I trust that Jesus Knew what he was talking about

Weekend Fisher responds to yesterday's post by saying:

Weekend Fisher said... You know, if someone asks us, "How can we know the reality of salvation?", somewhere along the way we have to get to "I trust that Jesus knew what he was talking about". Otherwise it's all a question of whose sci-fi/fantasy religion fic is better than the next guy's. The winner and a dollar will get you a coke.

The difference in my approach and her's is that she's talking about to get saved and I was talking about how do we know that getting saved is a real thing for us to do in the first place? I have no problem with what she says as far as that goes, how do you actually get saved? I agree with it and I think he has a good point.On her blog she responds to my request that she flesh it out:

Back on your blog -- about how you said you thought it should be obvious. I just think the people reading you might not think it's obvious. Just consider how often you can beat a point to death and they still won't get it. You can spell things out with plain words and an outline and you'll still get a large percent saying, "Huh?" If that's how much they understand the stuff you spell out day after day, post after post, what are the odds they'll get a point that you don't mention? Y'know.

Reading between the lines of that guy's question, I almost wondered if he was asking (translate mode): "Ok, you believe in God, but 'salvation' -- what about Jesus?" Which comes back to: What about hope? What about the reality of God in this world?"

Nothing I say beyond this point should be construed as a commentary on Fisher's theology. I'm not talking about her understanding now. I'm talking about Christian ideas in general.

In talking about salvation in the abstract we are talking about metaphors for things beyond our understanding. In discussing salvation for people who have no chance of ever hearing about Jesus we are talking about what God does to reach those people. I don't agree that he just sends them to hell with a "O that's too bad." I don't buy evangelical answers that "God is such a Holy God that he can't stand sin, even form people are who are seeking truth and don't really do anything wrong, but if they are not i the proper club they are not saved." I don't think Paul taught that either. There are two passages where Paul makes it clear (to me anyway) that this is not the case. I have a page where I discuss this at length. Here's an excerpt from that page:

Other Religions

Paul said "To those who through persistance seek glory, honor and immortality he will give eternal life.But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the good and follow evil there will be wrath and anger...first for the Jew and then for the gentile; but glory honor and peace for everyone who does good. For God does not show favoritism. All who sin apart from the law will perish apart form the law and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.

Indeed when Gentiles who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirement of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences bearing witness and their hearts now accusing, now even defending them..." (Romans 2:7-15). New American Standard and other translations say "their hearts accusing, now excusing them..." Most Christians are afraid of this conclusion and they down play this verse. Often Evangelicals will come back and say "he makes it clear in the next passage that no one can really follow the law on their hearts." Well, if they can't, than they can't. But if they can, and do, than God will excuse them. God knows the heart, we do not. The verse clearly opens the door to the possibility of salvation (although by Jesus) thorugh a de facto arrangement in which one is seeking the good without knowing the object one is seeking (Jesus). In other words, it is possible that people in other cultures who follow the moral law written on the heart know Jesus de facto even if they don't know him overtly. Paul backs up this conclusion in Acts 17:22 Paul goes to Athens as is asked by the Athenian philosophers to explain his ideas to them.

These were pagan followers of another religion. Paul stood up and said to them, "Men of Athens, I see that in every way you are very religious for as I walked around and observed your objects of worship I even found an alter with this inscription 'TO AN UNKOWN GOD' Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you."He basically says that they are worshiping God, they just don't know who he is. That's why he says "I will make it known to you." He doesn't say "you have the wrong idea completely." Most Evangelicals dismiss this as a neat rhetorical trick. But if we assume that Paul would not lie or distort his beliefs for the sake of cheap tricks, we must consider that he did not say "you are all a bunch of pagans and you are going to hell!" He essentially told them, "God is working in your culture, you do know God, but you don't know who God is. You seek him, without knowing the one you seek. He goes on,(v27)"God did this [created humanity and scattered them into different cultures] so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out and find him though he is not far form each one of us." This implies that God not only wants to work in other cultures, but that it is actually his paln to do things in this way. Perhaps through a diversity of insights we might come to know God better. Perhaps it means that through spreading the Gospel people would come to contemplate better the meaning of God's love.

In any case, it does mean that God is working in other cultures, and that God is in the hearts of all people drawing them to himself. Of their worship of idols, Paul said "in past times God overlooked such ignorance but now he commands all people everywhere to repent" (v30). Now what can this mean? God never overlooks idolatry or paganism, in the OT he's always commanding the Israelite to wipe them out and expressly forbidding idolatry. It means that on an individual basis when God judges the hearts of people, he looks at their desire to seek him, to seek the good. That their status as individuals in a pagan culture does not negate the good they have done, and their ignorance of idolotry does not discount their desire to seek the good or the truth. IT means that they are following Jesus if they live in the moral life, even though they follow him as something unknown to them. IT also means that all of us should come into the truth, we should seek to know God fully, and when we do that we find that it is Jesus all along.

3) Justice of Punishment.

Jesus himself never speaks directly of hell, but always in parables. The other statements of Hell are mainly in euphemistic passages or in apocalyptic passages such as the book of Revelation. But I suggest that for some crimes hell is deserved. The slaughter of innocent people, the disruption of thousands of lives, the Hitlers of the world, and those who rationalize the deeds through "following orders" deserve to suffer the consequences of their actions. Evil has consequences, and those who commit evil should suffer the consequences, and they will.I have no direct knowledge of what hell is. It is based upon the Greek mythological concept of Tartarus which got into Hebrew thinking through Hellenization. There is no "hell" in the Tennach or the Pentateuch ("OT"). In the Hebrew scriptures there is only mention of Sheol, or the "the grave" to which everyone goes. But in the books of Revelation it does speak of those who work inequity being "outside the Kingdom of God." I don't' believe that hell is literal fire and brimstone, I do believe it is some state of anxiety or separation from God.

