How? How is this possible?

Question

Everyday when you go to work, your boss is mad at you. You screwed up once. He gave you a second chance, but he's not going to let it happen again. More importantly, he gave you a second chance. Everytime you screw up, your family, friends, other people, give you a second chance. But God does not. You don't beleive in him, he sends you to hell. So why are humans more forgiving? Does this mean they are better? Kinder? More loving? How? How is this possible?

Note: This is not an attack. I've posted several questions about Christians faith, but it really is how you read it. Try and read it with an inquiring tone, not attacking.

I would think that one life = one chance.

LOL! God gives us more chances? I see one. Right here right now.

In the scale of eternity, one life time is a split second! And with pollution and other diseases, it's a lot shorter than that!

Happy 2 Be...: Jesus only forgives you if you ask for it and love him! That's the same thing as blackmail, which I beleive is a sin!!

Almost everyone who is willing to debate me (i.e. Christians) says that god gives second chances. But name one second chance he gives us, because on an eternal scale, our lives are less than a second! Infinitley small! (I'm trying to work on good oxymorons) That's like me saying to you that you must eat something. Your choices are ice cream or dog poop, and if you don't answer you get dog poop, and giving you less time than it takes to say something!

Answer 1

In theory, he gives you your whole life to figure the process out, with lots of signs and smaller repercussions to guide you. Hell is the final damnation. Just because you finally get the spanking doesn't mean you didn't have plenty of warnings before-hand. True, depending on the specifics of faith, there are some things that are un-redeemable, but generally, the idea is that no matter what there is always a way to cleanse your soul with true faith, penance, and self-responsibility for one's actions. Just so long as you do it before you die and with an honest heart. So how is all that just giving you the one chance?

Answer 2

Why am I getting the feeling that you are lamenting?!

Please, I don't find that what you are saying ridiculous, in fact, I like what you are saying. I find it honest and true, nothing false.

EXCEPT! You are talking as a person who doesn't know God. He is forgiving, you just have to finish the desire in your heart to make peace with Him. Jesus said that you first must seek the kingdom, and you've shown that you already know how to do that; you just haven't done it yet.

So gain peace with God through Christ. That's why Jesus came to Earth - to become the kinsman redeemer and make atonement for the sins of the world.

It's as if you were in a crowded restaurant, someone has already paid the bill for everyone there. But some people still want to know how much they owe. They don't owe anything if they say that Jesus paid the bill. Until you claim that Jesus paid the bill, the waiter is going to stand there waiting to get paid.

So you have a choice, either owe for the bill - the restaurant is expensive and you will never have enough money to pay- or claim that Jesus paid the bill already. Your 'food' was purchased even though the restaurant is expensive - it demands a life.

God is loving to those who trust Him. And He has personally paid the bill with His life.

Answer 3

It is difficult to imagine how atheists deal with the untimely death of a loved one, and with serious mistakes they make. Friends and family are not always forgiving. God is not an option.

However, in every person there is goodness. No one will be left behind. God LOVES You, just as You are, and the only Hell You have to fear is in Your head. Jesus says to forgive "seventy times seven," so could God do less? God not only forgives, he FORGETS, so he won't be breathing down Your collar.

Believe in Love! Namaste!

Answer 4

Hello, Blessings and Peace,

I think it is easy for someone just to turn around and say; "its okay" or "its find honest", or even perhaps "okay, no problem".

That is God's problem, not your problem. I like to keep thinking that a 'loving, kind and righteous farther would never send his beloved, special children to hell-fire', because if ' God' were to do so then he would be a mad as 'Satan' as. At the same time humans have the potential to become holy 'first fruits', because humanity should all be good fruit because of our developed humilty. This is pleasing to 'God' and it would appear even more marvellous if it occured all other the world, from Hindu's to agnostics, expressing the universal friendship of humanity, the idealised brotherhood of all beings. We can learn from 'God' and 'God' can learn from us.

Andre

Manichaean Probationer and Nazorean Gnostic

Answer 5

For everything there is a time and a season. We lived with God as his children before we came to earth. We came to earth to receive bodies and learn to go it alone. His laws and precepts are eternal, but this is our probationary period to prove ourselves. You have the entire length of your life here on earth to find and accept God. If you haven't had a full opportunity in this life, you will have the opportunity in Paradise to learn the gospel of Christ. It is then up to you to accept or reject it. God gives you a new chance every day for the rest of your life, and in fairness, makes sure you've had the opportunity to receive His gospel before judgment. But, ultimately, there are consequences. The ability to have a second chance or not doesn't save you from the consequences of the first mistake.

