Misunderstanding Hell

[BrianC]

I figured I'd share this bit of info.

I was reading a book recently called At the End of the Ages by Bob Evely. He has a big chapter about the Church Fathers and how several of them used the term "eternal judgment," and then proceeded to say that it was only temporary till the people were purified, at which point, they'd end up in heaven. This includes even the demons. This makes sense, because Jews don't believe in an eternal hell. And how could they when they read only the Old Testament? The OT only once talks about an eternal hell, and that's a bad translation, because in the Paleo Hebrew, that phrase means "future pruning." Pruning is to help one grow, not to harm.

The beginning of the chapter mentions the Sibylline Oracles. These were Greeks from 500 BC to 150 AD. They spoke Koine Greek as their native language, so they understood their sayings very well. They use the same term the Bible uses for "eternal judgment" or "eternal punishment" and then say that it's only to purify people, at which point they'll end up in heaven. So, we know that during Jesus' time, and the time of the writings of the Greek New Testament, that the term "eternal punishment" did not mean a duration of time, like (punishment forever). Instead, it seems that the saying in the Greek meant "correction in the location of Eternity." And "eternal life" would mean "life in the location of eternity." All references to hell in the New Testament use the Greek word for correctional punishment. One time, Paul uses the Greek word for punishment that means vengeful, hateful punishment in reference to what he did to the Christians before he was saved. If one does not know the sayings and customs of the times, one will usually translate their own beliefs into their translation and misunderstand what those people meant. The Greek culture believed in an eternal hell of fire. It didn't come from the Hebrews or the Christians. That's what it was amazing that the Sibylline Oracles were prophesying this. They were tapping into truth, in my opinion, despite their being Pagans. Who says Christians are the only ones with the truth? Looks like Christians are dead wrong on hell's purpose.

Basically, all the Church Father's spoke Greek as their native language. They believed in an eternal hell when they were Pagans (because all of them were Pagans, as were most Christians back then) before they became Christians. They then found out that hell was not eternal and wrote about that. Then, eventually, they mostly shifted back to believing hell was eternal for some reason. But that doesn't come from the Hebrews. That comes from the Greeks. The Greeks carried their beliefs into the Christian belief system. In the 500s, Augustine popularized an eternal hell, and Constantine agreed and burned all writings about hell being temporary. He made it illegal to believe that. So, of course we'd have most people believing in an eternal hell nowadays. The government saw to it.

There are tons of verses in the Old Testament that talk about God restoring all people and all things. I have a list of them if anyone's interested. I can email it to you. Cephyr13@yahoo.com

The point is that we malign God's character if we believe He's so unloving that He would make people suffer forever. He's a dad just like any of us are, and He wants the best for His children. He wants them to learn from their mistakes, and uses a non-fiery hell to humble them so they'll be purified and come live in peace and joy with Him and everyone. What kind of God isn't smart enough to build a system that gets everyone saved and purified despite free will?

Oh, and Revelation says hell and hades get poured into the Lake of Fire, so they do have an end. And Paul says there is a consummation of all things where Jesus hands everything to God the Father, and all tears are wiped away. That's when the Lake of Fire is done away with. Jesus saved the people in hell from before the time of the flood according to scripture. So why not do that for everyone? And why else would He say, "Fear not. I have the keys to hell and hades" if not for the purpose of letting people out of there? If He were going to lock them in there forever, then we SHOULD fear it. But He says fear not. Yeah...He's letting people out. Hell has a great purpose. The Refiner's Fire is all about heating up gold and scooping off the impurities to purify the gold. That's what hell is, figuratively. Jesus says everyone will be purified by fire. Everyone.

- Brian

[Maddhattter]

What about blasphemers? Blasphemy is an unforgivable sin, per the bible.

[BrianC]

First, one must define what blaspheming is. And when you examine what it means, you can only come to one conclusion. Blasphemy means to reject forgiveness/salvation. This is a free will issue. God doesn't want to infringe on someone's free will of choice (not to be confused with the power to carry out free will--they're too separate matters). That's why Hell is necessary.

