Belief in God hinges on the reality and morality of hell.

[Greatest I am]

Belief in God hinges on the reality and morality of hell.

At the end of the day, with a God who hides, the only good way to ascertain if he would be real or not is by his morality. This assumes that having a sense of morality is good and not having it is not and that a God would be good.

The pivotal question for God’s existence is;---- would a good God create a place like hell?

The definition of hell here is the one of eternal fire and torture with no chance of reprieve.
IOW. The traditional hell

To help me determine if there was a real Bible God or not, I asked and answered a few simple question for myself.

1. Is it morals and good justice for a soul to be able to sin for a finite time and then have to suffer torture for infinity?

2. Is it good morals and justice for small or mediocre sinners to have to bear the same sentence as Hitler, Stalin and other genocidal maniacs?

Punishment is usually only given to change attitude or actions and cause the sinner to repent.

3. Is it good morals and justice to continue to torture a soul in hell if no change in attitude or actions are to result?

4. Is it good morals and justice to keep a soul alive in hell instead of killing it for mercies sake?

I answered no to all of the above and determined that there is no way in hell that a hell would be a moral construct and that a good God would not create such a place. If hell exists then Bible God cannot if he is a good God.

If you answered no, as I did, then the existence of Bible God also gives a no answer.

If you answered yes to any of the above then let us examine your reasons for thinking that God would create this, to you, moral construct called hell.

Please justify your yes and show what I am to give a rebuttal to and let us try to reason together. This is mostly impossible from what I have seen and experienced but having kept this O P fairly simple, I am hopping that we can.


Regards
DL


PS. The next post is to give you a glimpse of what others think of some of these issues and to stimulate thought. There is quite a bit of it and it is there for reference only.

 

[Greatest I am]

On hell.

Better to shovel coal in hell than to spend eternity watching friends, neighbors and our children in torture and flame forever.
Only a sick mind would conceive of such a situation or wish it upon anyone. That is why God would not do such because then, heaven would be hell.
If those in heaven did not go insane then they could not have once been human or good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF6I5VSZVqc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZM3FXlLMug

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE_TWhzG-p0&feature=related


Is God good?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaL7CkQaQpU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9FKn4rKXEY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTpJ8PGT2yY&feature=related


Satan’s history.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_sat2.htm

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_sat1.htm#menu

http://abcnews.go.com/nightline/faceoff -----About ½ way down the page.




O T, N T, Jesus and hell.

http://www.youtube.com/user/TurpisHaereticus#p/u/2/k88ntaUXP2c


What the Bible says.

Romans 12:21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

By any definition, sendind souls to hell is overcoming evil with evil and hell in this sense is not Biblical.

Regards
DL

 

[gmilam]

Belief in god, or lack thereof, should hinge on evidence of god's existence. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[NMSquirrel]

1. Is it morals and good justice for a soul to be able to sin for a finite time and then have to suffer torture for infinity?

I believe there is a waiting room..so to speak...we will have an opportunity for us to repent..and those who have not acknowledged god, will not do so then..

2. Is it good morals and justice for small or mediocre sinners to have to bear the same sentence as Hitler, Stalin and other genocidal maniacs?

ever read dante's inferno?

Punishment is usually only given to change attitude or actions and cause the sinner to repent.

this is what humans think..
and the prison system says otherwise..

3. Is it good morals and justice to continue to torture a soul in hell if no change in attitude or actions are to result?

this assumes an 'out' from hell...

4. Is it good morals and justice to keep a soul alive in hell instead of killing it for mercies sake?

killing is too merciful for some..

Please justify your yes and show what I am to give a rebuttal to and let us try to reason together. This is mostly impossible from what I have seen and experienced but having kept this O P fairly simple, I am hopping that we can.

careful what you ask for..

PS. The next post is to give you a glimpse of what others think of some of these issues and to stimulate thought. There is quite a bit of it and it is there for reference only.

didn't watch..

 

[wynn]

Belief in God hinges on the reality and morality of hell.

Do you have any evidence that everyone who believes in God, believes in God due to the morality of hell?

 

[kurros]

Do you have any evidence that everyone who believes in God, believes in God due to the morality of hell?

I doubt he is trying to suggest that; he is propositioning that this is something they should decide their faith by, not that they actually do.

 

[Lori_7]

morals are irrelevant. what is relevant is the law we all live under. take a look around "greatest i am". hell isn't that far of a stretch.

IT'S REALLY HAPPENING.

i'm picturing greatest i am sitting in hell, arms crossed and nose up in the air saying, "i can't believe this is happening. it's so wrong!"

lol

 

[cosmictraveler]

Believing in a invisible being that controls everything, including you, is only a sign of mental health problems that should be addressed.

