The Problem with Hell (and Heaven): Its Existence.

reply to post by HomoSapiensSapiens


God does exist because everything is happening as it says it is, and how can we learn if we block out what other people say to you and believe what suits your needs. Scientist can't disprove the existence of God and history tells Yeshau walked among us, if everything is taken away from what you believe because humans are not a trustful species than your left with empty cup. You limit yourself to the material world and that's why your afraid of this place and things.

reply to post by Siberbat


It has been well established in recent studies that eyewitness testimony is terribly unreliable. I would also argue that the eyewitness accounts that have been enough to condemn a man to death have more to do with jurors than the veracity of the eyewitness accounts.

Link 1.
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In science when discussing wormholes or aspects of relativity you can point to hypotheses backed by equations that don't break known laws of physics. Laws and theories backed by thousands of experiments. You use the word "possible" and science does indeed show them to be possible. The only issue here is having the necessary technology to properly test these theories. This is, after all, the scientific method. Observation, hypothesis, experiment, conclusion. There have been many experiments into relativity. Here's one. To my knowledge there is no empirical observation data one could use to formulate a hypothesis on the existence of "hell". Does this mean it's impossible? Not exactly. But until there is any shred of evidence it is terribly foolish to believe it does exist. Supposed eyewitness accounts of hell are purely subjective and can potentially be as wildly inaccurate as any memory, if true, and cannot be verified to begin with.

reply to post by canucks555


That's because they are setting up to deceive many with the alien card, the herds of salvation seekers will be flocking to the fallen angels upon their return. To those like yourself will pat your selves on the back because this will prove that God doesn't exist.

reply to post by HomoSapiensSapiens


Hell is the absence of all good and everything to do with God, in my belief and opinion,

I believe the Hell most people who go to Hell experience is what atheists believe happens post-death; a blank, empty, void, reminiscent of what you experienced before birth.

I also believe Hell has separate "levels", one of which is a sort of prison, which will be emptied at the end of time when all the wicked, along with the concepts of Death and Hell themselves, are cast into the Lake of Fire and perished for all eternity, after which God will create anew, a new Universe with a new Imperishable Earth,

This is just my opinion though....

Thanks

Edit; also, I don't think God judges people and sends them to Hell so much for beliefs, or lack thereof, so much as He does it for deeds committed....

A Hindu who lives a virtuous life, or a Muslim, or a Pacific Islander who has done much good in life, could be accepted into Paradise, whereas a conceited and selfish Christian could end up in the Void...

God bless

reply to post by clairvoyantrose


Hell is different than the sufferings of earth, because even sufferings can be pleasant for men, because they make men more like Jesus and they know that. Ever heard of the Beatitudes?

But Hell is on Earth I'll definitely give you that one, but only to an extent.

reply to post by Siberbat


What do we call an occurrence which science can't explain? An opportunity. Phenomena is anything experienced or observed. The term does not convey something unknown or unexplained. Again, you're showing a lack of understanding of how science works. As well as a lack of reading comprehension. It wasn't stated in the post you replied to that NDE's were not real events, but instead:

There are said to be rational scientific explanations for them and I'm sure that as science progresses, we will be able to readily explain them...

...which is an accurate description of where we currently are in fields concerning NDE's and consciousness.

You claim science has proven nothing and it's just hypotheses and presuppositions, which is extremely wrong, yet proudly claim the same for your own point of view. This makes no sense whatsoever. The "supernatural" basis for NDE's has, in fact, proven nothing and is nothing more than theories and assumptions rooted in equally unproven religious or spiritual beliefs. The fact that science has not reached a conclusion on a specific subject does not mean the default conclusion must therefore be supernatural.

reply to post by HomoSapiensSapiens

Whoa, whoa, slow down there. The first part was just a little humor. I'm an atheist. I don't believe in Heaven or Hell.

The second part was how many Christians really see this argument. A Christian who has been one for a long time won't try to prove either to you. They'll tell you just what I told you. It's faith. You either believe, or you don't.

Originally posted by Klassified
reply to post by HomoSapiensSapiens

 

Whoa, whoa, slow down there. The first part was just a little humor. I'm an atheist. I don't believe in Heaven or Hell.

The second part was how many Christians really see this argument. A Christian who has been one for a long time won't try to prove either to you. They'll tell you just what I told you. It's faith. You either believe, or you don't.

Well actually, I think that those Christians may just get sick of arguing, pass the point of needing concrete evidence of either, or they become lukewarm Christians who believe that they somehow manage to do enough to be saved. Otherwise they would just ignore the argument because they have heard it far too many times, they understand the truth of it, and from experience that these people are just looking for an outlet to voice their own opinion without the intention of even considering anyone else's thought.

know what I'm saying, or am I raving?