C. Knowing God.

Heb. 8:10-12 "...I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts I will be their God and they will be my people. No longer will a man say to his neighbor 'know the Lord' for they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more." This passage promises a "personal relationship with God."The word for "to Know" is the Greek Term Ginosko, which means personal experiential knowledge. To give one's life to Jesus means to develop a personal relationship with Jesus. Jesus said (John) "My sheep know my voice..." Personal relationship means that it is more than a set of rules, more than an ideology or a belief system, but a matter of the heart, the emotions, religious affections. IT may not be through dramatic miraculous effects (although I do believe that that is open to all Christians) but it is deeper than mere rule keeping, and does make for a satisfaction nothing else can match.God acts upon the heart. Salvation is a matter of "knowing God" not of mere intellectual assent. What does it mean to know God? It means that being a Christian is a matter of experiencing God's love in the heart and of loving God and others. It is also a matter of being "led" by God through impressions upon the heart, and not merely a set of rules or a list of beliefs that one must check off. IT is the development of "religious affections."The excitement of knowing God is unequaled by anything else in this life.

That was written many years ago. I know believe it's annihilation. Cease to exist and go proof.

There is a part of Weekend Fisher's statement with which I do not agree:

Otherwise it's all a question of whose sci-fi/fantasy religion fic is better than the next guy's.

I don't agree with it because that implies that there has to be a "one right religion." I don't believe that Christianity is "the right religion." "Christianity " is a man made institution based upon the based upon the spiritual concept of Church. The chruch is the "crowd" of God. The Greek term (Ekleasia, Eckloucia) meant like the crowd at the supermarket, or maybe more focused but something like "Jesus' possy." The guys he hangs out with. It's the collection of people who know God. "Christianity" is an entity not mentioned in Scripture. That pertains to all sorts of man made institutions.

It's one thing to point out the metaphorical nature of words and the transcendent nature of divine reality. Religious traditions are accumulations of cultural constructs we use to filter our perceptions of the divine becuase those perceptions are beyond our understanding. It's the cultural aspects that make religions different. The one true reality of God ("the divine") stands behind them all. Yet Jesus is not a metaphor.He was a concrete man in history. Christians are those who accept that this particular man was the embodiment of the second person of the Godhead. It's what we think about this one particular guy that makes us a Christian or breaks our pretense of Christianity. These are not mutually exclusive concepts. God can be working in other cultures, and people who never heard of Jesus can be following Jesus and not know it's him becuase they follow the moral law on the heart, they follow the good. There may be a since in which that works both ways, so the symbol they are using is (Buddha, the Tao) can thought of as "the real thing" in the sense that it's their understanding of the real thing ("the divine") that is leading them toward God's truth.

There is a point where we must disagree. That point doesn't have to mean eternal damnation fo those who don't understand it like we do. There is a point where membership in the club has to be brought into focus and we say "this is what we think it is, if you disagree we still like you but you are not in our club." Then in heaven we all go through our separate doors and come out i one giant court yard together and go "O hey it's you, you are guy's are here too, great!" We don't have to say "our deal is best so we get to kick ass."

That doesn't mean that I pray to Vishnu or that I would bow down to a wooden idol. To me that would be a sell out becuase I believe the best case senerio is that those might be metaphors that filter experience beyond understanding; they are not my metaphors. To exclude my own metaphor just to make a point would not be true my own idea of things. One time a friend of mine and I went to a Hare Krishna restaurant. They had really good chick pea dishes. This guy was not a Chrisian, he was a drop out for Moody Bible college. He wanted to test my liberality so he said "this food has been sacrificed to idols, do you know that? are you going to eat it?" I said "is that your understanding of the point Paul was making in 1 cor? Is that what they taught about Grace at Moody, just them vs. us?" I'll have to go over that again before I try to expound upon it, it did shut the guy up, after we had a little discussion about the passage.

So my verdict is, Yes if anyone is saved it is Jesus that saves them. Jesus and only Jesus. They may not know it's Jesus, they may have a different metaphor for it, but they are still seeking the good, seeking the moral law on the heart, which is the good. Rather than make Jesus a stumbling block Paul tired to show Jesus as the open door. Jesus called himself (rather his death, his sacrifice) a stumbling block for the pharisees his implication was that they allowed it to be stumbling block but not working out the truth of the matter. We can make membership in our club and excuse to condemn people or we can their desire for the truth a vehicle trough which they might actually come to know as Jesus and as savior. It's a lot easier to be saved by Grace than to qualify for the Romans 2:6-14 clause. Cut to the chase and do it outright, but that doesn't' give us the right to condmen all the other traditions because they are not us.

The Universlity of Jesus

I have my universalism perspective that comes in form mystical theology. It's still a Jesus-centric universalism. Here's how it works. A recent post on CARM gave a good opportunity to summarize my position.


On CARM
Originally Posted by troxel

Care to defend this?

Many concepts of God are just plainly false and even destructive. Many concepts of God are exclusive and thereby intrinsically destroy the above claim. Finally many concepts of God posit mutually contradicting theories and doctrines that again violate the above claim.

Meta:

you are not thinking about reality. The way atheists usually judge the truth of religion is a strange thing. They sort of divorce it from the way we understand reality and the way we look at the world in all other words and kind of pretend that if a tradition accepts a certain view point then it exist in a real world where that doctrine is true. I know they actually bleieve this but the appraoch in that way.

The only thing that is more odd is that atheists feel the need to enter those little worlds and mess them up, they continue to see them as real. Church of Christ don't live in their own world (except the conceptual world) where their exclusivity God sends anyone to hell who doesn't have baptism by dunking. That is part of their conceptual world but it's not real. That they think that does not count against the Catholic view of God or the Tillich view of God. It's just that there are some people who think this wrong thing about God.

All concepts of God point to God, but that doesn't mean that God is made up out of all of them. That's what the Point-to clause is about. Their view is not God it just points to god. That is to say, the reality that inspires all religious traditions is understood vegly, badly, partially or not at all. Its' still there. It's not a composite of all the others and it doesn't make a bit of difference if the others are stupid or wrong or bad, they don't spoil the truth of what they point they just point to it.

We all experience God at some level, but that level is usually beyond words, usually subconscious. For those who have dramatic experiences of it those experiences are usually on a level that can't be communicated in words. To talk about it we have to compare it to things we know that means we have to filter it through constructs. All constructs are cultural; so religoius traditions are different because they are rooted in different cultural realities.

It doesn't matter that they contradict. the reality is not made up of those differences. The reality is beyond our understanding, it has to be experienced. The contradictions are in the constructs not the thing itself.


