The question was about what is the youngest age to burn in hell.
I don't know. I know that Jesus said that it was not His will that any of these little ones would perish -
Matthew 18:14 - " In the same way, it is not the will of Your Father who is in the heavens that one of these little ones perish."
But then again it is not that Father's will that ANYONE ... ANYONE should perish -
" ... our Savior God, Who desires that all men be saved and to come to the full knowledge of the truth." (Galatians 2:4)
God does not want that any "little ones" should perish.
God desires all people to be saved and to come to the full knowledge of the truth.
Now, practically the closing and last word in the Bible about the distinction between those to perish and those to not is found in Revelation 20:15 and this is how I look at it:
"And if anyone was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire."
This is how I consider this final word:
1.) Do I know how many ways a person could be found written in the book of life? No I do not.
2.) Do I know that the Gospel says to believe into Christ and do not reject Christ? Yes, I know this warning and preach this message.
3.) Do I know that to receive the Gospel will result in one being written in the Lamb's book of life? Yes. I think that is clear.
4.) Could there be some unknown alternative way someone could be written in the book of life ? I think I have to say that this is so and we are not told everything of God's judgements.
So, what is the bottom line for the curious ?
Whoever's name is not written in the book of life will perish in eternal perdition (Rev. 20:15) .
That's all I can say. And whoever is written in the book of life will not.
-Removed-There is a misunderstanding. That was not a quotation.
The quotation I supplied was from the Recovery Version. (RcV)
That has nothing to do with any 12 step program.
The sentence about eternal perdition was not my quotation of any English translation.
Here is my comment:
So, what is the bottom line for the curious ?
Whoever's name is not written in the book of life will perish in eternal perdition (Rev. 20:15) .
Here's my quotation of the RcV:
" And if anyone was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire." (Rev. 20:15)
-Removed-He explained himself pretty well, I thought. It seems obvious to me what he meant. He was explaining his thoughts on it. It was not a quote. He gave a scripture verse notation to it so one could look up the actual verse which backs up what he said. I'm sure you're familiar with the term 'paraphrase'? And why are you busting his chops so badly on this anyways?
PS I have no idea what you are referring to when you say "that has nothing to do with any 12 step program". This is not something I mentioned, nor you in your previous post for that matter.He only mentioned this because he mentioned he got a quote from the Recovery Version. Man, are you okay? You're definitely not following along too well tonight.
Originally posted by sonshiplake of fire, symbolic of eternal destruction, there is no hell , a place of torment, its entirely incongruous with a just and loving God, why Christians portray God as monstrous is known only to them, the scriptures do not support it and everyone that knows anything about it knows that its a pre Christian pagan teaching.
There is a misunderstanding. That was not a quotation.
The quotation I supplied was from the Recovery Version. (RcV)
That has nothing to do with any 12 step program.
The sentence about eternal perdition was not my quotation of any English translation.
Here is my comment:
[quote] So, what is the bottom line for the curious ?
Whoever's na ...[text shortened]... was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire." (Rev. 20:15) [/b]
Originally posted by SuzianneYeah, I'm sure that makes sense in your mind.
No, it's not surprising that atheists do not understand theists.
But it is surprising that theists often do not understand one another, when we have a resource to follow to ensure understanding: James 1:5-6
" If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
But let him as ...[text shortened]... ing of little faith, because it is what they are used to.
This is a fault of man, not of God.
So God knows everything that has happened and will happen. He creates mankind, mankind doesn't behave according to his will (he knew this would happen), he kicks them out of paradise, but thousands (?) of years later he gives them a guidebook written in a language that is not used by most humans. To make matters worse, many passages in this guidebook are metaphors which is of course going to give problems when translations are made (god knows this). Other passages are meant to be taken literal, and it's up to the reader to determine which are literal and which are metaphorical - although that's questionable because whoever made the translation has often already decided (by how they translated) what is to be taken literal and metaphorical (god knew this would happen). Not to mention that all humans are different and what for you is obviously metaphorical may for someone else be literal (god knows this will happen).
So you get all these different factions with different views on the texts and all of them are sure they have it correctly. Meanwhile, the text becomes more and more obsolete as more and more people start to think about and say "Wait, this makes no sense".
God knew that all of this would happen and yet he went and did it exactly like this.
If wanted us to live according to his rules he could have written and published them in such a way that there would have been no misunderstanding as to the meaning of the text. Hell, he could've easily implanted these rules in our brains, eliminating the need for a book and for ever changing tranlations. But no no, that would have been too easy and would not have caused all these problems so he made it that two people read the same text and come to wildly different conclusions.
And it's all our fault and not god's.
It's like a mother telling her child "You will not shake the tree and have the doves loose their wings" and then be surprised and angry to find that the child did not understand that text to mean "Don't eat candy before dinner".
Unbelievable.
Reading through the previous 18 pages of posts I am horrified at the depth of stupidity amongst apparently intelligent and caring posters. Are you really discussing how old a child has to be before he can spend an eternity suffering appalling torture in Hell? Are you really relishing the prospect of untold suffering for a nine year old whereas an eight year old is spared? Really? REALLY??
Are you seriously supporting a God who dishes out eternal suffering for transgression. SERIOUSLY??
Is the sole reaon for your belief in this appalling deity a "Get out of Hell Free Card?"
The world has gone stark raving bonkers....