Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!wuarchive!mit-eddie!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: billy@tcom.stc.co.uk (Billy Khan) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Hell and the Faithful Message-ID: Date: 14 Dec 90 08:56:12 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: STC New Southgate, London N11 1HB Lines: 54 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu To Elizabeth and the other guy...athos? In article , BINDNER@auvm.auvm.edu writes: >> Recently my brother and I were discussing hell, a reason >> a friend of his stopped practicing religion. Apparantly, she >> has quite practicing (she was devout) because she couldn't >> endorse it as a concept (would a merciful God have a hell). I have always looked at Hell as being a place...simply without the presence of God. God gave his son, Jesus as a way out for all of us, he has shown amazing mercy by doing this, when in all fairness he had every right to turn around and say 'Get lost'. >I'll answer you question with another quesition. Would God be merciful >to the rest of us if he sent Adolp Hitler to Heaven? Just out of curiosity, what would your answer be Elizabeth? >God is merciful. Very true, isn't he wonderful? > That means that He doesn't punish us for a many of the > bad things that we do, but that does NOT means that we are completely > free of punishment. Now just a minute, God punishing us? I'm not too sure on that. Repremand a little, maybe. Punishing sounds a little strong to me. god might allow us to be punished by our own sinful desires, but thats to teach us a lesson. He doesn't just punish us for things we have done wrong, he loves us, and respects our wishes, when we go off track he will show us the way back, usually gently, unless we ignore him time and time again. > if God didn't ever punish us, then none of us > would have much reason, other than for the love of God, to do what is > right. I agree a bit. If nothing ever went wrong in the world, then what reason would their be to believe in God, but I still stand by my original point. I don't know about you, but its the Holy spirit that makes me do what is right. anyway, there you go, Drew. [athos is the name of the system on which I normally do moderation, so it shows up in message ID's. It's not a person. Or not quite. Of course the system is named after Athos, one of the Three Musketeers. (It's odd that everybody knows about the Three Musketeers, but when we named machines after them, everybody thinks we named Aramis after the perfume. The other one is Porthos.) --clh]