Originally Posted by troxel

Yes one can attempt to distill out perennial philosophies that run through many religious thoughts. I don't have much problem with that notion. However it is an egregious mistake to claim that all gods point to God as many religious concepts are inherently flawed and even destructive.

For example, would you attempt to say that God in the mind of Jihadist who wishes to kill innocent people in large numbers with the goal achieving paradise for himself points to God? Would you say the God in the mind of Aryan Nations Christian points to the ultimate reality? Or the God in mind of the Westboro Baptist Church member? Or the God in the mind of the Hindu who believes in deplorable caste system points to God? Or how about the David Davidian? There is much insanity, racism, egocentricity and self-absorbance in various god concepts and to claim all of these point to God is absurd and wrong.

Meta:

again you have them all in their own worlds as though there are thousands of God's the different tradition are literally in different demonstrations compete with their own Gods.

the fact that some group of hate fulled morons get's it wrong does not discredit the idea of One reality behind all traditions. most of those moron groups are not valid traditions. They are cults, spliter groups, fanatics and extremists they don't represent the traditions they broke away from.

Christianity is the tradition. The fundies in Christianity are not the tradition they are subject groups and most of them invalid and not representative of the faith as a whole. Against its' the constructs that are wrong. All of those fanatics groups named above are defined by the constructs and the culturally bound association that separate them from their tradition. We can see this clearly because they involve political differences.

Most people are going to say that to be a Christian one must believe in the exclusive nature of Jesus. How can I be a Christian and believe that God is working in all cultures? Paul did.

Other Religions

Paul said "To those who through persistence seek glory, honor and immortality he will give eternal life.But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the good and follow evil there will be wrath and anger...first for the Jew and then for the gentile; but glory honor and peace for everyone who does good. For God does not show favoritism. All who sin apart from the law will perish apart form the law and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.

Indeed when Gentiles who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirement of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences bearing witness and their hearts now accusing, now even defending them..." (Romans 2:7-15). New American Standard and other translations say "their hearts accusing, now excusing them..." Most Christians are afraid of this conclusion and they down play this verse. Often Evangelicals will come back and say "he makes it clear in the next passage that no one can really follow the law on their hearts." Well, if they can't, than they can't. But if they can, and do, than God will excuse them. God knows the heart, we do not. The verse clearly opens the door to the possibility of salvation (although by Jesus) thorugh a de facto arrangement in which one is seeking the good without knowing the object one is seeking (Jesus). In other words, it is possible that people in other cultures who follow the moral law written on the heart know Jesus de facto even if they don't know him overtly. Paul backs up this conclusion in Acts 17:22 Paul goes to Athens as is asked by the Athenian philosophers to explain his ideas to them.

These were pagan followers of another religion. Paul stood up and said to them, "Men of Athens, I see that in every way you are very religious for as I walked around and observed your objects of worship I even found an alter with this inscription 'TO AN UNKOWN GOD' Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you."He basically says that they are worshiping God, they just don't know who he is. That's why he says "I will make it known to you." He doesn't say "you have the wrong idea completely." Most Evangelicals dismiss this as a neat rhetorical trick. But if we assume that Paul would not lie or distort his beliefs for the sake of cheap tricks, we must consider that he did not say "you are all a bunch of pagans and you are going to hell!" He essentially told them, "God is working in your culture, you do know God, but you don't know who God is. You seek him, without knowing the one you seek. He goes on,(v27)"God did this [created humanity and scattered them into different cultures] so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out and find him though he is not far form each one of us." This implies that God not only wants to work in other cultures, but that it is actually his paln to do things in this way. Perhaps through a diversity of insights we might come to know God better. Perhaps it means that through spreading the Gospel people would come to contemplate better the meaning of God's love.

In any case, it does mean that God is working in other cultures, and that God is in the hearts of all people drawing them to himself. Of their worship of idols, Paul said "in past times God overlooked such ignorance but now he commands all people everywhere to repent" (v30). Now what can this mean? God never overlooks idolatry or paganism, in the OT he's always commanding the Israelite to wipe them out and expressly forbidding idolatry. It means that on an individual basis when God judges the hearts of people, he looks at their desire to seek him, to seek the good. That their status as individuals in a pagan culture does not negate the good they have done, and their ignorance of idolotry does not discount their desire to seek the good or the truth. IT means that they are following Jesus if they live in the moral life, even though they follow him as something unknown to them. IT also means that all of us should come into the truth, we should seek to know God fully, and when we do that we find that it is Jesus all along.

Jesus is the revelation not the institution called "chruch." Jesus is working among all people to bring them to seek God's love. If people are seeking the love of the true creator its that by which they will be judged not an institution, flag, or political tendency. How closely did they seek the love of this universal mind that is the ground of Being? That will determine the extent to which they treated people rightly.

All God's Point to God or No Other Name?

On Monday I talked about the seeming universality of the God concept, and the relative nature of religious traditions. One reality (God) behind all traditions that seem to be different only becuase experience of God must be filtered ("mediated") through cultural constructs. In Christian terms where does that leave faith in Christ? How can Christ be the savior, the one name by which we can be saved, if God is the same reality behind all religions? First of all I did not say that I think all religious traditions are the same. Nor did I say they are all equal. They are not alike becuase they are all tainted by the various cultural constructs we use to understand reality. We can't think about that which is beyond our understanding, the slight glimpse we get of it must be compared to that which do know. Secondly, I don't think all gods are God. I have been known to say "all God's point to God." That means the individual personages of various mythological traditions are place holders. They are not coterminous names or the same personage, they are sign posts that point beyond themselves to something else. That is true except for Jesus. By extension the God of the OT. The God of the OT can fool us.

