From: davec@CSUFRES.CSUFRESNO.EDU (David C. Choweller)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: The After-life
Date: 16 Apr 92 23:02:45 GMT
Article-I.D.: csufres.9204162302.AA09232


In article <18267@oasys.dt.navy.mil> lung@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Terence Lung) writes:
|In article <1992Apr7.012115.7172@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>,
|erisande@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Erin Anderson) writes:
|>>	Question...  If there is such a Being as God, or whatever they
|>>call him now, IF he exists, Then how can Hell be pos[s]ible?  My ...
|
|small remark:  Hell is the absence of God.  Life can be hell.
|
|In article <1992Apr10.202524.26862@tc.fluke.COM> emery@tc.fluke.COM (John Emery) writes:
|>He doesn't, Eric [Erin].   He wills completely the opposite.  In fact 
|>He has gone to radical extremes to prevent this from happening, even to the
|>point of sending His own eternal Son to pay the penalty due us.
|
|From: kevin@taronga.taronga.com (Kevin Brown)
|>This "God" SET UP THE RULES.  And here you [John Emery] are claiming 
|>that "He has gone to radical extremes to prevent this (people going 
|>to Hell) from happening".
|
|WRONG.  Yes, "God" did set up the rules, BUT so that YOU [everyone]
|get to set up the rules.  Whether you let God into your life is YOUR 

You miss the point.  The everyday rules of the world are set up by God.
For example, to live, we need sustenance.  This rule is set up by God; we
cannot change it.  Very often this simple basic need that was created in
us leads to strife.  In effect the free will we are given is bogus, because
it is severely restricted, in a world that is not of our own creation.

|choice NOT His.  You will always be EMPOWERED to reject Him from your life.  

What's the use of this EMPOWERMENT?  God created the world so that rejecting
him will lead to death, or, in some interpretations, eternal torture.  What is
the use of the power to decide if it is already determined that if you don't
decide one way, you will either be terminated (this wouldn't be too bad)
or tortured for ever?

|IMHO, the day you die, you have no more choices, the window of opportunity 
|has closed, and you will eternally be without Him if you never sought Him.  
|God has been begging you to let Him into your life nevertheless 

As somone said, why is this God so anxious for us to submit to him?  Is he
that insecure?

|(to radical extremes--see J Emery's note above).  If that's not clear, 
|maybe you do not hear the like of John Emery, who to some extent, 
|are the means by which God now uses to get his messages across.  

Why doesn't God just directly connect to my brain and get his message
across?  Why does he have to use these circuitous methods?

|Big miracles just don't seem to work, the compassion of your fellow 
|humans does.  The substance lies in the peace in the hearts of those 
|who've stopped rejecting God.  From who else will you ever find such 
|abundance of stringless love.  (For starters, you will not find an 

If someone is the cause of all your problems, and they offer you love,
what good is that?

|agnostic Mother Teresa or Salvation Army.)  They have allowed the most
|radically extreme and eternal source of love into their ministries.

You're selectively picking out the nice theists.  How about Hitler, or
Jimmy Swaggart, or Jerry Falwell, or Pope "Pius"?  
|
|Kevin continues,
|>If your "God" set up the rules (defined consequences of things, etc.), he
|>can CHANGE THEM AT WILL.  Yet your "God" DOESN'T EVEN BOTHER.
|
|Maybe He DOESN'T EVEN BOTHER TO CHANGE THE RULES because maybe my lord 
|and "God" seems to think our free will and independence is important.

As I said, the free will and "independence" is bogus.

|If you want to get fancy, you will find that His RULES ARE DUE TO CHANGE.
|IMHO, you'd better not wait for the new rules.
|

I don't know what is meant by this.  Sounds like a threat, but I could be
wrong.

|Kevin goes on,
|>Instead, he makes demands: "Love Me Or Else You Will Be Dead".
|>"Believe In Me Or You Will Roast For Eternity".  Etc., ad nauseum.
|
|Not "Love Me or Else You Will Be Dead" but "I Am the Giver of Life,
|Stop Rejecting Me if You Want to Live."

This points out again the bogus nature of the Free Will God has given us.

|
|>So: would you have us believe that your "God" is too *stupid* to come
|>up with the idea I outlined above?  Because if not, then it means that
|>your "God" *deliberately* set things up otherwise (having thought of my
|>idea and *discarded* it), and that makes him either a big asshole (for
|>deliberately setting things up such that people suffer eternally for
|>FINITE acts and decisions) or a wimpy incompetent (for not being *able*
|>to set things up a better way).
|>
|>So, which is it?  Is your "God" malicious or a wimpy incompetent?  Given
|>your beliefs about how things supposedly work, you really haven't got any
|>other choices.
|
|With the current choices, which do you choose?
|BTW, why does the above sound, at present, like a voice of rejection?
|
|Terence

Sounds like the voice of reason to me.  Your scenario seems to be that
of a God who builds a universe where all the rules are set up by him,
and gives people "free will," which he thinks is a great gift.  Unfortunately,
the choices are really constricted by the way the rules are set up.  Also
the most important of the rules is that rejection of God will lead to death
or torture.  It's as if someone held a gun to your head and said "you have
the free will to either hand me your wallet or not, but if you don't I'll
blow you away."  Looking at your scenario, the creation seems like a pretty
pointless exercise.  Oh, I know that Xtians believe that there is some
great purpose that justifes all the suffering, that our "limited" minds
cannot comprehend, but I'm sorry.  This just doesn't cut it.

|
|ps  When you do seek Him, do remember who YOU are relative to 
|who He is.  (Note:  My own searches for God were fruitless until 

This is like telling a terrified subject about ot be tortured by a
tyrant to respect the tyrant.  The power of God doesn't justify
any torture that he puts us through.

|I stopped trying to set my own terms and conditions on Him.  I now 
|realize that true foolishness lies in trying to set one's own 
|conditions on the creator of the universe.)

Yes.  It's foolish, if you were living in Nazi Germany to criticize Hitler
or set conditions on him.  So What?
--
                                                 davidch@zimmer.CSUFresno.EDU
    Dalai Lama to hot dog vendor: Make me one with everything.
:x