Heaven, Hell and Suicide...
Although I have no plans to go and top myself, I've been looking at a few web sites about this matter (and have also been thinking about it for myself) and I was just wondering something...
Is it really possible to...
1. Kill yourself, but make sure that it takes a while.
2. Ask God (or whoever) for forgiveness,
3. Go up to Heaven?
Now I know that it's wrong to just go and kill yourself, however if God really wants us all to be in Heaven with him, and if His Son's sacrifice has cleaned us of ALL our sins (provided we accept Christ as savour) then all one has to do is as one is dying is regret ones action(s) ask for forgiveness, and God (or whoever) will be bound by his own word to forgive you, and take you into Heaven...
Now I know that for those that one will/may leave behind will most likely be very upset, but really this does not matter, as one day they will be reunited with you and will be overjoyed to be with you once more.
And after all, if any of them really feel that bad about what has happened, then all they have to do is do the same as you have gone and done.
Also, if one is a child of God then why should one be a mug and just stick around on this sinful Earth (with all it's wars and the like) when you can go to a much better place instead?
Also if God has taken you into Heaven, then anyone who has an issue with it is themselves being selfish and in fact is deifying the will of God?
By rights they should be happy for you!! !!
As for me I'm fine with my life, and although I won't mind going to Heaven today, I'm quite willing to wait for now, but even so, this was still playing on my mind as I was wondering why some people think that it's so wrong that God won't forgive you for it.
After all in the Bible, it is said that the ONLY unforgivable sin is 'blast flamy against the Holy Spirit' which I can assure you is not just going round saying that you aren't a Christian or don't agree with it's beliefs but rather holding total and eternal hatred for God and his people.
Goodbye till next time.
The problem would obviously be in making it a 3 step plan. It is hard to sincerely repent of something if your plan included strategic repenting.
God actually wants you to be in this sinful hole. If he didn't, then he would have killed you upon conversion. Your role here is scripturally supposed to be to convert others to the true faith, and to seek him and your moral improvement during your stay on Earth.
Not all Christians believe that suicide automatically send you to Hell. The Catholics taught that doctrine. Some, not all, Protestants follow that idea. Look at the Hebrews, they have no burning Hell at all. They would say after suicide you sleep in Sheol until judgement like everyone else. The Sadducees say, you sleep forever.
In Ecclesiates, it says "The living know that they shall die, yet the dead know nothing.". The Jews who believed in a resurrection simply said, that fallen will reawaken to eternal shame. There s no mention of the Greek inspired Tartaros or Hell. Many Jews even denied the souls existence.
In Ecclesiates, it says "The living know that they shall die, yet the dead know nothing.". The Jews who believed in a resurrection simply said, that fallen will reawaken to eternal shame. There s no mention of the Greek inspired Tartaros or Hell. Many Jews even denied the souls existence.
Well, now we are getting into much deeper issues.
We can argue that suicide could just be insanity, thus not a sin.
We can also argue against the existence of hell. For the most part, most Christians accept the existence of a soul and a life after this one, in part because the Christian texts tend to demand it. The real issue is the nature of hell, not whether it exists. (Although some universalists may deny hell. The more conservative universalists will make it into a purgatory state)
When suicide is the result of insanity, it rarely involved meticulous planning. You choose to end your life out of an unbalanced way of looking at things and how you react to them.
When someone deliberately plans to put their affairs in order and to take themselves out, that's not really the result of being insane.
I believe that just like there is a right to live, there is a right to die. I don't want to believe in a God that would punish you for eternity for ending your life prematurely...
For every Christian that believes in something, there is a Christian that doesn't and there is another Christian that believes in the total opposite thing.
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1. Kill yourself, but make sure that it takes a while.
you have the capacity, given your free will, to circumvent the process of your life. that is why you are given free will. if you choose to bypass your life, then you probably will not evolve to a place in heaven that is a place where people who do the job of living their less than heavenly life arrive at when they die without deliberately taking a short cut that they think will land them in heaven with no work or tribulation
it shows lack of faith in the reason why they are living in the first place if someone cuts out that bit from the script of their eternal existence.
Awsomelyglorious, the New Testament is inconsistent in the whole Heaven/Hell issue. While a lake of fire is vividly described, there is the story of Jesus resurrecting Lazarus. Jesus says, "Our brother Lazarus has fallen Asleep, I shall go and wake him". He doesn't say "Lazarus is in Hell, I will go get him.". Or "Lazarus is in Heaven, I will drag him back to die again from illness or violence."
When the New Testament was written in Greek, it claimed to faithfully record the sayings of an Aramaic speaking prophet. The Greek word Hades and the English-Germanic word Hell are used to describe the Semitic place called Sheol. The Fire is Gehenna, a pit where garbage was burned outside Jerusalem. The Greek word demon is used to describe Semitic Demi gods and gods that the Hebrews didn't like. The Greek word angel is used to describe a whole host of different kinds of beings. The Jews and Muslims call them Malaq, which also means "ruler"
As far as afterlife, some Jews believed in resurrection, some denied it.