Now, we have to get that verse in context. The verse says blasphemy will not be forgiven them in this age or the next age. The Bible defines that age as being the one before Christ, and the Christian/Church age is after Christ dies, and the Bible talks about the age after that, which is called the Time of the End in Mark, which starts after Israel becomes a nation again according to scripture. So, Jesus was saying that blasphemy will not be forgiven in that age He was in, or the Christian age. But in the age of The Time of the End, something will happen to cause forgiveness to be possible. Again, here's where Hell comes in.

If a person, of their own free will, doesn't want to accept God's forgiveness, because they think they're so horrible, Hell solves that problem. Pride is the only thing that keeps a person from accepting forgiveness (and it always originates in early childhood with a problem with authority, because few know how to raise kids properly nowadays--which is completely understandable with all the Christian influence everywhere). It takes just the right kind of emotional pain for someone's pride to break. When it breaks, they become humble and accept God's forgiveness. Basically everyone who dies and has an after-death experience where they go to some other place (sometimes heaven, sometimes hell), when they're resuscitated, they suddenly believe in God and their life changes drastically. So now, with their own free will, they've chosen to accept salvation, basically.

What most of them say is that God showed them the times in their life when they did something hurtful to someone else, but they feel the other person's emotions. They all say it humbles them. That shame they feel makes them feel bad. So God gets rid of it by showing them there is no right or wrong, no good or bad. He just says, "Oh, it was just a lesson learned. Not a problem." He shows them forgiveness by telling them that, and they accept it. They say they immediately feel wonderful and cleansed.

Hope that clarifies. Free will and power to carry out free will is an extremely complicated subject, as is psychology (which is really what we're discussing here in regard to Hell breaking pride). Sorry if I don't express it eloquently enough to connect with everyone.

[Murph Tang]

Brian is your SHO broken?

[BrianC]

Brian is your SHO broken?

LOL No, the wife's at home wanting me to clean house with her. :P

Figured I'd take a break from house work and writing/editing for a while.

[YALE]

Pascal's wager, 2.0?

[BrianC]

Pascal's wager, 2.0?

lol Nah, that doesn't apply. It says hell is eternal damnation, and no matter what you do, you'll end up there.

This would be like the opposite of Pascal's Wager 2.0. No matter if you believe in God or don't believe in Him, you end up in Heaven eventually. A person who doesn't believe in God would just have to endure something that sort of reveals to them how they made other people feel and that would break their pride so they're not resisting God. Their humbling would continue in Heaven with God at that point, I guess. It's all for a loving purpose, and mostly done in a gentle way. I've heard some after-death experience stories that weren't so gentle, though. lol But it only took one harsh event and the people get humble. There are 10s of thousands of cases of after-death experiences. Some psychologists track them as their main research. It's amazing how similar they are. There's no way everyone's imagining the same process if it's not real. The odds are astronomical that it would be coincidence. Cool stuff. YouTube has some good videos. Some are bogus, though, obviously, but he documentaries are usually pretty good.

[Maddhattter]

First, one must define what blaspheming is. And when you examine what it means, you can only come to one conclusion. Blasphemy means to reject forgiveness/salvation.

I’ll accept on your definition, but this is not the only conclusion that one came come to. You can come to a good deal of different conclusions, as many people have and still do.

This is a free will issue. God doesn't want to infringe on someone's free will of choice (not to be confused with the power to carry out free will--they're too separate matters). That's why Hell is necessary.

How does this make hell necessary? Even if this does make hell necessary, it’s just a punishment for actually using the free will god granted us in a way that he doesn't agree with. It’s little more than a doctrine of fear, at best.

Now, we have to get that verse in context. The verse says blasphemy will not be forgiven them in this age or the next age.

Actually, it doesn't…

Mark 3:28-29
King James Version (KJV)
28 Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme:
29 But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.

The Bible defines that age as being the one before Christ, and the Christian/Church age is after Christ dies, and the Bible talks about the age after that, which is called the Time of the End in Mark, which starts after Israel becomes a nation again according to scripture. So, Jesus was saying that blasphemy will not be forgiven in that age He was in, or the Christian age.

Irrelevant. See above.

But in the age of The Time of the End, something will happen to cause forgiveness to be possible.

Then it is not an unforgivable sin. So, either you or the bible are incorrect.

Again, here's where Hell comes in.

See above…

If a person, of their own free will, doesn't want to accept God's forgiveness, because they think they're so horrible, Hell solves that problem.

No, it doesn't. If anything, being punished for thinking your horrible will only reinforce the idea. It’s basic psychology.

