Eternal Heaven and Eternal Hell

[amortalman]

This post is directed at Christians* who believe that the final destiny of all mankind is to reside in an eternal heaven with God or apart from God in an eternal hell of fire and torment.

There are three questions I hope will lead to civil and hardy debate:

1. If you had the power to do so would you abolish eternal hell in favor of a lesser punishment and why?

2. If you answered "yes" to question #1 do you think this decision makes you more compassionate than God? Why or why not?

3. If you answered "no" to question #1 how do you feel about having the final say in keeping a place where some of your unbelieving friends/loved ones will suffer eternally?

Please keep these points in mind:

As in any debate proposition, there are obviously many rabbit trails that can be created and followed. Please try to stay on topic.

The "If" of question #1 may be hard to get beyond for some believers. It is purely hypothetical. But I think it's worth your consideration. I realize that your belief system does not allow you to second guess God and you might be tempted to pass the questions off as nonsensical and irrelevant. But I think the questions are legitimate. As a person endowed with God-given abilities of rational thought and emotions you surely have some opinion on the matter.

If you don't believe in hell, or already believe that hell is something far less severe than described above then your comments would not be on topic. Obviously, I can't control who responds and if you fall in this group and must reply please try to keep it brief. Thanks.

*Finally, for all non-theists who were once Christian believers, I would like to hear what you might have felt or how you might have responded to these questions as a Christian.

Note: As hard as I have tried to make this post as simple and clear as possible it's inevitable that I will be misunderstood by some. I apologize and hope that you'll give me a chance to clear it up, if possible.

[Wootah]

I would not abolish hell. Evil can be defined as having no boundaries. There must be a boundary.

[amortalman]

I would not abolish hell. Evil can be defined as having no boundaries. There must be a boundary.

That's interesting. A lesser punishment than being sentenced to an eternal firey hell would be total annihilation. Would that not be an effective boundary?

[Jagella]

[Replying to post 1 by amortalman]

Finally, for all non-theists who were once Christian believers, I would like to hear what you might have felt or how you might have responded to these questions as a Christian.

I will try to remember. It's been over thirty years since I was a Christian.

If you had the power to do so would you abolish eternal hell in favor of a lesser punishment and why?

When I was a Christian, I was programmed to see everything God did as perfectly righteous. So burning people in hell forever would be perfectly righteous. So no, I would not have abolished hell.

If you answered "yes" to question #1 do you think this decision makes you more compassionate than God? Why or why not?

If I had answered yes when I was a Christian, then I would have feared that God would condemn me to hell for questioning his "perfect righteousness." I do remember feeling anger over the hell doctrine and other such matters when I was a Christian. Maybe that's why I ended up an atheist. I was just too compassionate to be a Christian. Now that I'm an atheist, I think anybody is more compassionate than the Christian god.

[Divine Insight]

*Finally, for all non-theists who were once Christian believers, I would like to hear what you might have felt or how you might have responded to these questions as a Christian.

I was born and raised into Christianity. So I was brainwashed from childhood to believe that this was just reality. I didn't really think to much about hell as a child. For one thing, as a Christian, I certainly had no reason to think that I would be cast into hell. At least not unless I had chosen to commit some horrible crime which I had no desire to do. So on a personal level hell wasn't a concern for me. For this reason I didn't really think about too much as child. I certainly never had any nightmares of being cast into hell because I never did anything that I felt would warrant such an action.

Keep in mind, that I was also taught that Jesus was extremely forgiving and would forgive just about anything, even seriously bad sins. So any trivial things I might have been guilty of I felt certain that those would be forgiven. I should add that my mother also assured me that I was a "good boy" and would surely go to heaven, so she reinforced this view.

But yeah, when I got older and started to see problems with the religion. The idea that any human would deserve a fate of eternal torture with no possibility of ever getting out suddenly became obviously absurd. And so yeah, I quickly realized that I could never do that to anyone, and then as you say, I realized that this would make me compassionately superior to God, and that realization obviously breaks the back of the religion.

Also, I quickly realized that this would be absurd anyway, because if God created these people then he should be able to heal them or repair them in some way. And even if I allow that God is too inept to heal them then at the very least he should be able to peacefully put them to death. There wouldn't even be an sense in making their death painful, much less torturing them forever.

So yeah, a whole can of worms opened up at that point.

