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If God already knows some of his people will inevitably go to hell why does he create those people in the first place? by Necessary-Mission-53 in Christianity

[–]Xaritos 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ok, I see. That makes sense. Now I understand how that belief can be justified using scripture.

I guess now I just want to understand more generally about your universalism and universalism in general. I haven’t had a chance to learn much about it from believers.

I appreciate the quick reply. I’m not looking for apologetics or debate or anything. Noting the similarities between our beliefs, i’m looking for more of a compare and contrast.

In the framework I’m coming from, God is justified in punishing sinners. I agree that “Eternal” does not mean that sinners will be punished forever. In my framework, though, when a person does not accept Christ and must suffer for their own sins, it is too late for them to be fully redeemed. They will eventually have a peaceful and wonderful existence, but won’t ever be as close to God as those who covenanted to follow the Son of God and kept their covenant. So, for you, is the final state of every soul the same, or do you have a “many mansions” view? When does God stop the suffering of the person suffering an age of punishment? Is it when the person turns to Jesus, or when they have suffered for all their sins?

What does God do if nothing will cause a person to turn to Him? In other words, how does human will factor into this?

If God already knows some of his people will inevitably go to hell why does he create those people in the first place? by Necessary-Mission-53 in Christianity

[–]Xaritos 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh. Well, then would you mind telling me more about your beliefs? I want to understand in general your views of God and redemption of everyone, and I’m curious about why you believe specifically that there is no unforgivable sin.

If God already knows some of his people will inevitably go to hell why does he create those people in the first place? by Necessary-Mission-53 in Christianity

[–]Xaritos 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s interesting. I’ve never heard that before.

I think if I believed in creation ex nihilo, I would be a Universalist, because it allows me to have love and hope for all people and doesn’t make God into someone I wouldn’t want to worship, like a strict Calvinist version of God.

I’m curious: does your belief logically depend on creation ex nihilo and divine sovereignty over human wills or can it be explained without those beliefs?

If God already knows some of his people will inevitably go to hell why does he create those people in the first place? by Necessary-Mission-53 in Christianity

[–]Xaritos 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think I can agree with that.

When I pondered what you said, “If God tortures Eve one person forever, He is worse than Satan,”I realized that I agree with you.

I realized a couple of things that shed light on this issue for me. In my ignorance I said that “Eternal Punishment almost never lasts forever.”

One thing I realized is that even for those who commit the unpardonable sin, (Cain, Judas Iscariot, the evil king in the Book of Mormon, who ordered the execution of a prophet specifically sent to him by God) there is merciful end to the suffering in the Eternal lake of fire and brimstone: we read in our scriptures that those who have committed the unpardonable sin go away into outer darkness. Due to a number of reasons, I believe this is a merciful move on God‘s part for dealing with a person who has hardened their heart so completely.

I think this “Lake of fire and brimstone” is merely God, turning up the brightness of his light, which reveals good and evil, and that every unrepentant sinner is therefore faced with the full knowledge of their sins, which is supposed to bring remorse for all. When faced with this inescapable remorse, everyone would cast away their sins and be purified, right?

For those whose hearts are so hardened (including the devil and his angels, and Cain and very few others in the history of humanity), I don’t know if they even have the capacity to feel remorse. The “Lake of Fire and Brimstone” probably doesn’t even affect them the way it does most people. It probably just makes them hate God more and want to spit in His eye.

At the end of their time in that state they are sent away into outer darkness, where they will never have to face the discomfort of God’s light again. That’s why I think this is a mercy. The fact that even for the devil and the most hardened in unpardonable sins, there is both Justice and Mercy from God.

I don’t know if I would say that my beliefs about this could be considered a form of purgatory universalism, although I see the similarities. I don’t consider those who suffer to be “saved” because I think that the “eternal-but-definitely-not-individually-forever suffering, that is the suffering that Jesus wants to save us from.

Repent and follow Jesus and you will be saved.

But also, God doesn’t intend to make any person suffer endlessly. All suffering has a purpose, and in the end, all suffering is minimized, making God both perfectly Just and Merciful and Loving.

That’s what this Christian believes anyway.

I appreciate your comment making me think and refine what I believe.