As far as suicide, there is no condemnation of it as soul destroying.
Most of the Christian idea of Hell (and the existence of purgatory) comes from Dante's work , the Divine comedy.
In other words, it is not canon, it is fanon
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First read this:
The problem lies not in Jewish law, but in the definition that Americans are using. The Torah does not prohibit "work" in the 20th century English sense of the word. The Torah prohibits "melachah" (Mem-Lamed-Alef-Kaf-Heh), which is usually translated as "work," but does not mean precisely the same thing as the English word. Before you can begin to understand the Shabbat restrictions, you must understand the word "melachah."
Melachah generally refers to the kind of work that is creative, or that exercises control or dominion over your environment. The word may be related to "melech" (king; Mem-Lamed-Kaf). The quintessential example of melachah is the work of creating the universe, which G-d ceased from on the seventh day. Note that G-d's work did not require a great physical effort: he spoke, and it was done.
Entire article at: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jso ... abbat.html
The M'lachot pertaining to angels (supernatural beings) means they are carrying out tasks given to them by G-D. They are not rulers (in the sense that a king rules) but errand boys.
Creative work M'lachah means work that exercises dominion or control in the world. Things like building new stuff or altering the state of the world physically falls under this classification.
So angels (who are messengers primarily) are not rulers or kings over men.
ruveyn
richardbenson
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thats clearly a sin right there, because god alone deserves worship.
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Winds of clarity. a universal understanding come and go, I've seen though the Darkness to understand the bounty of Light
Sure. Just eat donuts everyday until your body gives up.
Ask away. Actually receiving forgiveness is another matter.
I guess that depends on if you have actually received forgiveness.
Everything else you wrote was too far out there to illicit a coherent response from someone like me.
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When God made me He didn't use a mold. I'm FREEHAND baby!
The road to my hell is paved with your good intentions.
Ruveyn, thank you for that information. I have been trying to put the MLQ Triconsonental root idea forward to some fundamentalist friends of mine who think that "angels" and "demons" are real in the western sense. I have trying to get the right words.
On the ML Q consanant root. The word for ruler or king is Maliq (Arabic) or Malaq. Does it imply a Semitic king is a worker or servant to YHWE or to his people.? This would do away with the IndoEuropean doctrine of Divine Right of Rulership. I have a Christian friend who believes in Divine Right and that our problems were created by getting rid of absolute monarchies. I told him the Bible doesnt advise it and Samuel opposed it. The Hebrews demanded a king anyway.
Then there s the Semitic god Molech (Hellenized Malaq). What is the meaning? He is a worker, a ruler?
When the New Testament was written in Greek, it claimed to faithfully record the sayings of an Aramaic speaking prophet. The Greek word Hades and the English-Germanic word Hell are used to describe the Semitic place called Sheol. The Fire is Gehenna, a pit where garbage was burned outside Jerusalem. The Greek word demon is used to describe Semitic Demi gods and gods that the Hebrews didn't like. The Greek word angel is used to describe a whole host of different kinds of beings. The Jews and Muslims call them Malaq, which also means "ruler"
As far as afterlife, some Jews believed in resurrection, some denied it.
As far as suicide, there is no condemnation of it as soul destroying.
Well, that's not actually an inconsistency. Many Christians believe that souls are only resurrected at the end of time anyway, thus nobody would be in heaven or hell.
That being said, all of the comments about those who become Christian live forever made by Jesus are a rather big issue.
I mean, I know that Judaism is not that big into an afterlife, but Christianity does proclaim an endurance of the soul to a high extent.
Thank you for your answers, they have been very helpful, as although I had no plans to kill myself (nor do I have any now) it was playing on my mind as to where one should stand on this matter.
Looking at the answers that I was given, I must in fact agree with just about all of them, as they tie up just about all of the holes I needed to have filled, however there is just two things that I've been thinking about....
With reagards to 'planing to commit a sin and then ask for forgiveness' I will have to point out that I think it is still posible to be granted forgiveness provided you genuneily regret your actions (one of which would have been thinking you could cheat God)
As for the second matter about the right to live and also the right to die, although I do have one side of me that see's things that way there is another part of me that thinks that as one cannot see into the future one cannot truely say wether or not ones life may take a turn for the better.
However I believe that if one is presented with a really, really, really negative sitution that there is no way out of (eg going to prison for life for a major crime that you did not commit) then I can see how one may use the plan I set out in the OP.
Lastly before I go I would like to add that, while I'm well aware that one does not go strait to Heaven or Hell after one dies, I only put things the way I do as one will at some point find themselves in the apporate place eventrally.
Although that said I am open to the possibilty that one simply goes 'up' or 'down' if that sould be the case, I think that the former is the most likely
However I'm quite sure that if one must wait, then it would seem like one has only blacked out for a nano second!
Thank you once more for your reply's as they have been very intserting to read.
Goodbye Till Next Time