Does hell really make sense?

[Kidlicious]

How does that make sense though? It appears people are saying free will basically = being able to choose between good or evil, and that that is the only reason why evil really exists. Surely that means that following free will instead of just doing what you're supposed to is logically saying you're choosing to be bad, because if you were choosing to be good you wouldn't need free will.

True, God could make you like an animal without free will but He didn't. I don't get your point.

[Jon Miller]

Some people would apparently rather be robots...

JM

[giblets]

I don't know, starving people in Africa might think they'd be better off as a robot living in some paradise with no evil.

[Jon Miller]

Why would a robot care if they were starving or not?

Be that as it may, evil is not what God wants for us. And in the Bible, Christ promises to come again and remove all evil from the world.

JM

[giblets]

Why would a robot care if they were starving or not?

Be that as it may, evil is not what God wants for us. And in the Bible, Christ promises to come again and remove all evil from the world.

JM

You kind of implied people without free will would be robots, and I don't think free will is necessary for feeling happiness or not wanting to starve so I figured you didn't think robots are necessarily emotionless and lack desires.

[Kidlicious]

btw, it's not a fact that we have free will. Some people think we don't. We are self aware regardless.

[Ben Kenobi]

One thing that surely had to do with the dominant stream within the early church gaining power in the roman empire during the 4th century and then beginning to actively persecute all other early christianities that had other opinions about important things (for example concerning Trinity, divinity of Jesus and so on) and to burn their scriptures (which is why for example, before the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library almost nothing was known about Gnosticism).
The christian world seems to have been much more diverse (and less "unified") before this time

Apparently all the Emperors were Catholic. Who knew?

[kentonio]

True, God could make you like an animal without free will but He didn't. I don't get your point.

Some people would apparently rather be robots...

JM

Well it seems a bit like god saying 'I could make you not need food, but instead I'm going to give you hunger. I'm then going to lay out a huge banquet of lovely food and next to it a table full of gruel. If you eat any of the nice food, you're going to burn in hell for all eternity'.

That seems a bit harsh. Isn't it just a giant exercise in temptation?

[Kidlicious]

Well it seems a bit like god saying 'I could make you not need food, but instead I'm going to give you hunger. I'm then going to lay out a huge banquet of lovely food and next to it a table full of gruel. If you eat any of the nice food, you're going to burn in hell for all eternity'.

That seems a bit harsh. Isn't it just a giant exercise in temptation?

Not really. A&E thought they would benefit from the fruit. They didn't believe they would die. The exercise is believing or not.

[kentonio]

So whats the point?

[Kidlicious]

So whats the point?

To love God, and likened to that to love your neighbor.

[Kidlicious]

Ok aimee, don't like economics or theoretical physics? What is your opinion on the police pepper spraying protestors who are beligerant?

[Kidlicious]

oops wrong thread

[kentonio]

Trolling is a sin.

[Proteus_MST]

Apparently all the Emperors were Catholic. Who knew?

Well, we´re talking about two separate Persecutions.
The persecution by the romans (before Constantine) affected all early christian sects to the same degree
(well, maybe the jewish christians in Jerusalem were affected by them more than all others due to the roman response to the jewish uprisings in Judaea)

The persecution by their brethren in faith however affected only those christianities, which were declared to be heresies by the orthodox christians who gained power during/after the reign of constantine ... sometimes because of minor things like these christian sects not accepting the divinity of Jesus (but instead saw him only as some kind of Prophet) ...
a persecution that was more deadly to these christian sects, than the roman persecution had been (how successful these persecutions had been we see in the scarcity of surviving scriptures of these sects, despite some of these sects (like the gnostics) having as many followers as the orthodox parts of christianity )