Why would God need a hell?

[Prizebeatz1]

The Bible is the only book Jehovah bequeathed to humanity so mankind can understand God and his will. Any opinions outside of Gods words in the Bible in respect of God clearly can only be subjective, and therefore are uninspired and do not originate with God, as 2 Tim 3:16 tells us the Bible is his inspired word.

I think we have it in reverse my friend. Hanging on to the bible is a symptom of lack of self-esteem. The personality won't budge because if it let's go it doesn't think it is good enough to survive. It is not aware that its true identity is the soul which is one with what is infinite and eternal. In order to experience the soul it has to feel what seems like infinite emptiness and it's too scary. It feels too close to death. It will not go near this void because it judges it as bad. Little does it realize that it is judging what is infinite and eternal. This almost guarantees that it turns to some substitute to make itself feel better for the perceived loss of it's infinite and eternal nature. It unconsciously knows it is missing the self-worth that comes from feeling it's oneness with eternity and infinity. Herein lies it's lack of self-esteem. The personality tries to emulate the infinite worth of the soul through beliefs, scriptures, etc. and would rather just hang on to whatever scraps it can get in it's place because it's easy and convenient. It doesn't know any better. Thank goodness the personality is not our true identity but rather a not-so-good backup quarterback. There are no substitutes for the soul, not even the bible. Peace.

 

[Aimiel]

The Holy Bible is God's Word and those who have Him in their hearts don't only believe that: they KNOW it. Those who are unregenerate aren't able to even see The Kingdom, much less understand It or in any way prevent those who are in The Kingdom from their membership.

 

[Mickiel]

You're moving the goal post. Ive already provided you with scriptural evidence as to origin of the name Christian which was my point, and was your original point that i responded to.

I disputed your contention as to WHO called the early disciples of Christs Christians. NOT wether Jehovah or Jesus referred to them as Christians throughout the Bible. The point being which il punctuate for the last time the origin of the name Christian came from God and not pagans.

The origin of the name Christian did not come from God, and you have no biblical proof of that.

 

[Mickiel]

Jesus in Matt. 18:22, " I say not seven times, but seventy times seven." Jesus was asked how often should we forgive; and his answer revealed a kind of mercy that extends forgiveness beyond. And that is how God is, he goes beyond with his forgiveness, and again that is very good news for unbelievers.

 

[Mickiel]

Hi Mickiel,

Yes,....as long as we live in this creation defined, ordered and differentiated by space and time (anywhere where there is 'relativity')...we perceive dimensions and distance, or experience realms according to their degree or quality of existence. Hence 'God' is assumed to be out there beyond in the highest celestial sphere, or on the Isle of Paradise at the very center of creation, the geographical center of infinity.

But there also a part of 'God' that indwells us and the creation, since we are his temple, and other aspects of the infinite Spirit which fills all space, in its various qualities and ministrations. So really, 'God' is both within and without creation, pervading it as well as transcending it,....which represents a 'pan-entheistic' cosmology.

Well I agree, God is both within and without of creation, he can be both in or out of a human, it just depends on him at the time. I think there are at least two " Spirits of God, and may well be upwards of Seven Spirits of God that exist. That we know of. One of those spirits is consciousness, it is always with us. Another is " The Holy Spirit of God", which gets into full conversion and being born again; who has that spirit is again up to God, but not all now have it. I think that Spirit can be " With a human", but not " In them."

So it just depends.

 

[Prizebeatz1]

The Holy Bible is God's Word and those who have Him in their hearts don't only believe that: they KNOW it. Those who are unregenerate aren't able to even see The Kingdom, much less understand It or in any way prevent those who are in The Kingdom from their membership.

I'm not denying the bible to be God's Word. It is. But when we depend on it to prop up and strengthen the personality's sense of self without realizing that our true self is one with what is infinite and eternal, then that manifests as a lack of self-esteem. We cannot replace the feeling of infinite value and significance with a book. The Bible is very important but it's easy to remain stuck and fixated in it's confines and boundaries. Ultimately, these constraints bring us a sense of safety against the unknown and against what we perceive as a void. This is unconscious pride because we obtain the pleasure of having a foundation, a sense of security and safety against the unknown and against what we take to be the void of what is infinite and eternal. These are mechanisms of the adversary who survives in secrecy. Lucky for us, the personality is not who we really are. Who we really are is the soul.

