Aubyn Fulton wrote: > > Stephen Black wrote... > > Well, I tend to the opinion that if Firm Believers can say that an > > allegedly loving God is going to torture me in Hell for all eternity for not > > believing (and eternity's a pretty long time, isn't it?) > > > > Dr. Jim Guinee, Firm Believer, wrote... > > No firm believer that I know if believes that or teaches that, and it's not > > based on biblical interpretation. (Aubyn writes...) > You must not get out much, Jim. I know lots of Firm Believers who teach just > what Stephen states above (of course many of these would substitute "punish" > for "torture" but the operational definitions would not change).
Are you sure about this? I've known quite a few "Firm Believers", and I don't remember any of them saying that God punishes or tortures nonbelievers. The standard position, I think, is that the eternal punishment is a sort of default state (arising from a freely chosen separation from God) from which belief in God saves a person. That might sound to us like nit-picking, but I don't think that it does to the "Firm Believer", and in theory, I'd say they're right. (I say "in theory" because in practice many many all-too-human believers clearly take great glee in their belief that their enemies will be tortured for eternity, regardless of what their religious scholars argue about the attitude of their God - for an example, witness the sites that celebrate anniversary of "the arrival in hell" of the young gay murder victim in Wyoming, or more generally the "let's all get together and hate and blame American liberals" movement that is causing so much trouble here in the United States). I don't think that there's any great inconsistency in the claim that "God is love and failure to believe in Him damns one to hell for all eternity". I don't think that's a weak point for believers. Paul Smith Alverno College Milwaukee
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