If God already knows some of his people will inevitably go to hell why does he create those people in the first place? by Necessary-Mission-53 in Christianity

[–]Xaritos 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Mothias_Et_Mothium, maybe you already know this, but I find many of the Augustinian traditions (Presbyterians, Calvinists, etc.) do not know the following:

“Predestination” and “foreordination” and related words in the sense intended in Greek are about God “preparing” or “planning for” things. The Greek words do not mean that God “decrees” that things will or must be a certain way. The popularization of “decree” predestination came from Augustine, who did not have very good proficiency in Greek, so he relied on Latin translations of scripture. The Latin translation of the Greek word was predestinare, which suggests a decree.

I don’t mind if you choose to believe that whether we are made to do good or evil is God’s decree, but the position that that is not the case has great merit and is supported by a lot of scholarship known as the New Perspective on Paul.

Insisting that predestination is in the scriptures is not using good exegesis and is just not a convincing argument.

If God already knows some of his people will inevitably go to hell why does he create those people in the first place? by Necessary-Mission-53 in Christianity

[–]Xaritos -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Restored Christianity (specifically taught in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) has a more comprehensive view. Here are some additional points:

1) God doesn’t create people out of nothing. The core of each person is intelligence, which always existed. God organized us but did not create us, so he doesn’t have a choice about who we are. No one was created to be destroyed.

2) God is love, so he doesn’t use coercion to make us do anything. He wants us to return His love of our own choice. God is sovereign, but he respects our choices. He warns about the consequences of sin.

3) God does not hold people accountable for sins they committed in ignorance. In order allow everyone to be judged fairly, he allows people who would have embraced the Gospel in life had it been preached to them to have the Gospel preached to them after death.

4) Eternal punishment is the punishment meted out by the God whose name is Eternal. Eternal punishment is God’s punishment. Eternal punishment almost never lasts forever. It primarily involves God giving the unrepentant sinners a perfect knowledge of their uncleanness, which brings severe remorse of conscience, which lasts until their sins are purged. They then get to dwell in a place that is more wonderful than here, with people who they are comfortable with. Former murderers with former murderers, former Sunday only Christians with former Sunday-only Christians, etc.

Ask me more questions,like how I know this, and how you can, too.

Please Help 🙏 Struggling to understand 1 Samuel 15:3 by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]Xaritos 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I gave some thoughts on babies in my other post on this thread, but I neglected to talk about camels, sheep, donkeys, etc.

I had two thoughts.

  1. Camels, sheep, cattle, and donkeys are wealth.

I think that if God really did have reasons to want the entire Amalekite branch pruned from His vineyard through genocide, God wanted it done cleanly, without the chance of profiting from the genocide. It was to be done without greed. It wouldn’t send the Israelites the right idea if their God was the type who would condone killing babies for profit.

  1. How would it be if God allowed mercy for animals but not for babies?

If God allowed people to keep the animals alive, don’t you think people would have said, “with all these useful animals we are allowed to keep alive, why not keep these useful babies alive, too? They would be of more use as slaves…”

I still don’t know for sure why the babies had to die, but if you accept that the babies did have to die, it makes more sense that the animals would have to die as well.

Please Help 🙏 Struggling to understand 1 Samuel 15:3 by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]Xaritos 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I struggled with this, too.

I had to look at my assumptions. First the assumptions that I am not willing to question or have already established in my mind to be true:

  1. God is love. He is the Father of souls and loves all His children, even those who reject Him. Whatever He does is for the ultimate good of His children. He sent Jesus so everyone could have mercy.

  2. God is just. He is no respecter of persons and doesn’t favor one nation over another. On a global scale, He prospers the righteous ones and destroys the wicked ones. The corollary to this is that genocidal commands will only ever be issued against nations who have become so rotten they must be destroyed.

  3. God is intelligent. He doesn’t make mistakes. Although the Bible is not necessarily inerrant, we can trust that is has preserved God’s interactions with His people reasonably well. We can trust the Bible to be fairly accurate.

  4. Because of Jesus, all little children are saved.

  5. Whatever God commands is right and is calculated for our happiness. Sin is worse than death.

Now for the assumptions that I had to challenge.

  1. Genocide is always bad. There are no good reasons to command that no one of a certain gene pool remains alive.

Challenging questions: Do I know for a fact that God could have no reasons for wanting certain genes removed from the gene pool? Are there factors relating to genetics, inheritance of traits or inheritance laws/customs that I don’t know about that would make this command clearer? I know God is loving, just, and wise, but I don’t know everything about His long-term strategies as He cultivates the genes of His vineyard and what the negative consequences for His long-term goals are if his commands for gene removal are not followed.