[amortalman]

If I had answered yes when I was a Christian, then I would have feared that God would condemn me to hell for questioning his "perfect righteousness." I do remember feeling anger over the hell doctrine and other such matters when I was a Christian. Maybe that's why I ended up an atheist. I was just too compassionate to be a Christian. Now that I'm an atheist, I think anybody is more compassionate than the Christian god.

My sentiments exactly.

[amortalman]

[Replying to post 5 by Divine Insight]

What continues to amaze me is how compassionate, loving people can keep believing in a so-called sovereign god who created or allowed "evil" in the first place and then eternally punishes those he created for partaking in it.

But if one's mind is taken hostage as a child to any doctrine, no matter how absurd, it's extremely hard to set it free.

[ttruscott]

This post is directed at Christians* who believe that the final destiny of all mankind is to reside in an eternal heaven with God or apart from God in an eternal hell of fire and torment.

There are three questions I hope will lead to civil and hardy debate:

1. If you had the power to do so would you abolish eternal hell in favor of a lesser punishment and why?

I do not think hell can be abolished by GOD or anyone because it is a logical and real necessity for creation:

IF GOD created us to be eternally alive, ie, self and other aware for eternity and
IF GOD created us with a free will and
IF by our free will some chose to be eternally evil and
IF it is true that a little leaven / sin leavens / corrupts the whole lump / person, community, world, reality, and therefore if not stopped would corrupt the heavenly marriage itself,
THEN those who chose to be eternally evil in HIS eyes against all HIS warnings about the natural and legal consequences, must be eternally banished from our reality to outside of our reality to the outer darkness.

So, no, I would not abolish hell, the place of banishment because they would still be evil and cause an eternity of suffering to everyone else just to have their self induced pain eased...

3. If you answered "no" to question #1 how do you feel about having the final say in keeping a place where some of your unbelieving friends/loved ones will suffer eternally?

The process of sanctification, of making us elect (ie, under HIS promise of salvation) sinners to be perfectly in accord with HIM and HIS attributes of loving righteousness cleanses or frees us from our idolatry of choosing the people we love over our GOD. The parable of the good seed and the tares/weeds tells us that the eternally sinful tares must not be pulled up, that is, judged, until the temporarily sinful good seed are mature enough in holiness to survive the judgement called the harvest.

Their idolatry of forcing GOD to postpone the judgement day against their friends and loved ones is indeed carried on into this world of human suffering. But becoming holy is based upon our eyes being opened to our shame that all the suffering of this world is our fault because if we had just accepted the call for the judgement way back then, it all would have been over in an instant.

Why force the elect to live with the non-elect if not for them to understand the one difference between them - the elect could be cured of their sinful addiction to evil and the non-elect could not. The harvest will not happen until the last sinful elect gives up his idolatry of his condemned friends and family in favour of accepting YHWH's righteousness.

[1213]

...1. If you had the power to do so would you abolish eternal hell in favor of a lesser punishment and why?

2. If you answered "yes" to question #1 do you think this decision makes you more compassionate than God? Why or why not?

3. If you answered "no" to question #1 how do you feel about having the final say in keeping a place where some of your unbelieving friends/loved ones will suffer eternally?...

By what the Bible tells, hell is place where soul and body are destroyed. I don’t believe anything that is destroyed feels or suffers. But you wanted that the meaning of hell is a place where people live eternally and suffer. If so, maybe I wouldn’t’ abolish it, because it would be what the people want. Those people don’t want to live eternally with God and when people live godless life, they make it suffering for all (small taste of it can be seen from the current war zones one earth for example). According to the Bible, hell is for unrighteous people and unrighteous people would make eternal life eternal suffering. But as said before, I believe it will be what the Bible tells:

And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Matt. 10:28

[Wootah]

I would not abolish hell. Evil can be defined as having no boundaries. There must be a boundary.

That's interesting. A lesser punishment than being sentenced to an eternal firey hell would be total annihilation. Would that not be an effective boundary?

I would speculate that God has promised eternity to his children. If so i dont think God would violate his word. If he did it just once for the worst of us it would forever be a back of mind thought that God could do it to me.

Also I'm not sured annihilation is just.

There was a recent murder case in Australia where the murderer got 40+ years and i said we should execute him. But my friend replied no let him rot in jail and implied that the existence in prison was more
just than death. In that discussion i was the christian and he was the atheist.

(Tbh i fear a weak justice system in my comment)