I have always wanted to accept god into my heart but like every man who tries to sincerely accept god there is some baggage holding me back specifically two pieces. the first is The concept of hell seems unforgivably cruel. I don't understand how eternal, infinite punishment is a just reaction to the finite and often unintentional crimes of flawed humans. in most part of the world just punishment is seen at best as reformative for the purpose of teaching bad people to be good, and at worst preventative stopping bad people from doing more bad things but never simply for the purpose of hurting those bad people for being bad or punitive justice. the other one is anime, just like cartoons and animation I think it is creative, fun, and life-affirming.
The problem of hell
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As someone who once had a lot of questions regarding hell in particular its really just that you have to turn your brain off. Turn your mind away from the mysteries of God. This is especially to say, don't accept some sort of philosophical doctrine and then stop questioning. Don't ask the question in the first place. The things of God are not to be apprehended by our feeble intellects. At the same time I realize how that will sound to someone who has not otherwise had personal experience of God.
so i just kind of have to accept this thing that seems morally terrible.
Yes. If you are/were an intellectual like me then your cross is pride in knowledge. Tough break. I would rather be one of these nofap guys (ah wait, I got that problem too). So every day you're going to have to wake up telling yourself you essentially know nothing.
what to heck.
Look into The Orthodox conception of hell.
Well, for me personally like a lot of western people rightly so, i could never get the idea of a burning hell. A Dante's Inferno. I would personally seriously recommend looking into orthodoxy and how they view hell and the afterlife, or even just general christain views on afterlife. Cause Prior to, the publishing of Dante's Inferno. No Christian thought you went to burn, in lava, in the endless torture . Think about it for a sec man. Why would ancient Christians have prayers for the dead? If Hell is just the unending torment? Really i would say orthodoxy cause it really seems to ground its self in more sane theology. But no dude im still new to this myself, but that's really what i've come to find these past couple of months. Another point would be just i guess basic point to get a hand on this, is C.S Lewis, the Great Divorce and how he portrays hell and heaven, in that novel. Is what i've been told by orthodox people for a kinda of basic level understanding of it. But no dude unironically look up how ancient Christians viewed the afterlife no one perceived oh hell as this giant lake of fire till Dante's Inferno, and i like Dante's inferno as a reading, but it really doesn't seem like it's original Christian teachings due.
I pondered this question for a long time. Here is the reason hell is just:
1) though your actions are finite, they have infinite consequences. Your sin will cause cascading damage throughout the rest of creation. Curses to the next generation and so forth. Considering your life was given to you for free, using it to sin creates a debt than can never be paid. Thus, infinite torment in exchange for creating infinite damage by choosing sin is just.
2) the fire of gehenna can be likened to a purifying fire, in that, the physical fires of the physical Gehenna (Hinnom Valley next to Jerusalem) burned up the refuse and bodies of criminals, so does the spiritual lake of fire seek to burn up our sin - but what if all we are is sin? What if our definition of self and sin cannot be separated? Well, if all that is available is God, or the lake of fire, and we cannot be in God's presence while bearing sin and we refuse to be purified, where must we stay? Sinners don't want to be in hell but they would still rather be in Hell than accede to the conditions of entrance into Heaven.
I hope this makes you more at ease with the subject. Took me many years of scripture-reading and pondering to come to these conclusions which made me comfortable with the concept of hell
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Have you even read Inferno? If I remember correctly, only one circle has actual burning, all the rest of punishments are appropriate to their crimes.
Muhammed and heretics for example are split in two due to the heresy they committed.
…because they didn't think the people they prayed for went to hell?
You need to do some more re-reading, much more.
what's especially heinous (and possibly heretical) about this line of thought, is that HUMAN RATIONALITY IS ARGUABLY THE IMAGE OF GOD.
Christ IS Logos folks!
Yes, Christ is Logos, not man. If man seeks to make himself Logos then he's in for a rough day.
This, and to go a step further, just imagine how terrible an offense to the infinite. The knowledge of that offense, completely contrary and completely alien to a nature of pure love, is eternal, it was present before you were born and will be after you die. God's wrath is is the eternal contradiction between our sins and his nature. It is beyond time, beyond limits, and if God is to have and sense of right, any sense of justice, that wages of that offense must be payed for in full. God never choose for the prodigal son to walk away from him.
False dichotomy. Using God's gift to honor God is not attempting to replace God.
Really? Not even if you're a Calvinist?
this doesn't answer the question of punitive vs reformative justice.
Actually its not hell itself that trips me up. Its the idea of having children that I have trouble wrapping my head around.
Did I say anything in the defense of heretics?
