----------------------------------- lucaspa Tue Jan 24, 2006 12:00 pm Re: My Questions... ----------------------------------- So why do still 70-80% of humans go to hell? Why isn't God capable of saving them? First, where did you get this percentage? As far as I know, no one alive has counted the people in heaven or hell. Now, there is another hidden assumption here: Hell is a place only of eternal punishment. Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle did an update of Inferno. It's very entertaining reading. Like Dante, they slam people who disagree with them or have wronged them by placing them in particularly embarrassing situations in Hell. However, they do approach the problem of why a loving God has what appears to be a private torture chamber. Their answer: Hell isn't a torture chamber. It's an asylum for the theologically insane. Having tried to get your attention all through life and been rejected, God is now trying to get your attention all thru eternity. Of course I've heard the "free-will" stuff quite often... but still it should be possible for an all-powerful God despite of the freewill, to show himself to men...? There's no way to get around freewill. Not unless God turns people into puppets. And that deprives us of having meaningful lives. Any subtle or overt intervention that interferes with free will also deprives our lives of choices, and thus of meaning by having real consequences of our choices. Further more, does God really do all he can too reach out to people? Why doesn't God do miracles the way he used to 2000 years ago? Why doesn't he speak to people in their dreams, why doesn't he do miraclulas things anymore? Doesn't God speak to people? In dreams and otherwise? Many living people report on a personal relationship with God. You apparently don't have one, but are you sure you would recognize God speaking? Would we recognize miracles if we saw them? Or do we pass them off as "coincidence"? In 1862 Lee lost a copy of orders that detailed the movements of his entire army. It was found by Union soldiers and brought to the commander -- Gen. McClellan. The result was the battle of Antietam. Now, without those orders no one has any doubt that Lee would have beaten McClellan and the Confederacy gained its independence. Even with his enemy's plans, all McClellan could get was a draw. Now, the Confederacy had an investigation on how the orders got lost. All copies were accounted for. So where did that copy come from? Miracle and intervention by God or just an unexplained historical quirk? Another thing concerning God not doing all he can too reach man, why does he use humans to reach out to humans... the christians are so full of themselves and don't spread the gospel so often, because they are so lazy or whatever... so why doesn't he come up with, I don't know a personal angel for everyone, reminding him of the truth.... Didn't God directly speak to Moses via the Burning Bush and other encounters? How well did that work out? Moses takes a short sabbatical and the Hebrews make a golden calf! Again, many millions of people report "speaking" to God thru that "small, still voice". Maybe many people simply don't listen. A final assumption: there is a Hell for eternal punishment. This is not a concept in the OT. People die and lose consciousness. Sometime later they are revived with their bodies. No Hell. The modern concept of Hell arose during the intertestament period among a sect called the Essenes. Part of that concept got incorporated into the NT. Perhaps the whole concept of a Hell is a mistaken idea. This is very similar to the point ldqtrinity made. It's something that, IMO, needs to be considered. Is Hell in its modern form a human construct and something that does not really exist?