Answer 6

I understand your question and appreciate the seeming overkill when it comes to what is in store for the wicked. The basis of your question is flawed. The belief of eternal torment of the wicked is based on the pagan belief of an immortal soul. It is not biblical. The bible says that the soul that sins will die. It is simply a shame that Christian doctrine has been hijacked by pagan beliefs and many are turned off by this distortion of God's true character.

Answer 7

You pose an interesting question about second chances.

God IS, in fact, the God of 2nd chances. (And 3rds and 4ths, et cetera).

If we confess our sins to God and ask Him to forgive us, He will. The Bible says it like this, "If (not when) we DO sin, we have an advocate with the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ", and again, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

We humans are forgiving because we were created in the image of God, and even though we have marred that image through our own sinfulness, yet that forgiving attitude of God still shows in our lives.

John 3:16-18 says,

"God so loved this world that He gave His only begotten Son, that ANYbody who believes in, trusts in, clings to and relies on Him shall NOT perish (spend eternity in hell), but have everlasting life (in heaven).

"God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.

"Whoever believes that God sent His Son into the world will NOT be condemned. Whoever does NOT believe that God sent His Son into the world is condemned already."

Why?

Because "All have sinned and fall short of God's glory (expectations)."

But "The wages of sin is death". That simply means that when we obey sin, it pays us back by sending us to hell.

But, "The free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

God WANTS to forgive, but we actually tie His hands. He can NOT forgive if we persist in our sins and won't even acknowledge our guilt, just as any wise judge who may want to pardon a criminal but can not because of the criminal's attitude that they are not guilty, that they don't need to change, and that they can continue doing what they have already been doing.

In the same way, God can not forgive us if we refuse to acknowledge and turn away from our sins and believe that Jesus Christ died to pay the penalty for those sins. In fact, the Bible says that He who knew no sin actually became sin for us, so that we could be made righteous before God. He traded places with us.

We don't deserve the pardon since we are all guilty, but the offer is real, the pardon is real. But the offer expires the day you do. The offer for God's pardon is good right up to the day you die, then you have to face Him in judgement for your sins.

You have your entire life to take Him up on His offer. How is THAT not a second, third, fourth and fifth chance? But if we neglect such a great salvation, it is our own undoing. Not God's.

Answer 8

Instead of looking at sin and belief as things you are doing TO God and that he is recording in the universe's largest accounting ledger, later to determine who to "forgive" for their transgressions and who to absolve, try looking at the whole thing differently.

Ther eis no ledger, no forgiveness or retribution involved. These are analogies and matphors that humans have applied to God over the course of many, many centuries. This is hardly revolutionary, the Bible itself contains an evolution in the understanding of God. Starts off that God will torture you and your kids for planting two kind of crops in the same field (Leviticus) then God does not punish us in this life for what we do wrong (Ecclesiastes) then we can't know what he does or why about this (Job) and so on and so on. These are literal contradictions if you look at the Bible like it all is today's newspaper. It isn't. It is a collection of books written over the course of over 1,000 years.

So think of the situation instead that God is the Way in the universe. She is the Divine Ground of Being, Source energy, She is in you and you are in Her, You come from Her and will return to Her. But in order to access this energy here and after this life is over you need to believe or at least sense there is something beyond yourself and put yourself in the right with it. Since God is Love, that means we becom Love. To extent we can do that, we can see and live and die and live again in that connection, in that energy we are meant to access. To the extent we reject it, we live isolated and fearful of our own non-existence.

In other words, forgiveness, grace, judgment, Heaven, Hell are all just human-generated metaphors for the reality that there is Love and there is everything else and the choice is yours. Remember, you are not a human being having spiritual experiences; you are a spiritual being having human experiences!

Answer 9

That isn't my God at all! My God not only forgives your sins..HE forgets them. Have you heard of grace? The idea that God is harsh and unforgiving? I am not even sure nonbelievers go to hell.

13 for it is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified. 14 For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, 15 in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them,

Everyday I get up my God is with me. When the world is mad at me, I trust in his love. I screw up..I ask for forgiveness..a thousand times.. and a thousand times more. and still he forgives. What does he ask of me..That I love him and that I treat mankind as I wish to be treated. That's the whole gist of the ten commandments..
What is hell..the absence of the LORD. The weeping and gnashing of teeth.. The idea of fire and endless torture comes from pagan religion. Not the Bible. The Bible says that after the judgement ALL people will say GOD is just..

Answer 10

I've rasied this question here before and just got a bunch of thumbs down from people.

If we believe whats in the bible, God is rather vengeful and angry - there are more than enough examples of his wrath. If you choose to 'reject' God you are sent to Hell - Hell being a place of eternal torture. I would never send anyone to a place of eternal torture, but yet I'm always told its God is all-loving and *I'm* the sinful human.

I don't understand it either.