Debates about nothing and nowhere achieve exactly that.

reply to post by HomoSapiensSapiens


Biblical Christianity holds that hell, i.e the Lake of Fire, where those not found in the Book of Life are going to be consumed away to ashes, doesn't actually exist until after Jesus' second coming and then after the 1000 years the redeemed of the first resurrection spend in heaven.

False Christianity teaches that upon death you either go to Heaven or Hell. The Bible teaches though that upon death you remain in the ground waiting, described as a "sleep", waiting for either the first resurrection of the redeemed or the second resurrection of the wicked who will be then consumed by fire until they are ashes.

Your OP is asking proof of something exists when it has not began to exist yet so that is a fairly pointless aim.

Nevertheless, there is some evidence for what the Lake of Fire will be like because the same fire that is said to be used in the Lake of Fire is what was used to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah (Brimstone...molten sulfur).

Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the Lord out of the heavens" Genesis 19:24. "Turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly" II Peter 2:6.

Millions of those sulfur balls were found all over the destroyed cities of Sodom, Gomorrah, Zeboim, Zoar and Admah.

Chemical analysis of those sulfur balls revealed them to be about 98% pure sulfur with the other elements composed of things which would make the sulfur burn hotter (like magnesium).

The purest forms of naturally occurring sulfur comes to at around 40% pure. The sulfur that hit those cities only has 30 times less impurities than anything found on Earth. There is no doubt that what destroyed those cities has supernatural intervention.

further reading on Sodom and Gomorrah discovery 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5
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So how do we prove Heaven exists
I think the only individuals we know by name who are already in Heaven are Enoch and Elijah and they are no help in proving that it exists other than taking what was written down and believed by those who saw it take place at the time to be truth. So how can this help support the existence of Heaven?

We could provide some evidence of Jesus' living existence still now.
100 testimonials of people being saved by Jesus from CE4 experiences. With the CE4 experiences we have people who are in the middle of what to them appears to be an alien abduction/harassment experience. People have been able to stop these experiences happening part way through by calling on the name of Jesus to help them and which is the only things that does help them. Such experiences reveal that the "aliens" are really just the fallen angels in disguise trying to plant in the minds of the world that we could have been seeded by an advanced ET race.

Search Bob Larson on youtube and have a look at all the people being delivered from various forms of demonic possession through the power of the living savior, Jesus.

An alternative way to help support the existence of Heaven would be to do a probability analysis of how reliable are the visions of those prophets of God who have seen Heaven and described it. Here I can think of two examples, John in the book Revelation and Ellen White in Chapter 42 of the Great Controversy or in her book Heaven.

How can we judge the worth of John the Revelator's visions of heaven, perhaps by judging the historical fulfilment of his visions relating to the Beast (of the Sea)/Whore of Babylon
full historical fulfilment of Daniel and Revelation description of the anti-christ. Some of the descriptions there need a little more explaining than provided but...on close inspection of those descriptors, all are fulfilled historically.

What kind of probability can you give for a full fulfilment of all those different descriptions written thousands and thousands of years ago (especially when we read of people who expose Satanism in the Catholic Church, who founded the illuminati, and what ex-illuminati people have to say about the Vatican).

To judge the worth of Ellen White's visions on Heaven we will look at an area she wrote on which has evidence of fulfilment but it not based on a conditional prophecy. We will look at the area of her health reform.

Ellen White wrote a tremendous amount in her life (becoming the most prolific writing in American history before she died) and one area she wrote on and claimed she was receiving her insight from God was on health reform.

Please read some of Development of Ellen White's health principles. With no formal background in health or diet or a school education of any distinguished length, she wrote done at the time a raft of practices that people should follow to ensure best health practise. This was written over 150 years ago when all kinds of ideas of what constituted good dietary and health practices were floating around with no established clear methods. Out of all the various practises that were floating around she just happened to say all the practises that have come out much later in time to be shown to be beneficial to the body and included none that were shown to be harmful later on. What is the probability of this?

What is the probability that the diet she advocated Adventist's to eat (told to her by God) just happens to make Adventist now the longest living non-geocentric specific culture in the entire world?

Longveity Blue Zones
SDA longevity

SDA women in America live 9 years on average longer than their counterparts in America and the men live 11 years longer on average (years generally free of any major disease or health concern).