Pride is the only thing that keeps a person from accepting forgiveness (and it always originates in early childhood with a problem with authority, because few know how to raise kids properly nowadays--which is completely understandable with all the Christian influence everywhere).

Can you demonstrate this?

It takes just the right kind of emotional pain for someone's pride to break. When it breaks, they become humble and accept God's forgiveness.

This is the exact same reasoning as the “might = right” method that justified the actions of the Roman Catholic Church in the dark ages.

Basically everyone who dies and has an after-death experience where they go to some other place (sometimes heaven, sometimes hell), when they're resuscitated, they suddenly believe in God and their life changes drastically. So now, with their own free will, they've chosen to accept salvation, basically.

This is not true. People who die and have after-death, or near-death, experiences almost universally see the afterlife they were raised to believe in. However, the overwhelming majority have no experience of after-life or near-death. So, if the numbers are to be used as a determining factor (which they aren’t), the proposition of the very existence of an afterlife is lacking.

What most of them say is that God showed them the times in their life when they did something hurtful to someone else, but they feel the other person's emotions. They all say it humbles them. That shame they feel makes them feel bad. So God gets rid of it by showing them there is no right or wrong, no good or bad. He just says, "Oh, it was just a lesson learned. Not a problem." He shows them forgiveness by telling them that, and they accept it. They say they immediately feel wonderful and cleansed.

Most of the ones in christian communities say this. Still, the vast majority have no experience at all.

Hope that clarifies. Free will and power to carry out free will is an extremely complicated subject, as is psychology (which is really what we're discussing here in regard to Hell breaking pride). Sorry if I don't express it eloquently enough to connect with everyone.

As a whole, free will and being an free agent can be complex topics. However, nothing that has been discussed here requires any complex understanding of the topic. If anything, the discussion of afterlife, or near death, experiences would benefit much more from an understanding of neuro-chemistry than psychology.

Even then, when we discuss using hell to break people, we’re discussing a very simple psychological tactic. It’s torture.

[BrianC]

How does this make hell necessary? Even if this does make hell necessary, it’s just a punishment for actually using the free will god granted us in a way that he doesn't agree with. It’s little more than a doctrine of fear, at best.

In Ancient Hebrew, "punishment" came from the root "pruning." In other words, it means that harmful parts of an entity are clipped off so that it can grow and flourish. Punishment can be better translated as "pruning." The parts of a person that make them miserable are the parts that need to be pruned. And these parts are in the subconscious (the heart). They're programs that are running in the subconscious, and they cause pain. If God were to punish people in hell (whether temporarily or permanently) because they disagree with Him, that'd be unloving and useless.

This is a hard concept to grasp unless you've experienced it or you're really good with psychology. A person's free will can only be changed if they experience some kind of emotional pain that humbles them. They'll stick with their old free will choices until some type of pain causes them to rethink their beliefs. But it doesn't exactly work that way. This is more of an emotional thing. What happens is, people will have repressed emotions deep down that they don't even know are there. And when a psychologist gets to them and helps them connect with that part of them, suddenly, those emotions surface and get expressed. And amazingly, the person becomes humble and starts to see things more clearly. They often change their beliefs when this happens, but this largely depends on what issue is being dealt with and whether it is related to spiritual beliefs. So, if God wants to help a person out of their mental/emotional suffering, He applies just the right emotional pain and the person breaks. That's what hell does. It is the best way (different in each person's case) to break a person's pride that's hurting them. Watch some after-death experience videos. Those people feel TONS better after they get resuscitated. They have completely different outlooks on life. They become very philanthropic. They're no longer afraid of death. And it's all because God started the humbling process by letting their emotions decompress. Read Summerhill by A. S. Neill and you'll see the result of letting emotions work themselves out of repression in freedom.

Actually, it doesn't…

Mark 3:28-29
King James Version (KJV)
28 Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme:
29 But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.

My mistake. I was thinking of a different verse that discusses blasphemy.

This is a translation issue. Here's another rendering of that verse:

“Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”

Here, it says, "never has forgiveness." In other words, blasphemy means the person has never accepted salvation with their free will, and so they don't have it yet. How can someone have something if they're rejecting it? Makes perfect sense. You can find all kinds of different renderings of this verse. But what's important is the saying "eternal sin."

