Pilgrim,<br><br>You wrote: “You have continued to equate justice with evil because you have maintained that the punishment promised to the wicked is "torture"…”<br><br>Punishment, Kolasis, is about disciplinary punishment with reference to correcting the one being disciplined. That’s not what I’m talking about. I have no problem using torment instead of torture even though I don’t see much difference between the two.<br><br>You wrote: “I'm also curious as to who these "teachers of Christianity" are that you mentioned a few times? You obviously accept them as being paradigmatic of all who profess to be Christian teachers and their teaching is representative of all who profess to be Christians. I would certainly accept Jonathan Edwards' teaching on hell to be biblical sound, if that is of any help to you?”<br><br>You must not have read my first post, I quoted several different Christian leaders, even Jonathan Edwards, who you say that you agree with. Jonathan Edward even uses the word “torture” in his description of hell:<br><br>“Do but consider what it is to suffer extreme torment forever and ever to suffer it day and night, from one day to another, from one year to another, from one age to another, from one thousand ages to another, and so, adding age to age, and thousands to thousands, in pain, in wailing and lamenting, groaning and shrieking, and gnashing your teeth; with your souls full of dreadful grief and amazement, with your bodies and every member full of <b>racking torture,</b> without any possibility of getting ease; without any possibility of moving God to pity by your cries; without any possibility of hiding yourselves from him; without any possibility of diverting your thoughts from your pain; without any possibility of obtaining any manner of mitigation, or help, or change for the better any way.”<br><br>Quoted form Jonathan Edward “The Eternity of Hell Torments”<br><br>Here’s another quote from Jonathan Edward, and the pain and suffering that you and he believes that the god you worship will inflict upon human beings forever and ever:<br><br>“But to help your conception, imagine yourself to be cast into a fiery oven, or of a great furnace, where your pain would be as much greater than that occasioned by accidentally touching a coal of fire, as the heat is greater. Imagine also that your body were to lie there for a quarter of an hour, all the while full of quick sense; what horror would you feel at the entrance of such a furnace! And how long would that quarter of an hour seem to you! And after you had endured it for one minute, how overbearing would it be to you to think that you had it to endure the other fourteen!<br>But what would be the effect on your soul, if you knew you must lie there enduring that torment to the full for<br>twenty-four hours! And how much greater would be the effect, if you knew you must endure it for a whole year;<br>and how vastly greater still, if you knew you must endure it for a thousand years! O then, how would your heart<br>sink, if you thought, if you knew, that you must bear it forever and ever! That there would be no end! That after<br>millions of millions of ages, your torment would be no nearer to an end, than ever it was; and that you never, never should be delivered!”<br><br>You wrote: “Have you read anything that I have written to you? The sins committed by man against GOD are infinite in scope and thus deserve infinite punishment.”<br><br>I certainly read what you said about infinite sins but you also said that Jesus Christ took the penalty for infinite sin and paid a finite price, 3 days. Now, if the penalty for sin is everlasting torment how could it ever be paid?<br><br>You tell me that Jesus Christ paid the full penalty for sin in 3 days while the penalty, according to you, is everlasting torment. You can’t have it both ways!<br><br>As for my beliefs, they are closer to Reformed than anything else. I simply cannot put evil on God, eternal torment is evil, therefore I cannot accept that God is going to torment people forever and ever.<br><br>You wrote: “We do agree on one thing..... you CANNOT (inability) and WILL NOT (refusal) worship the one true God Who has revealed Himself in Scripture because you hate Him with your whole being. You consider Him to be "evil" and a despicable being because He has promised and will render justice to all who are at enmity with Him. What is wrong is your understanding of what is "good", what is "evil", the magnitude of "depravity" of the human soul, the incomprehensibility of the "holiness" of God, etc.”<br><br>I really can’t hate God, I own Him way too much for that! And, I most certainly do not believe that God is evil, that’s the whole problem, you teach that He is going to torment people forever, that would be evil, you are the one proclaiming that God is evil, not me! <br><br>This whole ideal of yours that we cannot discern between good and evil is a very dangerous idea, the history of Christianity is full of men like you who believed that good and evil are subjective.<br><br>JER 32:35 And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of<br>Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin. <br><br>God said that it was an abomination to Him that they were passing children trough the fire! Yet, you would have me believe that He is going to do an even greater abomination. How can you accuse Him of such evil?<br>
