Paul uses the imagery of being dead in our sins as well, so i think that could be another explanation…
but that’s interesting about it being just shy of a celestial day! makes alot of sense.
therin lies the rub. I am not pretending because that is what I see from scripture. It obviously is not the God you see thus you don’t believe that my God is love, ergo we have two different Gods, two different gospels and two different christianities. Which is my only point. Will you at least accept that?
I said, it changes the character and nature of “OUR” God not “YOUR” God. Two different Gods. Please be accurate in what I said.
now you’re just sounding ignorant. this is not “two Gods” this is two views of the same God. i am quite happy to believe that you try to follow my God, but have a different understanding based on your personal opinion which shapes how you see the Scripture.
if i say (flippantly) “that’s not my God” (which i’m not that prone to do, honestly) i’m not saying we have a different God, i’m saying that you’re grossly mistaken in your view of His character and i hope that one day you see differently.
this is not a “different Christianity” anymore than Calvinism is a different Christianity from Arminianism. they are two views that are opposed, but both seem to respect each other these days.
Universalism, bluntly, is what you have left when you take away the Biblically untenable positions of Calvinism and Arminianism.
i’m sorry you don’t a) agree or b) agree to disagree but still play nice: that you simply want to divorce yourself from this point of view as if it isn’t Christian.
Dude you are so in left field on this argument it’s mind boggling. You said, I believe UR wants to believe everyone goes to heaven. I never said that. You are building an argument based on what you believe I said, which I never did.
Hmmmm…ignorant? Jehovah Witnesses don’t believe Jesus is God and that He is Michael the arch angel. Am I to assume they worship the same God as I?
You said this was correct, 7 is listed under the arguments against universalism that you made in a previous post
ah nevermind
blessings
FACE PALM
i don’t believe that…i believe Jesus is the Son of God, very God of very God, conceived of the Holy Spirit, died and resurrected for my salvation… so no, i don’t ask you to believe that at all! if you don’t agree with my snippet of creed above, then fine, i’ll accept you worship a different God, however if you agree, then you are simply disagreeing with our view on His character as revealed in Scripture. same God, both of us approaching Him with imperfect human understanding.
what a ridiculous argument…there are still heresies in the world that enslave and blind. universalism is simply another valid school of thought. i simply believe it is far more valid than the others. you disagree. again, same God, different imperfect human viewpoints.
it’s not really worth engaging with you on any topic really, is it? as you see what you want to see and that’s it…
You said this was correct, 7 is listed under the arguments against universalism that you made in a previous post
ah nevermind
blessings
again that is your interpretation. If I tell you that is not what my argument was from the getgo then shouldn’t it suffice?
It’s either a yes or a no? Simple question. Do they worship the same God as you do? I am only asking as this points to my ignorance that having the wrong interpretation of God is not the same as having two different Gods.
double facepalm
try re-reading. i’m finished here i’m afraid, this is pointless. it’s one thing to disagree it’s another thing to be ignorant.
before you go
honestly, i am getting rather frustrated. how is it even relevant?
honestly, i did say that i don’t believe so, but thankfully you’ve done something good here and reminded me that it is NOT MY PLACE TO JUDGE. God may very well have children labouring under some falsehoods in the JW church as He does in many places. His children, and they know Him on some level, but wrong about some key aspects of His character.
it is possible to be wrong about God and still worship Him.
also i would hasten to add that God has already said there are those calling themselves His followers that He does not know. so there are some doctrinally correct people who are not yet His children (ie they’ve ignored 1 Corinthians 13 and are clanging cymbols), and there are some doctrinally incorrect people who blatantly ARE His children. and only He has the right to judge this.
interpretation is based on knowledge, wisdom and most importantly God’s guidance. God doesn’t promise full revelation right off the bat, but it comes with experience and time, and eventually there will be a full disclosure. so can i judge someone with a different interpretation? God forbid.
so the simple answer? I don’t know and i cannot judge. neither can you judge me or anyone else on this forum. it’s not your job, and thank God for that.
Look…and I will end with this. I understand using the Jehovah Witnesses is extreme but the parallel is not with universalism but your argument of it simply being a false interpretation of God. Your claim is that universalism is no different from mainstream orthodox Christianity etc…other than believing God will save everyone. I say different, it goes a lot deeper and I can support it but in a different thread. Please don’t be angry. I am truly trying to understand being ignorant and all. 
Look we both believe in the same God. I am saying that a doctrine about God vindictively tormenting anyone forever, is contradictory to the very definition of love we are given in scripture. You may have everything right about God, all his attributes defined perfectly, his unchanging and triune nature etc. however in this one doctrine of Eternal Punishment we have a blatant problem. Paul says that love is kind, that it is not self-seeking, and if love does not seek itself then it must be after the good of others, right? Love does not act improperly, this means that however God acted before then he will not go against it (will not the judge of all the earth do what is right?). God in the Old Testament no matter how harsh his judgment, almost always had a corrective purpose in mind, even for Sodom and Gomorrah (Ezekiel 16:53). Now in the New Testament he just whimsically decides that his punishment is vindictive and without purpose? That is what we call improper of him.
