Mark’s Comments (group member since Dec 13, 2010)

Mark’s comments from the Truth Seekers group.

By the way, to go back to your "keeping a prisoner in the basement" analogy. Tone your analogy down just one step. Suppose you had a father whom you loved, etc, and then you discovered that he was the warden of a prison where convicted felons were locked up. Would that make you conclude he was really an evil monster? Or would you say that these felons deserved to be locked up and your father was serving justice?

Lee: On what basis do you conclude that Paul did not believe in Hell? I find no place in Paul's writings where he says that there is no such place. He doesn't say a lot about it, but he does explicitly mention Hell in at least one place: 2 Corinthians 15:54-56.

The Bible is rather vague on the details about Heaven and Hell. So there's a lot of guesswork.

Heaven is generally understood to be a place where people spend eternity with God. If, as many want to believe, everyone goes to Heaven, what about people who don't want to be near God? I've spoken to many atheists over the years who hate the very idea of theism because they don't like the idea of being subject to the rules of any God. They talk about atheism as freedom. Would God force these people to live with him in Heaven even though they don't want to be there? Would he allow them to live there but not have to follow the same rules as everybody else? But if God allowed some people to live in Heaven but not be required to obey rules against lies and deceit, violence, rape, whatever, wouldn't that destroy Heaven for everyone else?

(Maybe I should make clear that I'm not saying that all atheists are thieves and rapists, or that all Christians are morally flawless. But Christians WANT to obey God's laws, while atheists don't.)

What if you had a loving compassionate father whom you loved? And then he kidnapped someone and forced this person to live with your family. He called this person by his own last name. And he insisted that he was doing all this for this person's own good, because living with him is so much better than living anywhere else.

If God forced everyone to live in Heaven, that's what he would be doing.

Lee: On what basis do you conclude that the statements in the Bible about Heaven and Hell are invented by humans and not by God? Sure, we can trace ideas about Heaven and Hell in historical sources. But it's not clear to me what that proves. Maybe you're aware of historical documents that I am not. (I certainly haven't read even a tiny fraction of all the ancient documents that survive.)

Do you really have solid historical documentary evidence that Hell is a human invention? Or is this just something that you believe because you would like to believe it? In the same way that people will say, "I refuse to believe that my wife had an affair with Mr Jones", by which they mean, okay that's where the evidence leads, but it's too unpleasant so I just won't believe it.

Lee wrote: "Want another guy? Mark already introduced me in another thread as a liberal Christian who "doesn't get hung up on religious or supernatural beliefs." ...

Just to clarify: My intent wasn't to "out" you or anything like that! I just quoted from your profile in the hopes of starting up a potentially interesting conversation.

There are two very different questions here. One is whether or not Hell is fair or if people deserve to go there. A very different question is whether it is real. The two questions have little to do with each other. Reality does not bend to our wishes.

I don't think my father "deserves" to suffer from kidney failure. But it would be foolish to say that because it would be unfair, that therefore I refuse to believe that he has this medical problem and therefore we will not seek medical treatment.

Likewise, maybe you don't think it's fair for people to go to Hell. But to conclude from that that therefore Hell doesn't exist just doesn't follow logically. If Hell is, indeed, real, and you refuse to acknowledge the fact and take steps to save yourself and others, it is the equivalent of saying that you refuse to take medicine or refuse to give your children medicine, because you don't want to believe in illness.

I react to the horror of Hell by warning people to avoid it, not by pretending it doesn't exist.

I see Mr Harmon just joined this group. And reading his profile, I see he writes, "I appreciate and attempt to exercise the humanitarian teachings of Jesus without getting hung up on supernatural or religious beliefs."

Well, I can only say that I disagree with that statement completely! Maybe we can have a good argument about it ... I mean discussion. :-)

Whether the supernatural and religious things that Jesus said (or which the Bible claims that he said, if you prefer) are true is a question of vital importance. If it is true that those who accept Christ as their savior will spend an eternity in paradise with God, while those who reject him will spend eternity in Hell, then what you do about Christ is the most important decision you will ever make in your life.

Don't get me wrong: Of course I believe that we should be nice to our fellow human beings and try to help each other and so forth. But if there is an eternity ahead of us, than how we will spend the next million years is surely more important than how we will spend the next few decades.

Ditto Trevor's comment: If the intent was that this is a "girls-only" group, I'll bow out gracefully. If the "ladies" comment was just because most of the present members are women, etc.

I'm a bald old man, unhappily divorced. I work as a software engineer for a living.

I was raised in a Christian family. Like many, I began to seriously question my parents' beliefs when I was a teenager. They couldn't answer all my questions but they were able to direct me to people who could.

I was for a time a member of what I think is a very tiny minority: Home-schooling single fathers.