"A good God wouldn't have a Hell"

Discussion in 'Religion & Philosophy' started by kazenatsu, Oct 15, 2020.

  1. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Many of you here have made the argument "If there were a good God, there wouldn't be a Hell".
    This sounds like a seemingly reasonable argument on the surface, but it's actually an incredibly ignorant argument.

    If I were God, I would have a Hell. And so would most of you. You just are too naive to realize it.

    And there are some of you who will not be intellectually honest with yourselves, because you are just looking for any ammunition you can find against the idea that there might be a Hell, since it's an uncomfortable idea to you.

    The idea that there would be no Hell would have to imply that God is able and willing to forgive all those people.
    That's not even something you can do!
    I don't think you're being truly honest or knowledgeable about yourself if you think you could.

    Why do you keep complaining about the way God does things when the way you would do it would end up no better? That's like demanding an impossible standard for God that you yourself are unwilling or unable to do, if you were put in that position. It's applying an unfair double standard and hypocritical.

    Maybe you just haven't had the experience of a person severely wronging you before?
    I can pretty much guarantee you, there is something that another individual could do to you that would make you want that other individual to burn in Hell and suffer for a long time.

    And let's please throw out the idea for a moment that "God doesn't force anyone to go to Hell".
    Some people deserve Hell. Many people deserve Hell. Probably much more than you think, and many more who are not that far away from it.

    There are a bunch of naive idealists out there who believe "humanity is mostly good, humanity is inherently good". Well, that's really the root at which they go wrong.

    If bad people were unpunished for what they did bad, and refused to change or be sorry, how could God be good?
    Wouldn't we be saying God was not good, if that was the case?
    (In fact there are plenty of atheists using the argument that there can't be a good God because bad people seem to go unpunished)
     
    Last edited: Oct 15, 2020
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  2. lemmiwinx

    lemmiwinx Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    A god creating a hell to torment his creations is like a little kid picking the wings off butterflies just to watch them suffer. Makes no sense whatsoever.
     
  3. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It's very much in human nature to want people to suffer for what they did bad and get what they deserve.

    Even in good people.

    Do you think it makes no sense at all for people to suffer what they wrongly made others suffer?

    Just take a good look within the legal system. If you think such a God would be so bad, why aren't you directing your same outrage at the laws that exist?
    That's something that there is certainly no doubt that exists.
    If you approve of how the government does something, it seems to me that you should also give your approval to God doing the same sort of thing.
     
    Last edited: Oct 15, 2020
  4. Cybred

    Cybred Well-Known Member

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    Show me where the govt tortures someone for eternity.
     
  5. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You should do some more research about what goes on in those supermax prisons.

    It's very punitive. It's really like a microcosm of hell.

    Like I said before, I really think a lot of the arguments coming from the other side are based on ignorance about how reality is.
     
    Last edited: Oct 15, 2020
  6. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Is your argument that, yes, government tortures people but the torture does not go on for eternity, so the legal system we accept cannot be anywhere near as bad as God is?

    I mean, think about that.


    You want some threads about "torture", I could go on and on:
    U.S. coast guard makes suspected drug smugglers suffer for months in international waters
    Accounts of rape in U.S. prisons
    Prisoners killed by guards in Florida prisons
    My 4 months as a prison guard in Louisiana
    Criminalization of debt in the U.S.
    sexual violence against women in prisons
    Sex offenders ending up homeless

    large percent of those released from prison end up homeless
     
    Last edited: Oct 15, 2020
  7. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    a good God would not murder an entire planet's life forms other than a boatload via drowning

    remember, this is an all powerful God, that could just think it, and they be gone - but chooses drowning? is that a good God?
     
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2020
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  8. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    which is proof that humans created the bible

    if God knows what his creations will do, even before he creates them, then is not God responsible for their bad deeds, he did not have to create them

    it's like a man creating a deadly virus that kills millions, then blaming the virus vs the man that created it
     
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2020
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  9. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You're getting into a little bit of a different argument, and I believe that philosophical issue would be better to have in another thread. In fact I am sure we already have had other threads on that.

    So, sorry, to try to remain more on-topic and focused on the issue, I'm not going to get into that issue in this thread.

    (I will admit it is an important question that needs answering though)
     
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2020
  10. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    has to do with the topic, God is not good if he does these things
     
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2020
  11. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    What if they all deserved to be drowned?
     
  12. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    every bug, animal, human, ect deserved to be drowned?

    why not just make them disappear, why drowning

    even in the bible, it's God apologized for doing so and said he would never do that again - that is why we have the rainbow right, it would not exist without this evil God committed

    I think if one believe in the bible God, they need to believe he is both good and bad
     
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2020
  13. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    If we brought up every topic that has to do with a thread topic, the discussion would never get anywhere, it would be too chaotic.
    The scope of the discussion would be too big.
     
  14. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Are you a vegetarian?

    Why can't God kill all the animals if he wanted to?

    And again here, you seem to be trying to bring up a different topic.

    Can we at least focus on the issue in the opening post on the first page?
     
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2020
  15. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I think when determining if a good God would do these things, you have to determine if the God that is said to have done these things is good, bad or both good and bad

    I think we can all agree that sending good people to hell because they did not believe in said God would be bad, so a good God would not do that
     
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2020
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  16. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Okay, that is a fair point. But you have to agree, it would not be fair to argue about that in this thread here.
     
  17. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

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    Yes. Though I think he used a flood due to the symbolic nature of water just as water in baptism is used to symbolically "bury" a person so that when they are brought back up they are symbolically "rising from the dead" (dead to sin in that case).
     
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  18. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    could be, hell could just be symbolic as well, to scare us, as God is known to tell fathers to kill their children and at the last minute say... "just kidding" - not everything God says is truth, some is just a test to see if you believe in him enough to do it or not - what parts of the bible could just be a test to see if you would believe it.... is absolute loyalty the test we have to pass?
     
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2020
  19. jack4freedom

    jack4freedom Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Are you suggesting that penal institutions throughout history were divinely inspired? Interesting theory. Lol
     
  20. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    do you think governments that torture good people are 'good' would be a better way of looking at it, I think bad governments\people would
     
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2020
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  21. jack4freedom

    jack4freedom Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I came to the conclusion that the god described in the Old Testament was a bitter, petty, tyrannical, prick when I was in the 2nd grade in Catholic School.
     
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2020
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  22. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    agree, it's ok if they want to believe as long as they accept that he is both good and bad per the bible, ignoring the bad things he is said to have done and calling him good would be wrong
     
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2020
  23. jack4freedom

    jack4freedom Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    My best guess is this god of the Old Testament was a fictional character created out of whole cloth by a cabal of petty, tyrannical, pricks who used it to take advantage of the ignorant, superstitious people of the time. What is incredible is that even through all of its revisions and after all these centuries there are still people who believe it is holy scripture.
     
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2020
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  24. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    My point was the hypocrisy and double standards.

    I think part of the real issue may be, people have made government their "God".
    So they are totally blinded to the fact that their government they worship is doing all the same things and worse than all the things they complain about God doing.
     
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2020
  25. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You're still going back to the widely perpetuated myth that the God in the Old Testament is different from the God of the New Testament.
    Sometime I'm going to have to start a thread to debunk that idea.
     

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