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Charity, I think you can get a pass on calling the idea of punishment by immolation "abhorrent." I don't think that's an atheist conclusion and I do think a significant number of Christians share it. I suggest in the future you could add a qualifier to make it clear that you're interjecting your feelings, ("abhorrent to me") to make the statement a little more diplomatic. I will leave it to the page's Christians to determine whether you crossed a line in their view. In mine, you did not. But I will yield to our brethren of faith ...

Did you Turn the Page? Bob Seger

*reads the 9 verses* Even in his own version, it says people will be judged according to their works, and that's all they say. He went from those words to "they'll suffer for some time, and then they'll be annihilated." That was a heck of a jump on his part. It said they would be "judged" (HOW?) and they would be judged "according to their works" (WHAT'S THE CRITERIA, WHAT'S AT STAKE, AND WHAT ARE THE POSSIBLE OUTCOMES?) With no other verses, JS inserted his own ideas into the subject. -He footnoted and cross-referenced all sorts of things....but not when it came to that. So, it seems that his ideas were more important than being truthful on this subject. It speaks of vanity. It's the kind of thing that you would expect of a man who would publish his own version of the Bible.

Parables, from what I can see, are each meant to make a single, specific point, in a manner that almost anyone could understand it, and that's it. They are not meant to dissect in fine detail for doctrine- except possibly for the single, specific point. The parable in question is rather pointedly about forgiveness. So, in the parable, the framing story shows a person in prison until a debt is paid. As a basis for doctrine, that's missing the mark (to put it nicely.) Shame on JS if he couldn't just see that immediately, let alone catch it on a later read. As I see it, for him to miss something that obvious means he didn't WANT to see it, and was busy trying to justify something he wanted to see, even if he had to torture the verses to PRETEND that's what they said. Right now, it makes no sense to me for a punishment to be more suffering and THEN annihilation. I'll have to look over the 9 verses and see if, somehow, it makes sense to me afterwards.

*looks up from his book* I'll be back in a bit, but I want to see if anyone else gets it first. I'll keep reading in the meantime.

On a long and lonesome highway east of Omaha You can listen to the engine rolling out his one note song You can think about the woman Or the girl you knew the night before

Even VPW argued that the soul is simply your breath life.

Quantitative: countable. We have a soul. One. It's a thing. Not part of our imagination. Immeasurable: it doesn't have weight or mass. There's nothing about a soul that science can point to, independent of the body, in order to demonstrate its presence. It might be easier if I asked you what a soul is, independent of the body. I'm suggesting that St. Thomas Quinas' meditations on the soul carry no more weight in the real world than George Lucas' notes on how The Force works. (If you can think of a polite way for me to say that, I'm all ears)

Generously sufficient, thank you! Can you explain further what you mean by "quantitative immeasurable"? That brings back a memory of a blood test with my "quantitative covid antibody results" i.e. numerical antibody count. LOL

I can't use the first line because it contains the title.

I am reminded of Aunt Jackie, Mom's sister. She had a business called... The Business. Nope. That's right. Just, The Business. Or sometimes, Tha Business. She found a way to insert the phrase "The Business" into EVERY conversation, regardless of relevance. She'd just MAKE it relevant. The vagueness was deliberate and calculated. Anyone: "Oh, your business, Jackie? What is that? What kind of business?" Jackie: "Are you really interested to know? Do you have six hours after dinner for me and your uncle to tell you all about it?" Anyone: "No." Jackie: "How 'bout all day Sunday?" Similarly, Anyone: "Can you recommend a 'good' translation, John?" JS: "Why, yes. Yes, I can..." (The business? Amway. The translation? REV)

Bingo and bingo. I'm not sure about this one yet? It might come to me.

My mistake - the thread is in the Matters of Faith forum.

That's cool.

My apologies to you personally. I thought I was clear that this was as a species, not a criticism directed at you personally. I thought I was as far from singling you out as I could possibly be. But it is inherent in our opposing views that we will occasionally step on each other's toes. So allow me to rephrase, please, in a way that does not insult anyone directly or indirectly: Again with my apologies, is that better?

Hold on a minute... I don't think (or hope) any of us in this discussion on either side is being arrogant about their beliefs.

Since this is the "atheism" side of the fence as far as conversation goes, it's not off topic to posit that the soul simply does not exist. It is a function of the body, the name we give to this complex firing of synapses that I cannot begin to articulate because of its chemical complexity, but when the body stops, so does the soul. We believe that for almost literally every other animal. But in our arrogance as a species, we imagine ourselves to be an exception. We, alone in the animal kingdom, possess a quantitative, immeasurable attribute that contains our personality and will survive the cessation of our physical bodies. I know, the alternative is to have "no hope," and that leads to a feeling of, well, hopelessness. Then again, 10 trillion trillion years from now, I will not be burning in hell, so I have that going for me.

I appreciate and have no dispute what John is teaching, only adding an opposite opinion above. Put in legal terms, for me; let's say I'm still in the "discovery" phase of the argument...

I'm thinking that I may have crossed the line by sharing my atheistic idea on a doctrinal forum by calling God's torment in the lake of fire of the unsaved/wicked (whether temporary or eternal) as being abhorrent. My biblical critique of the doctrine would be whether the word "fire" used in Schoenheit's Appendix 4 is figurative or literal or a mixture of both. That I do not know.