First, the word "eternal" is "aeon." It means "age." The only time it means "eternal" is when it is paired with something we know is eternal, like God. When God is said to be "aeon," it means ageless. But otherwise, aeon means "age" or "age-bound." Second, we have the Sibylline Oracles and the Church Fathers using the term "eternal judgment" or "eternal punishment" then saying it's temporary till the person is cleansed/humbled, then they go to heaven. So, clearly, eternal is either being translated wrong in those instances and means "age-abiding judgment," or eternal is pointing to a location (eternity), which means they're saying "judgment in the location of eternity."

So, "eternal sin" likely is saying that this sin is an "age-abiding sin." I say that, because the other verse that talks about blaspheming the Holy Spirit says it will not be forgiven them in this age or the next, and is in reference to ages while people are living. However, "eternal sin" could also mean that this is a sin that carries into the location of eternity. So, if someone is still rejecting salvation once they're dead and in eternity, they can't be forgiven. They need to be humbled first, which is what Hell is for.

Then it is not an unforgivable sin. So, either you or the bible are incorrect.

No--the translation is incorrect and misunderstood. Study translation sometime. It's incredibly hard to do, and it's nearly impossible to get a translation that 100% conveys an idea from one culture to another. So, everything you said is irrelevant is not irrelevant. And that's too bad, because I won't be responding to anymore posts on this subject in this thread.

No, it doesn't. If anything, being punished for thinking your horrible will only reinforce the idea. It’s basic psychology.

You call it punishment because that's how our culture sees the word--as something shameful and awful. But that's not what the Bible is talking about. That's not what that culture saw it as. That culture saw it as pruning. The word punishment carries too much of our own culture's meaning with it. To them, it didn't mean what it means to us. It's strictly to help us grow. An Ancient Hebrew wouldn't think of pruning as anything like punishment. It's very loving to go out to your tree and prune its branches so it can grow. It's caring for and nurturing that tree to see that it grows well. That's how they saw that word.

Can you demonstrate this? [referring to pride developing in childhood]

Go read studies about it in psychology and see how incredibly effective it is to help people decompress repressed emotions from childhood. Read A. S. Neill's Summerhill and see how those kids were changed just from the free environment where their emotions could decompress through play, which lead to loving, compassionate kids. Seriously, Summerhill is a really interesting read. It proves lots of great stuff with 39 years of real-world, consistent examples at the school. It's very different than our society raises kids.

[BrianC]

This is the exact same reasoning as the “might = right” method that justified the actions of the Roman Catholic Church in the dark ages.

Again, if you want to understand this stuff, you need to research psychology. This is a trend that happens over and over and over again historically in TONS and tons of cases. I mean, this is one of the most prolific occurrences on the planet. Hell is for those whose pride doesn't break in this life. That's all. So no, this has nothing to do with the "might = right" method. Those people were forcibly converting or killing people. God's doing nothing of the sort. He knows the person's heart, and He knows what emotions are repressed that need to be decompressed so the person can be happy. And He knows exactly how to accomplish that in the most loving way possibly. And sometimes it takes some tough stuff to get to that point with a person. But once the person is humbled, they finally can feel really strong joy--joy they had repressed along with all the other emotions they'd repressed. People don't understand that when you repress negative feelings you don't like, such as anger or fear, ALL feelings become harder to feel, because what's happening is the person is programming themself not to feel all emotions so that they don't have to experience some emotions. The result is people end who can only experience emotions when they're more extreme. I didn't know how awesome joy felt until I was born again. Once shame was lifted from me in a split second, I could finally feel my natural joy that was underneath it. It was incredibly powerful! I felt DAMN good perpetually for a year to two years until the shame programming got ahold of me again and I started not wanting to feel the negative emotions again. I didn't realize I was doing this, though. It was all subconscious. I figured it all out later.

This is not true. People who die and have after-death, or near-death, experiences almost universally see the afterlife they were raised to believe in. However, the overwhelming majority have no experience of after-life or near-death. So, if the numbers are to be used as a determining factor (which they aren’t), the proposition of the very existence of an afterlife is lacking.