There is an enormous amount of peer pressure and we're programmed through the civilization process as we get older to turn our backs on the soul in favor of something else. We intuitively know there is something more to life than what is presented in the bible but there is little support to find out the answers partly because we've imprisoned and limited ourselves to the structures of the bible for example. There is tremendous fear of coloring outside of the lines. There's nothing wrong with this as long as we know it is a stage in our growth process but if we remain stuck there forever it causes much suffering. Sometimes some of us have to move on to something much bigger and better but only when we're ready. I don't expect anyone to just let go of everything they're holding onto right away. It's a process over which we have little control. We have to reverse the tendency of the personality to control it's inner world through beliefs. That's not an easy thing to do. It could take a lifetime if not multiples. I suggest holding on until we're ready to let go.

What do we suppose is the measure of a person's self-worth anyway? Does it depend on how well we hold on to our beliefs? Perhaps these beliefs do not define us, but rather confine us. These beliefs may be the very things that cause us to miss the point: we are infinite and eternal because we are one with God.

 

[Mickiel]

Why would God need a hell, when we have a Jesus? I wish I knew more about Jesus, but from what scripture reveals, he just cancels out the need for the Christian hell. Just look at this short sweet powerful description of Jesus in Eph. 1:7, " In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his Grace." Explain to yourself why redemption and forgiveness is not enough to wipe out the Christian blockade of hell? What put humans into this perceived hell; sin did, well why in the world of reason has Jesus forgiveness been denied these poor humans who are doomed?

You know IF human salvation was being determined by a human court of believers, then yes, much of humanity is doomed! Whoever thought of this horrible hell, must be merciless and hardcore to the bone! It CERTAINLY was not God or Christ, the bible reveals them both to be endless in grace and mercy and love. I am so glad that believers in God cannot dictate the terms of human salvation.

 

[Mickiel]

In Genesis 1, we see God creating and saying, " it was good." I wish one of those believers in God who accept this eternal hell doctrine, would explain to me what is good about it? I mean, IF what they are teaching is true, there has to be something good about this hell, If it is to last for all of eternity. Explain to us the good in it.

How about it; give us a list of the good in your hell? I think that is a reasonable request. God is obviously a good being, explain to us the good he will get out of eternal hell.

 

[Aimiel]

The origin of the name Christian did not come from God, and you have no biblical proof of that.

If My people, who are called by My Name...

I know He doesn't mean Jehovah's Witnesses.

 

[Prizebeatz1]

In Genesis 1, we see God creating and saying, " it was good." I wish one of those believers in God who accept this eternal hell doctrine, would explain to me what is good about it? I mean, IF what they are teaching is true, there has to be something good about this hell, If it is to last for all of eternity. Explain to us the good in it.

How about it; give us a list of the good in your hell? I think that is a reasonable request. God is obviously a good being, explain to us the good he will get out of eternal hell.

IMO the only good thing about hell is that it has the potential to teach us about the falsehood of the personality. The feelings of worthlessness and separation got so bad for me that it was more painful to continue holding on to my beliefs than to finally let go. That is when I realized the infinite oneness of my true self and the miracle of healing unconscious self-worth it brought with it. Many of the lessons of the bible did not become clear until afterward. I realized I was Lazarus raised from the dead. I was the man chained in shackles made sane from the multiple voices in my head. What little faith I had was multiplied 100,000 fold as the fish and the loaves.

 

[Aimiel]

Hell isn't an end of existence... it is the best way to punish evil doers... eternally.

 

[Prizebeatz1]

Hell isn't an end of existence... it is the best way to punish evil doers... eternally.

We're all evil doers. No?

