Rookie said:
Please explain, Weaver, because I'm genuinely interested in your viewpoint. How can a god not be knowable? He is God after all
You come across as an agnostic. Why can't God be known?
A God can do as he pleases. A God dictates what is and isn't a sin. A God can choose who can and can't go to heaven. A God can change the rules at any time and simply decide "no soup for you". God can decide that on Tuedays nobody over 6ft can get into heaven.
You can think you know you wife / family / friends VERY VERY well. However you can't be confident that tommorrow night they won't put a lifetime of Strawberry Icecream behind them and say, "I fancy choc-chip". The only mind you can know completely is your own (even that could be iffy).
So when Christians say gays, atheists and glaziers are going to hell they are GUESSING what God will do. They are claiming that they know God's mind. They are saying that because God may (or may not) have opted for the Vanilla Icecream in 4AD he still prefers it to Choc-Mint, and would never ever go for Choc-Mint.
If you believe in all powerful God, then you can't claim to speak for him, you can't decide what is and isn't a sin (that is His job), you can't assign people to Hell.
As for this view being agnostic, it is actually more Eastern Orthodox. God is unknowable. No amount of study or prayer will let you know God's will. It is not for us to understand him, simply to worship him. One of the many 'heresies' that has split the Church.
So when someone like Birdy suggests I am going to Hell I stop and think ... I haven't committed to many sins in my life, certainly no big ones ... on the other hand Birdy has claimed to speak on God's behalf, claimed to know God's mind. In my book that is surely a bigger sin than all the others and it is Birdy going to Hell?