Incorrect. Do some research. There's one psychologist (I forget his name) who did a documentary that's easy to find on YouTube and he can show that what you just said is completely unfounded. You'd need to read some of his books to see the incredible numbers and the proof, though. In the documentary, he doesn't give a ton of information like that...only a little. For instance, one guy is a Russian who has never been told about God and has no idea about the afterlife or any of that stuff. He suddenly is put on the KGB's list and they come after him (I forget why). He dies then comes out of his body (he was never taught that). He goes to a different floor of the hospital and interacts with a little baby who's crying. The baby communicates telepathically to him that her got hurt during birth. The guy says the baby couldn't talk yet, but he understood what she was conveying to him. Anyway, eventually he "moves on" and ends up in complete darkness. He says it was an awful, scared feeling and he didn't want to be there. So when he chose not to be there, he says he sort of transfers into this realm with God and light and love. I forget the specifics and the timeline was a little bit unclear. Anyway, once he's revived, he goes to the maternity ward to the baby who's hurting and tells her parents and doctor that her hip was broken during the delivery. The doctors and parents hadn't been able to figure this out up to that point. The kid had just been crying uncontrollably. They scanned the baby and found out its hip was broke and they did surgery.

I've talked to nurses who say, "Oh, yeah, we hear stories like this all the time. They're really amazing." I've seen several doctors talk about this. In fact, there are groups formed by doctors to discuss this stuff, because they all hear about it from their patients (mostly ER doctors or doctors who do high-risk surgeries on people who'll likely die). I highly recommend researching this one out much further, because it seems like you have a lot of misinformation or lack of information on this. Same for psychology. If I actually saw you do a ton of research on psychology and after-death experiences (truly open and widespread research), I'd believe your statement about you actually seeking truth to figure out if there really is a God, because that would be one good solid example of it. But as of now, I can't say I've seen anything that would prove your statement to me.

Most of the ones in christian communities say this. Still, the vast majority have no experience at all.

No. You've been grossly misinformed on this front. Again, look through the documentaries and find that psychologist who specializes in after-death experiences. Or just search it online. I wish I could remember his name. He says that it doesn't matter what culture a person is from or what they've been taught about the afterlife, everyone comes back with similar stories, and it often defies what they believed before. In fact, the Atheists stories are very cool, because they believed in nothing afterward, but they ended up seeing lots of things they had no idea about and that are never taught in churches or anywhere, really. Sorry, but your information here is just completely off-base. This is not research you can do on the internet in a short time. You'd need to spend quite a bit of time researching this stuff to see the ample proof that's out there. I'm sure you're a great internet jockey, but this takes a lot of research besides just the internet, or it takes a WHOLE lot of internet research/reading.

As a whole, free will and being an free agent can be complex topics. However, nothing that has been discussed here requires any complex understanding of the topic. If anything, the discussion of afterlife, or near death, experiences would benefit much more from an understanding of neuro-chemistry than psychology.

Even then, when we discuss using hell to break people, we’re discussing a very simple psychological tactic. It’s torture.

I completely disagree with all of those statements. What we're discussing here is extremely complex because it is about psychology. There's nothing simple about psychology. I may be able to explain it as simply as I can here, but if I were to go into the complexities of it, anyone's brain would likely start to hurt eventually, including my own. It's not simple. It can be stated simply, but a true understanding of it takes time and often takes firsthand experiences with suffering.

In regard to hell, no. This isn't torture. Torture is for the express purpose of hurting someone to extract information from them or to make them suffer. God has no desire to make anyone suffer according to the people who have after-death experiences. They all talk about it as a beautiful experience and they're so glad they went through it. Even the Atheist who had a REALLY awful experience was incredibly glad he went through it. He was happy when God and two angels came down to him during that experience and chased off the "things" that were hurting him. He said they healed him and were very loving and kind to him. He wanted to know who it was that did that for him once he was resuscitated. And a couple weeks later, he made the connection that it was the God of the Bible. Now, whether it was the God of the Bible or not, who knows. That's for people to decide on their own. The point is that no wishes it didn't happen to them, and everyone who has these experiences come back changed drastically at their core level. You're very misinformed on this subject I'm afraid. Seriously, look into it. It's really interesting! Read that psychologist's stuff or at least watch the cheesy documentary he made. The stories are very interesting. And the "to hell and back" video is all about Atheists dying and coming back. That one's really interesting, too, and slightly better produced. It's a religious production company, but that doesn't make the people giving their testimonies incorrect in any way.

