If Jesus died to forgive us, then why is there a Hell?

@Fil Albuquerque,

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The point of this tale is to not outguess "Nature" reasons through our poor reasoning skills...this has nothing to do with fathers n childrens

It sounds like you're saying that the voice in Abraham's head--the one telling him to murder his son and offer his corpse up as a burnt offering--was a natural thing, like a storm.

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@Glennn,

Oh yes...very much. Mental Illness is a natural phenomena. Ad to that that I don't believe in true randomness and we have a very interesting debate ahead.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

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Oh yes...very much. Mental Illness is a natural phenomena.

Yes it is. There's no debating that.

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@Glennn,

You are half way through the puzzle of life ! Not bad !

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@Fil Albuquerque,

No puzzle. Only truth.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

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Mental Illness is a natural phenomena.

Mental illness explains why such things as witch-burning, animal and human sacrifice, and other such things take place. But any way you look at it, these things are unfortunate perversions of belief that need to be outgrown.

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I don't think all the detractors of the Abraham/Issac story have thought it through deeply enough or they were unable to put themselves in Abrahams shoes as Neo put it.
First, Abraham did not only just believe in God but interacted directly with him. The 'rules' were different BC. I would imagine that would affect the situation.

With that kind of absolute knowledge of God and knowing that Issac (and all men for that matter) exist as souls and not just flesh and blood, his death would not be the end of Issac, although it would deprive Ab of his company on earth.

Being that close to God he would also know that God could restore Issac to life if he chose to.

Not saying it was easy, but it's not the totally unthinkable.

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@Leadfoot,

I don't believe in 'souls.' The biology of living things dies; when the brain dies, everything else dies with it. That's true of all animal life.
If there is life, there is death. Death is necessary for life to continue. This planet is too small to accommodate all life for eternity.
I, for one, am glad I was given a chance to "live" on this planet. Being one of the lucky ones to have been born in the right country at the right time made all the difference. Having lived for at least 80 years was a gift. I believe 'luck' had a lot to do with it, although many people say you bring your own luck.

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@cicerone imposter,

oh wait....hold on your horses there CI. I can give you a tangible scientific like account for some sort of "soul".
Think about your specific information compile atomically. That, which is you, is an specific pattern arrangement of atoms that it is possible in our Universe. Proof is that you here right now living. Such a pattern can eventually repeat in a gazillion years from sheer statistical probability. That means that your pattern is your "soul". Your "soul" in the sense that such pattern is eternal and indestructible for has long as reality exists and can repeat it atomically. And it can repeat n repeat n repeat ad eternum so long energy and the conservation of mass is true. The small version is a Rubik's cube. All the patterns possible in the cube can be repeated ad eternum so long the cube is not destroyed. Imagine the Universe, Reality, as a huge, humongous Rubik's cube. Your Arches, your "soul", is your specific atomic map, your information.

Now this is way better then Christian bullshit.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

I understand a bit about DNA and how that transfers to future generations, so, yea, what you say has credence.
As an aside: I have always claimed that I'm the product of all my ancestors, and therefore not responsible for my looks or human strength and weakness.

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@Leadfoot,

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I don't think all the detractors of the Abraham/Issac story have thought it through deeply enough

I don't think that all of the supporters of Abraham's willingness to murder his son at the behest of a voice in his head have thought it through deeply enough.

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First, Abraham did not only just believe in God but interacted directly with him.

Well, I would take your word for that, but realizing that you've come to that conclusion by taking the word of a book prevents me from doing so. There is no way for you to know that Abraham interacted directly with the god.

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The 'rules' were different BC. I would imagine that would affect the situation.

What you're saying here is that there was a time when slaughtering animals and offering the god the burnt corpses was a holy thing to do and that it was a holy thing for the god to be pleased and quenched by such a thing.

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Being that close to God he would also know that God could restore Issac to life if he chose to.

Not saying it was easy, but it's not the totally unthinkable.

That's just conjecture on your part. At any rate, Abraham's obsession with the idea of a god did lead him to become willing to murder his own son. Obsession is a terrible thing in the wrong hands.

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@Glennn,

The miracles of the bible just didn't survive logic. Feeding thousands with a loaf of bread? Come on, that's comic book stuff.