Adventist are the only group who aren't seeing their longevity deteriorate and the only group that aren't contained to a specific location in the world.

further info on SDA longevity

What does this evidence of historical fulfilment of Biblical prophecy and Adventist health tell us about the likelihood that Heaven is real and is as described by John the Revelator and Ellen White....it tells us that in areas that we can confirm show that what is written down seems to be beyond any human knowledge to write and predict then it is extremely likely to the point of certainty (when combined with the evidence for the existence of other factors) that Heaven is real as is the Judgement at the End of Time where those not in God will be erased from existence.

Therefore....both Heaven and Hell are "real"

i,m sorry as soon as i seen god only basicly lets u see what u want to see i skipped all answers(i,m bad) ok i don,t believe in no god and to me i have no idea why anyone else does

show me what we,ve heard isn,t just some story after a couple thousand years is like nelson mandela,mother teresa or gandhi storys taking on a legend of their own?

there is actually no prove of any god,jesus or anything........like most people say,humans have to think that something else exists just for us to survive.

if god exists then why hasn,t he showed himself in thousands of years?

Originally posted by sparky31

if god exists then why hasn,t he showed himself in thousands of years?

God certainly shows Himself, but many do not want to see.

"Son of man, you are living among a rebellious people. They have eyes to see but do not see and ears to hear but do not hear, for they are a rebellious people." Ezekiel 12:2

"Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don't you remember?" Mark 8:18

Please work on your grammar so I may readily understand you. Peace to you.

Originally posted by backcase

Originally posted by sparky31

if god exists then why hasn,t he showed himself in thousands of years?

God certainly shows Himself, but many do not want to see.

"Son of man, you are living among a rebellious people. They have eyes to see but do not see and ears to hear but do not hear, for they are a rebellious people." Ezekiel 12:2

"Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don't you remember?" Mark 8:18

Please work on your grammar so I may readily understand you. Peace to you.

i knew someone would mention grammar...you managed to answer it so u managed to read it.......if it was that bad then obviously you wouldn,t have got it......i,m sorry but not everyone is so well educated but should it stop us from posting?

actually i,ve noticed people only seem to pick up on grammar when they don,t like the post......

reply to post by sparky31


do not get offended, it was only some advice.

"i,m sorry as soon as i seen god only basicly lets u see what u want to see i skipped all answers", - sparky

I have no clue what this is supposed to mean. It is not at all that I do not like your post, it is that I like when things are correct and in clear order. Also it makes us less prone to misunderstanding.

I answered you, but you had nothing to say of what I said.

While we're talking about grammar, what does this mean?

Originally posted by sparky31

show me what we,ve heard isn,t just some story after a couple thousand years is like nelson mandela,mother teresa or gandhi storys taking on a legend of their own?

I am glad I skimmed through this thread . I thought it was a gathering point for the sad people who have no hope . Or at least hope there is no punishment for their self indulging life styles where no God can exist. Maybe someone can get through to them .

I challenge any fundamentalist christian or of any sort to respond to this long but thought provoking post. Before I begin, I will state my "outlandish" beliefs. I believe in god. God to me is the infinite essence of everything, the intelligence force/energy, the emanation of all that is and all that isn't. God expands himself/herself through his/her creations. In this sense, everything is god because it is an expansion of him/her. I am god. You are god. The animals, the rocks, the sky, the air is god. The difference between us and those things is that we are conscious and have the ability to create with our bare hands. Look at the world WE HAVE CREATED. We have built structures that touch the sky, technologies the connect us from miles away, medicines that cure diseases. We dominate the animal kingdom and lavish in the treasures the world has around us. We, together, are the consciousness of god. We have made the world what it is today. Whether you want to believe it or not and undermine yourself by making yourself seem smaller than you truly are. You want to believe there is a higher authority because humanity has been built on that belief stringing from a history of being ruled by kings and emperors. To this day we still are. Beyond following the elite, you believe in the god you don't see. But all you have to do is believe in yourself and see and feel god in his/her very essence.

You do not have to believe in anything I had just said. I KNOW I could very well be wrong just as anyone else could be wrong. My perception is subject to change for I am not single minded. I do not claim to be righteous but at least I have explored knowledge with an open mind from all corners of the world, from most religions, philosophical ideas, scientific theories before I came up with my perspective. But that is all that is: A PERSPECTIVE. Christianity is just a perspective. Islam is just a perspective. Atheism is just a perspective. A perspective is an assumed reality based on all the knowledge/experience/sight one has accumulated throughout life. Now I challenge Christians to think of this...