Thanks for the conversation. I'm done.

[Maddhattter]

In Ancient Hebrew, "punishment" came from the root "pruning." In other words, it means that harmful parts of an entity are clipped off so that it can grow and flourish. Punishment can be better translated as "pruning."

No, punishment is better translated as punishment. The root of the word is irrelevant to how the word is used in a particular context.

Universe, when broken down into it's root words, is one word. That has nothing to do with what the universe is.

The parts of a person that make them miserable are the parts that need to be pruned. And these parts are in the subconscious (the heart). They're programs that are running in the subconscious, and they cause pain. If God were to punish people in hell (whether temporarily or permanently) because they disagree with Him, that'd be unloving and useless.

However, that's exactly what is implied when someone is cast into the lake of fire.

A person's free will can only be changed if they experience some kind of emotional pain that humbles them. They'll stick with their old free will choices until some type of pain causes them to rethink their beliefs.

Incorrect.

But it doesn't exactly work that way. This is more of an emotional thing. What happens is, people will have repressed emotions deep down that they don't even know are there. And when a psychologist gets to them and helps them connect with that part of them, suddenly, those emotions surface and get expressed. And amazingly, the person becomes humble and starts to see things more clearly.

This can occur, yes.

They often change their beliefs when this happens, but this largely depends on what issue is being dealt with and whether it is related to spiritual beliefs.

People sometimes change their beliefs when this happens. However, it's not because the emotional pain humbled them, it's generally because they are convinced(correctly or not) that the behavior that they are changing is the cause of their problems.

So, if God wants to help a person out of their mental/emotional suffering, He applies just the right emotional pain and the person breaks. That's what hell does. It is the best way (different in each person's case) to break a person's pride that's hurting them.

Right. Again, we have a word for that. It's torture.

Watch some after-death experience videos. Those people feel TONS better after they get resuscitated. They have completely different outlooks on life. They become very philanthropic. They're no longer afraid of death. And it's all because God started the humbling process by letting their emotions decompress.

Not always. Not even in a majority of times. Now, people who claim to see the positive afterlife they already believed in came out of it believing in their brand of supernatural, yes. However, the majority of people who die for any length of time don't experience anything.

Read Summerhill by A. S. Neill and you'll see the result of letting emotions work themselves out of repression in freedom.

No need. The source is a bad one. The author is not an authority on any subject other than English Literature.

My mistake. I was thinking of a different verse that discusses blasphemy.

This is a translation issue. Here's another rendering of that verse:

“Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”

Here, it says, "never has forgiveness."

Right. It's the never part that you're saying is not accurate. It's either forever, and an eternal sin, or it's not.

In other words, blasphemy means the person has never accepted salvation with their free will, and so they don't have it yet.

No, it doesn't.

How can someone have something if they're rejecting it?

It can be freely given. Just because someone refuses forgiveness, doesn't mean they can't get it. I can forgive anyone. If they refuse it, that doesn't change that they have it one bit.

Makes perfect sense. You can find all kinds of different renderings of this verse. But what's important is the saying "eternal sin."

The unforgivable part is pretty important to.

First, the word "eternal" is "aeon." It means "age." The only time it means "eternal" is when it is paired with something we know is eternal, like God. When God is said to be "aeon," it means ageless. But otherwise, aeon means "age" or "age-bound." Second, we have the Sibylline Oracles and the Church Fathers using the term "eternal judgment" or "eternal punishment" then saying it's temporary till the person is cleansed/humbled, then they go to heaven. So, clearly, eternal is either being translated wrong in those instances and means "age-abiding judgment," or eternal is pointing to a location (eternity), which means they're saying "judgment in the location of eternity."

See above for attempts to redefine the word. Context was taken into consideration for the original translation, and every translation after that.

So, "eternal sin" likely is saying that this sin is an "age-abiding sin." I say that, because the other verse that talks about blaspheming the Holy Spirit says it will not be forgiven them in this age or the next, and is in reference to ages while people are living.

And the next age, the one where they are not.

However, "eternal sin" could also mean that this is a sin that carries into the location of eternity. So, if someone is still rejecting salvation once they're dead and in eternity, they can't be forgiven. They need to be humbled first, which is what Hell is for.

Right. Tortue.

