Are You Looking Forward To “The End”?

[goodlife]

You see people will tell you of end-of-the-world scenarios, and we have Books, movies, and magazines, ranging from the comic to the scientific, portray an assortment of doomsday catastrophes. They include annihilation by nuclear war, asteroid collision, deadly virus, runaway climate change, or invaders from outer space, what a world we live in.

[chrisgel]

Thank you Naomi ;o) - Ideosyncracy - QED

[naomi24]

Chris, You're welcome. :o)

[Octavius]

Chrisgel, my take on it is that if you don't bring cakes and sing happy birthday, you can't come to my party and you'll lose out on party central and be miserable ...... forever!

Now if you like cake and singing, but don't like the host, I can't imagine you'll find much eternal suffering by not going to or being at the party.

;o)

[chrisgel]

Octavius - How charming you make the party sound.
I think I have cracked your code though.

Cake = Subjugation
Singing = Subserviance.

I'll give it a miss thanks. ;o)

[idiosyncrasy]

Chrisgel & Naomi@
Actually if you study your Bible you will see that many times when referring to fire it is to show thorough destruction because if something is totally and completely burnt up then it is gone forever. It does not refer to burning in fire forever. Once something is burnt and destroyed that is it!

Therefore the scripture used by Naomi is an illustration to denote the complete destruction of the wicked.

For example the scripture at Mark 9 v 43 - 49 talking about cutting off your hand and pulling out your eye and throwing it into Gehenna is not literal but illustrative.

God does not want anyone to be destroyed but warns them first.

Also the Revelation scripture, actually all this passage says is that the wicked are tormented, not that they are tormented forever. The text states that it is the smoke—the evidence that the fire has done its work of destruction—that continues forever, not the fiery torment.

Rather than proving hellfire, you need to look at a similar prophecy in Isaiah when God warned the nation of Edom that they would be punished if they continued with their emnity towards Isreal. - Isaiah 34 v 9 & 10.
"Edom's streams will be turned into pitch, her dust into burning sulphur; her land will become blazing pitch! It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste ; none shall pass through it for ever and ever.

Was Edom hurled into some mythical hellfire to burn forever? Of course not. Rather, the nation completely disappeared from the world scene as if she had been totally consumed with fire and sulphur. The final result of the punishment was not everlasting torment but “emptiness . . . wasteness . . . nothing.” (Isaiah 34:11, 12) The smoke ‘thereof shall go up ever"’ vividly illustrates this. When a house burns down, smoke keeps coming from the ashes for some time after the flames have died down, providing onlookers with evidence that there has been a destructive conflagration.

[chrisgel]

And you know this how?
Why would I accept your apologist version of the bible over any other.
I have spoken to many christians, most of them were of the opinion that I would be going to hell to endure torment for ever. In fact, quite a few of them seemed to relish the idea. Why are they wrong and you're right?

[Octavius]

chrisgel, yes I'm quite the ambivert myself.

Idiosyncrasy, thats a long way of saying that God's punishment amounts to not having your name on the list of party attendees for a very long time indeed (everlatsing.... eternal...).

Atheists, unless they are truly worried or concerned about that, have no desire to go to the party since their is no host. So if there's no host, there's no party. Not sure why the anti-theists would get worked up about that really, unless they liked religious company .........

[naomi24]

idiosyncrasy, like all religious people, you’re reading into it what you want to read into it. That's why there are so many different flavours of Christianity.

//they have no rest, day or night//

… does not indicate to me that they are a gonna!