Wow 
This thread is really popping. 
What have I done? 
But seriously, I’ve been following all of this and have been meaning to attempt some kind of epic reply to everything being said here… not sure if I can manage epic as tired as I am, but I could perhaps pull off slightly above average, or at least a step above mediocre.
Well, here goes…
I’ll start with Jason. 
Bro, I can totally relate to your desire to ‘zorch’ people… back when I was in school, there were times that I’d fantasize about vaporizing the bullies that picked on me with heat vision and such, and even more recently, there have been times I’ve been so angry with certain people that I’ve wished them dead… though nowadays, generally, my hope and my prayer would be for the salvation of all, I’ve had my moments when I would have wished annihilation on those who made my blood boil. 
So I can certainly relate to that… though I don’t think, if I seriously thought about it, that I’d ever wish eternal agony, whether physical or emotional or otherwise, on another human being… though again if I was seriously thinking about things, I probably wouldn’t wish annihilation on them either.
And I can relate to your concern about those you loved who didn’t believe in God… I’ve been there for sure.
And it sounds to me like your journey to universalism was similar to Lewis’ journey to the Christian faith… mostly intellectual, with an emotional component as well. I think mine honestly was the other way around, but I think it’s okay either way… we’re all different, and we all arrive at our conclusions in different ways, and I would say that God reveals things to different people in different ways.
Thanks for your honesty and sharing some of your story, Jason.
Cindy… you are the one who is brilliant. Your perspective is so encouraging and holistic and refreshing. I like your take on how our intellect, emotions, and physicality work together with the Spirit… makes a lot of sense.
In my case I think and I feel like I’m pretty unbalanced in all of those areas, but then maybe I’m being too hard on myself.
Thank you for sharing (I’ll get to your other wonderful posts here later)
Jaxxen, to your first post: You’re welcome I wanted to include you in on this, cuz I think it’s really important in discussing Calvinism vs Arminianism vs Universalism, and that sort of thing.
Or, to put it in the most basic terms, discussing who God is, and what His plan is for the human race, and how we are to, or even if we can, relate to Him, in any kind of meaningful way.
And it’s okay that you can’t respond to everyone. I know I couldn’t do that, though I can certainly try!
I can relate to your struggle with these things… your eventual response was far different then mine to some Calvinistic teachings, but I can relate to the difficulty of accepting it, as I’m sure many can here, and I’m sure you’re aware of that.
But by feelings, like I said in the opening post of this thread, I mean especially ‘our deepest and our most heartfelt longings’, and I might add to that, our deepest and most agonizing fears and doubts…
I remember how C.S. Lewis talked about how there are universal desires among humanity in general, and how there is always available an answer to those desires.
People desire food, there is such a thing as food. People desire sex, there is such a thing as sex. People desire sleep, and there is such a thing as sleep, people desire love, and there is such a thing as love.
Not that everyone always has these basic universal desires met everyday or even in some cases during their lifetime, but those ways in which to meet those desires are still there, they still exist…
I would argue that universal restoration is a very widespread desire in the human heart, or at the very least something like a desire for a happy ending to life in general is almost universal… we see it in literature and film and music everywhere, this longing and hope for ‘everything to be okay in the end’… and for anyone who cares about the fate of the world, the desire is not only for themselves but for everyone… there are of course morbid and gloomy and doomy types of people (and I am not implying that you are one of them) who may not always share in such a desire, but I think there’s enough people out there who long for that desire to be met to give us pause…
And, on the opposite end of this spectrum, there are many, many people who wrestle or have wrestled (including both you and I) with the idea that some, if not most, will not be okay in the end, will be lost, will be forgotten, will be abandoned, will be eternally punished, will be eternally separated, or however we’d describe it…
And there are so many who struggle with these things that perhaps it should give us pause…
I’m wondering if there’s something to that.
Yes, feelings can be fickle, but we have them, including those deep feelings, great hopes and great fears, and aren’t they there for a reason? Did God make a mistake in giving us emotions? And if not, then what are they for, and how do we respond to them?
Should we bury them? Should we be open with them?
Is God okay with our expressing our emotions to Him, even if they are very dark and negative and colored with terror and with rage that’s all twisted up together and even directed against Him, or at least what we think is Him?
Can He handle that? Does He, perhaps, even welcome it?
