From: lung@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Terence Lung)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: The After-life
Date: 16 Apr 92 16:37:02 GMT
Reply-To: lung@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Terence Lung)
Organization: Carderock Division, NSWC, Bethesda, MD

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 
choice NOT His.  You will always be EMPOWERED to reject Him from your life.  
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 
(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.  
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 
agnostic Mother Teresa or Salvation Army.)  They have allowed the most
radically extreme and eternal source of love into their ministries.

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.
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.

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."

>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

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 
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.)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc