Discussion: Mere Christianity

[WolfVanZandt]

[AllanS]

In another discussion on eating pork, I quoted Jesus.

"Are you so dull?" he asked. "Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him 'unclean'? For it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body." (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods "clean.")

For him, the answer to the kosher laws was ludicrously obvious. Common sense. Any child could see it. Jesus didn't debate the inerrancy of Torah, or ponder what Moses taught, or the Prophets or the Priests. He just cut thru the crap and said the kosher laws were ridiculous.

In the same way, any child will tell you that a loving God would not abandon even a mad dog to Hell.

Are you so dull you can't see this?

This is the God you preach:

Big Stranger: Hey Johnny, come and give me a great, big hug.

Johnny (a dirty, ignorant urchin): Don't wanna. Don't even know you.

Big Stranger: Aww come on, big fella. Don't be like that. I'm a very nice person, once you get to know me.

Johnny: Don't wanna! Go AWAY! Oy! Let go o'me!

Big Stranger: It won't be so good for you, if you say no.

Johnny: Get orf, you ballyfat creeper!

Big Stranger: (Offended. Slowly standing to his full height, taking off his metal-studded belt) Well, now I'm going to kill you, you miserable rat. You forced my hand. It's your fault. You had your chance to be my dearest friend but now it's too late. Don't say I didn't warn you.

[WolfVanZandt]

But you're not Jesus, Allan, and you may actually be smart enough to be able to judge my intelligence and rationality, but you haven't shown my anything that impressive yet. Your arguments ignore a lot (I suspect, intentionally), you make assumptions, it seems, out of the thin air, without any real basis. You're just not that impressive so, it doesn't really bother me to have you call me dull where it would bother me for Jesus to call me dull. Still it does very little for the conversation.

The story was, uh, well, pictureque, but it doesn't have much to do with anything. It doesn't bear any resemblance to anything I've said.

[AllanS]

Your God says "Love me or I'll torture you forever."

The standard reply is that we sinners choose to jump into endless torment (how likely is that?). This is an attempt to make God less than a monster. But sad to say, it flies in the face of the Biblical teaching, that God first judges us and then the unrepentant are cast into the Fire.

They are thrown into the Fire. They don't jump. They're pushed.

It's inconvenient but that's what it says. I thought you were big on this book's authority?

It's not even a Fire of annihilation. That, at least, might be bearable. Ok. The love of God has failed, and so he obliterates the unrepentant (including Grandma and Uncle Fred), and washing his hands of the whole, bloody, disastrous mess, goes off to the Celestial Party. Yep. Some triumph.

The only way the good name of God is preserved is if this Fire is a refining fire. And it is. Fire is purus in latin. Puros in Greek. Pure. And brimstone is theoius, divinity. The Fire is divine purification. And God, ever faithful to the faithless, healer of the sick of soul, will not stop until all have been made well.

This is why Paul can say "For from him and thru him and to him are all things."

[WolfVanZandt]

Allan, I've explained what I actually believe several times but you don't seem to be able to accurately read what I post. You make up your own versions. There's not really any potential for reasonable discussion as long as you insist on replying to what you dream up that I say and continue to ignore what I actually say.

In the mean time, I think you need to remmeber a reply you once gave me when I asked you what would happen if you got to heaven and found out that God was what the Bible says he is. You said that you would defy Him (you were pretty bold about it). Now, contrast that with your contention that no one would intentionally reject God and go to hell. I think that people would willingly go to hell simply because God didn't support their opinion. I think they would go to hell because they think they're the most important thing in the universe and they're not willing to allow others to have importance. I think they would willingly go to hell because they're not willing to let go of things that would contaminate the purity of heaven. There are a lot of things I think people would willingly go to hell about.

[AllanS]

[WolfVanZandt]

I said and I will repeat that I think that people would willingly go to hell simply because God does't support their opinion. I think that Lewis pegged quite a few reasons in The Great Divorce that people would willingly go to hell. And you are quite right - the Bible doesn't say that people willingly go to hell but it doesn't say that they don't either and I suspect that I know enough about human nature to be able to come to that conclusion.