Does He want us to simply acquiesce like fearful slaves would to a cruel master, or does He want us to wrestle with Him, as a son would wrestle with a father, until there is peace and understanding and a renewed bond?
And this also comes down to trust… can we trust God? Can we trust His character? Can we trust His heart?
Who is He? What is He like?
Is He an egomaniac, for lack of a better term, who gets off on exercising His own power, as selfish and cruel as any dictator or despot, or is He a loving Creator who wants what is best for His creation, as a loving parent would want what was best for their children?
I’m sure that you’re being a Calvinist does not entail that you personally believe that God is an egomaniac, or a dictator or despot or anything like that, I’m sure you don’t, but you must understand that to most people who have been exposed to Calvinistic teachings, this is how the God of Calvinism comes off to them.
(on a side-note, when I asked the youth pastor in my church a few years ago if he thought that God was a monster, he replied ‘He is sometimes’… and I think the youth pastor is mostly a Calvinist in his theology… but, granted, this comes from a guy who had an abusive father, as he has openly shared, so I’m not sure if that has effected his view of God at all… and that was also a couple years ago, so maybe his views have changed since then… and I think he’s a good guy, the guy who said this, even though we’re not friends or anything, just for the record)
Is there any way you can respond to that general reaction in a way that will help others to see that God is indeed trustworthy and actually cares about them and those they care for?
If you can’t then you know that you have no gospel, no good news, to share with them. 
The majority of people on the planet cannot accept that a God who predestines a handful of lucky people to eternal bliss and the rest to eternal damnation is a God who is good in any humanly relatable sense of the term, let alone completely trustworthy, who can claim without guile that He is compassionate and gracious and slow to anger and abounding in love.
This is why emotions, specifically our deepest emotions, and chiefly those pertaining to the deep desire to really trust God and our concern for not only ourselves but our loved ones as well, are so important in all of this.
How can you respond to such feelings that are so widespread concerning Calvinism, and especially the teaching of limited atonement? Feelings that even you have felt?
Do you just say that they have no relevance?
That they don’t matter? That people suffering deeply and profoundly, even to the point of losing their minds, because of these things, is inconsequential?
I can understand your desire to uphold scripture. I admit that my views of scripture are probably more liberal than yours at this point, but I can understand how important that is to you.
But you must keep in mind that it is not so much scripture that you are upholding as an interpretation of scripture that you are upholding. And to be fair, the same applies to all of us here that are universalists.
We are all upholding our interpretations, and I’m sure you would agree with this, that we’re all in the same boat here in this, that as human beings none of us are gonna be perfect in our ability to interpret God’s revelation to us…
But I will say this: if the teachings of Calvinism, especially limited atonement, have brought so many despair for hundreds of years, and have crushed the greater hope of so many, have even put some into mental institutions, if they have brought so much depression and anxiety and heartache, then how could such teachings be called ‘Good News’?
Isn’t the message of Christ meant to be good news?
The angel proclaimed that the coming of Christ was ‘good news of great joy for all the people’. But how is it good news for everyone if it’s in fact bad news for so many, if not most, if it’s really only good news for ‘the elect’?
I’m not sure how you would answer that.
I think that’s the question both Arminians and universalists and even non-Christians have been asking Calvinists as long as Calvinism (or better yet, Augustinianism) has been around.
I know you may feel as though people here are being unfair to you, bro, and perhaps we are. I apologize if I’m being unfair.
But these things run very deep into the soul of many… we want to trust God with our own lives and with those of our loved ones, and even with those of all people… we want to believe that God is good and worthy of our love and our devotion, that He’s not a schizophrenic fiend, but the most wonderful Being in the universe.
That He cares more than we do. That He understands more than we do.
That someone out there doesn’t exercise their power and authority selfishly and cruelly, as many of us are, sadly, familiar with, but rather with grace and love towards those that they have power and authority over.
Basically, we want to believe that He is better than us. That He can do better than us.
And we have become convinced, as much as we can in our frailty and fallibility, that these things we want most desperately to be true in our heart of hearts is, in fact, true.
This is not just a matter of scripture, Matt.
This is a matter of life and death, of sanity, of the deepest hopes and fears of the human heart…
I know that’s going pretty deep here, but that’s how deep this goes.
We are not talking about theological/intellectual gymnastics here. We are talking about questions we have all asked since we were all children first becoming aware of our own existence:
Where did I come from? Why am I here? Where am I going?
