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A question for Christians/All other religious folks (my mom is very sad that I told her that I don't believe that God exists and we were talking and I asked her this question to which she could not provide an answer for):

Let's assume that God is omnipotent and in the Beginning before Genesis, there was a rebellion led by Lucifer in which the end result was the creation of Hell (the absolute separation from God). Well, if God is all-powerful and Lucifer is not, God essentially let Lucifer rebel or moreover, he willed it to happen. If God didn't want to create Hell, he could have and would have stopped Lucifer because he is as we have mentioned all-powerful. If Hell exists, there must be the possibility that some people when they die will go to Hell because they didn't believe in God while they were still alive. If God truly wants all people to be happy, wouldn't he just simply have stopped Lucifer and just made the only possible destination in the afterlife Heaven?

2007-05-28 16:09:11 · 18 answers · asked by F1reflyfan 4 in Society & Culture Religion & Spirituality

If you put Jesus into the equation and freewill, sure things change but the fact remains that there are many people in the world today who have no conception of Jesus and who cannot, based on their experiences, accept Jesus or Christianity as their religion. If this is so, how can God be good if he is not giving everyone an equal chance to get into Heaven? If it is near impossible for a lot of people in the world to accept Christianity?

To me, this is the fundamental reason why I cannot blindly accept Christianity or any religion for that matter barring all other things like how things may have been lost in translation in Religious texts or the realisticness of the Bible.

If you read this entire thing and I thank you for that, and want to answer my questions, please do

2007-05-28 16:09:34 · update #1

Thanks for all the great responses, but this one is in response to Adam the return's..

Okay sure he gave us free will, but is he really just if he allows Christians to pervert the Bible to justify evil things, is he just if he creates a world in which people who are from different backgrounds (like in Iran) cannot possibly adopt Christianity just because it's so hard to change people? I agree that the fact that we have free will answers an important part of the question, but if God is really good, why is it that he ALLOWS people to go to Hell (because they can't possibly begin to understand let alone adopt Christianity) ?

2007-05-28 16:20:20 · update #2

Okie in response to Scott, Christians believe that God has some master plan and he specifically designed the Universe according to it. God is also believed to be all-knowing. If this is so, then he must have willingly accepted the fact that the grand design will include a Heaven and a Hell... He created Hell because Lucifer was a part of that grand design. I realize that I'm walking on thin ice here because this entire story is not found in the Bible actually.. but anyway, this design for the Universe does not make sense!

2007-05-28 16:32:00 · update #3

Okay I now realize that free will is an inseparable part of trying to answer this question. Sometimes, God doesn't "reveal" himself to us and sometimes he doesn't provide US with a choice! So many people on Earth have not had the chance to hear God's message... Well, what about them? Does God simply abandon them? If it is Christians' duty to go out there and convert them... I just think that's entirely unrealistic because people are rational beings and they question whatever ideas are introduced to them. How does free will show that God loves humanity if it is the very thing that keeps people from knowing God?

2007-05-28 16:40:12 · update #4

In response to Genghis...

You said, "Those people probably aren't going to "hell."
And don't think of hell as a place and Lucifer sitting down there on a throne or whatever. It's more like eternal suffering due to eternal separation from God."

Well first off, those people are most definitely going to Hell according to what the Bible says. John 3:16 says that whoever believes in Jesus and His resurrection will have eternal life and all others will perish.

Secondly, I've already established that I don't believe in a Hell that is so commonly depicted as a dark gloomy place that movies and television .. I agree with you that Hell is the absolute separation from God

2007-05-28 16:56:06 · update #5

SympleeSimple, I am not trying to corrupt the youth. I think it is important for all people to question what they believe because it is how people learn and how we develop as humans! I have gone 19 years raised in a Christian family going to church every Sunday.. I certainly do have some knowledge about Christianity.

And another thing, why would you blindly accept a faith without questioning it first?

