Posted on 12/06/2004 12:44:58 PM PST by Lindykim
"Is it morally and theologically acceptable to hope anyone goes to hell? ... One...need not be a conservative Christian to believe in some form of hell for the evil. All one need be is a rational believer in a just God. For if there is a just God, it is inconceivable that those who do evil and those who do good have identical fates. A just God must care about justice, and since there is little justice in this world, there has to be in the next. And belief in the next world is also not confined to Christianity. As the Encyclopedia Judaica ... (edited largely by non-religious Jews) notes in the first sentence under the heading 'Afterlife,' 'Judaism has always believed in an afterlife.' ... Much of humanity has been adversely affected by modern-day terror. The lives of millions -- virtually all Palestinians and Israelis, for example -- have been terribly affected by Arafat. And there are hundreds of thousands of people whose lives have been destroyed or shattered by him. At the same time, other than a few sycophants enriched by some of the billions of dollars he embezzled from the Palestinians, no one has had a better life because Yasser Arafat lived. ... Yasser Arafat single-handedly made nihilistic acts of cruelty routine, even respectable. ... Thanks to him, the Palestinian name is identified among people of goodwill with barbarity just as the German name came to be associated with barbarity as a result of Hitler. ... Just as any decent human being would want good people to be rewarded in whatever existence there is after this life, they would want the cruelest of people to be punished. So, of course, I hope Yasser Arafat is in hell. ... If you think that is hard-hearted, consider the alternative, that one of the most corrupt and cruel human beings of the past half-century is resting in peace. Whoever isn't bothered by that is the one with the hard heart." --Dennis Prager
I'm very uncomfortable with the notion of wishing someone to Hell.
I think Prager is being true to his orthodox Jewish teachings.
The worse part is the way they have treated her.
They were told.
MaxMax wrote:
If a Pagan tell's someone to go to hell, Are they really a Pagan?
Tax-chick wrote:
Dead Corpse gave it to me :-).
These Khmer are not the ones who died.
The bible says that those that don't believe in the one true GOD and his son JESUS CHRIST You will die and go to hell and those that do truely bieleve will experience the rapture and ascend to heaven.
I'm not meaning to editorialize just saying what the book says.
So if you believe in what the book says and stands for, the persons beliefs are understandable as are yours not being Christian and all.
Matthew 25:41
2 Peter 3:9
I know what the Bible says.
I've read several versions of it.
You are free to believe as you wish, and I am free to "take my chances" .
BTW, i will defend to the death your right to believe as you wish and your right to say "Merry Christmas" if you wish.
My issue with the poster is that it is an uncharitable viewpoint, and no actual Christian that I have met, would agree with him.
(Just my take, everyone is entitled to their opinion, I guess):
I hope no one takes this the wrong way, but it would make me happy to find that Arafat had repented, believed, and gone to heaven.
Understand that I hate the things he has done.
With all the rhetoric of a "just God", it seems to be forgotten that, justly, God owes us nothing. It is by grace and mercy that I am offered redemption. I will not take pleasure in hoping that someone else is denied what I do not deserve, though that is a temptation from time to time.
Who said they were? I ask again:
Do we have a situation here where the truly repentant Khmer who converted will go to Heaven?
Will their victims go to Hell forever?
Do you think it likely that some of the 2 million victims might have converted to Christianity had the Khmer not murdered them?
I don't begrudge God saving anyone, anywhere, anytime. No one deserves salvation. If He chose to choose these Khmer as one of His, what gripe do I have?
I thought humans, not God, chose salvation or damnation with their free will.
Will their victims go to Hell forever?
Why would you presume such a thing?
I don't, but isn't that what Scriptures say will happen if you are not redeemed?
Do you think it likely that some of the 2 million victims might have converted to Christianity had the Khmer not murdered them?
Possibly. But that has little to do with where their souls are now.
I don't follow that. If they died without accepting Jesus, doesn't the N.T. say they're going to Hell forever?
I am not a fundamentalist who believe one must profess the name "Jesus" in order to go to Heaven. (If one is prevented by good cause from knowing the Gospel.)
Does Scripture make such an exception, or is that your opinion?
Love Dennis, and agree with him. Arafat is finally being judged by something other than an antisemitic world press. I wonder what G-d thought of his little medallion (is the Peace Prize a medallion, I forget?).
Probably already been corrected but Prager is a Conservative Jew, not Orthodox.
Yes.
Will their victims go to Hell forever?
Depends
Do you think it likely that some of the 2 million victims might have converted to Christianity had the Khmer not murdered them?
At the risk of appearing glib: Who's to say some of them didn't?
In the Vedas this sin is called "nama bale papa buddhi" - knowingly commiting sin on the strength of the holy Name of God. If someone thinks "I am saved because I take shelter of the all purifying Name of God, therefore I can sin any way I like and I'll be cleansed", they are NOT purified even by the all-purfying Name of God, and thus pave their way to hellish life after death.
The main difference between Vedic religion (the original source of Hinduism) and Christianity is that hell is not permanent. It may be similiar to the Catholic description of Purgatory, except the Vedic descriptions of hells (there are many) are very severely terrible. But after a long, long time the soul is given another chance.
Thanks for the correction.
No, that's not correct. There is an element of free will involved, but it is more proper to speak of God as the Actor, the Instigator. We are the lost sheep. God is the Good Shepherd who finds us.
I don't, but isn't that what Scriptures say will happen if you are not redeemed?
Yes, but why would you assume the Khmer's victims were irredeemed?
I don't follow that. If they died without accepting Jesus, doesn't the N.T. say they're going to Hell forever?
We believe in a just and merciful God. Overly-literal readings of the Scripture tend to reduce God to something less.
We believe all are saved through Jesus, through the Cross. This need not be overtly recognizable to all. If God chooses to redeem an untouched tribesman in the remote wilderness, what business is it of ours?
Does Scripture make such an exception, or is that your opinion?
I believe God's sovereignity is on display in Scripture. It is a well-established Catholic doctrine that while God provided the Church to act as the normative means of communicating His Salvation to us, He is free to save those who are "invincibly ignorant" of the need for Jesus and the Church.
This is not saying all who are putatively ignorant are thereby saved. Far from it. The presumptions would be against such a thing. But God is not tied to the rules He imposes upon us. If He sees fit to work through and save an ignorant one, so be it.
SD
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