The stakes could really not be any higher.
I’ll let you chew on that, as I move on…
Speaking honestly here myself, I can relate deeply to Augustine in his struggles with lust. I too have whored myself out.
I slept with my share of women in my early twenties, and let me tell you, it wasn’t worth it.
It was fun and felt good in the moment, but the damage my choices caused overshadows that.
I’ve left behind me a trail of hurt and disappointment, both for myself and the women I was with, and my only hope is that God will heal their wounds just as He has been gradually healing mine…
And I still struggle with lust (even though I’ve been abstinent since then, 'cuz my fiancee and I are waiting for marriage) to this day. So I can relate to Augustine in this.
But I guess my problem was how despite his struggles he seemed not to develop a lot of compassion for those who struggled as he once did, which is sad. And I wondered if his seeming condescension towards the universalists of his time came from a low view of emotion which was perhaps tied to his low view of sexuality.
I admit I could be wrong about this though. There are others who know history better than I.
I’ve been talking with Sobornost about this, and he’s far more educated on these things then I am. Perhaps he could comment on this more, about what kind of a man Augustine was, both the good and the bad. (your Q, Sobornost)
I’m glad that you agree that coldness and meanness is the wrong way to go, no matter what team you’re on. This just shows that you have a tender heart, or at least that is what you are aiming for.
I pray that God would give me a tender heart as well.
And I do appreciate the humor, by the way.
And hey, no problem. I imagine I come off as pretty disjointed myself at times. I’m always forgetting words
Anyways, I’ll be continuing with my post, and addressing some other people and then I’ll get back to you, Jaxxen
Great thoughts, Corpselight
Interesting thought there bro
Back to Cindy: Thank you so much for sharing your story and how you came to believe in universal reconciliation, Cindy.
I just recently finished reading The Inescapable Love Of God by Thomas Talbott. Great book It was really helpful to me.
(Jaxxen, if you’re still reading this, I’d highly recommend you check it out to understand our position better )
And hey Cindy, I read the whole thing, do I get a medal too?
I concur with Corspelight
As far as the discussion on Biblical inerrancy, I think I agree with what you said here, Cindy:
And thank you for sharing more of your story and how you listen to God in your response to Pilgrim.
Your devotion puts me to shame, Cindy, I confess that I admire you.
I really like this:
Now that makes a lot of sense. 
And I’m also in agreement with you in your answer to Jaxxen’s question about the resurrection.
I believe it literally happened. In fact I would say that if any of us didn’t, then we wouldn’t have much business talking about what we’re talking about here. If Jesus was just another man, and another man who just stayed dead and in the grave at that, then we wouldn’t have much reason to even participate in this forum.
Like the apostle Paul said, if Jesus was not raised, then our faith is in vain, and we are of all people to be pitied.
To me Jesus’ resurrection is also a sign of things to come, He is our forerunner, the first one through the gate (while, of course, being the gate), so to speak.
So to say that Jesus’ resurrection isn’t a real historical event and that it’s merely just some fiction that only has some symbolic relevance, then who’s to say that the resurrection of the dead that the prophets and people of faith have looked forward to for centuries is not just ‘merely symbolic’?
I think it’s safe to say that virtually everyone here on this forum that thinks of themselves as a follower of Jesus (as haphazard or awkward or mediocre as they may be, much like myself) believes that Jesus conquered death in a really real sense.
Some more great thoughts here, Cindy You are just full of them Thank you for sharing
Jaelsister:
I agree with you there, sister.
As to the whole argument about young earth creationism versus evolution, my viewpoint is this: I honestly don’t know.
I was big into dinosaurs when I was a kid, so like BirdOfTheEgg I wonder about all those dinosaur bones.
I remember when I was an atheist I heard that when dinosaur bones began to be discovered and it caused the scientific community to question the commonly held young earth viewpoint, there were Christians of the day who went so far as to claim that ‘the devil had planted all the bones to deceive the masses’
I thought that was ludicrous, needless to say.
The denial of scientific evidence in this reminds me of how the church mistreated Copernicus or Galileo, how the church was angry when scientists began to insist that the world was round… that sort of thing.
The way I see it, such a reaction comes from a close-minded, and may I say paranoid, kind of faith.
We must keep an open mind about things we have no real certainty about.
