I’ve always found it strange that God would create life and only give the beings of his creation the option to worship him or suffer for eternity.
I think it’s healthy and intellectually challenging and beneficial to explore the origin questions. I think it’s dangerous to do so disingenuously.
I don't think that God actually inflicts pain or torture upon anyone. I believe that in order to enter the kingdom of heaven after going through a mortal probation, one must be willing to live according to the laws of the celestial kingdom. Those who are not willing to abide a celestial law must go to another kingdom where he/she is willing to abide by that kingdoms laws. It is the free will and choice of mankind to choose to live the law of Christ or abide by another law. What I do believe is that when we come to stand before God to be judged, we will then have a bright recollection of our premortal spirit life and how we desired to faithful to God upon coming to this earth. When we see that we failed in our eternal goal then we will be filled with guilt and remorse for not living up to our eternal potential. This I think is the punishment we bring upon ourselves for not believing in God and it becomes a sort of hell to know that we could have done better if we only had made better choices with our free will. If there is progression beyond the grave, I believe it will take us much longer than it would have had we simply accepted Jesus and his teachings here on earth. So in a word, I think hell is regret and for some it may be an endless regret. But I don't think that God can be blamed for our failure because the road to eternal life with God is a set path and we all volunteered to receive it. We all knew that failure was a possibility but it was the only path to our progression. God is a part of the whole plan but it is the only true path to progression in the eternities. He doesn't do it because he enjoys making some of us suffer but he does it to give us all the opportunity to be the best we can be through free will and learning. To become more like God, one must learn to choose good over evil in and of themselves. Nobody makes God be who he is. He loves goodness and chooses of his own free will to love it and abide by its principles. In order for us to progress, we too must learn to choose in and of ourselves to be good beings. I think this earth life is the opportunity God gives us to see what our true characters really are and what we are willing to accept in our lives. In the face of good and evil we are the product of our own will and choice. We bring it upon ourselves.
What kind of danger?
When we are being disingenuous, we are not being totally candid or honest with ourselves or others. So, to start with, danger to one's own intellect.
or you can read a king james bible to know about 2 judgements. bema seat and great white throne. Jesus paid for your sin. period.
The kind of danger associated with not being objective… bad habits that lead to predictable surprises.
That’s an interesting thought. I don’t really seeing objectivity relating to being genuine or not… wouldn't an argument be an argument independent of the intent behind it?
Disingenuous - by definition - is intended to be misleading. To cloud or cloak a reality. The intent of objectivity is to discover reality. So they don’t really go hand in hand.
trying to make sense out of religion is like getting married.....it makes sense until she tells you she hates your worthless guts
the flesh is left in the grave....how do you burn something that exists only in the spirit world
That’s a fair point, but when the discussion is regarding what is reality in regards to God or a spiritual realm then there isn’t a lot of room to cloud or cloak reality. I guess with those kind of discussions it becomes about understanding the different theologies or about what each individual chooses to have faith in and believe.
Which is why I said the danger is in developing bad habits that lead to predictable surprises. It’s not the subject that determines how we behave, it’s how we see the subject. Without objectivity and no preference for an outcome it’s just an echo chamber with no hope in discovering any reality other than the one we want it to be.
That’s a good approach. Where are you at with this one after your examinations? You’ve made some points that I’ve never heard of from the Bible or religious doctrine… Where are you getting those from?
Do you mean they don't believe a soul is in hell for eternity?
Thanks. Not sure which specific points you are talking about though. You’d be surprised at the number of diverse secular subjects that have informed my journey; normalization of deviance, locus of control, origin of the universe, the nature of matter, the evolution of space and time, the linkage between mind and matter, the cycle of nations, physical laws of nature, biological laws of nature, moral laws of nature, etc.