2007-05-28 17:04:22 · update #6

18 answers

There's too much ground you've covered to really provide a single YA answer. However, here is the meat of one:

- Hellfire, brimstone, et al is a typical metaphor of Hellenic society. Jesus prefers the expression "outer darkness" which is a better description of Christian theology... Hell is not so much a place as in a geophysical locale, as it is being absent from the presence of God. In that sense, Hell is a creation of free will. God has nothing to do with it, and that's the point. God has NOTHING to do with it, and an eternity there is an eternity of just not being with him. The metaphors of burning, freezing, starving used for Hell.... they all describe what it is for the soul to be without its creator for all time.

- What is happiness? Happiness is like the rare moment chanced upon - the sunset you did not think you'd see, the bargain you did not think you could find. It would not be happiness if it was not rare. There can be, in fact, no happiness without the real possibility of sadness. This is in some measure why, perhaps, God allowed himself, in the person of his Son, to experience human misery and even death - perhaps even the bliss of the Godhead depends in some sense upon knowing what it is to be without bliss.

- In Catholic theology (my church, which is why I quote it), certainly people who are not exposed to Christianity, and people who cannot understand it, are not "going to Hell." God is not so cruel as to condemn a people whose only fault is lack of exposure to Christianity! The Catholic Vatican II council stated, "Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the gospel of Christ or his church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - these too may attain salvation."

2007-05-28 16:25:57 · answer #1 · answered by evolver 6 · 1 1

"If you put Jesus into the equation and freewill, sure things change..."
Because that is a huge part of the answer, do you not want that to be part of the answer because you don't want to accept it?
"...but the fact remains that there are many people in the world today who have no conception of Jesus and who cannot, based on their experiences, accept Jesus or Christianity as their religion. If this is so, how can God be good if he is not giving everyone an equal chance to get into Heaven? If it is near impossible for a lot of people in the world to accept Christianity?"
Those people probably aren't going to "hell."
And don't think of hell as a place and Lucifer sitting down there on a throne or whatever. It's more like eternal suffering due to eternal separation from God.
Catechism:
The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.
God predestines no one to go to hell;620 for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end. In the Eucharistic liturgy and in the daily prayers of her faithful, the Church implores the mercy of God, who does not want "any to perish, but all to come to repentance"

2007-05-28 16:24:01 · answer #2 · answered by Vernacular Catholic 3 · 2 0

I COPIED AND PASTED YOUR QUESTION AND WILL ANSWER IN ALL CAPS SO YOU CAN SEE MY WORDS.

Let's assume that God is omnipotent (HE IS) and in the Beginning before Genesis, there was a rebellion led by Lucifer in which the end result was the creation of Hell (the absolute separation from God). Well, if God is all-powerful and Lucifer is not, God essentially let Lucifer rebel or moreover, he willed it to happen. (FREE WILL IS THE ANSWER HERE - LUCIFER CHOSE TO DISOBEY WHETHER GOD KNEW IT WOULD HAPPEN OR NOT. If God didn't want to create Hell, he could have and would have stopped Lucifer because he is as we have mentioned all-powerful. If Hell exists, there must be the possibility that some people when they die will go to Hell because they didn't believe in God while they were still alive. If God truly wants all people to be happy, wouldn't he just simply have stopped Lucifer and just made the only possible destination in the afterlife Heaven? GOD WANTS PEOPLE TO LOVE HIM BY CHOICE WHICH IS REALLY THE ONLY REAL HAPPINESS
THAT EXISTS. BECAUSE GOD DIDN'T WANT A LOT OF MINDLESS ROBOTS RUNNING AROUND REPEATING IN MONOTONE "I LOVE GOD" FREE WILL MUST EXIST.

