Sin? Hell? Is that what you are looking for? The idea is that you can't get to heaven without Christ.
No, I am not looking for any answers. Just trying to get perspective. If a non-believer doesn't go to heaven, is that a bad thing in your mind? Do you feel sorry for him?
But if a non-believer responds that, by definition, I don't believe there is heaven, do you accept such belief?
Well two people can't be right on black and white issue, correct? A black hole is either real or it isn't, regardless of what I believe. I accept that different people are going to believe different things based on how they are raised, their life experiences, etc.
Correct, facts are not disputable. However, non facts are disputable, that's why they are called beliefs.
something that has always bothered me: why didn't god just not create hell to begin with? why couldn't his believers go to heaven and everyone else merely become worm food? i've never really understood the point of hell, i guess, other then just bloodthirsty vengeance. and then that begs the question, if he/she is all-knowing, and knew adam and eve would sin and sentence most of humanity to a life of horrible suffering and pain in eternal torment, why were they made to be fallible in the first place? i mean, god had all the control. seems like simple cruelty to me.
you know that there's not a whole lot of discussion about what hell is or isn't in the bible, right...at least not from jesus. the word we translate to hell that jesus uses is gehanna...which was actually a physical place. in Old Testament times, it was the place where the Jews abandoned God to the point of sacrificing their children to gods....and by Jesus' day it was the place where trash and crap was burned. it was thought to be unsacred, unholy ground...so Jesus uses it as a metaphor for life without God. I only can think of one parable where Jesus speaks of hell/gehanna, and it's the one where the rich man spent his whole life never looking after the poor man who lived just outside the gates of his mansion. Very convicting parable when you live in a world with such pronounced have/have not...and particularly where you live in a country that, historically speaking, so exceeds the word "have" it's laughable. as for the, "if he knew it all along" question....there is a tension for sure between God's soverignty and man's free will. I don't understand it entirely and won't give you a canned answer in that regard. but i'm not entirely sure that the worm food desire you have isn't an accurate description of a life past this one without the presence of God - which Jesus calls gehanna/hell.
Hell and the devil, as taught in modern christianity, has no historical basis in the bible. The story of the fall of man is so rife with pre-jewish ugaritic fable and allegorical mythology as to be utterly useless as a starting point for discussion about the nature of god. My opinion, of course.
Caricatures of Christ such as the one in the first post of the this thread are spun by cherry picking those features which the creator finds desirable. For example, the Christ that loves everyone and everything, judges no one, and parties along with the rest of us especially appeals to post-moderns. Other varieties include Christ the world's greatest salesman or CEO (a favorite of mega church pastors), the affluent Christ (a favorite of many TV evangelists) and the hippie Christ, "flowers in His hair" - far out. Actually all of these and many other false images are far out and far away from the truth. The best way to learn of the historical Christ is to read and study the four accounts of His Life and Times: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. There you will find the Christ of history and if you study carefully, you will discover the promised Jewish Messiah, cut in the mold of an O.T. prophet, displaying the highest standard of perfect righteousness every seen on earth, preaching repentance, calling disciples to sacrifice and suffering, declaring that He is the only Way to God, and leading followers through the "narrow way" and "small gate" of salvation. Don't be fooled by cheap imitations.