It is not that our views disagree about God, you believe him to be love, as do I. What I am saying is that Eternal torment is a contradiction of even your view of God, its just that you fail to see it.
Yes the gospel is shifted ever so slightly, it becomes about salvation from sin/death/Hades instead of Hell/sin/death. The cross becomes not simply a tree where many peoples sins were taken away, but a tree where all sin was nailed to and is being destroyed. Death is dying, and it will someday be destroyed completely. Christ is the victor over all foes because all will profess their allegiance and sing praises to him (Isaiah 45, Romans 14:11, Philippians 2:9-11, Revelation 5:13).
ok mate fair enough and thank you!..but…i don’t believe that it’s a different God. we believe many things very differently from the ancient Jews, for example, and yet it’s the same God. we have different revelations.
interpretation is a fiddly thing, and prone to all kinds of issues.
where i am coming from is the fact that my upbringing was definitely in the ECT camp. my God was the sort of God who would consign people to hell forever, albeit i believed He didn’t do it willfully, but because they’d left Him no choice. i think it’s summed up pretty well as standard Arminianism. now, i found the hell texts hard to understand because i couldn’t reconcile this idea of God not really wanting to condemn with the anger at sin we see in the Bible, and the harsh judgements pronounced against the purpotrators.
i have recently (within the last few months) embraced what i was increasingly moving towards, which of course is universalism. i took a side route by annihilationism, as i found that this satisfied the hell texts (IMO) alot more than ECT did.
my point in recounting this is that i have not changed the God i worshiped…i have merely got to know Him better. also, my gospel is the same (that of Jesus Christ) but it’s scope and power have increased. that’s all i’m trying to say.
on the level of what i’d personally call cults (and there’s a chance i’m wrong in doing this), i’d say that many are quite damaging to the people involved, and personally i feel that JWism and Mormonism are cults. that isn’t to say that God can’t redeem people despite their wrong doctrines and possibly through their right ones (no lie is complete without a generous helping of truth to sweeten it), however. and i’m not qualified at that point to see individually that this person’s God is not mine…unless it blatantly isn’t (ie if it’s Thor, or Molech or Baal or something). and even then…CS Lewis gives us an interesting possibility of someone worshiping a false God but still being accepted by Aslan, in the Last Battle. not something i’ve personally seen in Scripture, but i think philosophically it makes sense.
therefore i cannot judge.
sorry for misjudging you, as i seem to have done 
I am not saying all gods (saying like the Greek, Roman, Hindu, etc pantheons) are the same God; but those who follow Christ and One God, are all following the same God but understand and see him differently due to their own perceptions, knowledge and understanding.
Romans 3:11
THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD.
Mars Hill, to the unknown god
I don’t find a problem with Oxy believing we worship a different God than he does. It may well be true … and I sure like my God better because in my opinion He’s more loving, more just/righeous, more noble, more powerful, more gracious, more trustworthy, and more worthy to be praised. 
But what we’re really talking about are our perceptions, of course. We can say anything we like and believe anything we like about God, but that remains our idea of God. Our ideas of God don’t change God Himself and all of us have imperfect ideas of God.
How much of a margin of difference from our particular beliefs about God will we allow a person before we say that “they worship a different God”? I don’t know. I’m not in a hurry to exclude a brother whose ideas about God diverge from mine – not if he names Christ as Saviour and Lord and is seeking to serve Him, love Him, and grow in the knowledge of Him. We see through a glass, darkly, says Paul. But we should nevertheless be one in Spirit as we walk with Christ, and if we differ on anything the Spirit will teach us. Partly my reluctance toward excluding ECT Christians is that I was one myself once. And I know I was truly seeking to follow and know God at that time, just as I am now. I rejoice in my understanding of UR and I love my brethren who follow the same Savior yet can’t see the extent of His Salvation and Glory as I do.
So if Oxy finds we worship a different God than he, that is well. Perhaps in examining the difference he’ll come to see why we do believe so. Most of us have come from an ECT believing background and found enough evidence in Scripture to change our minds about many things regarding God’s character.
I don’t think Oxy has been trying to say that we believe UR simply because we WANT to – though it sounds like he is. I think he’s meaninging he couldn’t believe it if he wanted to, because of what he sees in scripture. But maybe Oxy will clarify that for us.
Sonia
I have a different view if you don’t mind me offering it…
As a Universalist I don’t deny that people will die, I deny that people will die FOREVER.
The penultimate promise of redemption relative to the Genesis 3 account is found in 1 Cor 15:22 “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” In other words, the death of ALL can be traced to Adam, the life of ALL can be found in Christ. What naturally flows on from this is the question: Is the ALL that died in the first half of 1 Cor 15:22 the same ALL that shall live in the second half of the verse??? Yes they are.