Additional Details

7 minutes ago
If you put Jesus into the equation and freewill, sure things change but the fact remains that there are many people in the world today who have no conception of Jesus and who cannot, based on their experiences, accept Jesus or Christianity as their religion. (THE BIBLE MAKES IT CLEAR THAT GOD IS NO RESPECTER OF PERSONS. THIS TO ME MEANS THAT HE OFFERS ETERNAL LIFE TO EVERY
PERSON BEFORE THEY DIE. TO ILLUSTRATE - SOME MISSIONARIES DECIDED TO GO INTO AN AREA THAT HAD NEVER SEEN A MISSIONARY BEFORE. THEY HACKED THEIR WAY THROUGH HEAVY JUNGLE AND FOUND A TRIBE OF NATIVES. WHEN THEY BEGAN TO TALK WITH THEM ABOUT JESUS THE NATIVES TOLD THEM THAT JESUS HAD VISITED THEM AND THAT THE WHOLE TRIBE TURNED THEIR LIVES TO HIM AND HAD RECEIVED HIS SALVATIION. If this is so, how can God be good if he is not giving everyone an equal chance to get into Heaven? If it is near impossible for a lot of people in the world to accept Christianity? THE WORD IMPOSSIBLE DOESN'T EXIST IN GOD'S VOCABULARY EXCEPT AS IT APPLIES TO HIS PERFECTION - FOR EXAMPLE, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR GOD TO LIE BECAUSE IF HE LIED HE WOULD NO LONGER BE PERFECT BUT A SINNER LIKE US.

To me, this is the fundamental reason why I cannot blindly accept Christianity or any religion for that matter barring all other things like how things may have been lost in translation in Religious texts or the realisticness of the Bible. GOD'S WORD HAS BEEN RICHLY PRESERVED BECAUSE GOD
DOESN'T MAKE MISTAKES. HE GAVE IT AND HE MOST CERTAINLY WILL NOT LET IT FALL INTO INCOMPETENT HANDS. A PERFECT GOD IS PERFECT IN ALL HIS WAYS AND HE HAS CONTROL OF EVERYTHING.

If you read this entire thing and I thank you for that, and want to answer my questions, please do YOUR WELCOME, AND IF YOU WOULD LIKE FURTHER CONVERSATION ON THIS
I HAVE STUDIED THE BIBLE OVER 33 YEARS AND WOULD BE GLAD TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS IN MORE DETAIL. EMAIL jiloth7 AT jiloth@msn.com

2007-05-28 16:27:06 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0 1

So many people seem to insist that you either go to heaven or burn in hell. Scripture describes many different grades of afterlife. For example, those who don't know God or Christ will be judged much more leniently than people born in supportive Christian families. If you're not a very good Christian with few good deeds you will "be saved as one barely escaping the flames." And if you cause "one of these little ones to sin" you will be held more accountable than the child you led astray.

It's wise to describe Hell as the absolute separation from God. But it is we who keep ourselves separate from God, not Lucifer, not God.

2007-05-28 16:57:19 · answer #4 · answered by angrygramma 3 · 0 0

Everything you said was true. If all God wants is for us to "be happy" then surely he shouldve made the only possible destination Heaven.

The problem is, life (not to mention to afterlife) is far more complex than that. Do we want people in general to be happy and do what we can to facilitate that? Sure we do. But as we know there are many people in life that DONT want to be happy. They WANT to be miserable. There are others too that violate laws and principles like murderers and rapists.

For such people, the Q is not "how can we make them happy" the Q is "what do we do with them?" They have chosen their own courses of action in accordance with their freewill and self-determination which are characteristics God has made a part of us.

A. Gods law exists and is eternal
B. The heavenly hosts along with humanity have freewill and self-determination.

Given enough time and desire to be like God or against God, something is bound to happen. Its just a simple fact that you cannot combine law with citizens without a tresppass occuring.

So God HAS made up his mind in what he is going to do with sinners. He has made it abundantly clear that there is a way out of it and a way to embrace his truth but hes not going to force it.

