Not specifically pedophiles, rapists... But he does say to love our enemies, and love those who hate us. Loving someone who loves you back, or is even nice to you is the easy part. Loving someone, who may not deserve it, or who doesn't even like you is really difficult.

Believe me I've met several people, who I instantly didn't like, and didn't even want to associate with because of how they treated me or how they spoke to me. And each time I have to pray that God give me the strength just to tollerate them. It is hard, but it's something we have to do.

Now as for doing things in Jesus name, they should always be done in love. If you're just doing something because it's expected of you as "the good Christian", or you do something that you really don't want to do, God knows. So while you may be fooling those around you, God is looking at your heart.

Sometimes God asks us to do things we don't want to do, and we fight, and complain, but end up doing it. In my experience this is usually when I learn the most about how God works, and I usually end up feeling grateful for having done what I didn't want to do to begin with.

The thing is, I know a few people who are not at all likeable, but I don't hate them; I don't wish them ill; I just feel that I would rather not spend negative time with them, but that occasions might arise where we could actually get on ok.

I even feel sorry in some ways for rapists, murderers and paedophiles, because I think that there must be something wrong with them.

However, I feel infinitely more sorry for their victims and I think that it is disrespectful to them to forgive their attackers.

Are there no Bible stories where Jesus seems not to forgive? Does he forgive the people who were tainting the temple?

I disagree with that, though I generally agree with your Posts.

I've seen/read/heard about countless instances where the victim has forgiven the perpetrator and feels relieved by the whole experience.

There was a recent movie about a Holocaust survivor coming to terms with forgiving the Nazis, and similar types of situations.

In most cases the victim was powerless when the incidents occured. By granting forgiveness, it gives the victim a sense of power of their attacker, and they retain the upper hand.

The victim need not ever want to associate with the attacker, and might still wish them dead, but it allows the victim to take control.

Nowhere does Jesus tell us that we must become friends, that is, hanging out w/people we dislike. He tells us to love them, which means doing good for them despite what they do to us.

I agree to a certain extent. I feel infintely sorry for the victims as well. However, what if the attacker was a husband, a son, a daughter, etc.? Would you not forgive your flesh & blood b/c they harmed someone else?

I agree w/you here. Have you heard of Restorative Justice? It concentrates its efforts on justice for the victim through facilitated meetings w/the offender. Most victims & offenders that go through the program learn a great deal about the other & are usually more willing to forgive than others.

Ah, but I was considering adding that it was up to the victim to forgive the attacker if that was their choice.

mbas400 referred to an interesting website on another thread:
Topic: A whole bunch of religious (Christian) Questions

http://www.wineintro.com/forum/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=13&t=000334#000001


One question was:

'How can a loving God send people to hell?'

I thought it had some relevance here.

It sounds like a contradiction in terms -God sending his children to hell - but I don't think I'd feel happy in a heaven peopled by those rapists and murderers we mentioned.

but then you'd only be in heaven if you were enough at peace with yourself to accept them for their shortcomings, wouldn't you?

And if the rapists and murderers were truely repentant, then God should let them in.

What of the killers, child molestors and rapists who go to jail and whilst incarcerated "Find God" Do they get the right to head to heaven?

Does God "send people to hell"? Or is it instead preordained that when you die, you are heading one way or the other. Satan and God may get no choice in the matter.

Are Satan and God perhaps siblings, and it's their mother or father that tells them which souls they're allowed to play with?

If you're in heaven, can you get a day pass to go be bad for 24hours?

Wow that is a spooky concept. How do I answer that? Um NO. Satan is a created being, a fallen angel, but created by God.

Now for your question PDM. Hell was created for Satan and his followers. Now this might be a bit hard to take, but God doesn't choose to send anyone to hell. They choose it by rejecting God. Look at it this way God creates man and gives man a rule, man breaks rule, and breaks the subsequent rules given by God. God being a perfect & holy being cannot be associated with sin, but gives man a way of covering their sin. Man rejects that redemtion, and in doing so chooses to spend eternity seperated from God in a place called hell.

See everyone is given a choice. The choice is simple Jesus or not. By choosing not to follow Jesus you've already chosen to follow your own ways, and try to get by on being "generally a good person". But the problem is that "generally good" isn't good enough, so you've chosen seperation from God, or Hell.

In the states we have some laws that make you an accomplice even if you didn't really do anything. For instance, if you throw a party in your house and someone leaves your house too drunk to drive, you could be charged if that person causes an accident. Or if you witness a crime and you were able to stop it but didn't you could be charged as an accomplice. Why? Well by not making the choice to act for good, you've allowed evil to happen.

Is it fair? Honestly yes. There have been instances where people have watched neighbor's kids getting abused, and have not made the phone call to stop the abuse. There have been cases where people have watched women getting raped, and did not assist the victim by stopping the rape. By making a choice not to act they choose to allow the crime(sin, evil) to happen.

The same can be said for salvation. By not making a choice to follow Christ, the choice has been made to not follow Christ. Since Christ is the only way to the father, and the only way into heaven, then the choice that's been made leads to hell.

Why would you want to? What exactly would you like to do for 24 hours? What do you want a day pass to hell because you feel it's going to be like some kind of Disney World? Or a never ending party with hot chicks and lots of booze and drugs?

Hell is not a nice place, there aren't any parties going on there. The bible calls it a place of eternal suffering. That's one of the greatest deceptions Satan has been able to perpetrate. "Hell is going to be a who's who of cool people, and they'll be drinking and smoking, and having lots of cool orgies. It's gonna be a blast man can't wait. You really don't want to go to heaven because it's gonna be boring up there praising God all of the time."