No--the translation is incorrect and misunderstood. Study translation sometime. It's incredibly hard to do, and it's nearly impossible to get a translation that 100% conveys an idea from one culture to another.

It is hard to do and you're correct, it is virtually impossible to get a translation that 100% convey's an idea when crossing the language barrier. However, the translations are made to get the concepts across. That can be done and is done all the time. If you can speak two languages, and have experienced two different cultures, it's evident that conveying the concepts required, when translating, is not that difficult.

So, everything you said is irrelevant is not irrelevant. And that's too bad, because I won't be responding to anymore posts on this subject in this thread.

Nope. Still irrelevant.

You call it punishment because that's how our culture sees the word--as something shameful and awful.

Nope. I call it that because that's what it is. You are the one adding the shameful and awful associations. Punishment can easily be a good thing in the proper context.

But that's not what the Bible is talking about. That's not what that culture saw it as. That culture saw it as pruning. The word punishment carries too much of our own culture's meaning with it. To them, it didn't mean what it means to us. It's strictly to help us grow.

That's how it's used now. You punish your child to attempt to stop bad behaviors.

An Ancient Hebrew wouldn't think of pruning as anything like punishment.

Modern christians believe that people who go to hell deserve it.

[Maddhattter]

It's very loving to go out to your tree and prune its branches so it can grow. It's caring for and nurturing that tree to see that it grows well. That's how they saw that word.

When it actually serves some good, yes. However, punishing someone for using the gift that was supposedly given. That does not provide any benefit. Neither does the torture you suggest hell is.

Go read studies about it in psychology and see how incredibly effective it is to help people decompress repressed emotions from childhood.

Right. In virtually every situation of repressed memories and such, they were found to be fabricated or imagined.

Read A. S. Neill's Summerhill and see how those kids were changed just from the free environment where their emotions could decompress through play, which lead to loving, compassionate kids. Seriously, Summerhill is a really interesting read. It proves lots of great stuff with 39 years of real-world, consistent examples at the school. It's very different than our society raises kids.

I've covered the problem with this source already.

Again, if you want to understand this stuff, you need to research psychology. This is a trend that happens over and over and over again historically in TONS and tons of cases. I mean, this is one of the most prolific occurrences on the planet.

What might=right being used to justify atrocities? Sure it is.

Hell is for those whose pride doesn't break in this life. That's all. So no, this has nothing to do with the "might = right" method. Those people were forcibly converting or killing people. God's doing nothing of the sort.

God would be torturing a person until they acquiesce to it's demands. That's exactly what it's doing.

He knows the person's heart, and He knows what emotions are repressed that need to be decompressed so the person can be happy. And He knows exactly how to accomplish that in the most loving way possibly. And sometimes it takes some tough stuff to get to that point with a person. But once the person is humbled, they finally can feel really strong joy--joy they had repressed along with all the other emotions they'd repressed. People don't understand that when you repress negative feelings you don't like, such as anger or fear, ALL feelings become harder to feel, because what's happening is the person is programming themself not to feel all emotions so that they don't have to experience some emotions. The result is people end who can only experience emotions when they're more extreme.

Saying god knows exactly how to torture someone to get the desired results doesn't change the fact that it's torture.

Incorrect. Do some research.

I have.

There's one psychologist (I forget his name) who did a documentary that's easy to find on YouTube and he can show that what you just said is completely unfounded. You'd need to read some of his books to see the incredible numbers and the proof, though. In the documentary, he doesn't give a ton of information like that...only a little. For instance, one guy is a Russian who has never been told about God and has no idea about the afterlife or any of that stuff. He suddenly is put on the KGB's list and they come after him (I forget why). He dies then comes out of his body (he was never taught that). He goes to a different floor of the hospital and interacts with a little baby who's crying. The baby communicates telepathically to him that her got hurt during birth. The guy says the baby couldn't talk yet, but he understood what she was conveying to him. Anyway, eventually he "moves on" and ends up in complete darkness. He says it was an awful, scared feeling and he didn't want to be there. So when he chose not to be there, he says he sort of transfers into this realm with God and light and love. I forget the specifics and the timeline was a little bit unclear. Anyway, once he's revived, he goes to the maternity ward to the baby who's hurting and tells her parents and doctor that her hip was broken during the delivery. The doctors and parents hadn't been able to figure this out up to that point. The kid had just been crying uncontrollably. They scanned the baby and found out its hip was broke and they did surgery.

