"A good God wouldn't have a Hell"

Distraff, I know you are are not intentionally trying to do this, but I find many of your arguments to be disingenuous. Or at least seemingly so.
Here you have tried to argue that there cannot be suffering in hell due to sins while in hell, because every Christian believes hell is punishment for sins in this life. It is perfectly logically possible for those both to be true.

 

Yes, if we go by your assumptions, and follow those assumptions to their logical conclusion, hell would not make sense.
Which is why I was arguing that your assumptions may be flawed.

Your assumption was that it is always wrong to take joy in the sufferings of others.

Now, do you have any biblical support to show that is what the Bible teaches, or that is what the Christian religion believes?

 

2 Corinthians 5:10
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

Revelation 21:8
But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

Revelations 20
11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them.
12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.
13 The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done.
14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death.
15 Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.

 

...that's an interesting though...forgiven by whom? Looking at the concept of "indulgence" for example which was, to me, a presumption of Catholicism that God would accept certain acts and alleviate the length of the requirement of penance; but did God agree with this? Do people presume to know the mind of God? Is the concept of "forgiveness" just a presumption based on desire of the Church or people claiming to represent "God" to come to the aid of those that they desire to offer forgiveness to?

Anyway sorry to butt in this is an interesting conversation you guys are having.

 

You and I are coming at this from two different perspectives. You assume the bible must be true. Therefore you will make any rationization you can to explain anything. I am simply evaluating how likely it is to be true. You have an agenda while I don't.

How can you love and forgive someone if you are taking joy in their torture?

Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, And do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles
Prov 24:17

 

Do you realize that none of that precludes the possibility of them suffering additional things due to sins committed in hell?

Okay, and here's the thing with that.
The Great White Throne judgement (according to the belief of some Christians) does not take place until later. So it would not be impossible for them to be judged in this situation based on additional things they had done in Hell.

 

Oh, I misunderstood you. I thought you were saying the Bible said there is not any situation where you should take joy in someone else's torment, therefore Hell should not make sense.

But now I realize you are making the argument that there should not be any situation where you should take joy in someone else's torment, independent and separate from the Bible.
That is completely different.

Step back for a moment. You do realize that's an extremely weak argument?

The originally argument was over whether Hell should exist.
And you are trying to argue it should not exist based on the argument that we should never take joy in the sufferings of others?
With no supporting argument to that, just by appeal to emotion by itself.

I don't see how that particular line of logical reasoning really helps you.

 

How does the Church deal with this concept? Augustine offers thoughts on and applies a concept of "just war" so can that concept also be extended to justify and allow proportional responses to those that violently trespasses against one? Or again are we just presuming that we assume God's acceptance of violence?

 

Those suffering in Hell are not forgiven.

(Or at least it would be more accurate to say they are not suffering for sins that have been forgiven)


Now, your question about how can God love people and still send them to Hell is a valid one, and deserves discussion.

Here is just one thing to consider. Imagine you have a daughter, and she is brutally raped and murdered. How can you love your daughter and not seek justice for her death?

Now, how about the person who murdered your daughter happens to be your other son?

 

You seem to be bringing up another topic.

Or at least an issue that is fundamentally about the same type of thing.

You've also asked multiple questions. If you had only asked one, I might have been willing to quickly discuss it.

But I will answer you this: what you are talking about is different, insofar as it is humans applying violence rather than God applying violence.
In the Christian view, the two are not the same thing.

Similarly, taking joy in God's justice on others would not necessarily be the same thing as taking joy in human-imposed justice on others.


If you ask your question again, and try to rephrase and get more specific, I'm willing to give an answer in any way that actually has to do with the title topic in this thread.

 

What if God simply lets people torture each other, and those people deserve it because they had previously tortured other people in the past. Would that still make God "evil", in your view?

 

I hope you're not making the absurd argument that "There shouldn't be a Hell because God rejects violence".


Although I see how those two ideas are fundamentally related.


(Why is it absurd? Because if I have proved or am trying to prove that a Hell could exist, then it's kind of a moot point to then also ask me to prove that God accepts violence. It would be logically pointless to try to use that or shift the argument in that direction. Because of how similar they are. God accepting violence, in limited situations, would very obviously be a subset of a Hell existing)

 

I'm not implying, I'm outright stating, based on my understanding of what other Christians have said and written. You're certainly saying some different things to some of them but you've not made clear (up to this point at least) exactly what you believe the nature of God and hell is nor have you accounted for the vast range of different answers that have come from Christianity on that topic.

You didn't really explain that, you've asserted to other posters making similar points to mine that you don't think it works the way we describe. You've just not supported that position or explained with any clarity how you actually think it does work though.

You've also entirely skipped over my point about God (sometimes) being presented as eternal, all-knowing and all-loving and a mystery beyond our understanding, which would render our human morality entirely
irrelevant in the context of how such an unimaginable different being would think (if you could even say they'd "think" at all). Again, if you're defining a God who does apply the same moral principles as you or I might, you'd need to explain that in more detail and account for all the aspects of Christianity which would contradict that idea.

