LifeCycle Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 Listen Christians (and others who disagree with the title). Here's how it works... If God is the ultimate authority and he answers to nobody or anything but his own will than it was and is his will that created the arbitrary rule that unbelievers go to hell. So why do unbelievers go to hell? Because it's God's will they go to hell. So when Christians say that it is not God's will that people go to hell, let them know that that notion is patently false. It is his will for unbelievers (people) to go to hell. That's why they go! So, stop dancing around this issue when you're asked, "Is it God's will that unbelievers go to hell?" The correct answer is not, "no." The correct answer is, "yes." Failure to answer this question with honesty or a lack of understanding does not help your Christian perspective at all. You either are being intellectually dishonest or you're failing a simple logic. Either one isn't doing your position any favors. /rant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LifeCycle Posted July 23, 2014 Author Share Posted July 23, 2014 You could have just said, "I don't get it." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LifeCycle Posted July 23, 2014 Author Share Posted July 23, 2014 I could type my first post over again? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themonkeyman Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 Actually Henry you are bang wrong on several things 1) God of the NT wills everyone who does not believe in Jesus to goto Hell - Simple fact. 2) God of the OT and Islam does send people to hell but not for forever - They either get destroyed or redeemed but its not for eternity. 3) God of the OT says those who are Gentiles (Us) should follow the 7 Noahide Laws which esentially most people follow by implication/. Ultimately Jesus made the situation worse, Henry you outside of medication get a God Complex - How do we know that Jesus was not the same as you except back then there were no meds? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cianna200 Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 Which brings us to the idea of predestination. The bible says that God created some people for mercy and others for destruction. Since God is omniscient and knows each and every one's fate after death, he must have designed the salvation of some and the damnation of others. Christians believe that only they go to heaven, so God in the beginning denounced who would be Christian and ride the free train to heaven. So in a Christian sense, it was God's will that everybody on this website become non Christians so that he could Damn us, we do not choose to go to hell, we were chosen to go to hell to be exact. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lilith666 Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 Jesus (who is Himself the great I Am) encouraged people to walk the narrow road. The old testament teaches obedience to God. There is predestination because God knows what will happen in the future, but it is not His will that people turn their backs on Him. God takes a huge step to gain those few who will prove to be His eternal children. He is willing to sacrifice the masses to gain the precious few. Predestination cancels out the ability to choose whether to turn one's back on the bible's god. "He is willing to sacrifice the masses to gain the precious few"? This doesn't make sense. It means he loses more people. Can you explain how he "gains the few" by sacrificing everyone else? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jedah Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 I've been disturbed by this sort of non-logic that comes from fundies as well. It's sort of like setting a landmine in a school and when some kid steps on it saying "I didn't blow him up, he blew himself up by choosing to step there!". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Castiel233 Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 Being very uncomfortable with the notion that God sends good people to. A.very.bad.place, believers try generally do try and play the free will argument. It sounds plausible, although it is a totally crock. The previous post about landmines is an excellent point how Christians try to wriggle Yahweh off the hook. People are born in geographical isolation from the “good news” and thus have no free will in the matter. Now Christians try and get around this problem in numerous ways. God will never send a non believer to Hell if they could not hear the Gospel (which ignores the texts that say you must be born again) Gods ways are not our ways (a total cop out, which ignores we are made in His image) God doesn’t send anyone to Hell (simply a lie on their part, He creates Hell and most assuredly sends men, women and children to it) WLC (the smug so and so claims that God knows in advance who will accept or reject Him, and those born with zero chance of reading the Bible, would have rejected it anyway.) WLC naturally is going to Heaven, because He puts on a nice suit and lectures about how wonderful the Hebrew God is. The simple answer is, God sends almost everyone to Hell, because He can and presumably likes it. Maybe the screams make Him happy, as He sits on His throne Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Castiel233 Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 Either way you look at it, it is very disturbing stuff. Even allowing for free will, according to the Bible, God speaks in riddles so that humans will hear, but not understand, He hardens peoples hearts and sends them strong delusions so that they will believe lies.... So we have a God who lies and hides, and provides conflicting and or little good evidence for His existence and allows for a wide range of religious diversity, yet we have "free will" in the matter. If we have free will then surely an all knowing God is a contradiction. If we don't have free will then we are not responsible to God for our actions. Hell is the very main card that Christianity has in its weapons store. Remove Hell, or the belief in it and the whole rotten edifice collapses. On a side note, The UK aired a documentary last night on ITV, asking "Is the UK a Christian country". Based on the rapid and continuing decline in church attendance and worship the answer is no. 95% percent of my fellow Brits only attend a church for weddings and funerals. I once went into a very old church to wander around (I love old buildings) while a service was being held.......they could not have been more then a dozen people in there. