I saw a hell testimony for a first time ...

[Craig]

Sometimes I wonder if it is a case of hardening the heart in order to deal with the thought of an angry God.  The human heart can't hardly stand the thought of ET, but some humans have believed in it anyway and a hardening is necessary to endure the thought of ET.  Therefore, their heart is hardened to all men because- who wants to be soft toward anyone who is supposedly going to burn forever?  That would hurt right?  So, if your nose is up in the air toward all men, then it won't hurt so bad once you see them burning...  am I making sense here?

Yes.

[hopeful]

am I making sense here?

Yes.

Thank you, sir.   :icon_queen: 

[SeekerSA]

(What thread is this? :dontknow:)

Looks like another one that has gone to Pot   :laughing7:  where's my Rasta smilie :pointlaugh:

[hopeful]

Looks like another one that has gone to Pot   :laughing7:  where's my Rasta smilie :pointlaugh:

You are being ornery and should take gentlemen lessons from Craig!  :Whistle:

What in the world is a Rasta anyway?   :gumbrage:

:offtopic:

[Craig]

am I making sense here?

Yes.

Thank you, sir.   :icon_queen: 

You hit the nail on the head hopeful. Most humans favor their emotional comfort over the truth. Instead of investigating the claims that people are being tormented in hell, the very thought of investigating it causes them discomfort. So they just presume it to be true, but if that is so, then I cannot be friends with those destined to hell because nobody wants to see their friends eternally tortured for not believing in Jesus. So I  harden my heart to humanity, and begin to do exactly opposite than what God had intended, I start to withdraw instead of reach out.

A simple example comes from personal experience. I met this man in my company training class, and became friends with him. We started talking and he told me he was a drifter, he never like staying in one place for any length of time and said he will be moving again in April. So now I am faced with a dilemma, do I risk investing in friendship that will not have any return, or do I slowly withdraw from this man because he is leaving anyways. What essentially happened is for emotional comfort, I chose to slowly withdraw from him as a friend, because I do not find value in a friendship which will not last anyways.

The extreme example would apply under traditional ET theology concerning the 'world' and they have plenty of 'support' Scripture. Why reach out to a dying people who aren't going to be saved anyways? It proves to be too much of an emotional risk to build a great relationship with someone you later will be watching from your place in heaven, burning in hell.

[SeekerSA]

What in the world is a Rasta anyway?

Rastaferian, they smoke pot that was the pun.

You know I am just kidding with you.  Not trying to be nasty, you should know I have these weird days when I just want to have fun.  U know :ilu: :flowerred:

Blessings

[hopeful]

Yeah, I know you're just havin' fun!   :happy3: 
And I'm glad to see you enjoying life!

To LIFE!   :boogie:

[Pierac]

No comment what so ever!    :mblush:

Paul

Got fruit?   :laughing7: 

[firstborn888]

Sometimes I wonder if it is a case of hardening the heart in order to deal with the thought of an angry God.  The human heart can't hardly stand the thought of ET, but some humans have believed in it anyway and a hardening is necessary to endure the thought of ET.  Therefore, their heart is hardened to all men because- who wants to be soft toward anyone who is supposedly going to burn forever?  That would hurt right?  So, if your nose is up in the air toward all men, then it won't hurt so bad once you see them burning...  am I making sense here?

Yes, I would say there's a ton of hardening. Some who don't harden have nervous breakdowns thinking about it....

[hopeful]

Yes, I would say there's a ton of hardening. Some who don't harden have nervous breakdowns thinking about it....

And for some- a simple- just DON'T think about it!   :mshock:

Set them free, Lord!   :HeartThrob:

[shibboleth]

maybe we print up some "MOTHERS AGAINST HELL" bumper stickers.

I was thinking about bumper stickers and thought "JESUS LOVES YOU TOO MUCH TO SEND YOU TO HELL." But, I like the "MOTHERS AGAINST HELL" because it's short and makes a statement in few words. "FATHERS AGAINST HELL" would be a good one too. Maybe we could just have one that says this 'EVERYONE SHOULD BE AGAINST HELL." I would buy a few and wonder how we can get some printed?

[ken]

I designed three stickers a year ago and uploaded the images to this site. They sent me some very quality vinyl stickers from my designs- the stickers are still on my vehicle and look as good as the day I applied them.

They don't require bulk orders- you can buy 1 or 1000- of course it's cheaper if you buy in bulk. Five bucks a sticker to buy 1 at a time. Still a good deal, I think.

maybe we print up some "MOTHERS AGAINST HELL" bumper stickers.

I was thinking about bumper stickers and thought "JESUS LOVES YOU TOO MUCH TO SEND YOU TO HELL." But, I like the "MOTHERS AGAINST HELL" because it's short and makes a statement in few words. "FATHERS AGAINST HELL" would be a good one too. Maybe we could just have one that says this 'EVERYONE SHOULD BE AGAINST HELL." I would buy a few and wonder how we can get some printed?

