You wrote a long post, too much for me to respond to in detail now. But I would like to respond to this one question: "If unborn babies go to heaven, why not abort them?"
"If a bunch of serious and real Christians are in church one Sunday, why not just machine gun them all, mow then down. They will all go to heaven, so who cares?"
God is the giver of life and death, and as such has the power and the right to take human life anywhere, any time. We do not have this right. To despise human life, even unborn life, and toss it in the trash is a great sin.
It is an accurate translation of the Greek word Gehenna, which is what we find in the passage from Mark, not SHEOL. It is found in Jewish apocalyptic literature to refer to where people would be punished for sins. Given that Jesus was a Jewish apocalyptic prophet, it is not surprising we find the word used by Jesus in the Greek literature of the anonymous writer of Mark. And he is quite graphic, as in the passage I provided, with what he believed would happen to people thrown there by Yahweh, the wrathful deity he worshipped.
With respect to my argument in my article, its translation is sound. Whether we changed “hell” to “Gehenna” would make no difference to the fate of babies and what Jesus preached would happen to people who didn’t obey himself or Yahweh.
I am with you on the whole extremism on either side. I don't understand how there isn't some middle ground.
You wrote a long post, too much for me to respond to in detail now. But I would like to respond to this one question: "If unborn babies go to heaven, why not abort them?"
"If a bunch of serious and real Christians are in church one Sunday, why not just machine gun them all, mow then down. They will all go to heaven, so who cares?"
God is the giver of life and death, and as such has the power and the right to take human life anywhere, any time. We do not have this right. To despise human life, even unborn life, and toss it in the trash is a great sin.
Hell is an incorrect translation of SHEOL.
It is an accurate translation of the Greek word Gehenna, which is what we find in the passage from Mark, not SHEOL. It is found in Jewish apocalyptic literature to refer to where people would be punished for sins. Given that Jesus was a Jewish apocalyptic prophet, it is not surprising we find the word used by Jesus in the Greek literature of the anonymous writer of Mark. And he is quite graphic, as in the passage I provided, with what he believed would happen to people thrown there by Yahweh, the wrathful deity he worshipped.
With respect to my argument in my article, its translation is sound. Whether we changed “hell” to “Gehenna” would make no difference to the fate of babies and what Jesus preached would happen to people who didn’t obey himself or Yahweh.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LU-u5ZlYdzk