How Can This Be Fair And Reasonable

[Mudflappus]

Greetings all, I hope that this week is seeing you all well and prosperous. I was sitting on my patio yesterday writing a tune when something occurred to me that I can't reconcile with any type of logic. We are all familiar with the story of Revelations and all of the wonderful things the Christian god has in store for non believers. One of the things that is foretold is that Jesus in a fit of ass kicking rage is supposed to throw the devil into the bottomless pit aka Hell. Big chains and padlocks are to be laid across the door to keep Beelzebub from strolling out and wreaking more havoc on the populous. After a thousand year Reich er... reign by the peaceniks , the reset button gets pushed and the Devil gets let out to open a gas station in New Bedford or whatever his little heart desires. My problem here, is that I have been guaranteed that as a non Christian I will burn FOREVER in the skillet of Hades and yet Satan, who is the very incarnation of evil and all that is considered unholy gets paroled after only a thousand years. Pardon the expression but what the Hell? Why do I get to imitate bacon forever while Old Nick gets a reprieve of only a thousand years?

[★ Citsonga ★]

You may want to go back and read Revelation 20 again. After the thousand years of satan being bound and his subsequent release, then it says that he will be thrown into the lake of fire and remain there forever (verse 10).

[OpheliaGinger]

In the end "Satin" gets burned just the same.

[Dagan]

Greetings all, I hope that this week is seeing you all well and prosperous. I was sitting on my patio yesterday writing a tune when something occurred to me that I can't reconcile with any type of logic. We are all familiar with the story of Revelations and all of the wonderful things the Christian god has in store for non believers. One of the things that is foretold is that Jesus in a fit of ass kicking rage is supposed to throw the devil into the bottomless pit aka Hell. Big chains and padlocks are to be laid across the door to keep Beelzebub from strolling out and wreaking more havoc on the populous. After a thousand year Reich er... reign by the peaceniks , the reset button gets pushed and the Devil gets let out to open a gas station in New Bedford or whatever his little heart desires. My problem here, is that I have been guaranteed that as a non Christian I will burn FOREVER in the skillet of Hades and yet Satan, who is the very incarnation of evil and all that is considered unholy gets paroled after only a thousand years. Pardon the expression but what the Hell? Why do I get to imitate bacon forever while Old Nick gets a reprieve of only a thousand years?

 

It's the false ending, just like in Ang Lee's "The Hulk" when you thought it was over but then the movie was all like "THERE'S ONE MORE BAD GUY!!!!!1" and you were all like "what a piece of shit movie."

[Vomit Comet]

Well shit, he gets to have a vacation. The rest of us are chopped liver.

[ShackledNoMore]

It has been estimated that the human brain has a storage capacity of the equivalent of about 3 terabytes. Take this with a grain of salt, but even if the estimate is off by orders of magnitude it really doesn't matter when we're talking about eternity. The point is, that after a few trillion years we won't have the capacity to even remember that we lived a life a few trillion years ago before we were banished to hell and pissed god off by not believing. That is unless god gives us far more brain capacity while we burn than we had while we were alive. I would imagine the same would apply to satan if he is a finite being.

[mwc]

Revelation 20

 

1 Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. 2 He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, 3 and threw him into the pit, and locked and sealed it over him, so that he would deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be let out for a little while.

 

4 Then I saw thrones, and those seated on them were given authority to judge. I also saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus a and for the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. 5 (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection. 6 Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. Over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him a thousand years.

 

7 When the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison 8 and will come out to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, in order to gather them for battle; they are as numerous as the sands of the sea. 9 They marched up over the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. And fire came down from heaven b and consumed them. 10 And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

Isn't it an amazing story? An angel locks him up. A single angel. What a mighty power. Then 1000 years later he must be let out for a little while. Just because. Then he deceives everyone.

 

Now, this is a good part because for this 1000 years "christ" and his resurrected priests have been ruling non-stop. Just ruling the entire planet for 1000 years with no evil or anything else. The whole damn thing to themselves. Then one day this dragon appears and manages to deceive everyone into some huge battle. So what was going on for that 1000 years?

