What is the point of eternal suffering?

@divegeester said
I’m not interested in any of your tangential rambling into other side topics, I am only interested in:

What is the point of eternal suffering?

So we seem to agree that there is no point...

... and, just like that, we are back to posts with almost zero content...

I make an effort post and I get nothing from you -- but I did get something from Rajk.

Thanks, Rajk.

@rajk999 said
If you can show me where the Bible says this

..their soul was made to be immortal, ..

What you get instead of the Bible is some screed from an "Orthodox Archpriest" and a link to blogspot.com!

@kellyjay said
You think someone who sinned for 20 years shouldn't be punished for that eternally? Why does 20 years matter? You think someone who is 20 years old but only spent 2 hours murdering someone should be punished differently than someone who spent 4 minutes doing it? The point isn't pay for a crime, the point is we will be coming to God in our sins, we will not be godly people wi ...[text shortened]... did, we will be cast out.

Knowing Christ is all important, without Him we are condemned already.

The ability to be fair-minded is lacking in your personality.

If it was indeed true that there is such a thing as eternal torment it would have been made abundantly clear in the teachings of Christ and the Apostles. Just as eternal life is made abundantly clear.

@philokalia said
Because of this, I stumbled onto a very interesting topic about whether or not the soul was created absolutely to be immortal, or whether its immortality was conditioned. This is a very lively debate, and it appears that in the Western church it was very much influenced by Greek thought that immortality was a characteristic of the soul. Yet, this is not always the case in ...[text shortened]... hment of the damned is eternal (Matthew 25:46), and thus I believe that hell is an eternal sentence.

So you have nothing on the soul being immortal from the bible. I thought so. Its just a false church doctrine fabricated to support another false doctrine of eternal torment.

Matt 25:46 says nothing of eternal torment, neither an eternal soul. In fact Jesus made it clear that the soul is NOT eternal.

@fmf said
What you get instead of the Bible is some screed from an "Orthodox Archpriest" and a link to blogspot.com!

Yep .. these guys have no solid supporting proof of their doctrine from the bible, and when faced with questions about the source of their doctrine they produce these shameful commentaries, and call those who question their nonsense doctrines heretics. Pathetic.

@fmf said
What you get instead of the Bible is some screed from an "Orthodox Archpriest" and a link to blogspot.com!

Based off of the passages in the Bible, I could not come to a conclusion on whether or not the soul is created to be immortal, and thus had to look to theology.

What you also fail to note was the general surprise I myself had to find out that my perception that the soul was created to be immoral (and not willed to be immortal by God) was wrong according to an Orthodox Archpriest.

I am happy to admit when I am wrong.

Better to be the fool for a few hours than a fool for life.

This all went over your head.

@rajk999 said
So you have nothing on the soul being immortal from the bible. I thought so. Its just a false church doctrine fabricated to support another false doctrine of eternal torment.

Matt 25:46 says nothing of eternal torment, neither an eternal soul. In fact Jesus made it clear that the soul is NOT eternal.

... Except here:

I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.

John 10:28-30

So much for being the one with the strong claim to being Biblically correct.

@rajk999 said
So you have nothing on the soul being immortal from the bible. I thought so. Its just a false church doctrine fabricated to support another false doctrine of eternal torment.

Matt 25:46 says nothing of eternal torment, neither an eternal soul. In fact Jesus made it clear that the soul is NOT eternal.

46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

(the one divergent translation is from the Aramaic Bible in Plain English, which offers:

And these will go into eternal torture, and the righteous into eternal life.” )

Matthew 25:46

Here is also a description of the process from 2 Thessalonians:

5 All this is evidence that God’s judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering. 6 God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you 7 and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. 8 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might

St. Jerome's translation of the Greek of 2 Thess. 1:9 into Latin:

qui poenas dabunt in interitu aeternas a facie Domini et a gloria virtutis eius

Who shall suffer eternal punishment in destruction, from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his power:

http://vulgate.org/nt/epistle/2thessalonians_1.htm

Notice the verb here "suffer" which affirms the classic Christian understanding of it as an ongoing process and not simply a snuffing out, clarifying the whole affair.

@rajk999 said
The ability to be fair-minded is lacking in your personality.

If it was indeed true that there is such a thing as eternal torment it would have been made abundantly clear in the teachings of Christ and the Apostles. Just as eternal life is made abundantly clear.

From the beginning even in the Old Testament God has given us choices for life and death, blessings or curses. We just never take Him serously, and the outcomes were always exactly as He said it would be. I'd be concern about your eternal life if I were you.

Deuteronomy 30:18-20 English Standard Version (ESV)
I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”


It isn't a matter of fair mindedness on our parts, its what the scripture teaches. If God was fair we would all be heading to Hell since all of us has sinned. I'm glad He isn't fair, instead He is merciful, through His mercy has made a way of salvation through Jesus Christ. Jesus said only God is good, if you think your righteous notions are better than God's you are very arrogant.

If you don't have the Son you don't have the Father, if you don't have the Spirit of God you don't belong to God. Hell fire is very clear in scripture you can deny it or not, it will not change the outcome. Those whose names are not written in the book of life are going where?

Revelation 20:14-15 English Standard Version (ESV)
Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

@kellyjay said
Actually, if God is good what should He do with men who do evil? If God is just, what should God do with wickedness? Can He pretend it didn't happen, will that mean He is okay with evil and wicked deeds? Would He be unjust if He let people off the hook for their crimes against Him and others? What is your honest opinion where your righteous should be looked at as the right thing to do over what scripture says?

I was responding to your own comment where you said people should be “ terrified” of God; it is your word and perfectly apt in this thread.

I’m not interested in what God should do with people who do evil, I am interested in understanding if there is a point to torturing billions of people in secret after they die. There isn’t.

@kellyjay said
It isn't a matter of fair mindedness on our parts, its what the scripture teaches.

This is the nub of it, isn’t it.

It is NOT “what scripture teaches. Holding this attitude makes you appear cultish and a bit of a dullard KellyJay. I.e. “it’s in the bible so it’s true and it’s ok”.

The point of this thread is to highlight that the doctrine of eternal suffering is gross error. It is indefensible and those who believe in it are forced to retreat into “its in the bible so it must be true”.

@philokalia said
This all went over your head.

If you think so, that's fine by me.

@kellyjay said
If God was fair we would all be heading to Hell since all of us has sinned. I'm glad He isn't fair, instead He is merciful, through His mercy has made a way of salvation through Jesus Christ.

If he consciously created human beings simply in order to torture them after they die for their human nature, then that would make your God figure "fair"?

And so, you are "glad he isn't fair"?

Do you ever read this contorted stuff back to yourself and reflect?

@philokalia said

They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might

"Destruction"?