this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
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Showerthoughts
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I always found it funny that they've confused the idea of eternal life and death. If you're burning forever you're still alive, in some way. So the idea that it's "death" doesn't make sense. It would only be death if you were destroyed completely (which is what Jesus says he will do at least once in the gospels) so idk where they get the idea that being tortured forever isn't eternal life.
It's not a good one, but it's still eternal life.
You are absolutely correct. The original Hebrew word in the Bible for hell is Sheol, which means grave, or place of resting. He even says "this is the second death". You don't get eternal life, except through accepting him, according to the scripture.
Well it's not their word for hell, that's the point. It means death or grave, the idea of hell wasn't even considered until the Greek started being converted in the first and second century and folded their ideas about the afterlife (including their underworld 'hel') into the mix of Jewish belief about death being non-existence and resurrection being the return from non-existence.
That's how we get the two testaments treating death differently, and the conflation of the word "sheol" to mean hell, when it really just meant being dead.
That's the point I was trying to make. It's a mistranslation, or even worse, an intentional change. Even with the word there, there's enough context to make it clear that the punishment for denying christ is death, not eternal life. "Hell" is eternal, in the sense that you're dead forever. Those who are not written in the book of life are cast into the lake of fire, which is the second death. That's what it says. It takes a lot of mental gymnastics to change the definition of the word death to mean eternal life and torture, where it takes none to acknowledge that you die.
So if im already in hell and while I'm being tortured for eternity I can be like "I'm sorry for detonating Canada in 2052 jesus" and he be like "lmao no prob fam up you go"
The point is that you're not tortured for eternity. That idea didn't become popular until Southern Baptist started traveling the states with their fire and brimstone sermons. You are killed, obliterated, dead, for eternity. Game over.
I still don't understand how eternal life would be a good thing. Seems to me all things would fall away and as the patterns that make up make up consciousness become less and less important you would slip away from your identity.
Now I know you could consider the reseting of your memory or something like that but the moment you start talking that way you've introduced some level of reincarnation which is not apart of the Christian belief.
It wouldn't be, in fact most Christians will self acknowledge that it's not a good thing with their explanations for the following series of questions.
1a. If yes, then do we have the ability to also reject and sin once we are in heaven according to the salvation of Jesus?
1b. If we can't, then do we have free will?
2a. If we are being changed in some way to accept eternity as good/enjoy it, then how do you reconcile that with the idea that God wants communion with beings of free will? If he's just going to change us to fit the needs of eternity anyways, how is that different than programming sapient robots to worship him? Why go through all of the trouble with having us choose him via free will if he's going to alter/overwrite our consciousness to make us able to deal with immortality? He might as well just start with that if it's the endgame.
The only way out of the situation is to claim that we do still have free will in heaven and can choose to rebel at any time, or else you're dealing with the philosophy and ethics of how changing a sapient being to want things they didn't before can't possibly coincide with free will.