Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: crowe@sci.ccny.cuny.edu (Daniel Crowe) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Why Does God Hate Me? Message-ID: Date: 11 Dec 89 09:16:49 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: City College Of New York Lines: 61 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article jrossi@jato.jpl.nasa.gov (The Electric Sol) writes: >For me the idea that all of History is a ghastly acting out of souls >arbitrarly being cast to flames, or spared, paints a picture of God >that is too cruel to bear. It dosen't make sense to me. If it is >true, then God must hate me. I must be one of those objects of wrath >he created just to sit there and focus His magnifiying glass on. >Even if I were somehow to "save" myself, there are many friends and >family that I love, and care about. Somehow I can't see myself >flying off to eternal peace, while they writhe in eternal agony. >Its incomprehensible to me that a loving God is into all of this. It is incomprehesible to me, also, that God would torment unrepentant sinners forever in the sense that forever for the unrepentant sinners equals forever for the saved. The solution lies in the understanding of "forver". I am an annihilationist, which means that I believe that Hell/Hades/the lake of fire will cease to exist after a finite amount of time by which time all sin and unrepentant sinners will have been annihilated. The argument that the Bible claims that Hell will exist for an infinite of time can be refuted by a word/concept study of "forever". One example of "forever" lasting a finite amount of time occurs in the description of the desolation of the land of Edom. The Bible states: "Edom's streams will be turned into pitch, her dust into burning sulfur; her land will become blazing pitch! It will not be quenched night and day; its smoke will rise forever." (Isaiah 34:9-10,NIV) Clearly, the smoke of the desolation of Edom has ceased to rise. In this case, "forever" evidently means "until entirely consumed". Similarly, I interpret the Biblical passages that state that Hell lasts forever to mean that Hell lasts until sin is consumed and that this process takes a finite amount of time. -- Daniel (God is my judge) | "Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to physics graduate student | speak and slow to become angry, for man's City College of New York | anger does not bring about the righteous crowe@sci.ccny.cuny.edu | life that God desires." (James 1:19-20,NIV) [Jesus most commonly uses pretty generic wording, referring simply to Gehenna. However Mat 25:41,46 refers to eternal fire, and as does Mk 9:47-48 (in different terms), Rev 20, and 2 Thes 1:9. Rev 14:11 seems the clearest: "and the smoke of their torment goes up for ever and ever; and they have no rest". On the other hand, Lk 20:27-40 seems to support the concept that only the saved are resurrected. I think in order to adopt the annihilationist position, you're going to have to say that certain Biblical passages -- e.g. Rev 14:11 -- are simply wrong. Your interpretation will do for those that simply refer to eternal destruction, but Rev seems a bit too unambiguous to interpret away. That's not necessarily a problem for everyone. Those who don't accept inerrancy may well take the view that there are a number of different views of the Last Days in the Bible, not all of which are right in detail. That that case, you will presumably regard Mk 9:48 as a gloss, added on the basis of Is. 66:24. --clh]