Think of the children born in North Korea to an enclosed society where western ideals are hidden from the people and you MUST conform with the government. The second that one of them is found to non-conform with their conditioned norms would mean imprisonment or death. These people do not get the chance to even find Jesus or believe in him. But because they are brought up not to believe in Jesus Christ, they are going to condemned to hell? Is god so unfair? How about the people born in the middle east, conditioned to follow Islam and built on the perspective that much of the western world is evil. Many of these people do not get to a chance to even read the bible or be introduced to the teachings of Christ but they are going to be condemned to hell aren't they? There are people in tribes and such that have never even heard of the bible. But because they don't believe in god, are they going to hell? This perception of god is SO single minded and ridiculous TO ME (my opinion). You make god seem like a king or some egotistical human being in need of undivided attention.


A god is omnipotent. Non judging. The earth was created through destruction, the animal kingdom is full of destruction and creation too, and Humanity has been a process of destruction and creation itself. Why is it so hard to believe the negative forces work with the positive forces to neutralize a balance? Some people are born evil. Some people really are (even by having positive and loving families ). Some people are born with the utmost positivity and love for all that is(even having negative and neglecting families). It is nature. But like I said before, we are conscious of this nature we have. And being conscious is all that is needed to change. We naturally are born into these single minded perspectives. But we can change that. We are ego driven and controlled by ego driven people. We can change that. We hurt the planet by polluting it and treating it like our local playground. We can change that.


SOME, not all Christians, believe that they should love everyone and accept them for who they are no matter what. There is a flaw in this. The love feels fake. They only love others because Jesus said to love others and they will be saved because of it. How about you love others because you want to love others. How about you accept everyone for what they believe and whatnot because you truly love them. I believe in christs' message of love but his message has been one of the most misinterpreted. If you want to spread Christianity, don't do it by reciting quotes from revelations and telling me to believe in Jesus if I want to be saved. Do it by loving me and accepting me for all that I am. As for everyone else. And once it becomes mutual, you shall realize how unnecessary religion is and the truth of existence.

reply to post by inwardspiral


Before the Law or Jesus came to earth people were saved by their righteousness towards God ! Enoch , Elijah , Abraham , Able , Adam . These never heard of the Law or Jesus . Were they lost? Does a newborn calf need to be schooled to know how to suckle off its mother ? No ! Man also knows what is right in the site of God and you can call it instinct if you wish . You have had all of the chances to know Jesus and from what I hear in your post you haven't yet grasped your place in the matter .
No we aren't God nor even a reasonable facsimile .

OK, here is one for you,---so I'm on the operating table when I suddenly realize that I am no longer in 'a body, let alone my own', but am floating above it.
I hear panic in the room, like--"his heart has stopped!...is he reacting to....?, the sound of the machine(the dreaded flatline noise)....etc....
So I'm thinking poor guy, he is done....then after almost a minute, I suddenly realize(holy s..t), the 'noise' is about me....
then, out of nowhere, and without any help, my heart starts beating again......
I guess the purpose of this little tale, is to show that perhaps there can be an existence without any real 'physical' proof.....or a need for a physical embodiment....

Back to hell, sort of speak, since it's characteristics are described by the living, can you not argue that perhaps the descriptions have been not accurate?
For the sake of argument, I'll give you a different version of hell(or heaven): what if, when you die, at the exact time you expire, the 'state' that comes over you, or is revealed to you, is yours to keep, perhaps just for a split second, perhaps, minutes, hours...or however long....
.....by the way, there was a bright light----but perhaps it was just the overhead ceiling ones...Text

Originally posted by SimonPeter
reply to post by inwardspiral

 

Before the Law or Jesus came to earth people were saved by their righteousness towards God ! Enoch , Elijah , Abraham , Able , Adam . These never heard of the Law or Jesus . Were they lost? Does a newborn calf need to be schooled to know how to suckle off its mother ? No ! Man also knows what is right in the site of God and you can call it instinct if you wish . You have had all of the chances to know Jesus and from what I hear in your post you haven't yet grasped your place in the matter .
No we aren't God nor even a reasonable facsimile .

Oh really? God is going to limit himself to one region of the world instead of speaking to the whole world? So god never spoke to peoples of north america or Australia? Man does by instinct have a belief in something greater than he is and THERE is something greater than he is. But this something greater than him is in himself. If we are made in the image of god (according to the bible), then how are we not gods ourselves? Think of this, would the world be a better place if everyone just loved each other no matter who they were, satanist or homosexual, or if the only love there could be is through Jesus Christ? That is ignorant in my eyes and so limiting to the human potential. Love can break through the chains of evil and bring out the humanity in people. But love to you is singular to the likes of your religion. Not everyone is going to believe in Jesus or jehova. It is impossible. So accept and evolve by accepting one another instead of condemning one another for not believing in what you believe. You merely touched upon anything I said. Back up your rebuttal with self proclaimed logic and that not being quotes from the bible. Thank you.