If you go over to the doctrinal subforum, there is the thread "Salvation Universal or Not?" where I shared John Schoenheit's Appendix 4 from his REV bible. It's basically the written form of the doctrine he teaches in the tape. His point #6 is called "The 'immortal soul' is not biblical; the Bible never says the soul is immortal," if you are interested in reading it.

JS never once says in his Appendix that "fire" is used figuratively when it comes to the lake of fire. So, what he is teaching in his point #10 is that the torture in the Lake of Fire, before one actually dies, is similar in nature to how garbage actually burns up - some things take longer than others before they are nothing but ashes. This idea of actually burning for any length of time is simply abhorrent. I think it shows how deceitful his opening paragraphs are when he wants to defend that God is love. In those paragraphs, he only refers to how unloving, unrighteous and coldhearted eternal torment would be and does not even mention temporary torment, only the unsaved being "annihilated." So, by the time you get to point #10, the God of Love now appears to see temporary torment as loving and righteous. He writes (underlining is mine): "One of the most powerful truths about God in the Bible is “God is love,” but some Christians teach that God tortures the unsaved in the flames of hell for all eternity. How could that be love? Thankfully, God does not do that. The Bible says that the saved will live forever and the unsaved will be annihilated in the Lake of Fire. There is no “eternal torment” in the Bible. There are a number of important reasons why many people have had difficulty believing that God would torture people eternally. One reason that we have just seen is that God is love and torturing people forever is not love. Another reason is that God is righteous, it is not logical that someone could commit sin in one short lifetime that would be justly recompensed by being tormented forever. How could everlasting torture be just or righteous? Also, the doctrine of eternal torture makes saved people seem very cold-hearted. Could it really be that the saved are rejoicing forever while hearing the screams of people being tortured forever? And frankly, even if the saved could not hear the cries of the damned, would that make such a big difference? Just knowing that people were being tortured forever would seem to make everlasting life hard to enjoy. Civilized people will not even torture their worst enemies here on earth; does that change when the saved are perfected? Unsaved people are not tortured forever, and the teaching that they are contradicts many clear and simple scriptures."

Matthew 18 does show that without forgiveness, the debt must be paid. Once it is paid, the person is released. If it is not paid, the person remains in prison. The parable does not support his doctrine though which is "The wicked are annihilated after a period of suffering, and that period of suffering fulfills the Word of God and the justice of God." In that sense, he is not talking about purgatory where Catholics go from there only to heaven. He does list 9 verses that talk about being judged "according to one's works." Do you think these verses support there is suffering according to one's works before one is destroyed in the Lake of Fire?

After watching the tape, I have to say his argument is a good one. But I need to pray about and further study his teaching but must also include St. Thomas Aquinas' opposite take that the soul is immoral. In sum, Aquinas has argued that the soul (a spiritual entity) cannot be destroyed by fire (a physical entity). Here's some of what Aquinas argued: AI Overview St. Thomas Aquinas' most renowned work, the Summa Theologica, contains his arguments concerning the soul as a spiritual, simple, and indivisible entity, which cannot be destroyed in the same way that material substances can. Explanation: Aquinas elaborates on the nature of the soul and its relation to the body in the Summa Theologica, particularly in the First Part. He argues that the soul is the substantial form of the body, meaning it is the principle by which a human being is animated and unified. He maintains that because the soul is immaterial, it is not composed of parts and thus cannot be broken down or corrupted like material substances. Key Points in the Summa Theologica concerning the Soul: Simplicity and Indivisibility: The soul is considered simple because it is a spiritual substance, unlike material objects which are composed of matter and form. This simplicity makes it indivisible, meaning it cannot be broken down into smaller parts. Immateriality: The soul's spiritual nature allows it to know universal truths, which cannot be contained within the limitations of material organs. This immateriality makes the soul incorruptible, as it is not subject to physical decay. Incorruptibility: Because the soul is not composed of parts and is not dependent on matter for its existence, it cannot be destroyed through the decomposition of the body. Note: Aquinas also explores the relationship between the soul and the body in his Commentary on Aristotle's Treatise on the soul and the Quaestiones Disputatae de Anima. These works provide further insight into his understanding of the human soul.

*reads the Appendix* So, he re-invented Purgatory, a name that does not appear in the Bible! I noticed he made an extensive case for everything EXCEPT the Purgatory. For that, he had EXACTLY ONE VERSE. (Matthew 18: 35.) One thing my twi experience taught me, was that, whenever I saw a doctrine based on EXACTLY ONE VERSE, to look at that verse a lot more carefully, because it was being misunderstood or misinterpreted. (Even its proponent couldn't find another verse that said that. He had to go to Romans 2:5- which doesn't say that- and add a word salad and then claim it DOES say that.) Matthew 18 ended with a proverb whose purpose was explaining forgiveness. I notice he was rather selective in reading into the Parable. He didn't read into the slave throwing the other slave in prison over 100 denarii owed himself here, just the last verse. I'd be a lot slower on the draw than to make either a glib comment, or worse, an entire doctrine, over a single verse like that. JS should know better. But then, if one's "education" is limited to twi and ex-twi, one can be hampered with problems like this for life. vpw hinged doctrines on a single verse all the time.