The idea that "you send yourself to hell"

[widdershins]

Are there supposed to be a specified number of Jews in heaven? A coworker once told me "When I get to heaven (she didn't say if) there ain't gonna be Baptists over here and Methodists over there and Presbyterians over there. There's only gonna be ONE group and that's the people in my church (Southern Pentecostal Holiness), oh and some Jews 'cause the Bible said so." Granted she wasn't a theologian but she seemed very convinced that is the way it's going down.

That comes form an Old Testament section where it's saying that there are going to be 12,000 from this tribe and 12,000 from that tribe and so on in Heaven.  That's there they get the number 144,000 from.  12,000 from each of the 12 tribes of Israel.  But the passage isn't giving exact, specific numbers.  There were 12 tribes, so 12 was significant to them.  And 1,000 is a really big number when you only have 20 phalanges.  It is interpreted in so many ways.  The Jehovah's Witnesses believe that there will only be 144,000 people in Heaven and the rest will be on Paradise Earth, Earth remade.  They use the same passage to justify this, but they ignore the fact that it specifically says that those numbers come from the 12 tribes of Israel.  Instead they choose an arbitrary date, 1933, and anyone after that date can't go to Heaven.  I believe that year was chosen because it was the last time the founder incorrectly predicted the end of the world and decided that Jesus had, in fact, come back as predicted, he just did it invisibly, so from now on nobody else can get into Heaven.

But yes, the Bible does specifically state that there will be exactly 12,000 Jew from each of the 12 tribes which will get into Heaven.  It just doesn't explicitly mean that.  Ancient peoples had trouble understanding large numbers and 1,000 was often arbitrarily used the way we use a million, billion or trillion today, such as when one says, "I must have pushed that button a million times."

[AllPurposeAtheist]

It's to bad that CNN can't report on what he** actually is like because it would make for great breaking news.
Wolf Blitzer with BREAKING NEWS about he**! No matter how bad they try to make it sound some preacher will always make it worse. Not only will we all burn forever, but toss in as many forevers as possible before people just tune out ..
Forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever .. Wow, scarey shit, huh?
Wolf to survivor: Do ya thank the Lord?
Survivor: Uhhh ..I'm an atheist ..

[soonerboomer001.]

To begin with God did not make hell for people, it was originally created for Satan and his imps for their rebellion against God and heaven. It became the place for humans who deny Jesus after the crucifixion. I agree with the statements that people send themselves to hell because they are given mercies everyday, when the choice is made to deny Jesus, they have sealed their fate. God had nothing to do with the killing done by Hitler. Death, disease and evil are all brought about because of sin. God does not force us to believe, he gives free will because he loves us. You are making a choice for your life by choosing to be a homosexual, a sin that God calls an abomination, however if you choose to believe, your sin will be wiped away. Satan is the entity to blame for the evil, death and disease in the world, he walks about seeking who he can kill, steal,and destroy he seeks who he can devour. Satan knows he's spending eternity in hell and he wants as many souls to be miserable with him.

Sent from my SGH-T399N using Tapatalk

[Mike Cl]

To begin with God did not make hell for people, it was originally created for Satan and his imps for their rebellion against God and heaven. It became the place for humans who deny Jesus after the crucifixion. I agree with the statements that people send themselves to hell because they are given mercies everyday, when the choice is made to deny Jesus, they have sealed their fate. God had nothing to do with the killing done by Hitler. Death, disease and evil are all brought about because of sin. God does not force us to believe, he gives free will because he loves us. You are making a choice for your life by choosing to be a homosexual, a sin that God calls an abomination, however if you choose to believe, your sin will be wiped away. Satan is the entity to blame for the evil, death and disease in the world, he walks about seeking who he can kill, steal,and destroy he seeks who he can devour. Satan knows he's spending eternity in hell and he wants as many souls to be miserable with him.

Sent from my SGH-T399N using Tapatalk

I suppose you don't realize that you are simply spewing bullshit, right?  Well, you are.  Not a fact in you statement--just a bunch of beliefs that you bought from some snake-oil salesman.  Oh, and make sure you tithe so that that guy/woman can have their own private jet. 

The above message brought to you by The Shepple!

[peacewithoutgod]

To begin with God did not make hell for people, it was originally created for Satan and his imps for their rebellion against God and heaven.

Logical Fuckup Alert!
If it wasn't created by your god, it sure wasn't created by Satan to be used against himself! Therefore, if it exists at all, then it was your Jesus, and your Yahweh who created it, and it was their decision when they decided to put people there, Asshole!

Oh by the way, since when weren't devils and demons people too? So what if they aren't human!

It became the place for humans who deny Jesus after the crucifixion.

Jesus was one of hundreds of cult leaders during his historical period within the Eastern Mediterranean, the only difference is that he was popular. That he existed at all is historically questionable, which you would know if you had studied any unbiased and extra-biblically corroborated (therefore actual) history! Your Jesus was supposed to be about mercy, but here you are, like every other believer before you, clarifying your duplicity on that idea when you attempt to intimidate those who question your faith into submission under your ideas - even to the point of saying it was Jesus who is sending non-believers in his cult to your hell!

You are no better than a common thug, and proof of this are the many confessed thugs who re-invent themselves through Jesus, often rising to pulpit positions as evangelicals. None of them really change, and many have made the news for doing what they have been known for before "taking the cross". The cross does make a convenient weapon, which can cause some nasty damage in a fight, no wonder the mob enforcers favor it so. Great for really fucking with people's heads, and in more ways than one!

By the above such behavior, if there really is a hell, the people who belong there are you and those who proselytize your evil. Between that and your version of heaven, they are close enough to the same anyway.