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Castiel233 Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 Being very uncomfortable with the notion that God sends good people to. A.very.bad.place, believers try generally do try and play the free will argument. It sounds plausible, although it is a totally crock. The previous post about landmines is an excellent point how Christians try to wriggle Yahweh off the hook. People are born in geographical isolation from the “good news” and thus have no free will in the matter. Now Christians try and get around this problem in numerous ways. God will never send a non believer to Hell if they could not hear the Gospel (which ignores the texts that say you must be born again) Gods ways are not our ways (a total cop out, which ignores we are made in His image) God doesn’t send anyone to Hell (simply a lie on their part, He creates Hell and most assuredly sends men, women and children to it) WLC (the smug so and so claims that God knows in advance who will accept or reject Him, and those born with zero chance of reading the Bible, would have rejected it anyway.) WLC naturally is going to Heaven, because He puts on a nice suit and lectures about how wonderful the Hebrew God is. The simple answer is, God sends almost everyone to Hell, because He can and presumably likes it. Maybe the screams make Him happy, as He sits on His throne Even if a Muslim in Iran hears the gospel it would have little effect. He will be brainwashed into believing that his own faith is right.Ultimately the Christian argument doesn't make sense. Many defend God because they want to be accepted by him and are afraid that rejecting him in any small way endangers their eternal souls. Henry, You point about Muslims in Iran is excellent. Charles Bradlaugh in the 19th century believed that believers would just parrot back what they were taught during their formative years. He basically said, take a Christian, who says they believe in the Father, The Son and the Holy Ghost, wind their life back to infancy, place them with Muslim parents in the Middle East and they will grow up and be convinced that there is no God but Allah, etc, etc. Just to go back to the free will arguments of the original OP. I once read a piece about a god fearing man, a tea totaller, peaceful and gentle......(possibly a bit of a "Ned Flanders"). This chap suffered an extremely severe and permanent head injury at work. He became a nasty and violent drunken. One has to wonder how true believers explain free will in such an event. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zuker12 Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 Fact is, we are not given enough information to make informed choice on this matter. God seems to hide or be invisible. There is evidence that his religion isn't true. He doesn't answer prayers and lets people die of cancer because he refuses to heal them. How can we make any real choice when he hides? We also don't choose our beliefs. The choice is simply insurmountably hard to make. If I believe, I may die without getting anything and end up living a bad life before that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Llwellyn Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 Apparently Yahweh, who curses non-believers, doesn't love cursing them, but does so because he has a kind of unwanted compulsion. It's like the serial killer who hates what he has to do. Yahweh lays evil upon people, but dreads doing so before he does it, and regrets doing so after he does it. The Bible says that "The LORD will bring on you all the evil he has threatened, until he has destroyed you." Joshua 23:15. But before and after doing so, he'll stare at his bloody hands in horror. Yahweh is, in this respect, a lot like the perverts who dreamed him up. Paul, for example, says: "The good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Romans 7:14-24. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Castiel233 Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 Never heard that Paul quote before...... How different the world could have been had Saint Paul never been born Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
par4dcourse Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 To put it simply it's his game, his rules. He could just as easily say forget the hell bit. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cianna200 Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 Which brings us to the idea of predestination. The bible says that God created some people for mercy and others for destruction. Since God is omniscient and knows each and every one's fate after death, he must have designed the salvation of some and the damnation of others. Christians believe that only they go to heaven, so God in the beginning denounced who would be Christian and ride the free train to heaven. So in a Christian sense, it was God's will that everybody on this website become non Christians so that he could Damn us, we do not choose to go to hell, we were chosen to go to hell to be exact. Hi, Cianna200 Good post. Since God's omniscience (incl. foreknowledge) knows each person's fate, and nothing can change God's omniscience, then each person's fate is proof that God knew that fate beforehand. And since God knew it beforehand, his foreknowledge determined that fate. Do I seem to understand what you mean? Thanks, Human Yes and thank you for your consideration human Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LifeCycle Posted July 25, 2014 Author Share Posted July 25, 2014 Yup, his rules, his game due to nothing more than his own will. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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