First Jesus is a historical person who actually lived and breathed and walked the earth. I know there are despisers of who God fervently wish that was not true. They have brain washed themselves by concocting their own silly standards to convince themselves, but those are not the standards of historians. There's still an option for the skeptic to doubt the divinity of the person in history; after all it is an impossible thing. It's a incredulous thing. It's what Reinhold Niebuhr called "impossible possibly." They will have to do their doubting through the humanity of the historical guy becuase the evidence is simply overwhelming that he did live. I am going say to more on the incarnation as we get near Christmas. Getting on toward the end of next week I'll dwell more fully with that. Jesus is the unique point of the Christian tradition, without that we can just be Unitarians. We might as well, therefore, put our eggs in one basket so to speak, the Jesus basket as it were. Becuase he was a man in history Jesus offers a unique focal point for understanding the divine and his sacrifice on the cross as unique statement of solidarity between God and humanity. All the other figures of other faiths are either not divine (not suppose to be by their reckoning) or they were not flesh and blood. Zeus was not a real guy, he was a myth. Hercules might have been based upon a real guy or even two but he was not a object of religious devotion. There were examples of soldiers mainly who made votive offerings to Hercules because he was a symbol of strength but he is still a symbol. The real guy is forgotten and he's not the point of the Greek religion. He would be more analogous to a saint in the Catholic chruch rather than to Christ. Buddha was flesh and blood but he wasn't a "god." Hercules was not the divine logs, his death could never be a major symbol of God's solidarity with humanity. Alexander the great was a hybrid in that he was a historical figure but a legend grew up around the historical figure that he was a demi-god, he son of a god. He was not the embodiment of the universal logos. He was more like Hercules, more like a saint.

Jesus was not son of God in the same sense. Jesus son ship is eternal, and part of the Trinity and sort of what we might call "mega doctrine." He much more than just a saint-like figure to whom one can pray for intercession, he is much more than even though his role is intercessory. Jesus is the called the son of God in the Gospels not becuase he's vice President God but because it was an epithet of Messiah. The Greek Christians understood it in the demi god sense due to associations with Greek religion. It was the Platonic philosophy that triumphed in understanding the Trinity. Of cousre Jesus is also called the "only begotten son of God." That Greek word is mongenase meaning "foal." Or it might be translated "unique son." We are said to be children of God, ton technon theon. This means adopted children. We are children by adoption. Jesus was begotten by the father, not referring to his coming to be at a point in time, as the son of the Trinity is eternally generated, he's eternally being born and born constantly forever as the son. That's not the begotten part. The begotten part is the incorporation.

It's because he was a real historical figure that he can fit both roles uniquely, both pointing beyond himself to the one true reality behind all religions, and also himself being the employment of divine in the flesh. When I say by extension this brings in the OT God, what I mean is that the eternal generation of the son implies the father. The embodiment of the divine implies the transcendent divine that is pointed back to. That does not mean the images used individually in the OT are so closely identified with God that they are literalized. They remain metaphorical is obvious becuase they are so diverse. So the OT not only has the unique presentation of the one true God but also reflects the same relative nature that all religious traditions do of pointing beyond itself to the true reality behind them all. This is acknowledge in the Bible. Genises 14:18 we read "And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine; and he was priest of God the Most High." He's priest of God but Israel doesn't exist yet. He's dealing with Abraham, before the sons whose names would grace the twelve tribes. Of wast religion is he a priest that he is priest of God most high? Obviously there's something different in the relationship between God and religious traditions that we don't get. The God of the OT is the object of worship Jesus taught us to worship but he not teach us to literalize the metaphors of the OT. Nor did he sort out for us the canonical status of the books therein. We are not bound to think of God as the big meaning of the OT smiting and condemning and so forth. There's a very different picture of the OT God that emerges which I will discuss on friday.

I should discuss salvation and damnation and things such as this. That is rather crucial in dealing with the issue of "one true faith." Many good and well meaning people do not feel the need to be saved. Some wonder why is it not enough to jut be good and well meaning. Surely God knows that we are well meaning, if God looks upon the heart, so why do we need to conform to the ideological strictures of a particular religious view? Wouldn't God be extremely unjust to condemn someone who was well meaning? And aren't Christians really unfair to assume that all but those who follow their views are not well meaning?2) Unfair because believers in other religious traditions will not be saved?This is an often heard objection and it is not without merit. Why should God send someone to hell for all eternity, simply because he/she was born in a culture that is not open to Christianity, perhaps has not herd of Jesus, and perhaps even at a time before there was any possibility of hearing (say before Christ came to earth). Such a person would have no chance of being saved. Closer to home, a person in another culture who is very committed to the religious tradition he/she was brought up in, why should such a person suffer eternally just for being who they are? That is basically what it amounts to, everyone is proud of their own culture, and everyone identifies with his/her own religious tradition in a very personal way. Why should someone be condemned just for being who they are, being born and raised in the culture they were born into?

Sice hell is eternal, and sin is finite, it seems unjust to punish someone in a mannar that far exceeds the crime. Moreover, isn't the punishment unfair in the first place? Just to go to hell simpley for not being a Christian, this is very unjust becuase it means that who the person is and what they live for, and the nature of their intensions aren't even considered. To just whisk people off to hell forever, where there is no learning process so no chance to correct mistakes, is unjust."Gospel" means "Good News." The Good News is not that people are going to hell. The Good News is that God cares and provides a way to orient our lives toward him so that we can know him in this life, and in the world to come. I don't believe in hell as eternal conscious torment. I think the eternal aspect of it is the cessation of existence, forever. Those in hell cease to exist and they are forever gone. That's the eternal aspect not the conscoius torment. I will deal with that at another time. If one wishes to be reading up on it in the mean time my views on the subject are recorded here.

Jesus himself never speaks directly of hell, but always in parables. The other statements of Hell are mainly in euphemistic passages or in apocalyptic passages such as the book of Revelation. But I suggest that for some crimes hell is deserved. The slaughter of innocent people, the disruption of thousands of lives, the Hitlers of the world, and those who rationalize the deeds through "following orders" deserve to suffer the consequences of their actions. Evil has consequences, and those who commit evil should suffer the consequences, and they will.I have no direct knowledge of what hell is. It is based upon the Greek mythological concept of Tartarus which got into Hebrew thinking through Hellenization. There is no "hell" in the Tennach or the Pentateuch ("OT"). In the Hebrew scriptures there is only mention of Sheol, or the "the grave" to which everyone goes. But in the books of Revelation it does speak of those who work inequity being "outside the Kingdom of God." I don't' believe that hell is literal fire and brimstone, I do believe it is some state of anxiety or separation from God.