[Baruch]

Soonerboomer ... human beings find/create meaning in their lives thru stories.  Whether these are stories from ancient books, from Medieval theology, or modern Anime.  I know where you are coming from ... but do you know where you are coming from?  But I am not the one to criticize anyone's particular personal hagiography ... there are plenty who will do that without me ;-)

[aitm]

That comes form an Old Testament section where it's saying that there are going to be 12,000 from this tribe and 12,000 from that tribe and so on in Heaven.

I believe that this is actually a New Testament thingy, most likely Revelations, I don't think the jews believe in a heaven...

[Baruch]

Modern Jews are agnostic or atheist.  Orthodox Jews cling to Middle Age theology .. which did include Heaven.  The greatest goal of any rabbi, was to get to study in Moses' yeshiva in Heaven.  Oy vey!

The book of Revelations is likely a reworked Jewish apocalypse ... a kind of revenge fantasy literature of that time.  So some Jews (mostly Merkavah Kabbalists like the Essenes) did have odd numerological ideas about End Times.  One form of this continued down the ages.  The legend of the LamedVav-nicks.  Jewish letters represented numbers (as did Greek letters) ... it represents the number 36, the number of righteous Jews (somewhat like Noah was the only righteous man of his generation) ... whose existence prevents G-d from destroying the Earth (aka Sodom).  This is distinct from the similar idea of a quorum necessary for full Jewish worship, the ten men (minyan), which is also derived from the Sodom story.

[Solitary]

As far as I know there is no hell in the Judea religion accept a Jewish mother-in-law that makes marriage into  one.

[Baruch]

This applied in legend to all families.  I actually got along well with my mother-in-law.  Usually sons-in-law do.  Mothers-in-law are mostly a problem for daughters-in-law.  It is fathers-in-law that sons-in-law need to fear ;-)

[Solitary]

I got along very well with my mother-in-law, but then again my wife never told her I wasn't Catholic even though I got married in the Church, accept according to the  Church I was made a protestant by the priest because they couldn't marry one of their flock to an atheist. Her mother really was what is considered a good Catholic, and she could have been a nun. Unfortunately my wife could also be a nun thinking nun meant none when she got older. We get along great, and we still love each other, even though she doesn't like me, and never did, according to her. This is another problem I have with religion, it makes people inflexible and unable to make decisions other than what they are taught by their religion without feeling guilty. 

[Baruch]

My ex was a Catholic Sister (uncloistered nun) who eventually became a liberal Protestant pastor.  So I know something of whereof you speak.

[peacewithoutgod]

This applied in legend to all families.  I actually got along well with my mother-in-law.  Usually sons-in-law do.  Mothers-in-law are mostly a problem for daughters-in-law.  It is fathers-in-law that sons-in-law need to fear ;-)

I got on well with both my mother-in-law (which I did not consider to be overwhelmingly common), and my father-in-law (which I knew wasn't the usual) before my wife died of an unfortunate illness, and after as well. My father, not so lucky. Although he had, inside of 15 years improved the real-time value of the old 19th Century farmhouse which he had purchased by 3x, his miserable mother-in-law was still known to comment, as he continued to make improvements, "maybe some day this place will be livable". It was no dump when he bought it - not particularly modern, but at least it had bathrooms on both floors. Her house was Victorian on a slum street, and she had to climb upstairs to use her one bathroom!

[Blackleaf]

I've never quite gotten the idea that you send yourself to hell.  I'm not sure if it's a purely Christian concept, but I've mostly seen Christians saying it.

"God doesn't send you to hell, you send yourself there!"

This ignores a few things.  One, that god created hell as punishment.  A place of eternal punishment and torture.  It's kind of like putting someone in the worst prison in the world, and saying "Well,they sent themselves there!"  Sure, but there's also prisons where you don't burn in a lake of fire for eternity.  Why does punishment require torture?  Surely a good god would not torture people.

Then you have the fact that some people are sent there for various reasons.  If god were real, I'd be going (apparently) because I'm a lesbian.  I'd get the same punishment as Hitler, who was responsible for the death of six million Jews.  So my crime is liking boobs while Hitler's is murdering six million people.  It reminds me of the old religious argument "Why would atheists have morals?  Without god, what would stop you from raping people?"  If I'm going to hell for liking boobs, why shouldn't I kill six million people?  I'm sending myself to hell for liking boobs after all.

It all seems to just be a way to absolve god of creating a place of eternal torture.  Doesn't sound like such a good god to me.   Then again this is the same god that killed everyone but eight people, killed 70,000 for a census that they had nothing to do with, and pretty much tests people's faith because he must be the most insecure god ever.  (To me, those are less a sign of a real god, and more signs that the bible was politically written so as to get converts!  What better way than threat of hell.)

I've always hated this argument, even when I was a Christian. There is no Biblical evidence for it. It's just one of those cute sayings someone came up with to get out of having to figure out why their loving God would send people to Hell. What they're refusing to acknowledge is that the Bible describes God as both loving and hateful. He loves the ones he predestines for Heaven, and hates the unrepentant sinners that he predestines for Hell.

However, what you say about going to Hell because of something you did is inaccurate. Unless you lived a perfect life where you never did anything wrong, you will go to Hell according to the Bible. The only way out of Hell is to be perfect or to have faith in Jesus, who was punished in the place of repentant sinners.

I won't say that your actions do not matter, though. There is Biblical evidence that Hell is personalized to fit each individual's degree of evil. So while a lesbian and a mass murderer would both go to Hell, Hell would be considerably less tolerable for the murderer.

Revelation 20:11-15 - Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.

[Baruch]

The idea of Last Judgement is Jewish, before it was Christian, but it was Egyptian/Mesopotamian before it was Jewish.  The Ten Commandments are extracted from the Egyptian Book of the Dead.  Hindus/Buddhists also believe in hells.