Christianity, really?

I calculate correctly the hypocrisy of men.

 

And we also insult the power of God by believing that it is concerned with the trivial bullshit that we do on Earth.

 

If you believe that God can not overcome the hypocrisy of men, then you have not only underestimated the power of God but have not calculated correctly the hypocrisy of men.

 

The hypocrisy of men is a self deception. God is not mocked. I do not believe anything "about" God. I am in communion with the holy spirit.

 

Oh, I don't doubt that you in communion with a spirit, the question has always been what that spirit might be, seeing as it isn't in agreement with the bible, that would seem to mean that it isn't God's Holy Spirit.

 

It is not my question and I don't disagree with the bible at all.

 

Maybe it should be.

If only that were true.

 

The Holy Spirit answers any question I might have

My agreements are mine alone to make. You are out of line.

 

If only it was the Holy Spirit.

No, I'm not and if your agreements are yours to make then why don't you agree with what the Bible says?

 

OWB, back to the lake of fire, what you said made sense, but I just read revelation 20 again, and there's a little more to it.

It does say that hades and death were destroyed, but after that it says that those who were not in the book of life were also cast into the lake of fire (presumably to be tourchured forever and ever with the beast, false prophet, and Satan)

 

Also, you never answered my question about the sermon on the mount.

The part where Jesus talks about how it is better to cut off your hand than to have your whole body thrown into the fires of hell. (this seems to confirm there is a firey hell)

 

I could talk about the fires of my political science class in the same manner. It can be taken to mean no more than strife of hell. It's a fancy figure of speech, like most of the more interpreted parts of the bible, it just means somewhere in the last 2000 years there was a scribe with a flair for the dramatic.

 

What... Jesus says it is better to cut out your eyes and chop off your limbs than to be thrown into the fires of hell.

Are you saying that it isn't literal, or that's not actuly what he said?

 

God also apparently didn't tell them that he would send his Son to die for them. God also didn't let other prophets know what would occur at the end times (7 seals and all). God gave the Hebrews a complicated law to follow for a couple thousand years and then turned around and said "see, that is to show you all are sinners" (paraphrasing from Paul).

Didn't Jesus simplify the Law (at least on one case...) "Love God and your neighbour"?

Couldn't God ease his children into understanding of Hell like any good parent would ease their children into understanding a difficult and scary concept?

 

so did people in the old testement go to hell?

 

No.

By his death and Resurrection, Jesus opened heaven (Catechism, 1026). Prior to that time all who died went to “hell” however, the just went to a place in hell referred to as the “Bosom of Abraham” where they would be comforted. The parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) indicates that there were two parts of hell. Both Lazarus and the rich man died and went to hell, but Lazarus was comforted in the bosom of Abraham while the rich man was in a place of torment. A great chasm separated the two parts.

The Catechism explains, “Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, "hell"—Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek—because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God. Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into "Abraham's bosom": "It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Savior in Abraham's bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell." Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him” (Catechism, 633)

http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=16175

 

Interestingly the word used there is not hades the Greek word usually translated hell, the word used is Gehenna. Gehenna is the Valley of Hinnom.

Jesus Christ associated fire with Gehenna (Mt 5:22; 18:9; Mr 9:47, 48), as did the disciple James, the only Biblical writer besides Matthew, Mark, and Luke to use the word. (Jas 3:6) Some commentators endeavor to link such fiery characteristic of Gehenna with the burning of human sacrifices that was carried on prior to Josiah’s reign and, on this basis, hold that Gehenna was used by Jesus as a symbol of everlasting torment. However, since Jehovah God expressed repugnance for such practice, saying that it was “a thing that I had not commanded and that had not come up into my heart” (Jer 7:31; 32:35), it seems most unlikely that God’s Son, in discussing divine judgment, would make such idolatrous practice the basis for the symbolic meaning of Gehenna. It may be noted that God prophetically decreed that the Valley of Hinnom would serve as a place for mass disposal of dead bodies rather than for the torture of live victims. (Jer 7:32, 33; 19:2, 6, 7, 10, 11) Thus, at Jeremiah 31:40 the reference to “the low plain of the carcasses and of the fatty ashes” is generally accepted as designating the Valley of Hinnom, and a gate known as “the Gate of the Ash-heaps” evidently opened out onto the eastern extremity of the valley at its juncture with the ravine of the Kidron. (Ne 3:13, 14) It seems obvious that such “carcasses” and “fatty ashes” are not related to the human sacrifices made there under Ahaz and Manasseh, since any bodies so offered would doubtless be viewed by the idolaters as “sacred” and would not be left lying in the valley.

Therefore, the Biblical evidence concerning Gehenna generally parallels the traditional view presented by rabbinic and other sources. That view is that the Valley of Hinnom was used as a place for the disposal of waste matter from the city of Jerusalem. (At Mt 5:30 Ph renders ge′en·na as “rubbish heap.”) Concerning “Gehinnom,” the Jewish commentator David Kimhi (1160-1235?), in his comment on Psalm 27:13, gives the following historical information: “And it is a place in the land adjoining Jerusalem, and it is a loathsome place, and they throw there unclean things and carcasses. Also there was a continual fire there to burn the unclean things and the bones of the carcasses. Hence, the judgment of the wicked ones is called parabolically Gehinnom.”