"All have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God." From a human perspective, relatively speaking from one human to another there are, of course, well meaning people. There are good people all around us, from a human perspective. Relative to the Divine however, no one is good, no one is capable of meriting salvation. We all have our sins, we all have our human frailties. We are all caught up in "height" (our ability through the image of God in which we were created to move beyond our human finitude and seek the good) and "depth" (our nature burdened in the sinful wickedness to human deceit). These are Augustinian terms and they basically mean that we are both, good and bad, saint and sinner. God knows the heart, He Knows what we truely seek. God is merciful and is able to forgive our trespasses. But, if we are really well meaning toward God we will seek the turth. If we are seeking the truth than God will make it plan to us.

Other Religions

Paul said "To those who through persistance seek glory, honor and immortality he will give eternal life.But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the good and follow evil there will be wrath and anger...first for the Jew and then for the gentile; but glory honor and peace for everyone who does good. For God does not show favoritism. All who sin apart from the law will perish apart form the law and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.

Indeed when Gentiles who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirement of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences bearing witness and their hearts now accusing, now even defending them..." (Romans 2:7-15). New American Standard and other translations say "their hearts accusing, now excusing them..." Most Christians are afraid of this conclusion and they down play this verse. Often Evangelicals will come back and say "he makes it clear in the next passage that no one can really follow the law on their hearts." Well, if they can't, than they can't. But if they can, and do, than God will excuse them. God knows the heart, we do not. The verse clearly opens the door to the possibility of salvation (although by Jesus) thorugh a de facto arrangement in which one is seeking the good without knowing the object one is seeking (Jesus). In other words, it is possible that people in other cultures who follow the moral law written on the heart know Jesus de facto even if they don't know him overtly. Paul backs up this conclusion in Acts 17:22 Paul goes to Athens as is asked by the Athenian philosophers to explain his ideas to them.

These were pagan followers of another religion. Paul stood up and said to them, "Men of Athens, I see that in every way you are very religious for as I walked around and observed your objects of worship I even found an alter with this inscription 'TO AN UNKOWN GOD' Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you."He basically says that they are worshiping God, they just don't know who he is. That's why he says "I will make it known to you." He doesn't say "you have the wrong idea completely." Most Evangelicals dismiss this as a neat rhetorical trick. But if we assume that Paul would not lie or distort his beliefs for the sake of cheap tricks, we must consider that he did not say "you are all a bunch of pagans and you are going to hell!" He essentially told them, "God is working in your culture, you do know God, but you don't know who God is. You seek him, without knowing the one you seek. He goes on,(v27)"God did this [created humanity and scattered them into different cultures] so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out and find him though he is not far form each one of us." This implies that God not only wants to work in other cultures, but that it is actually his paln to do things in this way. Perhaps through a diversity of insights we might come to know God better. Perhaps it means that through spreading the Gospel people would come to contemplate better the meaning of God's love.

In any case, it does mean that God is working in other cultures, and that God is in the hearts of all people drawing them to himself. Of their worship of idols, Paul said "in past times God overlooked such ignorance but now he commands all people everywhere to repent" (v30). Now what can this mean? God never overlooks idolatry or paganism, in the OT he's always commanding the Israelite to wipe them out and expressly forbidding idolatry. It means that on an individual basis when God judges the hearts of people, he looks at their desire to seek him, to seek the good. That their status as individuals in a pagan culture does not negate the good they have done, and their ignorance of idolotry does not discount their desire to seek the good or the truth. IT means that they are following Jesus if they live in the moral life, even though they follow him as something unknown to them. IT also means that all of us should come into the truth, we should seek to know God fully, and when we do that we find that it is Jesus all along.

Knowing God.

Heb. 8:10-12 "...I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts I will be their God and they will be my people. No longer will a man say to his neighbor 'know the Lord' for they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more." This passage promises a "personal relationship with God."The word for "to Know" is the Greek Term Ginosko, which means personal experiential knowledge. To give one's life to Jesus means to develop a personal relationship with Jesus. Jesus said (John) "My sheep know my voice..." Personal relationship means that it is more than a set of rules, more than an ideology or a belief system, but a matter of the heart, the emotions, religious affections. IT may not be through dramatic miraculous effects (although I do believe that that is open to all Christians) but it is deeper than mere rule keeping, and does make for a satisfaction nothing else can match.God acts upon the heart. Salvation is a matter of "knowing God" not of mere intellectual assent. What does it mean to know God? It means that being a Christian is a matter of experiencing God's love in the heart and of loving God and others. It is also a matter of being "led" by God through impressions upon the heart, and not merely a set of rules or a list of beliefs that one must check off. IT is the development of "religious affections."The excitement of knowing God is unequaled by anything else in this life.

Developing Personal Relationship with God.

This is very simple. God keeps it simple so all of us can do it. John tells us "...that whosoever believes on him shall be saved." (3:16). Belief is the first step. But believe doesn't just mean intellectual assent, it means to place our faith in him, to trust him, as said above to place ourselves into his death, to express our solidarity with him.

Paul says "...That if you confess with your mouth 'Jesus is Lord' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the Dead, you will be saved, for it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved....everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." (Romans 10:9-12).

Note that the resurrection is stipulated as a criterion of belief, and notice that it also says believe in your heart. Belief is not mere intellectual assent but is a decision of the will to trust in God. Does this mean we must believe in the resurrection to be saved? It at least means we must believe in the thing the resurrection points to, the new life in Christ, that we trust God to give us this new life and that such life is found in him. Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. What does it mean to call upon the name of the Lord? It means, to place our trust in God and in Jesus as God's Son, as our savior.

The Name of Jesus

The name of Jesus then becomes our expression of solidarity with God, that we state clearly that we choose God's way, we want to change our lives and we are ready to accept God's terms for life; that we respond to the solidarity he shows us by committing to solidarity with him.In Acts 2: 38 the mob asks Peter what they must do, in response to the miracles of Pentecost and Peter's sermon on Jesus being raised form the dead. Peter tells them "Repent, and be baptized everyone one of you in the name of Jesus Christ that your sins may be forgiven." Does this mean that baptism is a pre-requiset for salvation? I don't believe so. They were really asking a more general question than "how do I get saved." IN response to Peter's sermon they were asking in a general way "well, we curcified the Messiah, what can we do about it."