And I'm not talking about willingly staying in hell - that's a different matter - but there's only an in door to hell. Once people choose hell over God, there is no opportunity to make a second choice.

My idea as to why people choose hell is from a close study of human nature. I didn't invent it. It was forced on me from outside. It's not absurd, unjust (who am I judging - I'm not plannng to do anything to anybody), or unloving - it's simply realistic.

You are right, people in their right mind would not choose to go to hell - but people are not in their right mind when they're possessed by arrogance, ingorance, or rebelion and people are quite often not in their right mind in respect to life in general. And any psychiatrist will tell you that people often value other things over being cured. Hw any schizophrenic clients have I had who wanted to have sex and stopped taking the medicine (it interferes with their performance), and, in doing so, shoved their life back into insanity, not to mention joblessness.

People will go to hell because they re insane (sin sickness might well be called spiritual insaity) and the clincher is, they don't want to be cured. The saved are simply the people who wanted to be cured.

People cannot be held responsible for the cancer or diabetes or multiple scelrosis that they have (well, sometimes they can but not always) but they die anyway and especially, as is often the case, when they don't do what they need to do to manage the disease. They would rather suffer untold miseries than to do what is necessary to have a full, productive life. It just so happens that what is necessary is a little inconvenient to them. They'd rather eat what they want when they want. They'd rather not exercise. They don't like some of the side effects of their medicine. And on and on. I'm not being mean, I'm just telling you what I observe about humanity.

Allan, you need to get out more and actually pay attention to what people are like.

And your tale is that the God of the Bible is unjust. I don't think so. Whutever. But if the God of the Bible is the real God, he's the one you're going to ultimately have to deal with and no amount of whining about Him being unjust or mean is going to change things one iota. If you don't accept Him, you shouldn't call yourself by His name.

[AllanS]

[WolfVanZandt]

"Can God make a rock He can't lift?"

We end in abseditiy only becaus it's a semantical paradox. In the real world, the phrase is meaningless. But God can't both grant free will and save everyone. That would lead to logical contradiction. Lewis may or may not have been uncofortable with that but he was, at least, honest enough to realize that it is logically consistent and that it is the actually position of the scriptures.

God won't cure people of their maddness because it's an intetionally imposed maddness. They don't want to be cured. It is something that they are responsible for.

Funny you should talk about other Chistians not getting it and thinking they believe. You make up your own religion and say that you believe. Don't expect others to go along with the gospel according to Allan.

You have no idea what the majority opinion was in the early church. At best, you might have some idea of the majority author opinion and I doubt that. But the earliest majority of the church opinions - that of Jesus - was that people will be lost. I have no faith in the early church authors. They're extremely fallable and they, like you, had something they wanted baddly to believe and they warpped the scriptures to make them coincide with that.

You're going to keep going around and around with the same old stuff but I'm done until you or someone else says something interesting.

B' bye.

[WolfVanZandt]

"Can God make a rock He can't lift?"

We end in abseditiy only becaus it's a semantical paradox. In the real world, the phrase is meaningless. But God can't both grant free will and save everyone. That would lead to logical contradiction. Lewis may or may not have been uncofortable with that but he was, at least, honest enough to realize that it is logically consistent and that it is the actually position of the scriptures.

God won't cure people of their maddness because it's an intetionally imposed maddness. They don't want to be cured. It is something that they are responsible for.

Funny you should talk about other Chistians not getting it and thinking they believe. You make up your own religion and say that you believe. Don't expect others to go along with the gospel according to Allan.

You have no idea what the majority opinion was in the early church. At best, you might have some idea of the majority author opinion and I doubt that. But the earliest majority of the church opinions - that of Jesus - was that people will be lost. I have no faith in the early church authors. They're extremely fallable and they, like you, had something they wanted baddly to believe and they warpped the scriptures to make them coincide with that.

You're going to keep going around and around with the same old stuff but I'm done until you or someone else says something interesting.

B' bye.

[AllanS]

[Edisonbaggins]