Does it make sense?

Question

As I turned on the radio this morning I heard a guy saying, "We are all sinners and we will all be punished! God will punish each and every one of us!"
If people truly believe this, why do they try to do good and go to church? I believe the divine resides within us and it's up to us to let it shine, not to always feel threatened by an abstract future punishment. What do you think?

Answer 1

Jesus stated "Empty thyself and I shall fill thee."
When the ego ceases---as in moments of love making or some timeless moment in nature or in anything that stops the mind, bliss/peace follows. Everyone has felt this before. It feels like Oneness and pure Love. Empty thyself means empty your mind(ego) and come into this present timeless moment, and the Christ-consciousness (or Buddha mind for those who like that better!) will fill you up, or, rather the space will remain the same but the noisy mind that occupies too much of our lives quiets down and we feel the connection to life. Clouds continuously cross the sky but the sky isn't affected by them. Waves and storms affect the surface of the ocean making it turbulent but at the bottom it is still. This stillness is the Christ-consciousness and it's who we are. There is no god who will punish us in the future. We're certainly not sinners! Heavens no! Heaven and hell are only states of mind. We are the divine light, we are gods...shining as pure pristine awareness....only temporarily forgotten.

People go to church bcoz it reaffirms what they believe(feels good and comfortable to have like-minded humans) and they go because of fear of the God that that guy was talking about.

Answer 2

Maybe you took what was said out of context? I think along the same lines as you but I would not use the words the Divine in us. I believe that all come from God and we are here on this Earth and given choices and changes that we can not for see or know the reasons why in some cases. Our minds are not enough to allow us to do that. Each soul is unique and we all develop our own personalities, but we can not change what we were to begin with. You take a pair of identical twins, only a mother can tell them apart by looking, yet each one has their own personality, and that came from the Father, don't you think?

Answer 3

I think Radio Boy is seeking an audience and when he finds them, he'll create his own church and faith system.

God is love, patience, and justice, among many other positive attributes. He is our father and as a father he would not be all fired to punish anyone he created to be free willed.

It is idiotic that these people force feed "religion" not Christianity down a person's throat, without consulting with the Bible. In those instances, they are seeking someone who will follow a false prophet so that they can convert them to their hoodooism beliefs.

Many religions would have us do as they say rather than what God says. Man will only steer you away from the light.

Answer 4

If I am to be punished for all eternity because I am a sinner, and according to most religions I AM a sinner, then I have to begin to try and understand what eternal punishment would mean to me and why it would be punishment...

I've now managed to obtain a "Get out of hell free card" with my way of thinking... I will explain :

Most people believe that if you are sent to hell that you will be punished and they usually use fire, brimstone and demons torturing you for all eternity... This wouldn't bother me in the slightest, as I'm dead... Pain is an indication of injury, and as injury means nothing to me then pain itself means nothing to me, so pain can't be used as part of my punishment.

Showing me something which I usually could not stand, such as my loved ones being tortued, would also be equally as ineffective as I know that my loved ones would not be tortured purely to inflict torture on me and if they were being tortured they would be in the same situation as me so I could do nothing about it anyway...

If I died there is nothing which I can think of that would be a form of punishment to me... Nothing.

Answer 5

That guy was a crackpot. God's "punishments" are not sadistic, vengeful---I really wish someone would get the original texts and retranslate them for crying out loud. There are plenty of passages that describe what god does.....the silversmith passage is a great one....don't have a bible in front of me, but can tell you the gist....He holds us, puts a fire to us to burn out the impurities so that we can be our most beautiful, like a silversmith does. Will we feel pain? sure. the more impure we are, the longer we're going to "burn". Now, this is just a feeble example, because we have limited knowledge. But I hope this puts perspective on what the crazy radio guy put out there.

Answer 6

It's just a sentence taken out of context. You see it alot. Sometimes when people edit interviews, etc, you get the wrong idea because something important was left out.
Since God is a just judge, He has to treat everyone the same.
He gives us a choice, though.
You've probably heard the Bible verse John 3:16? well they should also include John 3:17.
For God so loved the world He sent His only son...... He didn't sent His Son to CONDEMN the world but to save it.

If you truely repent and want the Holy Spirit to guide your life, you will be guaranteed of eternal life.

If all the God stuff is false....in the end of my life it will be okay, because my life is so much better when I rely on God. I truely feel that I have the Holy Spirit and It guides me and protects me.
I still sin, but I choose not to most of the time, because I don't want to taint God's name and because I'm His child and I want to please Him. My life is better because I'm not so angry and I don't have STD's, I don't have to worry about getting arrested, etc.

Answer 7

Often when we hear something like this, we look at the part that catches our attention.

Certainly the Bible talks about God judging each one of us for our actions. But it also talks about dividing the sheep from the goats.

There may be different levels of reward in Heaven, and I guess that not receiving a reward could be considered a punishment.

In the parable of the ten talents, Jesus talks about different levels of reward. Only the person who did nothing with his talent was specifically punished.

Answer 8

The only part I can agree with is that we are all sinners, but God's mercy is new everyday. It sounds to me like the like the speaker left no room for repentence, in which I would agree with you then why bother. God made provision for the redemption of sinners and if we accept that we are saved by faith. It is better to live as believing and accepting Christ and die to find out you were wrong, than to live not believing and accepting him and die to find out you were wrong....

Answer 9

While He will forgive your sins if you ask, you still have to endure the consequences of the sins in the here and now. It's just that if you accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, you won't have to endure the eternal punishment later on. That is why I go to church, read the Bible, and most importantly worship my Savior.

Answer 10

One of the most famous movements in this type of thinking was the Calvanism in early America, which proclaimed that all people were doomed to hell except for the few who were predestined to enjoy heaven- and that there was nothing that could be done to change one's fate.

For what I hope are obvious reason, Calvanism lost popularity rather quickly.

But there are still people who still believe in the concept of predestination- that only those chosen before even their birth are going to enter heaven.

To me, that totally violates the whole idea of Jesus's death and resurrection as tribute for our sins.