Um, besides being wrong, Michael seems to be using some slight of hand here, perhaps engaging the fallacy that newer ideas are bad? All three traditions can trace their roots back to early church fathers. The traditionalist doctrine of the immortality of the soul, which we claim is mistaken, can be traced back to Plato, later cemented as Christian (but perhaps not biblical) doctrine by Augustine. You can learn about the early conditionalist fathers in this short vid
Like the traditional view, there are many nuanced and slightly differing positions among conditionalists. In particular, you find variations in both camps around the more difficult and less scripturally defined topics such as the intermediate state between death and resurrection, the actual nature of the punishment and the literalness of the fire and darkness both described in the judgement, the means of delivering degrees of punishment, and how these models relate to the atonement. In addition, some traditionalists include the idea of the gradual depersonalizations of the soul in hell, and even post mortem repentance, and sanctifying purgatory (c.s. Lewis). Not Michael, of course
All that to say, ken may or may not hold the 'majority' conditionalist view, but the demeaning of his position as 'watered down' seems inaccurate, if not merely mean spirited. Spare me your justifications of calling a spade a spade! your style speaks for you. You should improve it if you want to be heard.
Genetic fallacy alert!
Actually, ken was attempting to correct a common misunderstanding of conditionalism (if not a straw man), which states that we don't believe in eternal punishment. We do, but we disagree with traditionalists on the understanding of the word punishment, not the word eternal. ECT teaches 'eternal punishing,' while we claim it means 'punished once for all eternity.'
We further claim that this use is consistent with the use of eternal in other phrases like 'eternal redemption' as well as with the multiple biblical uses of words like destroy, perish, consume, and death. The few passages that ECT ppl have left are in the highly symbolic book of Revelation, hardly a secure place to ground your doctrine, esp. In light if the fact that the relevant passages it quotes are from OT passages that show total annihilation.