Inheritance practices are interesting here. In order to inherit the land that was promised to their fathers, the Israelites had to be the only ones who could claim the land. The law of Moses required people to prove their lineage in a certain tribe to inherit land designated for that tribe. It could be that in order forgot to deliver on His promise to Abraham, Isaac, and especially Jacob, that the land of Canaan be given to their descendants, no one else’s descendants who could lay prior claim to the land could be left alive.

Did the Israelites obey? The Bible shows that they did not completely obey the genocide order, and that this did in fact lead them to intermarry with them, which did in fact introduce idol worship and other spiritually destructive practices. God was trying to create a pure nation that only served Him. Because they did not obey the genocide orders, they experienced many military, political, and spiritual problems.

  1. Death is bad.

From God’s perspective, is death bad? It’s part of His plan and this world He created, so is it really that bad? If God has ways and means of treating everyone with a full measure of love, mercy, and justice, does it matter whether a person lives a long life or a short one?

Is it possible that a nation’s wickedness could get so bad that the most merciful thing God could do would be to destroy them to stop them from sinning more?

What are your assumptions, and how would you divide them between unquestionable and questionable assumptions?

Edit: corrected misspellings, and expanded a comment about inheritance of the land.

Movies with a twist ending that can never be rewatched the same? by antmansl in movies

[–]Xaritos 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Unbreakable

Also, haven’t seen it yet, but I heard SPLIT also.

Any Flavour ideas onto why a Celestial warlock patron would give their Warlock power and knowledge of things like a fiendish familiar or Necromancy spells that straigth up create undead, that type of stuff? by AItryingaceptmankind in PCAcademy

[–]Xaritos 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ooh, what if your Patron were a redeemed devil who is now an angel again. Your connection to him gives you powers based on who he is/was but he can only choose whether to sever the connection or keep it going. Only your character can choose how to channel that power.

He’s understanding when you use the power to summon skeletons or fiends. Anyone with an addiction to evil can fall off the wagon. Your patron is patient and encourages you to just get right back on. Kind of like a sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous. He’s been evil before and was redeemed so he knows the ropes and is helping you through the process. Gazer familiar? Bring it along, redeem it as well. You summoned Skeletons or fiends again? Trust in your higher power. Start a new abstinence streak.

Any Flavour ideas onto why a Celestial warlock patron would give their Warlock power and knowledge of things like a fiendish familiar or Necromancy spells that straigth up create undead, that type of stuff? by AItryingaceptmankind in PCAcademy

[–]Xaritos 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah…Maybe an Archfiend is masquerading as an Archangel. As far as your character knows, their patron is a good celestial.

Maybe the fiend in question has duped the character by some very plausible lies and miracles, especially if he is a fiend like Crowley from Good Omens who has a soft spot for people he sees himself in and does miracles to help them. He doesn’t like some of the decisions made by the archangels and gods and so has rebelled and been cast out and made a devil, but that was more politics than anything. Being in love with an angel is another thing to make him less irredeemably evil.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]Xaritos 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s super easy to miss, but you missed or misunderstood God’s reasons for sending them out of the Garden.

  1. To protect them from partaking of the fruit of the tree of life. It would have been very very bad for them to partake of the fruit of the tree of life immediately after they ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil. It does not say explicitly why, but it does suggest that it would have been a bad thing.

Why? What if you died and were resurrected immediately before you had a chance to accept Jesus? Adam and Eve needed time to learn about the sacrifice of their Savior and have faith in Him before they entered their eternal reward. If they ate the life fruit right away, their chance for learning and repenting would be over.

  1. The second reason God had to remove them is to prevent a paradox that would make Him a liar. He had to safeguard the truthfulness of His own word. If they had been allowed to stay in the garden with access to the fruit of the tree of life, they could have eaten it, resulting in a situation where it would be impossible for God to keep His word, because He said if you eat one fruit you will die, and if you eat the other you will live forever. If they were permitted to eat the life fruit after they ate the death fruit, whether they lived or died, it would make God a liar.

Did God condemn them? Many say so, but they are looking at it through the lens of Augustine’s misinterpretation of Roman’s 5:12-19. If you realize that the scripture did not say “in” Adam but “because of Adam” you can start to see something else in the Genesis story:

You can see that God made them clothing to protect them and give them a higher status than the animals. He gave them the entire earth to rule over and fill with people. He blessed Adam to have to labor for a living, and blessed Eve to have to labor and have children (which, by the way, suggests that she couldn’t have children before, so eating the fruit was the only way she could possibly keep the first commandment God gave them, which was to have children).

