One thing that I would like to say is that I never believe it is wrong for us to question God or the bible! This is how I have learned much of what i know. I dont question God acusingly, but with an open heart, in faith, telling God i cant understand this certain thing and this makes no sense to me. GOD IS NOT AFRAID OF OUR QUESTIONS.

So many people are not real with themselves, or with God. They will believe a thing, because their church or pastor told them so, but never trully search it out for themselves. This is blindness! We must search for truth and be in constant prayer to God to reveal this truth according to His Word, no matter how hard or confusing it may seem.

Real quick about the questions your mom had. Well for one, Jesus said that we will not even have wives or husbands in heaven, we will be like the angels. I dont know exactly what that means. But I do know that God looks at family alittle dif. that we do. I mean really all of our ancestors are the same anyway, I believe from Adam and Eve, but if you dont, we all are related somwhere along the way. And Jesus said, who are my brothers and mother and sisters? Those who do the wil of God are my family. So in Heaven, we wont nes. have family like we have it now, we think of flesh and blood, but in Heaven we will have more like spiritual family. I dont believe you will recognize your mom as “your mom” but rather another person who loves God (if she goes to Heaven). I am not exactly sure, i can reason. but regardless if I know all the answers or not, I KNOW God and I know His salvation, if I need to know thos questions your mom asked, then I believe God will reveal it to me as I seek Him in faith and trust.

About eternal hell; your motive to tell your friends/family about Jesus(so they dont go to hell) was a worthy motive, you were trully concerned about them. However if you yourself did not trully understand your own need for Christ to redeem you, then it was only a matter of time for someone like your mom to steer onto another course.
I am not going to use a whole lot of scripture here, just biblical reason from the scriptures.
I am not sure if you believe in Heaven, but most people do and have no problem with it,because it will be wonderful. But hell, that is a place of torment and pain and fire, who want want to believe in that place, it is scary to think that ppl. will spend their whole eternity there. But we must know that God is LOVE. We must have an understanding of His holiness, His perfection. We must know that mankind totally blew it when we sinned against God in the garden. We have to understand that we are completely and totally lost! We have all personally broken Gods moral lawe, the 10 commandments. We have stolen, lied, lusted, dishonored our parents, ext. We have to see that if we are real withour selves, we will see we have indeed broken Gods law and we are Gods enemy! Gods wrath abides on those who’s sin is upon them. We have no hope in the world, we cannot control our sinful nature. Humanity is like Lord of the Flies, put any 20 people on a remote island and eventually evil will take over and it will be sin island. Just let children grow up with no parents or guidance, they dont have to be taught to steal and lie and fight, they learn it themselves, from within!
We have all gone astray, and there is no human who does good(Gods standard of good is perfection!) Therefore all of humanity justly deserves hell! God set up the law(10 commandments) and if we keep them our lives will be blessed, if we dont keep them, curses will come upon us. God gave us the 10 commandments to show us that no one can keep them perfectly! No one at all. That means no one can enter the presence of God and none are righteous to enter Heaven!
God is just, and because He is just, He must punish sin. Even in corrupt America, a judge would be considered unjust if they allowed an admitant rapist to go free. How much more Holy and Just is the creator of the universe.
This why the good news of Jesus Christ is soooo good! Every single goody goody Christian deserves eternal hell because they violated and rebelled in sin against an eternal God!! However God so loved the world, that in HIs love and divine grace has made a way for us to escape the eternal hell we deserve! Jesus Christ never sinned and was perfect, and His death satisfied the wrath and the punishment that our dredful sin deserved, when He died on the cross, and was risen fromthe grave proving He had the power over hell!

That sounds like a voice of fear. As for me, I cannot side with a diety who would condemn my parents to everlasting hell. It is against any ethical or moral standard that makes sense to me, so how can I worship with a Being who will do this in the name of Righteousnes - except out of fear? I am sorry DC, but that is too high a price for me to pay.

If your friend ever faces the God who cast her pagan parents into Hell, will she tell God that his judgements to her parents were righteous, just, loving and true? You know she won’t. Nobody can do that - yet that is what the Christian is forced to believe. That is too large a logical disconect for me, and I cannot bridge that. I can only live my life to what makes sense to me - and I cannot pretend otherwise out of fear.

I find effectiveness in questioning though, because it breaks things apart. With a fundie, when directing them questions, they can be broken into pieces, and at sometimes, although they wont admit it, come in clash with their own reality.