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@Glennn,

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That's just conjecture on your part. At any rate, Abraham's obsession with the idea of a god did lead him to become willing to murder his own son. Obsession is a terrible thing in the wrong hands

Not conjecture, just saying that if you assume, pretend or whatever it takes for you to put yourself in that position, it is conceivable. If you can't do that then of course the story makes no sense. It sounds like you're not willing or able to do the mental experiment. Just for the purpose of doing the experiment, have you ever just assumed you had absolute incontrovertible proof of God's existence?

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@cicerone imposter,

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I don't believe in 'souls.' The biology of living things dies; when the brain dies, everything else dies with it

Same thing I told Glennn, if you can't take your mind set off that fixed perspective, then contemplating any biblical story is a waste of time, it will never make sense. Not saying you have to take it on faith, it's just a mental experiment.

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@Leadfoot,

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Not conjecture, just saying that if you assume, pretend or whatever it takes for you to put yourself in that position, it is conceivable. If you can't do that then of course the story makes no sense. It sounds like you're not willing or able to do the mental experiment. Just for the purpose of doing the experiment, have you ever just assumed you had absolute incontrovertible proof of God's existence?

You said that, being that close to God, he would also know that God could restore Issac to life if he chose to. First of all, you are basing your opinion on conjecture. The fact is that, according to the story, Abraham was willing to murder his son and offer the god the burnt corpse. This presupposes that the god is pleased and quenched in some way by the slaughter of animals and the burning of their corpses, and that it is open to bargaining with humans, with the act of killing and burning being the god's currency of choice.

You are wrong about my unwillingness to do the mental experiment. I used to be you. I understand well the mental dynamics involved in the inability to release ideas and beliefs that no longer serve the self in any productive way. I believe that your ego won't allow you to release old, worn out concepts that are both a detriment to the growth of your mind, and an insult to the god you claim to love and worship. One thing the ego demands is its right to never be wrong and made to look like a fool. If you ever wonder whether or not your ego is in charge of your thinking, consider what it has made of the god of your dreams.

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@Glennn,

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I believe that your ego won't allow you to release old, worn out concepts that are both a detriment to the growth of your mind, and an insult to the god you claim to love and worship. One thing the ego demands is its right to never be wrong and made to look like a fool.

Then I question your perception. I get called fool, deluded, trapped in my myths, etc. almost daily here. If I wanted to be perceived as 'never wrong', I would not pick the world view that I've shown a little of here.

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@Leadfoot,

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If I wanted to be perceived as 'never wrong', I would not pick the world view that I've shown a little of here.

I'm not talking about world view here. I'm talking about the unreasonable attributes that you willingly assign to your god. When I say that your ego demands the right to never be wrong, I'm speaking of its refusal to discard old, worn out concepts of deity. In other words, your ego views a change in beliefs as an admission that it has been wrong for all this time. And as proof of this hold that the ego has over you, I offer your indefensible position that killing and burning corpses was indeed the currency which the god accepted in exchange for something humans wanted or needed.

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@Glennn,

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And as proof of this hold that the ego has over you, I offer your indefensible position that killing and burning corpses was indeed the currency which the god accepted in exchange for something humans wanted or needed.

As I thought. You have no conception of what the story was about. It had nothing to do with killing and burning corpses. It was about acknowledging that God was the irrefutable first priority in Abraham's life. You can say that that makes God an insufferable egomaniac if you like but if you are able to see past your own earth bound views, it should be obvious that the physical aspects of the story are insignificant details.

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@Leadfoot,

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As I thought. You have no conception of what the story was about. It had nothing to do with killing and burning corpses.

Yes, I've read the story. A man, at the behest of a voice in his head, did decide to sacrifice his son and offer the burnt corpse to the god he believed in. You are attempting to justify this perversion of belief by offering your conjecture-based opinion concerning what was in the mind of the man. Instead of seeing this incident for what it was, you have performed the necessary mental gymnastics that will allow you to applaud the man's misplaced loyalty to the voice inside his head. It would appear that you are incapable of seeing past your own book-based views.

Also, are you denying that the god liked burnt offerings; that it was not a soothing aroma to it?

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@Glennn,

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Yes, I've read the story. A man, at the behest of a voice in his head, did decide to sacrifice his son

Again, as I thought. You are unable to run the mental experiment. You have relegated God to 'a voice in Abraham's head'.

Reading and comprehending are two different things.

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If Jesus died to forgive us, then why is there a Hell?

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