@divegeester said
Here are your alleged replies and my comments:
1) Eternal suffering doesn't move to a goal, but it is the fruit of the choices that people made, and thus is their just ends.
Here you claim there is no point. No point to the eternal torture of billions of souls. ‘It is just their ends’ you say. So pointless torture. Kind of my point actually, but clearly not your ...[text shortened]... inite love, mercy, power and control...that he feels it is logical to torture them for eternity?
It's amazing how long it took to get Dive to participate in his thread.
27 pages before Dive makes a post with actual content in his own thread.
What a world we live in.
1) Eternal suffering doesn't move to a goal, but it is the fruit of the choices that people made, and thus is their just ends.
Here you claim there is no point. No point to the eternal torture of billions of souls. ‘It is just their ends’ you say. So pointless torture. Kind of my point actually, but clearly not your position.
I am not sure if it will be billions of souls. These sorts of additions of color into it serve your position, but I think it is important for us to remember hat we are not God, and you are definitely right that God is merciful. We do not know what hell means for all of the people out there.
But yes, theoretically, there will be many people in hell, and we are told that hell is eternal.
And, moreover, I am making a distinction about what can be meant by point. I am cutting you off at the pass, so to speak, because I know that the ultimate angle is to say that
that which does not bring people closer to God is pointless and thus not serving anything and not something which God would do. But the fact of the matter is that we have to make a distinction right off concerning our own language and what is meant by things like 'point.'
You didn't make a point in (2), so I will skip it.
3a) It's actually a matter of people getting their wishes fulfilled.
and you wonder why you are mocked in this forum...
I do not believe that I am mocked on this forum, lol.
I know there are some people here who do not like me, a couple of people in particular, but it doesn't bother me.
But hopefully you'll make a point next.
Another post by you confirming that there is no point to it, no point to the torture of billions of people. And yet you defend your version of God for doing it
There's no point here in number
3b either.
(4b) once again, we are in need of yet more exegesis on the how it has happened. The argument you need to be addressing is that there is no moral, no intellectual, no practical point to torturing billions of people in secret and then relying on the likes of you to tell people about it.
Actually, we touched on this earlier in the thread:
People choose to be separated from God themselves, for one, and for two, the just deserts of their actions is actually hell, like it or not.
5b) If a man clearly has committed a crime and must go to jail, what actually sends him to jail? The judge, or the actions that put him before the judge? Who is responsible for him being in jail -- the criminal who committed the crime, or the judge?
how does this silly and inept analogy in any way explain the point of a supreme being deliberately keeping billions of people supernaturally alive in order to torture them for not believing in him? Indeed, as I asked KellyJay, what “crimes” have these people committed against a super-being of infinite love, mercy, power and control...that he feels it is logical to torture them for eternity?
You made an assumption here that God has to necessarily
keep them alive. But the fact of the matter is that their
soul was made to be immortal, and they are thus immortal without a sustained effort by God. A byproduct of their immortality is that they their rejection of God has far graver consequences than they have anticipated.
No one is "keeping them alive" to be tortured.
As to the other point you brought up here...
In another thread, as well, I brought up this line from the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 25:
31 “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the [c]holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. 33 And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: 35 for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; 36 I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? 38 When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? 39 Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40 And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’
Let's also talk about the Old Testament for a minute...
Was God willing to hurt Egyptians to liberate the Hebrews? Yes.
Was God willing to fight with the Hebrews against their enemies? Yes.
Was God willing to punish the Hebrews with death, disease, famine, etc., when they failed to follow His Word? And had He warned them before hand?
Yes.
God is Love, but the Bible even says that our God is a jealous God, and that God metes out vengeance.
... Or,
do you reject all that? As you reject much of the New Testament?
Here's the thing, Dive: if you pick & choose the parts of the Bible and the aspects of Christianity that you want to believe, it is impossible to be consistent, and in the end, you just look like someone who has compiled a list of their favorite wisdom verses and red text. The theology is not sensible and becomes so highly diluted.
This is not Christianity as it has been practiced for millennia. Dare I say that it is
heretical.