 

[Lori_7]

Believing in a invisible being that controls everything, including you, is only a sign of mental health problems that should be addressed.

no, i'm actually talking about things you can see cosmic.

believing that your morality governs the universe is a sign of a mental health problem.

 

[gmilam]

I doubt he is trying to suggest that; he is propositioning that this is something they should decide their faith by, not that they actually do.

I would disagree.

That's like saying, "The invasion of Iraq was immoral, therefore I don't believe in George Bush." That's obviously faulty logic.

 

[lightgigantic]

Believing in a invisible being that controls everything, including you, is only a sign of mental health problems that should be addressed.

The alternative, namely that selfhood has no essential composition beyond quarks, seems to brings more pressing mental health needs to the table ...

 

[cosmictraveler]

The alternative, namely that selfhood has no essential composition beyond quarks, seems to brings more pressing mental health needs to the table ...

At least I know what and who I belive in, myself, rather than something that isn't real and only some type of delusion that many seem to have.

 

[Yazata]

Belief in God hinges on the reality and morality of hell.

For me at least, belief in God is primarily an ontological, epistemological and semantic issue. Does God exist? (The ontological part.) How can we know? (The epistemological part.) And what does the word 'God' mean in the first place? Put another way, if we are seeking God, then what kind of thing should we be looking for?

That's where the moral point seems to be most relevant. It's a question of whether the Judeo-Christian (and Islamic) traditions offer up an image of transcendence that's a suitable and worthy object of the human religious quest.

If the Bible depicts this God as ordering genocide, demanding that enemies be exterminated man, woman and child (even their animals), if God is portrayed as commanding that fathers kill daughters who have premarital sex and that blasphemers be stoned to death, I don't think that I would want to halt my search for God at that point. When eager evangelists periodically assure me that their "God of Love" will torture me unspeakably for ever and ever and ever, unless I grovel appropriately while muttering the proper formulas, then I feel that the most direct path to God probably lies in a totally different direction.

Christian fundies always tell me that God is our 'Creator', that we are his property to do with as he pleases, and that our moral judgements simply don't apply to him. But I can't just shrug off God's acting in ways that we would never for a moment accept from another human being. (We correctly revile Adolph Hitler for doing milder things.) If I am seeking God, then I'm seeking something that's better than I am, not worse. I simply can't bring myself to worship a God that I perceive as being mankind's moral inferior.

So bottom line, I don't believe in God for ontological, epistemological and semantic reasons. But if I did believe in God, I probably wouldn't find my path to the divine through the Judeo-Christian-Islamic family of myth-traditions. The image of divinity that they offer up seems to me to be morally flawed and psychologically crude.

The fatal defect with all three traditions might be that they are what Muslims call 'Religions of the Book', which effectively locks them into ancient and culturally primitive conceptions of religiosity. These religions have trouble advancing spiritually and growing more sophisticated with time because they are locked into what they are convinced is inerrant and true-for-all-time divine revelation.

 

[cosmictraveler]

no, i'm actually talking about things you can see cosmic.

Show me then and let me also see for so far I look and listen but am not hearing or seeing what you , and others , do. I'm open minded enough to accept things that can be proven as fact, not belief, to keep me involved with humankind.

 

[wynn]

The alternative, namely that selfhood has no essential composition beyond quarks, seems to brings more pressing mental health needs to the table ...

With the proper daily dosage of Prozac and the like, such needs are irrelevant.

 

[cosmictraveler]

With the proper daily dosage of Prozac and the like, such needs are irrelevant.

Lithium is my friend!

 

[wynn]

Lithium is my friend!

Talk about imaginary friends ...

 

[NMSquirrel]

Believing in a invisible being that controls everything, including you, is only a sign of mental health problems that should be addressed.

i would change out the word 'control' with 'influence' to disagree with you..

 

[NMSquirrel]

If the Bible depicts this God as ordering genocide, demanding that enemies be exterminated man, woman and child (even their animals), if God is portrayed as commanding that fathers kill daughters who have premarital sex and that blasphemers be stoned to death, I don't think that I would want to halt my search for God at that point. When eager evangelists periodically assure me that their "God of Love" will torture me unspeakably for ever and ever and ever, unless I grovel appropriately while muttering the proper formulas, then I feel that the most direct path to God probably lies in a totally different direction.

bold is key to the misconception..
and i was gonna argue with you to show me where God commands these things so i could argue context..but i don't want to derail the thread..

 

[Lori_7]

Show me then and let me also see for so far I look and listen but am not hearing or seeing what you , and others , do. I'm open minded enough to accept things that can be proven as fact, not belief, to keep me involved with humankind.

i was referring to law and our state of existence. you can see much of that. enough to know that morality is irrelevant. the universe doesn't have to agree with you, but to what degree you agree with the universe, is what decides your state of existence.