[1424241]

I think the toughest thing to believe about eternal conscious torment is that an all-loving God would ever harden my heart enough to watch, without any tears or sorrow, my loved ones burn and scream and cry and beg for mercy. There will be a time when there'll be no more tears and no more sorrow, and if it is necessary for me to be a monster so that I don't cry or have sorrow, I think I'll take a dip in that lake of fire.

Didn't Paul tell us, in Romans 12:15, to weep with them that weep? Well I guess if there's going to be weeping in the lake of fire, I better follow Paul's advice and have me a swim in the lake of fire... I wonder if there will be a lifeguard... Oh, no, never mind. Christ was supposed to be the lifeguard, but if this eternal conscious torment stuff really exists, I guess Christ died and rose again in vain.

[martincisneros]

Hell preachers = scarevangelists :pointlaugh:

Why not just call them Hell-angelists?  Or perhaps we could spell it Hellangelists without the hyphen.

[SeekerSA]

Hey Martin

Just love it when you come back and resurrect these old threads  :laughing7:

Blessings

[V.I.D.]

There is a famous bg host that is a profesor and a litle cazy ,so i will quote what he said ;

"I listen and i cant believe my eyes " 
Yep ..sometimes that is how i feel .

Well since B_T is a bg and i am a bg ,i feel very strange about hearing that there are such preachers in bg ..They came and are IN MY COUNTRY . I thought that atleast that was something we still did not have here ...
Nde hell preachers..  :mshock: :omg:  :sigh:

[firstborn888]

OMG is right VID. Hell fire preachers are alive and well in the 21st century. Even in Bulgaria!!!!

- byron

[Akira Takahashi]

That was your first time?  I grew up in a Hell church, and it's still the church I attend, so I'm quite used to it.  Granted, not all sermons are about Hell, but you never forget about it, either.  I accepted the doctrine of Hell that I'd been spoonfed since birth for quite a long time.  I remember the first time our preacher dedicated a near entire sermon to the doctrin of eternal damnation, and my mom was quite happy, saying, "Everything is toned down now-a-days, and people act like Hell doesn't exist!  Some people actually believe that Hell isn't forever!"  I'd never heard of anyone who didn't think that Hell was a permanet place for "bad guys" before.

Actually, to perfectly blunt, I'd never thought twice about it, and the scare tactic kept me in line quite well.  I understood perfectly that Christ died for us to have eternal life if we accepted the gift of grace, but that those who didn't would suffer terribly.  However, when my youngest brother left the church, saying that religion was just brainwashing and fear mongering, I began looking tirelessly for a way to save his soul.  That led me to looking into Open Theism and Universalism.  My family doesn't know that I'm actually experimenting with these doctrines, so I really feel like a heretic right now, but if it's truth, then I pray that my family discoveres it also.

You see, this was my first eye-opener that the Hell sermons actually drive more people away than they do recruit them, and for the first time, I really feared Hell.  One preacher of our went as far as to say that, despite the fact that the Bible is completely silent on this matter, those of us in Heaven won't even realize that our loved ones are in Hell!  He said that we'll be so busy worshipping that we will be blissfully unaware that some of our loved ones didn't make it to paradise with us.  This sounded really decietful to me, and I wondered why God would pull the wool over our eyes and not let us know what was happening to our loved ones.  Could it be that those loved ones just don't matter?  That all the laughs and tears we shed together were for nothing?

Trust me, you're quite lucky to not have been exposed to that sooner, because it's all the harder to leave that train of thought now.  I'm always second-guessing myself, asking, "Am I just lying to myself because I can't accept the fact that I might lose my brother?  I'm I just overtly sensitive to this kind of thing?"  I die when I think of what Hell must be like.  A former friend of mine's father committed suicide while I was still in high school, and while my mom felt sorry for his family, she was certain that he was in Hell.  That killed me, too.  To this day, I can't break away from that feeling.

[SeekerSA]

Hi Akira

I did studies on all the supposed "hell" teachings of Jesus on my blog, (see my signature)

There are 8 instances yet the church will tell you he spoke more about hell than anything else.  Ina ll the teachings, ironically Jesus was addressing the religious of the day and in most cases hell refers to Gehenna and defunct rubbish dump outside Jerusalem and Hades/Sheol aka the grave in two instances.  I also addressed the teeth gnasher texts and they are the same.

The problem is most folk accept what they are fed from the pulpit and it becomes indoctrinated in them.  The fact that you question this is a good thing as now you can dig deeper.

You can read my stuff and other folk's but at the end of the day you must test all things by the HS.

UR is a journey not a destination or a replacement theology, here you will hopefully begin to delve deeper into the scriptures and discover the true meanings.  When the HS becomes your teacher you will be surprised how stuff you accepted changes.

At this forum we discuss and debate the hard topics and it gets heated at times.  There remain different theological standpoints on many issues but that's because we only follow Christ and no man's teachings, neither do we have articles of faith or creeds.  Some believe the trinity others don't - at the end of the day all we can do is share what we believe the HS has revealed to us.

Be blessed in your research and studies.

BIC