Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Christian Annihilationism
Yishai
Veteran
I was never aware that there was an Annihilationism view in Christianity. It seems I'm learning more about Christianity nowadays than when I did when I considered myself one. For those that don't know, Christian Annihilationism is the belief in conditional immortality. The good are redeemed eternally in heaven. The wicked are suffer the eternal punishment of annihilation. Their souls are destroyed.
This makes a lot more sense to me and seems infinitely more believable. I always had a huge problem with infinite punishment/torture for finite transgression(s). This also makes more sense in the fact that God is more merciful than he is angry.
Anyway, here is a link about "The Case for Annihilationism": http://www.gregboyd.org/essays/god-essays/judgement/the-case-for-annihilationism/
This makes a lot more sense to me and seems infinitely more believable. I always had a huge problem with infinite punishment/torture for finite transgression(s). This also makes more sense in the fact that God is more merciful than he is angry.
Anyway, here is a link about "The Case for Annihilationism": http://www.gregboyd.org/essays/god-essays/judgement/the-case-for-annihilationism/
0
Comments
In this sense, it might be reasonable to ask 1. who says what you credit as fact is, in fact, a fact and 2. who, precisely, is this "God" you refer to? If the answer comes from others -- however sincere and good-hearted -- then the matter has yet to be settled and uncertainty will prevail.
As I say, people believe what they want to believe. And that's OK as far as it goes. But to pin our hopes for an assured happiness on what we might believe does not really go far enough. Buddhism, as one example, encourages unceasing investigation, not unceasing belief.
FWIW.
I'm not a Christian, but I'm not so far removed to forget what I used to believe about it. Obviously, it's all rubbish. I'm just saying that the Annihilationism would've been something I accepted back when I was, in fact, still Christian.
Christianity is all about taking beliefs on the credit of others. And that certainly does not get us very far. Uncertainty does prevail. It prevailed until I dropped Christianity altogether.
From my understanding:
We may take certain beliefs from Buddha, but those are not held highly until we investigate and discern the wisdom in them ourselves. We don't take it at face value. We have a path set out before us, but we verify through investigation that it is correct all along the way. When it seems that we have come across some part of the path that was unknown, we investigate, being careful not to be biased, for the truth.