Your entire line of reasoning would convict most, if not all the Church Fathers of either the West or the East too.
This life is the reformative justice, what is known as active purgation. You have nearly a hundred years to complete it. If, before your death, you have not completed this, you go through passive purgation, what's known as purgatory. Either way, justice of an eternal nature is only metted out for those who do not ask for God help in the matter. A word is all it takes.
Well, you asked for it.
2:5-11, and the chalcedonian definition.
Why do you deign to blaspheme and torture the logos with such nonsensical trite? I have heard heretics deny the divinity of Christ a thousand times before, but NEVER have I heard someone deny the humanity of the Logos in such brazen defiance of basic gospel truth. I had to learn how to deep fry memes just to properly express the outrage. I had to be reminded that a heresy that's been dead for fifteen centuries that I last heard about in high school exists, much less is practiced. You are a child of God, and that means that I am bound by the law of charity to love you fully, and as much as I can love you I do, and as much as I can't love you I remember his love for us both, but I also know that these are the kinds of blasphemies that he chose to be crushed, impaled, and suffocated to make amends for. And believe me, I've put my faith in worse errors, but never those Why? Why defend the Logos on one hand and deny that he came in the flesh in another? Why take only half of the first chapter of John? Why be so flippant about such a grave matter as if every member of the body of christ is against you? Just… why?
*as if every member of the body of christ isn't against you.
that and knowing the specific god
The Church does not hold invincible ignorance against those who never learn the truth of Christ. Expecting people to obey a standard that they do not know is a gross injustice that God could not hold. Ignorance is only an excuse up to a point however; I highly doubt that the golden rule that is etched into your and everyone's hearts has been followed with perfect obedience, and I also doubt that every grave violation of that rule has been accompanied by true repentance. Some people, paragons of virtue like Socrates for example, can manage it. The vast majority of us, however, have no excuse for our vile behavior, and willingly fail to live up to the standard of perfect love that we all despise each other for falling short of. We can always forget about our own evil, but He, in his perfect justice, will not unless we are committed to putting it aside for good.
The absolute state of modernism.
I guess Matthew 18:8-9 was just removed from your Bible then or you merely haven't read it. The part where it says everlasting fire and hell fire.
Revelation literally says lake of fire four times.
I'm Ortho who views it as state of soul that is opposed to eternal love of God (like sunlight hardens clay and melts the wax, but you don't blame sun for either), so I'm ok with with this part and don't consider it as "cruel" and so on. It is you who is tormenting yourself for abhorring God, so don't blame Him for that.
This. Repent and change your ways NOW; your hatred of God will torment you forever otherwise.
Nice false-flag.
hell is a deliberate rejection of God. idk what anime has to do with anything…
On the contrary, It is written (Matthew 25:46): "These," namely the wicked, "shall go into everlasting punishment."
Further, as reward is to merit, so is punishment to guilt. Now, according to Divine justice, an eternal reward is due to temporal merit: "Every one who seeth the Son and believeth in Him hath [Vulgate: 'that everyone . . . may have'] life everlasting." Therefore according to Divine justice an everlasting punishment is due to temporal guilt.
Further, according to the Philosopher (Ethic. v, 5), punishment is meted according to the dignity of the person sinned against, so that a person who strikes one in authority receives a greater punishment than one who strikes anyone else. Now whoever sins mortally sins against God, Whose commandments he breaks, and Whose honor he gives another, by placing his end in some one other than God. But God's majesty is infinite. Therefore whoever sins mortally deserves infinite punishment; and consequently it seems just that for a mortal sin a man should be punished for ever.
I answer that, Since punishment is measured in two ways, namely according to the degree of its severity, and according to its length of time, the measure of punishment corresponds to the measure of fault, as regards the degree of severity, so that the more grievously a person sins the more grievously is he punished: "As much as she hath glorified herself and lived in delicacies, so much torment and sorrow give ye to her" (Apocalypse 18:7)
The duration of the punishment does not, however, correspond with the duration of the fault, as Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xxi, 11), for adultery which is committed in a short space of time is not punished with a momentary penalty even according to human laws [Cf. I-II:87:3 ad 1]. But the duration of punishment regards the disposition of the sinner: for sometimes a person who commits an offense in a city is rendered by his very offense worthy of being cut off entirely from the fellowship of the citizens, either by perpetual exile or even by death: whereas sometimes he is not rendered worthy of being cut off entirely from the fellowship of the citizens. wherefore in order that he may become a fitting member of the State, his punishment is prolonged or curtailed, according as is expedient for his amendment, so that he may live in the city in a becoming and peaceful manner. So too, according to Divine justice, sin renders a person worthy to be altogether cut off from the fellowship of God's city, and this is the effect of every sin committed against charity, which is the bond uniting this same city together.