 

No that was not the point. This was more in the abstract and designed to get a handle upon your frame of reference in terms of the responses in this thread; because apparently God does not reject violence but my point was on the concept or proportionality by which a person of faith would accept the application of violence and suffering and revenge and gain God's apparent tacit acceptance of it. In other words how far can one go before God rejects the extent of violence as a justifiable consequence of a trespass against one?
We are all very good at allowing the concepts of hell and purgatory and suffering and the like to manifest themselves in arbitrary ways in religious thought but not very good at conceptualizing the actual substantive effects on those for whom God intended them - again who presumes to understand the mind of God in the application of these concepts and why?

 

Well, that might not really all be related to the topic of this thread.

That would have no bearing on the topic of this thread, unless the way you were describing how it worked was based on the Bible, which did not seem to be the case.

I don't see your point, unless you were trying to argue in favor of the existence of Hell.

 

I may be having some trouble understanding exactly what you are saying or what your point is.

I don't want to waste effort trying to answer your question when I am not sure I understand it.

It seems you are asking if Christians are okay with the idea of God imposing loads and loads of huge amounts of terrible punishment?
Was your question about that punishment being out of proportion to the sin that put them in Hell?

Did I understand your question correctly?

 

No

No. As that is the concept behind this thread, thus one assumes the premise of the question has been accepted.

"A good God wouldn't have a hell" - the assumption is that someone knows God - I know that as God is good he wouldn't have a hell. Someone has proprietary knowledge of God and concludes that at a certain time God is indeed good. And also that they know what his ideas and intentions are in terms of his interactions with humanity as he has invented a method of imparting consequences upon those he decides deserve them. Who presumes to know the mind of God?

are there "answers" to matters of faith

 

I don't see how your argument at all helps you.

Step back for a moment and see the bigger picture and think about it.

 

Is the topic not whether the idea of God creating Hell rational or not? That would make the definitions of both God and Hell entirely relevant?

I'm describing it based on how lots of other Christians have presented it to me, purportedly based on their interpretations of the Bible. If you want to talk about your different interpretation of the Bible, you'd need to explain what that is.

You're the one arguing in favour of the existence of Hell but part of your argument is based on God acting in the same way and with the same basal motives as you or I would. That is not consistent with the impression I've been given of the Christian idea of God (at least not consistently) so again, if you have a different idea of God, you'd need to explain what it is before bringing it in to any discussion.

 

Its not an argument as such I'm just pondering the assumptions people make and the arguments made off the back of those assumptions.

Your presumption is that God assigns where people go and why - you have asserted that many people deserve hell, is this a faith based assertion or do you presume to know the mind of God or is it just your point of view? If its purely a personal indictment of the character of certain people then where does God come into this.
You have assigned roles and responsibilities within this thread for God based upon your assumptions... and then decided what God thinks about these roles and responsibilities....for example

If you are arguing that certain people should go to hell then you need to define your version of hell and why they should be there - I think your thread is flawed. The failure of the thread is that you have brought God into your interpretation and construct of the world and of faith based morality and systems of justice based upon your presumption of knowing the mind of God. You have then imposed conditions upon the people that have responded to your posts without offering them definitions or defining limits to your assumptions.
The defining principle of the Christian view of God is one of mystery - its an ethereal dichotomy of faith and mystery and by design undefinable and unknowable thus to say "A good God wouldn't have a Hell" and invite responses and then disagree with them is an object lesson in absurdity.

 

Punishment is both ineffective & unnecessary. Reincarnation allows us all to make mistakes--even repeatedly--until we learn from them & grow to become more like Jesus, or Buddha, or God. It's a long, slow process, but if we exist here, we're participants in that program. It's a good & fascinating one, & one that deserves more of our collective consciousness.

 

or hell could be the fun place, who knows right, where you live free and are not required to worship some jealous guy that goes by the name jealous 24\7

 

The topic is whether a "Good" God (in the sense that we could regard and recognize as being good) could have a Hell, with the assumption Hell would be a place of suffering.

So yes, the exact definition of Hell could be somewhat relevant to this issue, but I think the definition of God would not, unless you want to bring up the definition of what is "Good". (I would think everyone could fundamentally be able to agree on what is "good", on some basic level, but maybe not)

 

The point of punishment in Hell would obviously have nothing to do with "effectiveness" if there was no possibility that person would ever leave.
And I'm also pretty sure the point of Hell has nothing (or very little) to do with the effectiveness of trying to make people not commit sins on earth, because if that was the case, God would want to make people absolutely know for sure that there was a Hell.

Now, to a Christian perspective, punishment on earth can be very effective.
(I'm not sure if that's what you wanted to argue about)

As for your claim that "punishment is unnecessary", I am not really sure exactly what you are trying to get at. That seems absurd, if you are trying to describe that as a universal concept.

I don't really want to reply to you when I'm not exactly sure what you are saying.
I don't like playing the guessing game and waste energy trying to argue with something that I'm not even sure you mean.

 

Well, that's not really fair. For two reasons. First of all, those other Christians may not speak for all Christians, or may only be one Christian view, with other Christian views also existing. And second, you might be misinterpreting what their view actually is, in terms of some of the critical details that would be relevant to this argument. That's very easy to do if you are not actually very familiar with exactly what their beliefs are.
I've already noticed that several of the arguments from atheists here (so far in this thread) about "what Christians believe" or "what the Bible says" are flawed.