2007-05-28 16:27:37 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

Starting at the beginning, God created humans, Adam and Eve and placed them in a perfect world. But he also gave them free choice (as he gave Lucifer and the angels) and they chose to rebel against God. The penalty for sinning is death, and for this Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden, and the world became fallen. The shedding of blood is required for the forgiveness of sins, and God killed animals (which would have been the first animal deaths) to cover Adam and Eve's sins, and sacrifices were offered thereafter by the Jewish people. God could hardly be considered just if He did not punish wrongdoing.
We are all sinners. There is no one alive who is not, and for this we all deserve to die. You, me, every seemingly innocent child. But God is also good, as you mentioned, and it is not His will that any should perish. Jesus came to earth to live the life that God knows that we can not do, and then He died even though he was the only one who did not deserve to. He became our blood sacrifice, and that is why through Him we are saved. We must be saved through Him, because we are incapable of earning our way into heaven.

God must punish sin if He is to be just, but He also is merciful and gives us a way out of our sins if we are repentant. I'm sure God could have made a creation of automated puppets had that been what He had desired, but instead He created free creatures. We are free to accept Him or reject Him.

2007-05-28 16:26:25 · answer #6 · answered by DawnL 3 · 1 0

I can't answer your question because I've been asking the same thing which is why I converted to Wiccan. I'll have to remember that if my extremely religious father ever finds out I'm not a Christian anymore.

Edit: So after reading some more answers I have something to say. aprilkuhl04 and others, You're saying God wants us to follow him because we choose to and Hell is an incentive to do so. Satan was a fallen angel, created Hell, then went to the Garden of Eden where God had created man and woman. They couldn't even see that they were naked and could have gone on happily ignorant like that forever had Satan not come along and tempted them to eat the forbidden fruit. Had God just gotten rid of Satan instead of letting him go, that wouldn't have happened and now we'd all be running around naked with no threat of war or global warming. And we would see eachother as all the same because we couldn't even tell if we were naked, we'd have no "knowledge".

2007-05-28 16:16:23 · answer #7 · answered by Netti 3 · 0 1

I cannot explain God's choices regarding Lucifer. I imagine when you are omnipotent and omniscient things are different when you make a decision. What I do know is that when heaven is finished, it will be filled with people who used free will to make a choice to endure the consequences of believing and loving God in the face of mockery and persecution. God does want all people to be happy, He also wants all people to have a relationship with Him. If He allowed heaven to be filled with everyone there would be problems; those who reject God would create discontent. There are those on this site who claim they would prefer hell over spending eternity with God. What choice do they leave Him; force them to be with Him or respect their free will and the knowledgeable choice they have made. By rejecting Him now, a choice is made about rejecting Him for eternity. Lucifer made his decision and the consequences are in place, the only choice now are who gets to join him.

2007-05-28 16:18:30 · answer #8 · answered by future dr.t (IM) 5 · 1 0

Job was questioning how God could allow the devil to bring such misery upon him. You should read Elihu's response which begins in chapter 34 of the book of Job.
I do not understand everything. Only God does. I can not even get my mind around all the stars out there, let alone why God planned things the way He did. However, God has revealed to us what He wants us to know. Study what He has told us first, then start asking questions.

2007-05-28 16:19:47 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

Hmmm .... Well I'm no longer relatively orthodox however I appear to remember a passage which says that the unbelieving husband is sanctified by way of his spouse. My possess fiance is agnostic and he relatively is a distinguished guy and a first-rate father to our kids. Have you viewed that this guy might nonetheless but be the person God desires you to be with? Search your middle and you'll discover the reality. He turns out to regard you in a christian technique by way of what I've learn. Remember the announcing approximately well and dangerous fruit, how you understand from whence the fruit comes incidentally that's obtrusive in a person's man or woman. Christ additionally says do not conceal the sunshine from the sector however proportion it. You have got to ask your self if this guy is valued at wasting. He appears like a good man to me. Look beyond the issues, love as you could have by no means adored earlier than and notice your guy for who he's at the within.

2016-09-05 15:05:06 · answer #10 · answered by ? 4 · 0 0

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