Symbolic of Complete Destruction. It is evident that Jesus used Gehenna as representative of utter destruction resulting from adverse judgment by God, hence with no resurrection to life as a soul being possible. (Mt 10:28; Lu 12:4, 5) The scribes and Pharisees as a wicked class were denounced as ‘subjects for Gehenna.’ (Mt 23:13-15, 33) To avoid such destruction, Jesus’ followers were to get rid of anything causing spiritual stumbling, the ‘cutting off of a hand or foot’ and the ‘tearing out of an eye’ figuratively representing their deadening of these body members with reference to sin.—Mt 18:9; Mr 9:43-47; Col 3:5; compare Mt 5:27-30.

Jesus also apparently alluded to Isaiah 66:24 in describing Gehenna as a place “where their maggot does not die and the fire is not put out.” (Mr 9:47, 48) That the symbolic picture here is not one of torture but, rather, of complete destruction is evident from the fact that the Isaiah text dealt, not with persons who were alive, but with “the carcasses of the men that were transgressing” against God. If, as the available evidence indicates, the Valley of Hinnom was a place for the disposal of garbage and carcasses, fire, perhaps increased in intensity by the addition of sulfur (compare Isa 30:33), would be the only suitable means to eliminate such refuse. Where the fire did not reach, worms, or maggots, would breed, consuming anything not destroyed by the fire. On this basis, Jesus’ words would mean that the destructive effect of God’s adverse judgment would not cease until complete destruction was attained.

 

You know better than this, Jesus' whole life is prophesied in the Hebrew Scriptures including sacrificial death.

You are joking of course, how would allowing all the people from Adam and Eve till the death of Jesus to die and then wake up in a fiery hell to be torture for thousands of years be easing his children into it?

Also how would it be loving, just or merciful for God, who told Adam and eve that the punishment for their sin would be death and then after their sin, oh by the way I didn't tell you before but you will also me tortured forever?

 

LAKE OF FIRE

This expression occurs only in the book of Revelation and is clearly symbolic. The Bible gives its own explanation and definition of the symbol by stating: “This means the second death, the lake of fire.”—Re 20:14; 21:8.

The symbolic quality of the lake of fire is further evident from the context of references to it in the book of Revelation. Death is said to be hurled into this lake of fire. (Re 20:14, 20) Death obviously cannot be literally burned. Moreover, the Devil, an invisible spirit creature, is thrown into the lake. Being spirit, he cannot be hurt by literal fire.—Re 20:10; compare Ex 3:2 and Jg 13:20.

Since the lake of fire represents “the second death” and since Revelation 20:14 says that both “death and Hades” are to be cast into it, it is evident that the lake cannot represent the death man has inherited from Adam (Ro 5:12), nor does it refer to Hades (Sheol). It must, therefore, be symbolic of another kind of death, one that is without reversal, for the record nowhere speaks of the “lake” as giving up those in it, as do Adamic death and Hades (Sheol). (Re 20:13) Thus, those not found written in “the book of life,” unrepentant opposers of God’s sovereignty, are hurled into the lake of fire, meaning eternal destruction, or the second death.—Re 20:15.

While the foregoing texts make evident the symbolic quality of the lake of fire, it has been used by some persons to support belief in a literal place of fire and torment. Revelation 20:10 has been appealed to, because it speaks of the Devil, the wild beast, and the false prophet as being “tormented day and night forever and ever” in the lake of fire. However, this cannot refer to actual conscious torment. Those thrown into the lake of fire undergo “the second death.” (Re 20:14) In death there is no consciousness and, hence, no feeling of pain or suffering.—Ec 9:5.

In the Scriptures fiery torment is associated with destruction and death. For example, in the Greek Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Scriptures the word for torment (ba′sa·nos) is several times used with reference to punishment by death. (Eze 3:20; 32:24, 30) Similarly, concerning Babylon the Great, the book of Revelation says, “the kings of the earth . . . will weep and beat themselves in grief over her, when they look at the smoke from the burning of her, while they stand at a distance because of their fear of her torment [Gr., ba·sa·ni·smou′].” (Re 18:9, 10) As to the meaning of the torment, an angel later explains: “Thus with a swift pitch will Babylon the great city be hurled down, and she will never be found again.” (Re 18:21) So, fiery torment here is parallel with destruction, and in the case of Babylon the Great, it is everlasting destruction.—Compare Re 17:16; 18:8, 15-17, 19.

Therefore, those who are ‘tormented forever’ (from Gr., ba·sa·ni′zo) in the lake of fire undergo “second death” from which there is no resurrection. The related Greek word ba·sa·ni·stes′ is translated ‘jailer’ in Matthew 18:34. (RS, NW, ED; compare vs 30.) Thus those hurled into the lake of fire will be held under restraint, or “jailed,” in death throughout eternity.

 

Yes, seeing as hell is the common grave of mankind and not some place of torture, they all went to hell.