What is possible to you , Heaven or hell ?

@SW-User [quote]From a Universalist perspective - the most sensible and viable perspective, in line with a loving God whose "mercy endures forever" - then Hell is temporal while only heaven is truly eternal.[/quote]

First of all thanks for specifying the perspective. It's something even I don't do as much as I should.

However, you weren't as specific in your application of hell*. When you say a loving god, that could mean any god. When you say a loving God that implies a specific god in general. The upper G denotes supremacy according to perspective. For example, the Bible generally uses God in application to Jehovah, but god in application to Jesus, because Jesus is subservient to God. But the Bible also calls Moses God as appointed by Jehovah himself. Moses was appointed to be God to Pharaoh and Aaron. (Exodus7:1) Most translations say "like God" or "Godlike" which is fine because the word god just means mighty. Jehovah was saying Moses would be God or Godlike (mighty) to Aaron and Pharaoh.

When you say a loving God would only allow a hell as temporal that is ambiguous because, though the apostate theology has hell as being a literal place underground where the immortal soul of the wicked are punished, the Bible simply presents it as the common grave of the dead with no moral or social distinctions or consciousness. No souls, in fact because the Bible says the soul dies. The soul it the life of any breathing creature. The word literally means "breather."

Biblical theology is the study of what the Bible means. It's subject to interpretation, whereas Biblical study itself considers what the Bible actually says.

So, I say Jesus didn't die on the cross. A modern day traditional apostate Christian would quote the Bible that translates the Greek words stauros and xylon as cross. The Greek word stauros means an upright stake or pole or implement of destruction.** In translation that's problematic because the apostate Christian presents the well known Roman cross, but crosses had many different shapes.


X shaped, t or T shaped, with a circle representing worship of the sun, the Egyptian cross, the Swastika. The Roman cross, as we know the apostate Christian cross, is a phallic fertility symbol, an idol for pagan worship of the sun and fertility. In Jesus' time they didn't use that as a torture device or implement of destruction simply because it would have required much more wood where wood was scarce and time was short. They sometimes put many people to death at once using the same method the Jews used. A simple stake. Until 400 years after Christ the cross was generally despised by most Christians as a filthy pagan idol. Constantine, who worshipped the sun and so would have likely used the cross shape with the circle, popularized the cross in 325 CE and then it gradually became commonly used by Christians.

So a stauros can have many shapes, including a simple stake. The word crucify means to attach something to something. Prometheus, for example, was crucified on a rock, or just just rock as in the earth.

We know for sure Jesus wasn't crucified on a Roman phallic symbol, the cross, because the Bible also uses the word xylon, which can only mean an upright stake. That is the method the Jews used, for example, at Galatians 3:13; Deuteronomy. 21:22,-23; Luke 23:31; Acts 5:30; 10:39.

* See https://similarworlds.com/christianity/4784420-Apostate-Christianity-Hell-Part-1-This-is-a-rather-lengthy

** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stauros#:~:text=Stauros%20(%CF%83%CF%84%CE%B1%CF%85%CF%81%CF%8C%CF%82)%20is%20a%20Greek,pillar%2C%20tree%20in%20Christian%20contexts.

@AkioTsukino To be honest I got this far......

[i]Biblical theology is the study of what the Bible means. It's subject to interpretation, whereas Biblical study itself considers what the Bible actually says.[/i]

(Such a confused and nonsensical statement)

.....at which point I gave up.

Consider our dialogue, such as it was, closed.

Thank you.

@SW-User Wow!I From you I was not expecting such a closed minded argument - or lack of argument.

There's the text (Biblical study) and the theology (Biblical interpretation).

Theology is the study of gods or theistic belief.

From Grace college: "Theology is the study of God while biblical studies is the study of the Bible itself."

https://www.grace.edu/biblical-studies-vs-theology-what-is-the-difference/#:~:text=Theology%20is%20the%20study%20of,better%20understand%20the%20overall%20message.

From Wikipedia: "Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine, or more broadly of religious belief."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theology

I think your response has to do with something else.

@AkioTsukino In consideration, I apologise.

Sorry, I'm a bit wary at the moment having unblocked a whole number of people (and I had no record of exactly who they were) Most were Christian Fundamentalists.

As you stated it, your words came to me as some sort of "Oh, I just accept what the Bible plainly says". Obviously there is always interpretation and context.

Once again, sorry.