 

So there's the buildup then the day of battle has finally come. It's all come down to this. Basically an eternity of pent-up frustration is about to be unleashed throughout the entire universe as the forces of good and evil finally clash at what appears to be Jerusalem. This would be like the big bang happening right on earth itself. OMG!

 

Oh, some fire comes down from heaven and kills the humans and the devil gets magically tossed in the lake of fire where his two pals already are. They'll get tormented forever. Wow. What a mighty non-battle that was. A little fire (maybe lightening?) and the devil up and vanishes. Truly a clash of the titans.

 

It's a lame ending. Then there's the whole judgment thing but it's just as lame.

 

The devil is locked up my one whole angel and is ultimately defeated by nothing...just whisked away by magic. Proving he could be magically defeated at any time at all. It's his human minions that are defeated by fire (or maybe lightening which is cooler but that's my wishful thinking here).

 

mwc

[Shyone]

Now, this is a good part because for this 1000 years "christ" and his resurrected priests have been ruling non-stop. Just ruling the entire planet for 1000 years with no evil or anything else. The whole damn thing to themselves. Then one day this dragon appears and manages to deceive everyone into some huge battle. So what was going on for that 1000 years?

mwc

Back when Revelation was written, 1,000 years seemed like a long long time.

 

Have you ever seen a science fiction movie that had a date that has already passed? Like 2001, A Space Odessey?

 

That's what the Bible is. Outdated.

[Heathen Monkey]

It has been estimated that the human brain has a storage capacity of the equivalent of about 3 terabytes. Take this with a grain of salt, but even if the estimate is off by orders of magnitude it really doesn't matter when we're talking about eternity. The point is, that after a few trillion years we won't have the capacity to even remember that we lived a life a few trillion years ago before we were banished to hell and pissed god off by not believing. That is unless god gives us far more brain capacity while we burn than we had while we were alive. I would imagine the same would apply to satan if he is a finite being.

 

You’re forgetting that all heaven-bound folks will shed their mortal coils and receive new bodies when they get there. That probably means they’ll also get new brains with increased storage capacity. So any Christians whose heads were crushed in car accidents will have all of their mental faculties when they’re reborn. That way, they can fully appreciate the fact that most of humanity is now burning in Hell while they, the “lucky” survivors, get to spend eternity praising the god who sent them there.

 

That’s what I don’t get. There are Christian writers who can take a premise and follow it through in their own works of fiction, but no Christian ever seems to figure out what a dystopia Heaven would be. (Well, Mark Twain did, but he suffered for his honesty.)

[Shyone]

It has been estimated that the human brain has a storage capacity of the equivalent of about 3 terabytes. Take this with a grain of salt, but even if the estimate is off by orders of magnitude it really doesn't matter when we're talking about eternity. The point is, that after a few trillion years we won't have the capacity to even remember that we lived a life a few trillion years ago before we were banished to hell and pissed god off by not believing. That is unless god gives us far more brain capacity while we burn than we had while we were alive. I would imagine the same would apply to satan if he is a finite being.

 

You’re forgetting that all heaven-bound folks will shed their mortal coils and receive new bodies when they get there. That probably means they’ll also get new brains with increased storage capacity. So any Christians whose heads were crushed in car accidents will have all of their mental faculties when they’re reborn. That way, they can fully appreciate the fact that most of humanity is now burning in Hell while they, the “lucky” survivors, get to spend eternity praising the god who sent them there.

 

That’s what I don’t get. There are Christian writers who can take a premise and follow it through in their own works of fiction, but no Christian ever seems to figure out what a dystopia Heaven would be. (Well, Mark Twain did, but he suffered for his honesty.)

I wonder though about the anencephalic children born without brains. Giving them a brain would essentially make them something they never were: truly human. As pointed out though a human brain would be pretty useless if eternity is to have any meaning.

 

"Oh, Lord, let me be a node in the Internet in the Sky!"

 

It reminds me of reincarnation. If you don't know who you were, don't retain anything from the previous life, and can't learn any lessons from before you died, then you may as well create a new being entirely.