 

[Apple7]

IMO the only good thing about hell is that it has the potential to teach us about the falsehood of the personality. The feelings of worthlessness and separation got so bad for me that it was more painful to continue holding on to my beliefs than to finally let go. That is when I realized the infinite oneness of my true self and the miracle of healing unconscious self-worth it brought with it. Many of the lessons of the bible did not become clear until afterward. I realized I was Lazarus raised from the dead. I was the man chained in shackles made sane from the multiple voices in my head. What little faith I had was multiplied 100,000 fold as the fish and the loaves.

Got any good scripture to reference?

Or...you still not finished editorializing....

 

[Totton Linnet]

IMO the only good thing about hell is that it has the potential to teach us about the falsehood of the personality. The feelings of worthlessness and separation got so bad for me that it was more painful to continue holding on to my beliefs than to finally let go. That is when I realized the infinite oneness of my true self and the miracle of healing unconscious self-worth it brought with it. Many of the lessons of the bible did not become clear until afterward. I realized I was Lazarus raised from the dead. I was the man chained in shackles made sane from the multiple voices in my head. What little faith I had was multiplied 100,000 fold as the fish and the loaves.

Yes a change took place in your inner man, what was there any good before, even YOU see that your inner self was rotten....what was it in God's eyes then?

Don't you know that others need this salvation, this change...you will never win a soul with a lying gospel. The Holy Spirit will never back up a lie.

 

[KingdomRose]

Thank you for the clarification. But does man define God or does God define man? How can we determine the nature of God if we have not experienced what is infinite and eternal? How can we experience what is infinite and eternal if we are unconsciously running away from spaciousness? Don't our beliefs defend us from the void that we experience once we quit trying to hang on? Do we notice how badly the personality must force this belief of separation from this infinite spaciousness? It comes up with anything to deny that it is one with it because admitting to this truth is it's own death. The personality just wants to survive but it's version of survival is actually death and not life. Those who don't know this are already dead. Then they die again during physical death. It is the infinite and eternal on the other side of the personality that is the true life of which Jesus speaks in the Gospels. I don't know if God is omni-present but I am not going to bet against it if He is already infinite and eternal. The purity of the virgin reminds me of my experience that there is not one spot that God does not cover. Not one blemish in His universal uniformity. There was not even a chance for doubt to survive in this presence. There's no desire for thought. It is utter rapture, ecstasy, paradise to fullest unsurpassable extent. This is a very very real thing. In fact, it is reality in itself.

When is this tendency to reduce God going to end anyway? We do this to God because we do this to ourselves as well. It manifests as a loss of self-esteem. No one can feel good enough about themselves, thus the need to avoid the feelings of worthlessness with beliefs. We know that there is something missing and that fuels the spiritual quest. What is missing is the experience of feeling our infinite and eternal worth. I suggest we don't stop until we feel it in full. We don't even notice how far we take the reducing God and reducing ourselves. The enemy prefers it that way. It's like putting a frog in water and slowly turning up the heat. We hardly notice anything is wrong because it is so subtle and then we wonder what's wrong with the world. What is going to stop us from taking things too far? Maybe we have already gone too far. I don't claim to know all the answers but clearly man has jumped to conclusions about the nature of God without actually giving God the chance to reveal himself to us as I also did for years. This is just my opinion so please take it with a grain of salt.

My feeling is that SonofCaleb is not running away from anything but is trying to inform people of little-known truths that are evident if we search for the truth. I don't think he is "reducing God" or himself. God is reduced by those who insist that He will send people to roast forever with no hope of relief. God is reduced to a heinous, sadistic, unloving fiend. I and many others do not accept that picture of God.

 

[Mickiel]

Hell isn't an end of existence... it is the best way to punish evil doers... eternally.

In my view, eternal hell is an example of conscious Christianity and how those humans think about punishing other humans that have no membership in their club. How a supposedly sane mind would settle the issue of fairness. Here we have a human would rejected Christ for, lets say 70 years of their life. Now here we have a Christian mind that will decide the punishment for this sorry life. Notice the " Over kill" of the Christian mind; punish this person forever! For 70 years of sin, they get an eternity in hell; they get 909,888,645 trillion years of suffering- then just as much more, then billions of years more, then quadrillion of years more, and this vicious cycle continues on into infinity! And this incredible way of thinking is labeled " Righteous?"

