Evidence for the existence of God

[Final-Fan]

senseinobaka said:

Final-Fan said:
senseinobaka, appolose may be mistaken about death not being destroyable (assuming the existence and willingness of God to do such a thing), but the lake of fire that unbelievers are thrown into is clearly not merely a metaphor for complete nonexistence.

"And the devil... was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever."

I understand, what with people coming back from the dead at the end, that the Bible's authors might feel the need to specify "destroyed forever" (countering one of appolose's criticisms) but the description of "day and night for ever and ever" just makes no sense at all in that context. "I'm going to kill you, and you'll be dead forever, all seven days of the week. Especially on Tuesdays." The explicit description of something happening on a constant basis does not apply to something happens once and remains that way forever.

The metaphor is clear. The english language is not. The word translated torment is from the greek word "basanistes" It literally means 'jailers'. The idea behind the scripture you are quoting is that Satan will be destroyed forever and he will be jailed there in destruction day and night forever.

For satan there is not chance of ever coming back. He has no parole. The english laguage makes the word torment ambiguos. It could mean torture. But thankfully the greeks had a different word for that, so by examining the original language the tought is clear.

I do agree with you that it could be rather reitterative, but such emphasis and restatement of ideas in almost exagerated ways is a halmark of the bible literature.

But the point of "jail" is that the person is still there, locked up.  Not nonexistent.  Even if he's there forever, he's THERE.  That's the difference between life in prison and the death penalty.  (Aside from the possibility of an overturned sentence -- unlikely in Satan's case.)