Rick, your mistake is that you seem to think that ...

2009-09-26T16:57:27.077-05:00

Rick, your mistake is that you seem to think that God is actively dooming people to Hell. That's an incorrect perspective. It's also an incorrect perspective to equate raining fire down on someone with the concept of a literal Hell. The Hell of the Bible is not something that occurs on the physical Earth; it is a spiritual place. It's not a village.

What I see in the Word is a God who refuses to force Himself on His own creation, but who has gone to great lengths to show the human race that He loves them and wants them to choose to be with Him forever. Hell is not a place that God throws people into; it is where God allows us to go when we refuse His advances of love. There is evidence in the Bible that God even has ways of revealing Himself through nature to people who have not had the advantage of being taught the Word of God (the key verse, of course, being the ever-popular Romans 1:18-20)... I know you've likely been over all of this yourself, but I can't assume that everyone who reads this blog is as aware of what the Word says as you and I.

Point being, I don't think God sends people to Hell. I think God gives each and every person a clear chance to make the choice, and either they choose him or they don't.

I have a friend who had a near-death experience once. He firmly believes that people who are undecided about God have a choice immediately after death to choose Him or not. In Hebrews 9:27 it says that we die one time and after that comes judgment, but I don't necessarily see that it implies an immediate succession of one after the other with absolutely nothing in between. But I don't know... I've never been dead, and I seriously doubt that after I die I'll be coming back to blog about it. :) But I do believe that however God's justice is satisfied, every person who goes to Hell has somehow and at some time chosen to be away from God. God is certainly loving and merciful, but God is also just and holy, and eventually if people choose to hold on to their sinful natures and not allow God to cleanse them, when God casts away the sin, they're going to still be attached to it.

Besides... if there wasn't something even more horrible to save people from, why would God go to the awful lengths of letting His own Son be murdered? Either God was trying to save someone from something even worse than what Jesus suffered, or God is stupid or insane. I mean, it was an expression of God's love for sure, but you don't send your child to the chopping block as a quick substitute for sending a Valentine's Day card. I think God did something horrible in order to prevent something even more horrible. The human race was in danger of being banished from God's presence forever, and God made a way for use to escape that fate.

I think you're starting to walk on shaky ground when you presume to have figured out that things were added to the Word thousands of years ago, especially when those things have been accepted as canon by millions of Christians ever since then. I don't like the idea of people in torment for eternity any more than you do, but I think it is unwise to assume that significant parts of the canon of Scripture are later additions just because they're hard to understand or don't seem at first look to match with other similar portions of Scripture. If you're going to reject Bible verses that you don't like, then we have no common basis for debate anyway, and this is all your opinion vs. my opinion, and everybody's right.

Sorry, but there are a couple glaring ommissions f...

2009-09-26T11:09:19.986-05:00

Sorry, but there are a couple glaring ommissions from your analogy, at least, according to Evangelical beliefs--to be more accurate, God would be actively tossing people down a 90 foot drop, regardless of what his victims were thinking. But he wouldn't stop there. He'd be making sure they didn't die, so they could feel as much pain as possible after hitting the ground and smashing dozens of bones. And then, he would keep that pain going, indefintely! Oh, one more, he would do this to BILLIONS of people, many who never even knew who God or Jesus were, until they woke up from their death bed to feel his wrath!

Now, just how safe can you, the believer feel? Well, none at all! Any God who can do this sort of thing is NOT the kind of being you could ever trust to be faithful to his promise to spare you from a similar fate.

Well, the good news, is that no such torture is going to happen, that is, if what Jesus really had to say about Hell is true.

I've actually written an entire book on this topic--"Hell? No! Why You Can Be Certain There's No Such Place As Hell," (for anyone interested, you can get a free Ecopy of my book at my website: www.ricklannoye.com), but if I may, let me share one more of the many points I make in it.

If one is willing to look, there's substantial evidence contained in the gospels to show that Jesus opposed the idea of Hell. For example, in Luke 9:51-56, is a story about his great disappointment with his disciples when they actually suggested imploring God to rain FIRE on a village just because they had rejected him. His response: "You don't know what spirit is inspiring this kind of talk!" Presumably, it was NOT the Holy Spirit. He went on, trying to explain how he had come to save, heal and relieve suffering, not be the CAUSE of it.

So it only stands to reason that this same Jesus, who was appalled at the very idea of burning a few people, for a few horrific minutes until they were dead, could never, ever burn BILLIONS of people for an ETERNITY!

True, there are a few statements that made their way into the gospels which place Hell on Jesus lips, but these adulterations came along many decades after his death, most likely due to the Church filling up with Greeks who imported their belief in Hades with them when they converted.

Comments on Christian Life with Michael: Ninety Feet

Rick, your mistake is that you seem to think that ...

Sorry, but there are a couple glaring ommissions f...