Re: Lecture on Hell...

I hesitate to even make this post because I don't want to argue all day again with you and feel like I got no where again.

So I'll just make this quick. I don't care at all that you don't agree with me on this hell issue, or any other issue. I'm not out to try to control people's mind and then get mad if it doesn't work. All I want to do on here is present what I believe to be the truth. I could very well be in error, but I don't put it on here unless I believe it's true. And I know that's the case with all of us.

You disagreeing with me was not what made me irritated yesterday, and despite me already saying that, and thinking I made that clear, I'm seeing you still are thinking that was the problem. What made me irritated once again was that you were defining what I believe and getting it wrong. If you are going to talk about what I believe, I just want you to use the correct terms, the terms I use. I don't believe in "no hell". And once again, because there is a growing belief of "no hell" out there, I don't want my belief to be defined that way. My belief is called the conditional view, or the annihilation view, and it's a belief in a hell that is hot enough to actually destroy people instead of just torture them, so it's certainly still a hell, just a more powerful one than you believe in. And it does amaze me that for the wicked to be completely destroyed, is not good enough for people, and couldn't even be considered a hell in your eyes. I'm not mad you believe that way, I just think it's amazing, that's all.

As for being called a calvinist, I made a post recently about that, and maybe you missed it since I know you probably don't read every post I make. But I said I don't like being called a calvinist and I have my reasons for that, one being the reason I heard a minister once give, that he had enough sins of his own to be tied to another man's sins. But I have others besides that. Another one is that people think they understand what calvinism is when they really don't understand it and so calvinism has been very much misrepresented. It has been made out to mean there is no freewill and that is not true at all. So while I'm not going to get mad at you if you call me a calvinist, it's not what I'd like to be called. I'd like to just be called a christian.

And I totally get it's hard for us to be in the same forum together. We said that through pm's in the very beginning, years ago, remember? And it's probably been harder than we both would have thought. lol We both want to post what we believe is true, but those beliefs clash a lot of the time and we both feel like we need to defend what we believe is true, and so debates happen. And I think debates are fine, it's what has always been done throughout time, and I know it has always helped me to further study and learn, so I'm not against debating, unless it is a useless, silly topic, but the topics we debate on here I think are important topics. But debating also takes time, which we all lack sometimes. And another bad thing with debating is that it turns too personal sometimes. And then the thing I dislike the most about debating, is when once again, people start saying stuff I didn't say. :) Can't beat that one in enough I don't feel like, and I still know it might not be understand how I feel on that. :)

Now in defense of Mr. Fudge, I believe he became a lawyer after his first book on hell came out. I'm not sure of that, but I believe that's true. Correct me if you find out that's wrong. But I also know the story goes like this. Mr. Fudge grew up in the Church of Christ which very much holds to the traditional view of hell. Then one day out of the blue, Mr. Fudge was approached by a man that wanted to hire him to study hell. This man that wanted to hire him had grown up in the Seventh Day Adventist church, but he had left the church after realizing all it's errors, and the hell issue was the one issue he had not resolved in his mind. So he wanted someone that did not grow up with his view, that was not biased towards the annihilist view to do a study on it for him, and not just a superficial study. He told Mr. Fudge he wanted the old testament, the new testament, the dead sea scrolls, the writings of the apostolic fathers, etc. scraped through and through for this study on hell and so Mr. Fudge said well I guess I have my work cut out for me and he began the long thorough study. But he started out convinced in his own mind that the traditional view was the correct view. But into his study he became so blown away by what the bible was showing him, that he went back to the man, and said do you care if I write a book on what I'm discovering, and the man agreed. And all that doesn't mean anything if Mr. Fudge's view is wrong but I think it's good to understand he didn't just set out to prove this biased view of hell he'd always had. His mind was changed after deeply delving into the bible on the subject, not any other reason.




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