Peter tells them two things, repent (change your mind, express sorrow for sin and determine not to sin any longer) AND be baptized as an expression of surrender to God (in keeping with the Jewish custom). The key here is to repent, turn from the present course of life and follow Jesus. Baptism is something we should do. It is an expression of our faith, and a symbol that we place our hope in God, die to the old way, it is an outward symbol of placing ourselves in solidarity with God and in Jesus death. But the important thing here is to repent. And, "you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."Latter in Acts when Peter takes the Gospel to the gentiles for the first time, the house of Cornelius. He tells them (Acts 10:43)"... everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name." With that the Holy Spirit comes upon them while Peter is still talking. He does not tell them to be baptized, nor does God wait for that to give the gift of the Holy Spirit (which is the renewing of the spirit, the "born again" experience and empowering for service to God). So here again the common link is belief, which implies a commitment of trust.Eph 1: 13 "Having believed you were marked in him with a seal the promised Holy Spirit who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance unto redemption of those who are God's possession."Romans 5 "since we have been justified through faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have gained access into this grace..."Therefore, "getting saved" is very simple, although it may be the hardest thing you will ever do. Just place our trust in Jesus and give your life to God. Actively determine to believe (place trust) in Jesus and his sacrifice on the cross, God's expression of solidarity with humanity.

The formula?

It doesn't matter what formula you use, just pray, tell God you are sorry for your sins and you want to change and follow him, ask him to save you and to come into your life, and tell him you want to commit your life to Jesus. Don't formulate preconceived notions about how you are supposed to feel, just try to be sensitive to how you do feel. Read and study the Bible and find a chruch where you feel at home and where they beleive the Bible. It is important to develop friendships with believers, but don't burn your books, don't become obligated to obey some preacher man in everything he would tell you, if a group insists that you need their particuarl group to be saved, or if they impose a bunch of rules don't stay with them. God will convict you about what you need to change. Just try to be open to him. Of course some things are obvious, stop sinning try to be good to peole and spread the word about what Jesus is doing in your life.B. Personal Testimony Hesitate to give my "testimony" because it's private, and I don't want skeptics trying to disect it, and also because all conversions are different, most aren't dramatic, and I don't want people expecting that if they pray to be saved the same things will happen to them that happened to me. It is different for everyone, God tailor makes conversions special for each individual. But it does seem logical to at least mention it.

My Views on Hell and Salvation

The recent discussion I think illustrates the need to rehash my views on these topics. A good starting point is a discussion I had on my message boards with a friend calling himself "Superfund." This was December 29, 2009.

Superfund wrote:Hi m8,

Let my say I may have sounded a tad too critical when I referred to you article in the other post, It might have had something to do with, "I have no respect for 99.9% of atheists, that's true, or Christians either, in terms of being thinkers." Just me trying to shape up to muscle in on that %1! :P
Jokes aside having looked again at your article, I can see the benefit for people who are looking to move on & up from the belief of eternal punishment. In that respect the article is excellent, It logically outlines why a belief in a literal hell is not reasonable and I could see it being of great help to someone.

This is Superfund recaping the points I make on my "Why I don't Believe in Hell" essays.

Just to recap;
(1) Hell was not part of the ancient Hebrew understanding of afterlife and is not in the OT.
(2) The entrance of hell into Hebrew thought can be traced from the Hellenistic culture which became part of Hebrew experience in the intertestamental period.
(3) Hell is never discussed clearly in any expository prose, it is almost always found in either symbolic, or apokolliptic or figurative language.
(4) It's use as a symbol of spiritual death makes more sense.


That’s all fine and good except for point 4. I take exception to not only literal belief in eternal punishment but also this;

Meta:

we have to distinguish here between the point itself, that hell is a metaphor for spiritual death, which is and that is easily proved, and what we make of that point. spiritual death doesn't necessary mean cessation of existence but that's my interpretation. It's most begin version would say it's just a matter of being depressed, not growing, not moving closer to God but is not indicative of any after life condition. Personally I think it's more than that but that would be an alternative reading.

Superfund:

if you don’t make the grade you’re out. Basically acknowledge God properly or God will abandon you in death, is it not what this amounts to?

Meta:

That is not a true interpretation of what I said. That's putting a spin on it I tired to avoid and with which I disagree. Ceasing to exist is the natural and logical outcome of rejection of God. God is trying to help us not fall prey to that outcome, it's not a punishment for not getting it right, it's just the way its' going to be if we don't take heed. Like your father tells you over and over not to put your fork in the light socket. Then you decide you just gotta see what happens and you get electrictued. Your father didn't make you do it he tried to stop you. You decided to do it. That's just what happens when you do it.

Or another way to understand it, atheist want to cease existing. that's the thing they choose to believe will happen. they could choose to believe something else but they don't so I assume they want that but in any case they mostly make peace with it. So what's the difference? why is it suddenly such a terrible thing when you think God is doing it as a punishment but then it's fine and something you make peace with otherwise?

But I do not see it as a punishment. It's like we are headed for a waterfall. We going down the river and its peaceful in a our little boat and don't realize there's a huge falls we are moving toward. God is on the bank saying "look out!" Not God's fault if we go over.

Superfund

You mentioned about dead atheists, I suppose they don’t quite cut it, what about homosexuals, I know at least one "gay" person that point blank refuses to even think about anything religious or anything to do with god, another deadie? How do you devine who and what is acceptable for continued existance and how could someone be really confident that they have in fact qualified?

Meta:

So you want to believe what? If you have an atheistic world you and that other guy are going to die and cease to exist right? Obviously you have managed to make peace with that. What's the problem? If you cease to exist and you are not suffering or in some form of hell then why would it be any different or less what you want just becuase God is doing it? Although of course I don't see it as something God is doing but actually is working to prevent happening. You want us to believe that if anyone is saved then all are saved no matter what their attitude or actions, why? why is there no room in your world for laws and order and doing wht's right? why would it be unfair to give the person who does the right thing a reward and to punish the one's who refuse the right thing?

