Martin, I'd like to point out that your arguments have missed the force of the original post. It was an argument for conditional immortality, not just a list of verses without an argument. I respect your list of verses, but you didn't provide any explanation of why you think they support your view rather than the OP's conditional immortality, and you didn't attempt to explain why the OP is wrong.
If the OP remains unchallenged, that means this thread concludes that the Bible teaches conditional immortality. Your verses may be interpreted in that light -- and they are actually simple to interpret that way.
Mark 9:47-48.
"And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, rather than having two yes, to be cast into hell fire-- where 'their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.'"
Mark pointed out that this passages is about corpses being thrown into a valley. If you look at Jesus' other "pluck it out" passages, for example in Matt 5:29, you'll see that it is indeed "your whole body" being thrown into gehenna, showing that Jesus is aware of the context and intends to use it in the same way.
I'd like to point a different thing out. What exactly is Jesus comparing gehenna
to? He's saying gehenna is worse than "entering the kingdom of God with one eye." He's asking us to imagine living forever with only one eye, giving up half of our eyesight and all our depth vision in order to be free from sin. He's NOT asking us to compare gehenna to
pain, but rather to
loss and destruction -- which is what conditional immortality teaches.
This passage, on closer examination, not only can be interpreted in accordance with conditional immortality, but actually positively affirms it.
. "It would be better for him if a millstone were hung about his neck and he were thrown into the sea........"
What does having a weight around your neck do to the process of drowning? You seem to think it's painful, but although drowning is painful, adding a millstone doesn't add pain. It makes it quicker, which isn't obviously worse -- what's worse is that it makes it inescapable. And that is the point Jesus is making; sins that seem small, like causing someone else to stumble, are judged with all seriousness on the last day; and nobody will escape their judgment.
And of course, the penalty being described in this metaphor is death.
Revelation 20:10ff.
'The devil.....was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever..........And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.'
I can only guess what your argument is in regards to this passage; but since you've edited out most of the passage, I have a pretty good chance of guessing. You probably think that this passage is non-symbolic, to be taken strictly literally; and you think that everything thrown into the Lake of Fire will undergo exactly the same punishment. I'll go with you on your assumption that this passage is literal, although that actually contradicts Rev 17:8-11, which is the interpretation of the beast as "going to destruction."
But is your main premise true? Will everything thrown into the lake of fire undergo the same punishment? The text makes it clear that this is not true. The part you cut out includes death being thrown into the Lake of Fire; and after the judgment, Rev 21:4 says "death is no more." So there are two different fates for at least death and Satan (and not to belabor the point, but it looks like the beast is supposed to be destroyed alongside death).
Nor is there any good reason to think humans are seen in the same light as the two beasts and Satan; unlike those, humans are raised from the dead and judged, a very different process than the beasts received. Then, when their punishment is exegeted, the humans' fate in the lake of fire is explained as "the second death" -- a phrase which in its context interprets the lake of fire. Humans thrown into the lake of fire
die. And that's exactly what all the rest of the Bible teaches -- God will kill the rebels at gehenna, as Luke 12:5 says.
The conclusion should not be to presume that humans receive whatever Satan is depicted as receiving; the conclusion should be that whatever happens to Satan (eternal torment or the destruction that the rest of the Bible promised him), the fate of people is not the same; it's death.
I don't have much time, so I'm going to post this -- I apologize for shorting a very complex discussion. One more simple thing.
You quoted Daniel 12:2, which says that the wicked will be raised to "shame and eternal contempt." But look at this. Shame is an emotion shameful people feel, and contempt is an emotion contemptuous people feel. Although contempt is a negative emotion, it's not something that's bad to feel; it means you're judging someone else. Shame IS bad to feel; to be shamed is to BE judged. In other words, the shame is felt by the wicked; the contempt is felt by everyone else, including God, toward the wicked.
And the only part that's eternal is the contempt. That's because, just as in Isaiah 66:24, the righteous are alive forever to scorn the wicked, while the wicked -- after their resurrection to shame -- are killed, and remain dead.