Stunning overkill!

And this Christian mind would have us believe that God has sanctioned this insane horror!

Amazing. Truly amazing that the worlds leading religion has actually interpreted this overkill to be something God would do. This is one reason this world is in serious trouble; our leading religion is peddling this to be true. They will argue with you up and down that this is true.

Our God would have to be a radical crack in reality for this to be true. Nothing about eternal hell has our great God's fingerprints on it. So God is being totally misunderstood by his own children, because I think Christianity are the children of God; they just got him pegged wrong.

 

[Mickiel]

IMO the only good thing about hell is that it has the potential to teach us about the falsehood of the personality. The feelings of worthlessness and separation got so bad for me that it was more painful to continue holding on to my beliefs than to finally let go. That is when I realized the infinite oneness of my true self and the miracle of healing unconscious self-worth it brought with it. Many of the lessons of the bible did not become clear until afterward. I realized I was Lazarus raised from the dead. I was the man chained in shackles made sane from the multiple voices in my head. What little faith I had was multiplied 100,000 fold as the fish and the loaves.

I see no good thing about eternal pain and misery for humans , and I fail to see how such madness could elevate a feeling of true self worth. When self needs to see suffering in others , in order to see value in itself , then self is just being lifted up by seeing others put down.

I am reminded of the real creation of the Women's liberation movement. You know what I think created that movement? Women grew tired of men who used them as stepping stones in order to lift themselves higher.

God does not need humans to suffer forever, in order to lift his Kingdom higher. The Kingdom of God will be lifted higher and higher in eternity by God's own governing style and his great capacity for Peace. In Isaiah 9:7. " Of the increase of his government and Peace, there shall BE NO END!" This is a stunning revelation about the Kingdom of God; the Peace there will ALWAYS increase! The principles that God uses to govern will continually grow and multiply. This means that Love and Goodness will always increase! It means that Joy and Happiness will continue to grow forever!

The Christian teaching of eternal hell soils this astounding increase in the minds of those who are confused about God now.

 

[Apple7]

The Christian teaching of eternal hell soils this astounding increase in the minds of those who are confused about God now.

This would be a Biblical teaching.

 

[KingdomRose]

I'm unsure of your stance. Some parts of what you wrote indicate God is not everywhere and some parts seem contrary. But notice how the personality will come up with many ways to justify separation. It projects it's sense of value and self-worth onto objects outside of itself. The meaning and value of the scriptures is actually within us. Believe me, I looked everywhere for it. There is an unconscious longing to connect with this feeling of infinite value. I didn't realize I AM the value and self-worth I'd been looking for my whole life, whether through religion, philosophy, career, money, sex, beer etc. It's really a glorious thing that I hope everyone can experience.

SonofCaleb is right, as he outlined in his Post #901....the scriptures say that God is in Heaven, but His power and knowledge extend everywhere. For example, He is not literally in the depths of the ocean, but He knows what is going on there.

As SonofCaleb mentioned, in I Kings chapter 8 Solomon prays that Jehovah will hear the prayers of His people, and he says to Jehovah at least eight times, either "hear in heaven, Your dwelling place or "hear in heaven." It seems that Solomon believed that God was indeed in heaven, not everywhere at once.

There are innumerable scriptures showing that heaven is Jehovah's dwelling place, and he "looks down" from there. Perhaps a glance at a concordance under "heaven," "heavens," and "heavenly" will add to our knowledge of just where Jehovah says he is.

 

[Apple7]

In I Kings chapter 8 Solomon prays that Jehovah will hear the prayers of His people, and he says to Jehovah at least eight times, either "hear in heaven, Your dwelling place or "hear in heaven." It seems that Solomon believed that God was indeed in heaven, not everywhere at once.

1 Kings 8.60 proclaims The Trinity.