I'm not saying that I believe it's like that a punishment but suppose it is. If it's not cruel and your not suffering and it's what you get anyway what's the big deal?



superfund

How can the beliefs and mistakes of a lot of people or any unevolved being be punishable by condemnation, whether its hell or spiritual death?
No offence (and not forgetting what I initially wrote in the 1st paragraph) I find the theology weak (imho.)

Meta:
By being sinful? that's like saying how can the holocaust be punishable? How were they do know it's wrong to take millions of people out of their homes and destory their lives treat them like animals castrate and torture them and kill them gas chambers? that's just a cultural thing right? you believe that? You don't think there are any cases where we can say 'that is wrong?"


Super

I have more to say but basicly i'd like you to elaborate on your 4th point.

Meta:

(1) It's not set up as a punishment for believing the wrong things. Belief is not somthing one can be punished for. In the old days people thought it was because you were supposed to believe what you were told. But that's just primitive nonsense. To punish for bleief would be idiotically cruel.

(2) We can punish actions, actions can be evil. We know better. We have a moral law on the heart that makes us feel bad when we murder. All people feel it except in societies that really decaying.

(3) ceasing to exist is a natural consequence of rejecting God not set up as a punishment for belief but the outcome functions as a defacto punishment for rejecting the good, not for believing the wrong thing but for living your life in a direction that takes away form the right thing (not being a Christian but love, expressing love). The overall direction of a life that rejects God (ie the good, love) is that it winds up in evil acts. This rejection of the good produces separation form the good.

Now that's just my opinon. I can't really prove that that's what I think happens. What I can prove is that hell is symbolic of spiritual death. WE can define spiritual death any number of ways.


Super

Also Merry Christmas mate :) and thanks for these boards. I've been a reader here mainly for what? years now on and off and I value them and the space you provide. Cheers!

Meta
thanks buddy I apprecaite that. I think this board has been around since maybe 2 years? Before that I had sense of the numinous that was around since summer of 2000.

Atheists Battle Their Super Egos

I have often accused atheists of only being able to understand the big man in the sky rather than more expansive views of God, such as process theology or Existential ontology. But I've slowly begun to realize that they really are using God of the Bible as a means of venting in a cathartic process of battling their own super egos. Look at the way they sound when they rant about how evil God is, they sound like teenagers who have just moved out of the house becuase they an't stand their father. One such prime example is that of a poster on carm:Roarian

Indeed, I would put him straight in the category of malevolent and elitist : he doesn't care one bit about what you did with your life or what you believed, but merely what you did not believe : if you weren't a part of his posse, you're out forever.

Can't you just hear a post smoking kid of the 60s saying 'Dad doesn't care about me?' not that I mean to belittle this guy's feelings by saying that. Most guys my age have been there, even with the post smoking. The fear that God is only concerned with penalizing you for believing wrong things rather than with how good you may be because you believe a few right things, this is not only a tortured understanding of the Gospel, but also reminds me so deeply of a wounded kid in a struggle with his/her father.

Instead of giving all people an equal and fair chance at getting it right, he makes an imperfect world that is extraordinarily bad for getting 'good souls' if you will : he knows beforehand that billions upon billions will never even hear of him, and billions of others will be brought up in opposing beliefs, which are in this world equally unsupported by any evidence.

Such complaints are fraught with misunderstandings. As Christians we look at the wondeful love of Jesus dying on the cross for your sins and at the parables of Shepard chasing down lost sheep out of pure love. The atheist is the wounded inner soul who looks at the fear that he's being held accountable for getting it wrong. No attempt to reason about the nature of theodicy. Of course there are plenty of theories one could support, C.S. Lewis the Problem of Pain, or dare I say in the same breath (not to compare) My own Soteriolgoical Drama. Which I think covers the bases pretty effectively. The issues of billions and billions who will never know Jesus existed (where do these guy's live?) going to hell because they are in the wrong religion is merely an outright misunderstanding of the Gospels which is countered by Paul himself in two different books.

He then expects everyone to just go on faith that this particular religion among thousands is correct. He has his instructions penned down and translated several times, many of which incorrectly, in a tome some 2000 years ago in a sparsely populated area of the world.

The atheist's special vehement hatred of the Bible must be brought into it because its one of the few concrete pieces of data they actually have that's not just opinion. The understanding what we are to do in spreading the Gospel is of course totally inadequacy since ti assumed the wrong translation of the Great commission and does not come to terms with the concept of being a witness or spreading the love of God. These unhappy creatures who can't find their creator because they want to look in the right way think that it's all a matter of just spouting the right cods; we as Christians let them down when we fail to show by example that its not about bringing belief to the world but bringing God's' love to the world.

He then sits around and billions continue to die without ever being able to even known Christianity, while the bible writers sit around waiting to be inspired, finally in 300 AD or such resulting in the Bible.

But of cousre this view that God is "sitting around" rather than working every moment to draw people to himself is indicative of their lack of receptivity and their own refusal to respond. Of cousre he must mix it with the haterd of the Bible because that's really their own tangible piece of evidence, which is largely based upon poor reading skills.

This book is so poorly written that it is then misinterpreted and used as an excuse for hatred,

Poorly written. Has he ever ever read it? It's written in Greek and Hebrew you know. Most likey he's only a translation so he really don't know how it's written. Since he probably doesn't read it daily but relies upon atheist message boards to spread his venom and only cares about finding contradictions not finding value in it he really has no room to talk. Sure enough he has no argument to make as these are nothing more than platitudes he's mouthing.

and millions head to hell because of internal strife between different factions of his one chosen people, sending millions more to hell because nobody can agree on the correct religion and wars and dark ages break out. This all goes on for about 1700 years, ultimately ending up today, where a guy called Metacrock would call him omnibenevolent.

Of course it's only going on in his imagination because he's making fundamentalist assumptions instead of seeking to truly understand the Gospels.

Popular misconceptions of the nature of the Gospel.

"Gospel" means "Good News." The Good News is not that people are going to hell. The Good News is that God cares and provides a way to orient our lives toward him so that we can know him in this life, and in the world to come.

Are there really well meaning people?

