One of the many problems with heaven and hell...

I may not phrase this very eloquently, but bare with me...

As I was on the bus home from school a thought came to mind pertaining to why a literal heaven and hell cannot exist. I thought, suppose an unsaved "child" dies and goes to hell, but their parent is saved and goes to heaven. Wouldn't the parent's knowledge that their child is burning in hellfire kind of make their stay in heaven a little hellish itself?

What do you think?

 

An evangelical Christian relative gave me a half-baked answer when I asked him the very same question about his daughter who seems to be straying a bit from her upbringing...he quoted a passage in the Bible that says God will "dry away all the tears" of the saved when they get to heaven, and they won't even remember nasty stuff like one of their beloved children is roasting for eternity...

I don't think they have any other answers.

 

Hmm, wallowing in eternal ignorance...
Sounds just as bad as Hell

 

God is not in the business of tossing babies into hell. If you understand even a little about God you will understand that He is just. A long time ago in a prayer I asked God if He could show me a little bit of heaven. I think years might of gone by but one day when I was sleeping God did just that. I don't have the words to express what this place was like and I was just at the entrance. The music was saw powerful that the words that people were singing would go right through your body. There was joy everywhere. I walked into this large room and there were many people there, and they all approached me, and I have to say you could tell that everyone there was like your best friend, everyone. I was having the best time of my life there, I walked into another room, and there were all these white open coffins, and there were people standing next to them, and they were just singing to the Lord. I found myself walking down this large hallway and there was this man walking next to me, he was kind of short and I told the man I wanted to see more, and he just kind of laughted and said, of course you do, of course you do. And with that, I woke up. I felt so depressed to be back, but let me tell you, heaven is a real place, I was really there. And in the back ground I saw angles, and yes, they really did have wings. Jesus Christ is no stranger to me, and it is His desire, that you should not be a stranger to Him.

 

Campbell, you're generalizing and using personal anecdotal examples, not providing a direct, scripturally-based answer to the original question.

BTW, the relative's daughter I referred to is of-age (21), and fully "accountable"...definitely not a baby or child.

 

I was sleeping the other night, and Jackie Chan was chasing me through a hospital. I knew right then I was in heaven.

 

Some early church fathers insisted that the saints in heaven enjoy the cries of the sinners in hell, so it is a kind of industrial psychedelic, or punk, or gothic music for them Probably for those who are more pampered and refined there are some transformers able to turn even the most desperate cry to the sweetest merry tune, and as a result we will have exactly what campbell34 is talking about here.

This certainly makes the saints even more hellish than the sinners, but those fathers apparently didn’t care

 

Spook13, I was not responding to your post, but to post one. Yet if a person is 21 and has rejected Christ then what could one say. The Bible tells us to raise up a child in the way of the Lord. As parents, that's all we can do. The Bible tells us very little about the fine details of how God will deal with children, yet we Know God is just, so this does not concern me as much as it might concern others. I just always trust God to do the right thing.

 

Did those early church fathers say where in Scripture they read that? Because I have to tell you, I never read that verse.

 

Did you first pray and ask God to show you a bit of heaven? And if you did, maybe thats where you will spend eternity. I hope you really like Jackie Chan.

 

Straying a bit does not mean she has rejected Christ, I stray a bit myself. None of us are perfect, that's why God died for us. David in the Old Testament is a perfect example of a man who strayed a lot, but he still loved God. Those who love God will be saved.

 

One of the many problems with heaven and hell... is that they probably don't exist, but we still have freedom of religion, right?

 

Well if you can ignore all the proven history and the fulfilled prophecies of the Bible, then you might be able to convince yourself that there is no heaven or hell.

 

If I chose to read the bible as I would a novel, then I'd be bored to death.

 

Campbell, I didn't mean to hijack your dialogue with someone else, but I guess you were the most logical person here to redirect a pointed question toward...I felt like the answer my Christian relative gave me on this subject was indeed watered down and inadequate, and wondered if you could do better.

 

Campbell - sorry to butt in here, and I don't generally post in here these days (I do read through some threads now and then)
you say if a person is 21 - but at what age would you say a person becomes responsible for accepting or rejecting the bible?
Catholics say a child reaches the 'age of reason' at 7 - so would that be about right?
In the UK nowadays, a person is considered adult at 18, and given full rights to vote, marry etc - used to be 21.
And if we say for example, it's at age 14, then what about one who is 13 years and 11 months? Is there that much difference?

My own experience suggests to me that most people don't really arrive at anything resembling maturity until about the mid twenties, but that's my own personal view based on my own limited experience.

 

My dear Campbell, since you have brains and, more importantly, a heart, it isn’t necessary to resort to a bunch of paper in every opportunity, as you are wont to do. The very idea of heaven is unwholesome for a very obvious reason, and those church fathers were just consistent and honest enough to admit the loathsome. If you have heaven and hell, this means separation, and separation implies that God plainly rejects a half of his own creation, just doesn’t have enough love for this, allegedly evil, half. Can we call such a god just? Probably, but only according to his own law. But can we say that he is full of love? No way. And of course, we cannot say this about those people who are happy in heaven, whereas some of their kin are tortured in hell – in my humble opinion, they merely aren’t saints. Either they are deluded or voluntarily participate in this celestial mess, doesn’t even matter much. Frankly, I have only four-letter words for such people, unless they are kept there by force, for some unknown reason, or don’t see a big difference between the given options.

 

So tell me who that person is.

 

I'd really prefer Bruce Lee. But studies have shown that prayer doesn't affect outcomes. It can affect your perception of the outcome, which is everything in this case, but outcomes remain the same.

 

The gift of Salvation is free, God paid the price on the cross, God is not rejecting anyone, it is the world rejecting God. God clearly tells us "I would have all come to repentence". The Devil and his angels rebeled against God and that is why God created Hell. God offers salvation freely to all of mankind. Yet when you reject that gift offered freely by God, you then link yourself to the one who orginally rebeled. That is a choice you freely make. Don't blame God for your poor choice.