Zorgblar wrote:

If everybody is going to be saved and nobody is going to be tormented forever or destroyed then how do you explain Matthew 25:40-41?

[FONT="Franklin Gothic Medium"]First of all, Jesus throughout the Gospels was usually speaking in parables.  Second, pulling a verse out of context is usually unwise.  Third, the Bible is a guide not an order. 

Matthew 25:41 really starts in 35 and continues through 45 in which Jesus is talking about how we should treat all of our neighbors.  He is basically making the point that we all determine our own salvation by how we treat the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the prisoners and the strangers.  He uses a prevailing metaphor of the afterlife to reinforce his admonition, but he is talking about how we treat people while we are alive not what happens after we die.

As a Unitarian Atheist, I am always happy to help Christians with what they should believe. 

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Steve1939 wrote:

Yes, vs 41 {...depart from me you cursed, into the eternal fire...}& 46 {And these will go away into eternal punishment...} are kinda tough for universalists to get around.

[FONT="Franklin Gothic Medium"] 1. Since the entire bible is an amusing fable one verse or another, out of context is hardly something for anyone to get around. 
2. At the time Matthew was writing about, there is no reason to assume that Jesus was anything but an itinerant preacher/entertainer, who used prevailing beliefs about God and the afterlife to punctuate his parables. 
3.  As noted below Matthiew 41:35-45 is the message.  The bits about eternal fire and punishment were simply punctuation to the message of treating the least of your neighbors as you would like to be judged as if you had done the same to Jesus.  I bet Jesus would put atheists in much the same boat as Samaritans, and strangers.  Given your Sig lines Where will you spend eternity?

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