So it looks like people NEED the religion scam.

Originally posted by sonhouse
I guess that is why the scam of religion flourishes, people need it. Too bad, it keeps people on a low level maturity wise. All they can think about is what religion is bad, what does my god say about that and who do I have to kill. Of course those are the extremists but it makes it miserable for ALL of us.

Bad scam. VERY bad scam, but the most successf ...[text shortened]... history also. We will never mature as a species till we sham the shackles of organized religion.

Snowflake

Originally posted by sonship
Have you found the original post that you were so bothered about ?
Thanks. Let me take a look.

[quote] God's design after life is past, is to destroy the uncorrected.
Corrective dealings have not done them any good.
And nothing has so hardened them against repentance as the rejection of Christ.

Corrective punishment is put away and Destructive ...[text shortened]... ochs of time. So "future worlds" could also mean simply the ages to come in the future eternity.

So much for short and sweet.

Originally posted by sonhouse
So much for short and sweet.

I promised neither.

Originally posted by FMF
How can it possibly act as a "deterrent" to people who find it unbelievable and incoherent or to people who have already died?

You seem to think that this is some powerful objection.
I don't know why.

Let's say a man is in a boat on the river upstream where Niagara Falls plunges down to rocks below. He may be warned of the eventual danger. He may be so fool-hearty as to not take it seriously.

Such an attitude will not stop the eventual plunge over the waterfalls, if he is not saved.
If they are upstream hearing only a faint distant roar they may ignore the warnings given.They may boast that such warnings do not deter them at all.

Plenty of people are not deterred by real warnings of impending disaster.
This does not mean that all warnings of impending peril are valid.
"Chicken Little-ism" sometimes has to be ignored.

You have to make the decision if Jesus Christ was playing Chicken Little or speaking the truth. The weight of that decision is on each hearer of the words of Jesus.

He took it seriously and acted so, even to the uttermost.

After reading the paragraphs Divegeester found and reposted, I must admit and give more credit to the books I probably had opened before me as I responded.

I am pretty sure that one of those books was Robert Govette's - Eternal Suffering of the Wicked and Hades. It sounds like I was paraphrasing something in that book.

Schoettle Publishers
See them online to obtain that book probably, to read more if you're interested.
IMO it is a good treatment of a very tough subject.

He seems to have written it in response to arguments of Universalism and Annhilationism.
He very accurately portrays the objections of both IMO.

Originally posted by FMF
How can it possibly act as a "deterrent" to people who find it unbelievable and incoherent or to people who have already died?

What I read is that whoever's name was not written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 21:15) .

"And if anyone was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire."

I would not say that this rather final warning on the matter tells me everything about how it is decided who is or is not written in the book of life. But we here presently know of Jesus the Savior.

There are those who think eternal damnation cannot be if God is just, righteous, and loving. I have made the decision that the Bible testifies to both so both must be true.

There is a time when Jesus rebuked His disciples because they wanted to call fire down from heaven to punish those towns that rejected them. He scolded John and James and told them they did not know with what spirit they spoke. He said He came to save men's lives and not to destroy them.

Could it possibly be that the same mouth that uttered that rebuke also elsewhere spoke words of warning of eternal judgment ? It is possible and it was.
Both the kindness and the severity of God must be realities.

I would not encourage anyone to reason that the two aspects cannot both exist in God's character.

Originally posted by sonship
Let's say a man is in a boat on the river upstream where Niagara Falls plunges down to rocks below. He may be warned of the eventual danger. He may be so fool-hearty as to not take it seriously.

Let's say the man isn't in the boat - he's just walking along - and isn't on the river - and is on a road instead - and someone (like you) is telling him that he is in a boat and he is going to plunge over a waterfall, why would the man take it seriously? In what way would these warnings be a credible deterrent to him continuing to walk along the road?

Originally posted by sonship
You seem to think that this is some powerful objection.
I don't know why.

You don't know why your answers to my reasonable question are inadequate? Well, perhaps, in part, it's because you are never able to address it when I raise it, aside from offering analogies that are based on the premise that what you are 'threatening' is true and credible. But that is not the premise of my question.

In fact, the "objection" is about why people who do not believe your threats/warnings should feel deterred, and not about people who do believe your threats/warnings.

Originally posted by sonship
There are those who think eternal damnation cannot be if God is just, righteous, and loving. I have made the decision that the Bible testifies to both so both must be true.

How does you making this decision turn the thing you believe in into a credible deterrent to people who don't believe it?

If there really is a supernatural being who is going to keep me alive and torture me for eternity after I die, why hasn't he don't more than merely send the likes of you - armed with the ancient Hebrew texts you personally think "must be true" - in order to scare me into doing what you say the supernatural being wants me to do?

Originally posted by sonship
"And if anyone was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire."

How is this supposed to deter my Muslim neighbours from living their lives in their non-Christian way?

Originally posted by sonship
After reading the paragraphs Divegeester found and reposted, I must admit and give more credit to the books I probably had opened before me as I responded.

I am pretty sure that one of those books was Robert Govette's - [b]Eternal Suffering of the Wicked and Hades. It sounds like I was paraphrasing something in that book.

Schoettle Publisher ...[text shortened]... ts of Universalism and Annhilationism.
He very accurately portrays the objections of both IMO.

Your inability to apologise to me when I went and found what you wrote and shoved it under your metaphorical nose, is noted. I knew you would not apologise and it took you several days to finally realise that I was not going to let you off the hook before you even responded.

Originally posted by sonship
After reading the paragraphs Divegeester found and reposted, I must admit and give more credit to the books I probably had opened before me as I responded.

I am pretty sure that one of those books was Robert Govette's - [b]Eternal Suffering of the Wicked and Hades. It sounds like I was paraphrasing something in that book.

Schoettle Publisher ...[text shortened]... ts of Universalism and Annhilationism.
He very accurately portrays the objections of both IMO.

It is amusing that the one time you actually acknowledge a source which you have been plagiarising, is to defend your horrible teaching and being caught out didn't even say it. Perhaps if you stopped "paraphrasing" [sic] from other authors and used your own ideas you would get yourself into these sticky situations.

Sonship, I honestly feel that what you teach is a disgrace.

"The lost will glorify him in their endless woe"

What on earth is this hateful phrase meant to convey. Fill your mind with other thoughts sonship. At the very least plagiarise from someone who has the spirit of Christ and not this darkness.