Posted on 12/06/2004 12:44:58 PM PST by Lindykim
"Is it morally and theologically acceptable to hope anyone goes to hell? ... One...need not be a conservative Christian to believe in some form of hell for the evil. All one need be is a rational believer in a just God. For if there is a just God, it is inconceivable that those who do evil and those who do good have identical fates. A just God must care about justice, and since there is little justice in this world, there has to be in the next. And belief in the next world is also not confined to Christianity. As the Encyclopedia Judaica ... (edited largely by non-religious Jews) notes in the first sentence under the heading 'Afterlife,' 'Judaism has always believed in an afterlife.' ... Much of humanity has been adversely affected by modern-day terror. The lives of millions -- virtually all Palestinians and Israelis, for example -- have been terribly affected by Arafat. And there are hundreds of thousands of people whose lives have been destroyed or shattered by him. At the same time, other than a few sycophants enriched by some of the billions of dollars he embezzled from the Palestinians, no one has had a better life because Yasser Arafat lived. ... Yasser Arafat single-handedly made nihilistic acts of cruelty routine, even respectable. ... Thanks to him, the Palestinian name is identified among people of goodwill with barbarity just as the German name came to be associated with barbarity as a result of Hitler. ... Just as any decent human being would want good people to be rewarded in whatever existence there is after this life, they would want the cruelest of people to be punished. So, of course, I hope Yasser Arafat is in hell. ... If you think that is hard-hearted, consider the alternative, that one of the most corrupt and cruel human beings of the past half-century is resting in peace. Whoever isn't bothered by that is the one with the hard heart." --Dennis Prager
We cannot save ourselves, only God can do that. But we can cooperate with him in healing ourselves.
I analogize: if one has a severe heart attack requiring surgery it is impossible for one to save one's own life. A surgeon has to do that.
After the surgery, one is able to work with the surgeon in recovering, by following his directions for recuperation and making sacrifices in order to become whole and hale again.
When God gives us His grace we are dead in our sins and He brings us back to life. But we are still wounded and impure due to the lingering aftereffects of sin. But God wants us to cooperate with Him in bringing our soul back to health and He makes sure, through His grace, that we are able to wholly purify our soul and repair it before He brings us into His kingdom.
Think of Purgatory as a hospital recovery room. Think of justification as that life-saving operation no patient can perform for himself and sanctification as that monitored program in which the patients works with his doctor in recuperating.
Dear wkdaysoff,
"my bad."
All is forgiven.
But it will cost you some time in Purgatory. ;-)
sitetest
I once saw an aging Alice Cooper in a pro shop in Southern California intensely examining a putter. That was a little hellish --uh -- surreal.
See my post 141 to save your scalp.
From the sounds of it, if you think the hijackers and me are the same in God's eyes, then that's some crummy belief system.
I prefer to think of them as roasting. I believe that if we're just here to only believe in Jesus or not, and that's all that matters, I might as well be out using any and all drugs and killing whoever I wish, since it wouldn't matter.
My disgust for Warren Sapp for that incident is only overwhelmed by my disgust for his attitude after it. No apology no remorse whatsoever. He breaks a man's neck, ruins his carrer, and doesn't think he did anything wrong!
If there is a need for a list of real candidates for Hell, I have a long one, too long for this forum. Murderers, traitors and some politicians head the list.
Words fail me.
""Hope" is irrelevant - all that matters is what is. The only hope that Arafat had was to renounce idolatry and embrace Jesus Christ as savior. He did not do that, choosing instead to live a life of hatred. To hold the belief that Arafat is in hell, all that is required is a belief in God's word. "
I tend to believe his life as a murderer is more of a factor in his fate than whether or not he believed the NT.
Antinomian heresy.
It seems to me that the 'next world' is God's business. It is enough for me that evil men leave or be removed from this world.
In Purgatory, you have to watch this year's 6-4 Iowa-Penn State football game over and over.
SD
He was wearing one of those golf gloves...
Actually Christ only died for those he predestined to receive him, otherwise his sacrifice would be in vain. If therefore he predestined some to be "saved", then it also stands to reason that some have been predestined to Hell. But it is not for us to determine who.
Oh, you're making that up :-).
I don't understand this way of thinking.
So, if Jesus already died for our sins, we are going to heaven. There is not hell.
Therefore, we can do whatever we want?
Now that's scary!
Absolutely true.
No I wouldn't A life is filled with many things, it's never pure "unrepentance".
And even if it were, that still doesn't address the issue of how it's "just" to have an eternal amount of punishment for, say, 50 years of "unrepentance". Maybe 50 years of punishment, perhaps, but not an infinite, unending amount for all eternity.
Furthermore, perhaps given another decade of life (or after the first decade of punishment), the "unrepentant" may well come to see the error of his earlier ways and achieve that instant of salvation which erases the rest -- where, then, is the justice in eternal punishment? There seems nothing "just" about that.
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