I can say that I don’t necessarily follow that belief(the one akin to hinduiism), but I think of it as a major possibility, because the BIble does not say we’re going to have the same names, we’re going to recognize each other, or anything like that at all. It says we’ll be in heavenly bodies, which could be anything, and more or less completely different.

What my main point is, I don’t think anyone really knows to be honest. Which makes it all the more a mystery, and in some ways, imaginative and hopeful. In other ways, downright destructive.

This is the mystical answer. It’s also the answer of much of Indian religion (”Hinduism”, although I don’t like the term; it’s a made-up Western concept). I don’t know that I even believe that much any more, but I’ve always preferred it, as it’s the most inclusive, and the neatest (Occam’s razor and all). The Kabbalists say that when the Bible tells us that God is one, it isn’t saying that there’s only one God - it’s saying that God is all there is.

This is why I can’t communicate with fundamentalists. We’re almost literally speaking two different languages.

Another way I look at this, is that JEsus speaking of eternal life meaning that simply the human race benefits and thus the race (our children’s children, and so on) will continue and continue and continue.

Those are two different ways I look at it. But personally, I would say since Mercy triumphs over Justice, Love wins, and God came to save the Lost, and every knee will bow, and every tongue confess, and all the nations will have peace, then all will be reconciled to God.

Honestly I have always thought, that heaven might not be at all what most Christians think. That we might be in a different state of consionsness. That maybe we’ll be a part of God, like a cell is to the body, maybe we won’t even remember our human lives, etc. I ponder those things because they are not made clear in the Bible either.

I have also thought of the Lake of Fire, and thought of it as God destroying the Evil in us, but the Good in us goes with him.

Another Lake of Fire issue I have is: How can the LAke of Fire burn someone forever? Surely, that someone would burn up and die. A second spiritual death? That must mean dead all the way? Jesus using the words “perish” also doesnt mean everlasting torment. Just some more inconsistencies I have with eternal damnantion, and spiritual punishments.

I have many ideas, which I think of and ponder, because I really don’t subscribe fully to any denomination, and “am my own”

HelIsSailing: Yeah, I’m really sorry for what fundamentalism has done to you. I know too well that fundamentalism can destroy people. It can abuse them so badly, torment them. I have a friend at my church where he was in the psych ward then in deprogramming institutes for 12 years because of a CULT (which is worse than fundamentalism but damn close, damn close I say)

Anyway, what I belieive is what I believe, and I just “know it” - I believe in this Jesus stuff. becuase I want to. Because I find hoep in it, because I find love in it, because I find mystery in it. But I don’t think I’m right, I know I could be fully flat-faced wrong. But I dont think anyone is right anywqy. When I was an atheist. I felt the same way. Only difference is, I have a good chruch family who is just like me (intellectual and always challenging theology) I’m glad I found a church that works for me.

I call myself a Christian. But I honestly would like to label myself a Secular Humanist Christian. If that makes any sense at all. lol

I think the greatest gift from God is secularism. The beauty of secularism is we can all unite together DESPITE our differences. I love that, more than anything else.

Anyway, I could go on and on, but check out
The Case against hell…

Matt, Thanks for the link. I have am aware of these kinds of arguments, and I agree many of them are quite valid! (ie Sheol does NOT equal Hell). In the end though, I think the concept of Hell certainly evolved over time as you look through the Biblical writings. I think it is explicit in Revelation, and to a lesser degree in portions of Matthew. When you get to much later writings like the Apocalypse of Peter, you get the concept of Hell fully developed - so you can see how the ideas and myths evolved and grew with time.

At any rate, I think you have a very healthy perspective on Biblical inspiration and your Christian walk. As a former Fundamentalist, I really appreciate when you say things like:

If my theology is wrong, I’ll be the first to admit it. I claim no monopoly on truth. I just choose to believe the Apostolic Creed, which mentions nothing of hell or enternal punishment.

Most of my Christian friends would never budge in the Truth department. They cannot ever admit that they could possibly be wrong, and they are just doing the best they can along with everyone else. That is the main difference that I have learned when I left Christianity. All of us, me included, believe some things that are just wrong. We are all wrong about something, everyone reading this has an assumption about life that is not correct - but that is ok. We are all just doing the best we can, and hopefully learning and doing better in the process.

This isn’t a problem for me, as I’m not a believer, but I’m curious as to how you respond when you’re arguing with “conventional” Christians and they hit you with this.