who harbored an endless fascination with enemas and bowel movements.
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Crockett
1000+ posts
07/22/11 04:53 PM
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Colecanth -- I don't know much about Ghandi beyond newspaper articles and the Movie. I think the adjectives I applied to him are valid, but I'm no scholar on the subject.
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Crockett
1000+ posts
07/22/11 05:06 PM
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There's not really a solid scriptual basis for the "burning in hell forever" , but it's a good message for control freaks in positions of power in the church. Bell said "Forever" is not an adequate translation of words Jesus, as a Hebrew, would have used. Certainly Bell believes in hell, a separation of God of our own choosing.
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Coelacanth
2500+ posts
07/22/11 05:13 PM
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The Gandhi Nobody Knows
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Coelacanth
2500+ posts
07/22/11 05:32 PM
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Romans 9,
In reply to:
6 It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. 7 Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” 8 In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring. 9 For this was how the promise was stated: “At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.”
10 Not only that, but Rebekah’s children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac. 11 Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: 12 not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” 13 Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
14 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15 For he says to Moses,
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
16 It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. 17 For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” 20 But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?
This is a hard teaching, no doubt. It points to our basic situation as being one of poverty: poverty of spirit and poverty of understanding. As such, we are dependents who have no practical choice but to trust in God's overriding justice. And that is exactly what we should do. At its heart, it involves abandoning our pride.
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Dionysus
5000+ posts
07/22/11 09:03 PM
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In reply to:
It is not for me to judge Gandhi.
My question had nothing to do with your judgment of anything. It had to do with a core tenet of the faith you’ve claimed to defend, but apparently prefer now to sidestep.
But on to the OP.
In reply to:
Why would a God who just, mighty and loves us condemn most of us to burn in hell forever if we don't believe a certain way.
It's a bit troubling, isn’t it. This question, and others like it, stems from our higher instincts—the wiser, more insightful and sensitive part of our being that suspects a grand ruse, however well-intentioned, has been perpetrated on civilization for a very long time.
In reply to:
Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?
God the Divine Potter. Thank you, I don’t think I could have come up with a better analogy than this if I tried. Actually I could but this saved me a half minute or so. And you know how it is with artisans don’t you—hit or miss, and anyway most of the clay ends up on the studio floor to be swept away and discarded with the rest of the debris. But still the potter experiments, inevitably producing a certain quantity of faulty and inferior works, yet always striving to get it right. Sometimes he even gets so disgusted with this work that he just destroys it all—e.g., he could do this with a big ass flood or something like that, right—and decides to start the whole exercise anew. Just get a fresh start, you know, really focus now with better material and things will be different this time. But wait. Oh would you look at that, it still came out [censored] up and disappointing. Again! I know: let’s blame the clay.
There’s tons of mileage left on this metaphor but I'll stop there.
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Coelacanth
2500+ posts
07/22/11 09:24 PM
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Somehow I don't think anyone on either side of the argument will be too shocked that you weren't persuaded by a bible passage, Dionysus.
I, on the other hand, am persuaded by the bible.
Now, I wonder: What is the difference between you and me that allows me to be persuaded and prevents you from being persuaded? Is it a difference in intelligence? Is it lack of critical distance for one or the other of us? Or is it a difference in pride? Or something else?
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El Sapo
1000+ posts
07/22/11 09:28 PM
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"I don't know about you but I'm a father and I'd never throw my child in the flames. Just because he has done wrong or he's a little different.. you know a father loves his children all the same." - The Pear Ratz "Jesus Loves Bad Boys Like Me".
To me, truer words are rarely spoken. Hellfire and brimstone is a great way to scare tithing butts into seats at church but that's the only purpose it serves. .
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Dionysus
5000+ posts
07/22/11 10:09 PM
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Coelacanth, at bottom I suspect it comes down to the fact some people just want to believe the story. Others are indoctrinated/educated into it at an early age and fear the threatened consequences of apostasy. It’s not about intelligence or pride. Maybe there’s an inborn yearning for the father figure and the supernatural and such—I think even an instinct for self-loathing in many people (not suggesting this applies in your case) that plays right into the anti-human doctrines of the church.
Freud captured a good bit of the psychology of all this in The Future of an Illusion (1927). Here he’s talking about the child’s relation to the mother and father figures.