We can believe with confidence that God created our world and the whole universe and everything in it, but we don’t know for sure exactly how He did it, or exactly how long it took, or that sort of thing… we, whether we like to admit it or not, just don’t have all of the info or absolute proof either way, because we simply weren’t there at the foundations of the world or of the universe, hovering over the waters with the Spirit of God, with our scientific method and our lab equipment.
For example, if we were to someday discover that there was intelligent life elsewhere in the universe I don’t believe that it would ruin my faith. I don’t believe I would have a hissy fit and/or a panic attack like some of the ‘Christians’ did as portrayed in the film Contact.
I would be surprised for sure, because I personally believe it’s unlikely that there’s anyone else out there, and even if there was, we would probably never find them (unless God willed it) but if it did happen, then I’m thinking that I could adapt.
I would just have to conclude that God had created other peoples on other worlds for some good purpose, and hadn’t told us anything about it because frankly it was none of our business at the time and was irrelevant to our existence, or at least up until the point we discovered such life.
And if we did discover intelligent life out there someday then I would just have to conclude that God chose to reveal that to us at that time.
What I’m trying to say is we should keep an open mind about stuff like this…
But on the other hand I can understand why there are those who have issue with evolution… it is basically a system of decay and death, and survival of the fittest and all that jazz, and such a system doesn’t seem worthy of a loving Creator.
Check out the documentary Planet Earth sometime. There’s a part where some chimpanzees (our supposed relatives) murder one of their own, and eat their brains. It was very disturbing, to say the least.
The problem is if this kind of brutality has been going on in the animal kingdom from the beginning, and that was how God set it up from the beginning, to go on for millions of years, then that’s a whole lot of bloodshed and violent death and rampant decay.
I know it’s ‘only animals’, but it still gives the impression that God is a bit on the brutal side in His creativity, which is, needless to say, less than comforting.
If evolution is true, but the Genesis account still applies at least symbolically, then God would be calling this whole system of bloodshed and violent death and rampant decay ‘good’.
And then the question we have to ask ourselves is this: is it really ‘good’?
And if God thinks such a system is good already, then why change it, by getting the wolf to lay down with the lamb?
Just some food for thought there.
But I can see it from both sides, which is why I’m somewhat agnostic about the whole thing, and honestly don’t know for sure either way… I lean slightly in the direction of young earth creationism only because a God who sets up a system like evolution seems rather cruel, but I still don’t know for sure.
And I agree with Cindy that this is not something we should argue about too much. I don’t think, as with many other things, that we’ll know the answer to this one for sure until we meet God face to face and can ask Him…
And to BirdOfTheEgg:
My goodness, you are a fearless lady
I totally agree with you that saying that we can’t discern anything and then saying that we should listen to the Bible is absolutely silly and insane, but then I don’t think that’s what Jaxxen was saying.
I think he was just upset with Johnny, and maybe what he said came out wrong. 
And as much as I admire your fearlessness, Bird, and as brilliant as your point was, even if I think it was somewhat misplaced, I don’t think running Jaxxen through from the get go is gonna help things much.
And there’s too much fighting around here. Can’t we all just get along?
What’s that one verse… oh, here it is:
‘Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.’
Yeah, that’s the one.
Easier said than done for all parties of course, including myself, but a worthy direction to move in, nevertheless.
To sum up this long and perhaps moderately epic post, I just want to say to Jaxxen… despite whatever failures we are guilty of in sharing this message that we believe with you, please don’t toss it aside or the potential merit, or even truth, of it on account of us.
As for me, I would rather wager on a greater hope then a lesser one, on a more wonderful and beautiful ending to God’s story, where all are someday reconciled with Him and with one another, I would rather live life trusting God instead of being afraid of Him… I would rather believe in something that makes sense to my head and to my heart, and something that is worth believing in.
But this is me. I cannot decide for you how you look at the world around you, or how you look at yourself or look at me or look at any of us here or how you look at God and what you believe about Him and His ways. That is between you and Him.
All I can do is share my thoughts and share my heart, knowing full well how broken and imperfect I am while doing it, while still hoping by God’s grace that typing out some long post on an internet forum in the middle of the night will actually make some kind of difference in the life of another person, even yourself.
And that’s all I have to say for now.
Blessings to you bro, and blessings to you all, and goodnight
Matt
for your encouraging words, Brother.) 