"All have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God." From a human perspective, relatively speaking from one human to another there are, of course, well meaning people. There are good people all around us, from a human perspective. Relative to the Divine however, no one is good, no one is capable of meriting salvation. We all have our sins, we all have our human frailties. We are all caught up in "height" (our ability through the image of God in which we were created to move beyond our human finitude and seek the good) and "depth" (our nature burrdened in the sinful wickedness to human deceit).

These are Augustinian terms and they basically mean that we are both, good and bad, saint and sinner. God knows the heart, He Knows what we truly seek. God is merciful and is able to forgive our trespasses. But, if we are really well meaning toward God we will seek the truth. If we are seeking the truth than God will make it plan to us.

Other Religions

Paul said "To those who through persistence seek glory, honor and mortality he will give eternal life.But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the good and follow evil there will be wrath and anger...first for the Jew and then for the gentile; but glory honor and peace for everyone who does good. For God does not show favoritism. All who sin apart from the law will perish apart form the law and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.

Indeed when Gentiles who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirement of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences bearing witness and their hearts now accusing, now even defending them..." (Romans 2:7-15). New American Standard and other translations say "their hearts accusing, now excusing them..." Most Christians are afraid of this conclusion and they down play this verse. Often Evangelicals will come back and say "he makes it clear in the next passage that no one can really follow the law on their hearts." Well, if they can't, than they can't. But if they can, and do, than God will excuse them. God knows the heart, we do not. The verse clearly opens the door to the possibility of salvation (although by Jesus) through a de facto arrangement in which one is seeking the good without knowing the object one is seeking (Jesus). In other words, it is possible that people in other cultures who follow the moral law written on the heart know Jesus de facto even if they don't know him overtly. Paul backs up this conclusion in Acts 17:22 Paul goes to Athens as is asked by the Athenian philsophers to explain his ideas to them.

These were pagan followers of another religion. Paul stood up and said to them, "Men of Athens, I see that in every way you are very religious for as I walked around and observed your objects of worship I even found an alter with this inscription 'TO AN UNKOWN GOD' Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you."He basically says that they are worshiping God, they just don't know who he is. That's why he says "I will make it known to you." He doesn't say "you have the wrong idea completely." Most Evangelicals dismiss this as a neat rhetorical trick. But if we assume that Paul would not lie or distort his beliefs for the sake of cheap tricks, we must consider that he did not say "you are all a bunch of pagans and you are going to hell!" He essentially told them, "God is working in your culture, you do know God, but you don't know who God is. You seek him, without knowing the one you seek. He goes on,(v27)"God did this [created humanity and scattered them into different cultures] so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out and find him though he is not far form each one of us." This implies that God not only wants to work in other cultures, but that it is actually his paln to do things in this way. Perhaps through a diversity of insights we might come to know God better. Perhaps it means that through spreading the Gospel people would come to contemplate better the meaning of God's love.

In any case, it does mean that God is working in other cultures, and that God is in the hearts of all people drawing them to himself. Of their worship of idols, Paul said "in past times God overlooked such ignorance but now he commands all people everywhere to repent" (v30). Now what can this mean? God never overlooks idolotry or paganism, in the OT he's always commanding the Israelite to wipe them out and expressly forbidding idolatry. It means that on an individual basis when God judges the hearts of people, he looks at their desire to seek him, to seek the good. That their status as individuals in a pagan culture does not negate the good they have done, and their ignorance of idolatry does not discount their desire to seek the good or the truth. IT means that they are following Jesus if they live in the moral life, even though they follow him as something unknown to them. IT also means that all of us should come into the truth, we should seek to know God fully, and when we do that we find that it is Jesus all along.

Justice of Punishment.*

Jesus himself never speaks directly of hell, but always in parables. The other statements of Hell are mainly in euphemistic passages or in apocalyptic passages such as the book of Revelation. But I suggest that for some crimes hell is deserved. The slaughter of innocent people, the disruption of thousands of lives, the Hitlers of the world, and those who rationalize the deeds through "following orders" deserve to suffer the consequences of their actions. Evil has consequences, and those who commit evil should suffer the consequences, and they will.I have no direct knowledge of what hell is. It is based upon the Greek mythological concept of Tartarus which got into Hebrew thinking through Hellenization. There is no "hell" in the Tennach or the Pentateuch ("OT"). In the Hebrew scriptures there is only mention of Sheol, or the "the grave" to which everyone goes. But in the books of Revelation it does speak of those who work inequity being "outside the Kingdom of God." I don't' believe that hell is littoral fire and brimstone, I do believe it is some state of anxiety or desperation from God.

Knowing God.

Heb. 8:10-12 "...I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts I will be their God and they will be my people. No longer will a man say to his neighbor 'know the Lord' for they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more." This passage promises a "personal religion ship with God."The word for "to Know" is the Greek Term Ginosko, which means personal epirential knowledge. To give one's life to Jesus means to develop a personal relationship with Jesus. Jesus said (John) "My sheep know my voice..." Personal relationship means that it is more than a set of rules, more than an ideology or a belief system, but a matter of the heart, the emotions, religious affections. IT may not be through dramatic miraculous effects (although I do believe that that is open to all Christians) but it is deeper than mere rule keeping, and does make for a satisfaction nothing else can match.God acts upon the heart. Salvation is a matter of "knowing God" not of mere intellectual assent. What does it mean to know God? It means that being a Christian is a matter of experiencing God's love in the heart and of loving God and others. It is also a matter of being "led" by God through impressions upon the heart, and not merely a set of rules or a list of beliefs that one must check off. IT is the development of "religious affections."The excitement of knowing God is unequaled by anything else in this life.

There are so many misconceptions to disabuse them of, but I really put the blame on myself and other Christians. We have to show them the love of God. This is the only way we are going to correct these misconceptions.


*This was one of the first articles I put on Doxa years ago. At that time I still had a sort of Hell light idea, with some form of separation but not the big fire stuff. Now I don't believe in hell at all. I do believe that those who reject God and die in their sins will cease to exist and perhaps they will before doing so realize what they did wrong. But I also believe that God is love, so I don't know if even this much hell is real. I know God is mercy and I also know that atheists expect to cease existing so they really complain about it too much if that's the case. what I don't believe is that God will torture people becuase they believe the wrong thing. That idea is childish and it was never what the Bible said.