I've seen these kinds of documentaries. None of them present any actual information and virtually all of them require the same type of interpreting of data that is used to show that psychics are accurate at predicting someone's future.

I've talked to nurses who say, "Oh, yeah, we hear stories like this all the time. They're really amazing." I've seen several doctors talk about this. In fact, there are groups formed by doctors to discuss this stuff, because they all hear about it from their patients (mostly ER doctors or doctors who do high-risk surgeries on people who'll likely die).

And people believe the crap spread around in chain letters. People believing something does not have any relevance to it's accuracy.

I highly recommend researching this one out much further, because it seems like you have a lot of misinformation or lack of information on this.

Then provide some. From actual authorities. When you can provide actual evidence that this stuff occurs, there will be a Nobel Prize in it for you. Not to mention the million dollar reward from the James Randi foundation.

[Maddhattter]

Same for psychology. If I actually saw you do a ton of research on psychology and after-death experiences (truly open and widespread research), I'd believe your statement about you actually seeking truth to figure out if there really is a God, because that would be one good solid example of it. But as of now, I can't say I've seen anything that would prove your statement to me.

I can't say that I can take nearly any of what you've said seriously. You've not provided any valid sources, and don't seem to even have a functional understanding of any topic you've brought up.

No. You've been grossly misinformed on this front. Again, look through the documentaries and find that psychologist who specializes in after-death experiences. Or just search it online.

Done and done. Still found no actual evidence to support your assertions.

I wish I could remember his name. He says that it doesn't matter what culture a person is from or what they've been taught about the afterlife, everyone comes back with similar stories, and it often defies what they believed before.

This is patently false. There are a wide variety of NDEs, and virtually all of them coincide with the beliefs of the person who experienced them. Do people have experiences that don't line up with their beliefs? Sometimes, yea. However, the majority of people have no experience at all, and the majority of people who do have experiences have one that matches their previously held beliefs.

In fact, the Atheists stories are very cool, because they believed in nothing afterward, but they ended up seeing lots of things they had no idea about and that are never taught in churches or anywhere, really. Sorry, but your information here is just completely off-base. This is not research you can do on the internet in a short time. You'd need to spend quite a bit of time researching this stuff to see the ample proof that's out there. I'm sure you're a great internet jockey, but this takes a lot of research besides just the internet, or it takes a WHOLE lot of internet research/reading.

Incorrect.

I completely disagree with all of those statements. What we're discussing here is extremely complex because it is about psychology.

No, it's not.

There's nothing simple about psychology.

Yes, there is a lot that is simple about psychology.

I may be able to explain it as simply as I can here, but if I were to go into the complexities of it, anyone's brain would likely start to hurt eventually, including my own. It's not simple. It can be stated simply, but a true understanding of it takes time and often takes firsthand experiences with suffering.

No, it doesn't.

[

In regard to hell, no. This isn't torture. Torture is for the express purpose of hurting someone to extract information from them or to make them suffer.

No, it's not. Torture is causing pain and suffering to get a desired result. That's exactly what you're saying god does.

God has no desire to make anyone suffer according to the people who have after-death experiences.

Not true.

They all talk about it as a beautiful experience and they're so glad they went through it. Even the Atheist who had a REALLY awful experience was incredibly glad he went through it. He was happy when God and two angels came down to him during that experience and chased off the "things" that were hurting him. He said they healed him and were very loving and kind to him. He wanted to know who it was that did that for him once he was resuscitated. And a couple weeks later, he made the connection that it was the God of the Bible. Now, whether it was the God of the Bible or not, who knows. That's for people to decide on their own. The point is that no wishes it didn't happen to them, and everyone who has these experiences come back changed drastically at their core level.

All with no evidence to support that it actually happened. You know, to back it up with actual science.

You're very misinformed on this subject I'm afraid.

Then provide anything that demonstrates that.

Seriously, look into it. It's really interesting!

I have and I agree, it is interesting. It just doesn't match up with what you've said here.

It's a religious production company, but that doesn't make the people giving their testimonies incorrect in any way.

No, but it does indicate a bias which will carry over into editing.

[Scott Mc]

You two need a hobby, possibly one you can do together!

[Maddhattter]

We could take up exorcism!!