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I attended a local large Evangelical Free Church this last weekend and there isn't much I disagree with them about except for this doctrine that is specifically stated in their beliefs:
We believe ...
In the bodily resurrection of the dead: of the believer to everlasting blessedness and joy with the Lord: of the unbeliever to judgment and everlasing conscious punishment
Now why is that so important to state that right out front, like the SDA's fundies.
I take issue with it because of these verses:
2 Peter 2:6if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly;
"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it." (Matthew 7:13)
"Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell." (Matthew 10:28)
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)
"They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power" (2 Thessalonians 1:9)
Everlasting destruction and separation from God for eternity yes, but eternal conscious burning hell? When the totality is read, on balance there is good and IMO a better argument for eternal destruction, and annhilation.
However, to spend more time on this than salvific issues tends to get one in a corner, where it appears you are planning to be one that will be in the ranks of the wicked and are arguing for mercy before it is inflicted.
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Note this also:
Annihilationism - is the minority Christian doctrine that sinners are destroyed rather than tormented forever in "hell" or the lake of fire. It is directly related to the doctrine of conditional immortality, the idea that a human soul is not immortal unless it is given eternal life. Annihilationism asserts that God will eventually destroy or annihilate the wicked, leaving only the righteous to live on in immortality. Some annihilationists believe the wicked will be punished for their sins in the lake of fire before being annihilated, others that hell is a false doctrine of pagan origin.
Annihilationist denominations include the Seventh-day Adventists, Bible Students, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christadelphians and the various Advent Christian churches. Some Protestant and Anglican[1] writers have also proposed annihilationist doctrines. Annihilationists base the doctrine on their exegesis of scripture, some early church writing, historical criticism of the doctrine of hell, and the concept of God as too loving to punish his creations forever. Therefore Hell is not eternal punishing, rather it is an eternal punishment (Matt 25:46): eternal separation from God through death.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annihilationism
The historical Christian view is one of a conscious eternal torment. How did we come by our minority position?
I am feeling a little conflicted with my view of annhilation, because of having to use a similar argument as www.heavenlysanctuary.com , that God is too loving a Creator and Judge to inflict eternal torment on any of His creatures.
Afterall, isn't separation from God for eternity bad/extreme enough???
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God is too loving a Creator and Judge to inflict eternal torment on any of His creatures
and that's why, when He became sorry He had made people, He was kind enuf to just drown them all in a flood...not burn them in pain. even innocent babies. along with innocent animals. according to the story.
and, again according to the story, when He wanted to prove "How Great He Is",
and influence the Pharaoh, He killed innocent Egyptian kids in a merciful fashion...didn't burn them to death. just sent an angel to spread death.
so why would He change means of killing later, and as the Loving Creator, burn His creatures in pain and eternal suffering?
is that the "heavenly father" we all grew up thinking we knew?
or is it all allegory anyway?
what if there was no Noah's flood sent by God to massacre people?
and in fact, there is no outside corroboration of th e massacre of the Egyptian firstborn?
so maybe John the Rev's "visions" of a fiery end to the world grew to such legendary status from the stories of the fiery end to Jerusalem?
maybe after all, God isn't going to BBQ us....
we'll all just die in car accidents, heart failure, swine flue or gunshot by the hand of Moslem converts who believe their god demands they become killers just like the ancient Hebrews did.
If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?
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John, you have such a way with words. Sort of disrepectful of God. Certainly it can be stated differently as you realize. If God is as glorious and powerful as I think he is, if I were you, I think I would be trembling a little right about now
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Bob,
I'm with John on this one. I'm in a kind of love affair with God, and where there is love there is no place for fear.
I never noticed that John is desrespectful of God. He may be disrespectful of some traditional theological concepts, which are no longer applicable in today's world. And what better way to dispense with them than by showing how ridiculous they are?
Could you love a God who drowned the whole of innocent nature just because of its own mistake (according to Genesis YHWH regretted it had made mankind)? Such a God would deserve nothing that to be despised by all.
The story of flood is deep and great despite that - but only if you take it as an allegory and not fact. Luckily geoscientists have proved beyond the shade of doubt that there never was a global flood. Therefore such an evil God doesn't really exist.
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You know what they say about opinions ... <BR> <BR><a href="http://www.globalflood.org" target=_top>www.globalflood.org</a>
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Baumgardner says:
"A key aspect of this catastrophe was the rapid sinking, in conveyor belt fashion, of the pre-Flood ocean tectonic plates into the earth's interior."
Bob, I'm having trouble trying to get a mental picture of this theory. Do you know of any animated diagram of this event?
Cadge
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I could not love a God who would allow anyone to burn forever and forever.
If I were to accept that concept, Cain (if he did'nt make it to heaven) would still be burning 6000 years later. Stalin and Hitler would still be screaming in pain as they burn..
Makes our form of capital punishment look like good news.
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don't bother trying to understand Baumgardners hype... its just another attempt to claim that the Flood of Noah explains everything....
read what most everybody else understands:
Runaway subduction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_geol … subduction
In the last decade, most proposed flood mechanisms involve "runaway subduction" (the rapid movement of tectonic plates) in one form or another, at least in order to open up the ocean basins to allow the drainage of the water after the flood, but possibly also to close them before the flood in order to force the oceans onto the land.
One specific form of runaway subduction is called Catastrophic plate tectonics, proposed by geophysicist John Baumgardner and supported by the Institute for Creation Research and Answers in Genesis.[49]
This holds the rapid plunge of former oceanic plates into the mantle caused by an unknown trigger mechanism which increased local mantle pressures to the point that its viscosity dropped several magnitudes according to known properties of mantle silicates. Once initiated, sinking plates caused the spread of low viscosity throughout the mantle resulting in runaway mantle convection and catastrophic tectonic motion as continents were dragged across the surface of the earth. Once the former ocean plates, which are known to be denser than the mantle, reached the bottom of the mantle an equilibrium was reached. Pressures dropped, viscosity increased, runaway mantle convection stopped, leaving the surface of the earth rearranged.
Proponents point to subducted slabs in the mantle which are still relatively cool, which they regard as evidence that they have not been there for millions of years of temperature equilibration.[50]
The hypothesis of catastrophic plate tectonics is considered pseudoscience and is rejected by the vast majority of geologists in favor of the conventional geological theory of plate tectonics.
It has been argued that the tremendous release of energy necessitated by such an event would boil off the Earth's oceans, making a global flood impossible.[51] Not only does catastrophic plate tectonics lack any plausible geophysical mechanism by which its changes might occur, it also is contradicted by considerable geological evidence (which is in turn consistent with conventional plate tectonics), including:[52]
...The fact that a number of volcanic oceanic island chains, such as the Hawaiian islands, yield evidence of the ocean floor having moved over volcanic hot spots. These islands have widely ranging ages (determined via both radiometric dating and relative erosion) that contradict the catastrophic tectonic hypothesis of rapid development and thus a similar age.
Radiometric dating and sedimentation rates on the ocean floor likewise contradict the hypothesis that it all came into existence nearly contemporaneously.
...Catastrophic tectonics does not allow sufficient time for guyots to have their peak eroded away (leaving these seamounts' characteristic flat tops).
...Runaway subduction does not explain the kind of continental collision illustrated by that of the Indian and Eurasian Plates. (For further information see Orogeny.)
Conventional plate tectonics accounts for the geological evidence already, including innumerable details that catastrophic plate tectonics cannot, such as why there is gold in California, silver in Nevada, salt flats in Utah, and coal in Pennsylvania, without requiring any extraordinary mechanisms to do so.[52][53]
If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?
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