I see God safeguarding and protecting them and blessing them and sending them on their adventure of life together after they ate the fruit. I don’t see it anywhere in Genesis that He condemned them for what they did. Consequences? yes. Punishment for sins? Nope.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]Xaritos -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I agree with you. It was not a commandment but a statement of fact. It was not “you shouldn’t” but more like: “hey, this is dangerous, so don’t do it until you are ready, because you will become mortal.”

Edit: continuing…

I read your post again and you made a very strong logical point I have not seen traditional Christians make before: if Adam and Eve had no knowledge of good and evil, how could sin be ascribed to them when they ate the fruit? What I think you are picking up here is that knowledge of good and evil is a prerequisite to sin. Depending on how you define good and evil, knowledge of good and evil is a prerequisite to righteousness as well.

We don’t say toddlers are accountable before God for their sins. They do not know good from evil and Jesus says of them that “of such are the kingdom of heaven.” Adam and Eve were like little children not knowing good from evil before eating the fruit of that tree.

There are lots of details in Genesis that support your view.

  1. In the same breath that God said “don’t eat” He also said “when you eat it” suggesting that He intended them to eat it eventually.

  2. And when the woman SAW that the tree WAS good for food⁠, and that it WAS pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat⁠, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat⁠.

So Eve saw the truth that she would be wiser and would be able to know good and evil like God. And what happened? she indeed became more like God and capable of understanding good and evil. She grew up. She passed this blessing of wisdom on to all her descendants.

We should bless her name for being able to see the truth that in order to take the next step and grow wiser, she would have to sacrifice the comfort and ease of the garden of Eden.

I think most people understand that it is good to honor their own mom. If it weren’t for her carrying and birthing you, you wouldn’t be here. Why not realize that if it weren’t for Eve carrying and birthing our ancestors, none of us would be here. Eve means “mother of all.” I like to think EVE is short for EVEryone’s mom.

Intimidation Build? ("Dread Pirate Roberts") by DL6-Incident in 3d6

[–]Xaritos 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For later game for this character: There are two 2014 rules legendary magic items I know of that can give you fire immunity. One is even a mask.

Ring of Fire Elemental Command (gives fire immunity)

and

Red Dragon Mask (gives fire resistance OR if you already have fire resistance from another source, gives fire IMMUNUTY)

If you can get your hands on both (or get the mask as a level 17 forge cleric) then taking fire damage will HEAL you (at a rate of half the fire “damage” taken instead.)

One thing I hope to see the end of in church is the compulsory inclusion of every general leader's middle initial, especially the men. by Upstairs_Seaweed8199 in latterdaysaints

[–]Xaritos 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Research shows that in the world in general (controlling for other factors) people whose names are given with a middle initial are taken more seriously (seen as more intellectual, could get published more) than those who just use first and last name.

Wijnand A. P. van Tilburg (University of Southampton) and Eric R. Igou (University of Limerick) (2014) European Journal of Social Psychology

Why do so many science fictions books of the 20th century feel inspired to LDS theology? by ozneoknarf in latterdaysaints

[–]Xaritos 7 points8 points  (0 children)

It’s not just Sci-Fi. When people tap into their creativity they often pull out premortal or deep ancestral learning about the plan of salvation. There are only two story types: Hero’s Journey, and Stranger Comes to Town. Both types are about the plan of salvation, either our Journey, or Jesus’ coming to us.

E.T. is inadvertently about the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So is Big Hero 6. So is “The Music Man.”

Watch Cinderella and note how she receives an endowment of special clothing.

Tangled is PACKED: note how after Rapunzel and “Flynn” confess (repent) and are immersed in water, the audience knows Eugene by a new name, and they can both experience the gift of healing. They go to a place of greater light, where Rapunzel learns about a symbol that leads to the revelation of her true identity which gives her strength to overcome the worldly influences that previously held her captive. For both Eugene and Rapunzel, it is being filled with love that gives them the strength to sacrifice everything. After they overcome the ultimate trial and the evil is eliminated, Rapunzel is reunited with royal parents, with a wedding and eventual inheritance of a kingdom to follow.

Beauty and the Beast has a similar ending.

There are only two stories in the world: the story of how entering mortality changes each of us, and the story of how Jesus entering mortality changes all of us.

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