Consequently, for mortal sin which is contrary to charity a person is expelled for ever from the fellowship of the saints and condemned to everlasting punishment, because as Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xxi, 11), "as men are cut off from this perishable city by the penalty of the first death, so are they excluded from that imperishable city by the punishment of the second death." That the punishment inflicted by the earthly state is not deemed everlasting is accidental, either because man endures not for ever, or because the state itself comes to an end. Wherefore if man lived for ever, the punishment of exile or slavery, which is pronounced by human law, would remain in him for ever.
On the other hand, as regards those who sin in such a way as not to deserve to be entirely cut off from the fellowship of the saints, such as those who sin venially, their punishment will be so much the shorter or longer according as they are more or less fit to be cleansed, through sin clinging to them more or less: this is observed in the punishments of this world and of purgatory according to Divine justice.
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We find also other reasons given by the saints why some are justly condemned to everlasting punishment for a temporal sin. One is because they sinned against an eternal good by despising eternal life. This is mentioned by Augustine (De Civ. Dei. xii, 12): "He is become worthy of eternal evil, who destroyed in himself a good which could be eternal."
Another reason is because man sinned in his own eternity [Cf. I-II:87:3 ad 1]; wherefore Gregory says (Dial. iv), it belongs to the great justice of the judge that those should never cease to be punished, who in this life never ceased to desire sin. And if it be objected that some who sin mortally propose to amend their life at some time, and that these accordingly are seemingly not deserving of eternal punishment, it must be replied according to some that Gregory speaks of the will that is made manifest by the deed. For he who falls into mortal sin of his own will puts himself in a state whence he cannot be rescued, except God help him: wherefore from the very fact that he is willing to sin, he is willing to remain in sin for ever. For man is "a wind that goeth," namely to sin, "and returneth not by his own power" (Psalm 77:39). Thus if a man were to throw himself into a pit whence he could not get out without help, one might say that he wished to remain there for ever, whatever else he may have thought himself.
Another and a better answer is that from the very fact that he commits a mortal sin, he places his end in a creature; and since the whole of life is directed to its end, it follows that for this very reason he directs the whole of his life to that sin, and is willing to remain in sin forever, if he could do so with impunity. This is what Gregory says on Job 41:23, "He shall esteem the deep as growing old" (Moral. xxxiv): "The wicked only put an end to sinning because their life came to an end: they would indeed have wished to live for ever, that they might continue in sin for ever for they desire rather to sin than to live."
Still another reason may be given why the punishment of mortal sin is eternal: because thereby one offends God Who is infinite. Wherefore since punishment cannot be infinite in intensity, because the creature is incapable of an infinite quality, it must needs be infinite at least in duration.
And again there is a fourth reason for the same: because guilt remains for ever, since it cannot be remitted without grace, and men cannot receive grace after death; nor should punishment cease so long as guilt remains.
Anime that is not explicitly wicked is a-ok
First of all, it is not right for us to be against what God has decreed. Your ethics and morals are not higher than God.
◄ John 13:16 ►
"Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him.
Secondly, hell is eternal punishment in that it is the second death. People who are sent to hell have their souls destroyed. They are erased from God's presence.
◄ Matthew 10:28 ►
"Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Eternal life is not given to those who are sent to hell. They do not live forever in pain. They receive an eternal punishment in that God's punishment on them will have an everlasting affect on them; namely their destruction in the fire.
Paul was just some guy,srsly. Revelations inclusion in the Canon is silly.
If repercussions are not permanent our life becomes pointless.
And what of mercy?
Would you give yourself eternal repercussion, to give meaning to a pointless life? Maybe discipline, is a sign of devotion rather then eversion to suffering.
1. The very idea of hell in short is complete separation from God, for those who chose to reject them in their lives. I myself am struggling with my personal conception of hell. However, don't think of it as eternal prison.
Hell isn't eternal punishment for actions you've committed. Think of it like the ark of the convenant in the early days of Israel; people who came before the ark came before the direct presence of God. For most who weren't righteous enough to handle this, they burned to a crisp. Death is somewhat of a similar situation, more of a state of being when one is confronted with the Lord at the end of their life.
2. I don't remember the commandment against anime, but hey maybe someone else does I guess
Basically this
Hell doesnt work like a punch card of sins, if you dont care about god why should you have any reason to go to heaven. This is the general gist of hell that fulfilling your instant gratifications can have consequences far exceeding your own life span.
Semi off-topic, but checkout the Chinese and Buddhist versions of hell. Sick stuff. They get pretty creative with it.
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