In reply to:
In this function [of protection] the mother is soon replaced by the stronger father, who retains that position for the rest of childhood. But the child's attitude to its father is coloured by a peculiar ambivalence. The father himself constitutes a danger for the child, perhaps because of its earlier relation to its mother. Thus it fears him no less than it longs for him and admires him. The indications of this ambivalence in the attitude to the father are deeply imprinted in every religion, as was shown in Totem and Taboo. When the growing individual finds that he is destined to remain a child for ever, that he can never do without protection against strange powers, he lends those powers the features belonging to the figure of his father; he creates for himself the gods whom he dreads, whom he seeks to propitiate, and whom he nevertheless entrusts with his own protection. Thus his longing for a father is a motive identical with his need for protection against the consequences of his human weakness. The defense against childish helplessness is what lends its characteristic features to the adult's reaction to the helplessness which he has to acknowledge — a reaction which is precisely the formation of religion.
That’s one way to look at it. But as I’ve said before: I like reasons to believe things, especially those extraordinary claims that are extraordinarily lacking in evidence. And I have to wonder why so many are persuaded by the bible but refuse to consider similar claims made by other religions and their sacred texts. Many traditions are based on nothing more than a narrative that asserts divine origin. Christianity is not unique.
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Coelacanth
2500+ posts
07/22/11 10:42 PM
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Christianity is only unique if it's true.
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7 Iron
1000+ posts
07/25/11 03:02 PM
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Pluralists contend that no one religion can know the fullness of spiritual truth, therefore all religions are valid. But while it is good to acknowledge our limitations, this statement is itself a strong assertion about the nature of spiritual truth.
A common analogy is cited--the blind men trying to describe an elephant. One feels the tail and reports that an elephant is thin and flexible. Another feel a leg and claims the animal is thick as a tree. Another touches its side and reports the elephant is like a wall. This is supposed to represent how the various religions only understand part of God, while no one can truly see the whole picture. To claim full knowledge of God, pluralists contend, is arrogance.
I occasionally tell this parable, and I can almost see the people nodding their heads in agreement. But then I remind them, "The only way this parable makes any sense, however, is if you've seen a whole elephant. Therefore, the minute you say, 'All religions only see part of the truth,' you are claiming the very knowledge you say no one else has. And you are demonstrating the same spiritual arrogance you accuse Christians of.
- Tim Keller
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mop
5000+ posts
07/25/11 10:58 PM
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it seems Rob Bell is trying to obfuscate an issue that is not terribly complicated in Scripture. If we have a problem with Hell (and I do) then we have a problem with Jesus (which means at some level I do I guess). Hell is upsetting to me as well. I wouldn't want my worst enemy spending a second there. I don't want Mao Tse Tung or Adolph Hitler going there. But Jesus speaks of Hell more than anyone and he talks about it in fairly clear terms. We have other writers of the New Testament speak of it (although no personality, whether author or personality being written about, speaks of hell more than Jesus.) and its eternal nature is fairly easy to establish. i have not read Bell's book, although I am considering it because it is having such influence, but I believe that he is heading down a path that is a dangerous one and which mainstream Christians in the U.S. headed down about 70 or 80 years ago. I think I may read Francis Chan's book as well (Erasing Hell):
Francis Chan Promo
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Crockett
1000+ posts
07/26/11 07:32 AM
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Bell's book is an easy read, but it does basically look at every time the concept of hell comes up in the New Testament. There's no willful obfuscation in it. A lot of our concept of hell comes from literary sources other than the Bible.
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Monahorns
500+ posts
07/26/11 05:12 PM
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How hard is this to understand?
Revelation 20
10 And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
14-15This is the second death, the lake of fire. 15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
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mop
5000+ posts
07/27/11 01:57 PM
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I am with you Monahorns. I think Bell is making an issue that isn't terribly complicated (linguistically or otherwise) and trying to make it complicated. The real issue is that God's justice oftentimes offends our own notions of justice (mine included), but at the end of the day, who are we going to trust to get justice right?
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bevo barry
1000+ posts
07/28/11 04:52 PM
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In reply to:
"...but at the end of the day, who are we going to trust to get justice right?"
mop, don't know if you had Genesis 18:25 in mind, but it says essentially the same thing:
Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?
However, as for me, ain't got no problem at all with ol' Adolf spending eternity in that horrible place.
On a calm sea every man is a pilot.
Old Spanish proverb
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Perham1
5000+ posts
08/10/11 05:35 AM
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In reply to:
Why would a God who just, mighty and loves us condemn most of us to burn in hell forever if we don't believe a certain way.
The answer is fairly obvious. God did no such thing. Man did, however, in an attempt to build religious "market share" and crush the religious competition.
But the "love" lf God is amusing and bemusing. How many innocents did the God of the Old Testament kill? A lot more than Satan, I bet. And as far as a loving Jesus? Please. He loves you so much that he'll send you to hell forever for what is basically a thought crime.
I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best. Oscar Wilde
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