Why Would God Create a Person Who Would be Destined for Hell?
by Rich Deem
IntroductionChristianity claims that God knows everything. The theological term is "omniscience." There are some implications of this doctrine that non-believers find troubling or even unacceptable to the concept of a loving God. If God knows everything, then He knows that some people whom He creates will end up in hell. Why would God create people who are destined for hell? It turns out that there are many unstated assumptions in this question, which are not valid for Christianity. A related question, "Why wouldn't God just create everyone to enjoy the glory of heaven?" will also be answered.

Destined for hell Predestined for hell The first, and most prevalent, incorrect assumption is that a person who is destined for hell has been predestined for hell by God. This is false. People choose to go to hell rather than submit their lives to God. You have absolute free will within the confines of your personal ability. You can prove this to yourself. Determine two possible courses of action. They don't have to be big decisions, just any two possible actions. Assign each action to either "heads" or "tails." Flip the coin and do what whatever course chance decided. You can do this as many times as needed to determine that you do, indeed, have free will. Occasionally, do the opposite of what the coins tell you. Has God prevented you from doing anything? No!

God alone created youThe second incorrect assumption is that God alone has created you. You are the product of choices made by your parents. Therefore, God has not predestined you to be born at all. How can you blame Him for creating you to send you to hell?

People destined for hell have no earthly purposeThe third incorrect assumption is that a person destined for hell has no purpose in this life. This is also false. All people living have a purpose. Some people destined for hell will save other's lives, either intentionally or unintentionally. Others destined for hell will be helped, encouraged, and witnessed to by others who are destined for heaven. Those who follow God's plan are provided opportunities to help others in their spiritual path. If all people were on the same spiritual path, there would be nobody for God's people to help. God says that all are without excuse, so He provides witnesses of his plan to give them a chance to change their minds.

Rewards and punishmentAnother possible assumption is that the only purpose of this life is to choose to follow God or reject Him. This is also false. This life is used as a measure of reward and punishment. All who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior will go to heaven, but the amount of reward in heaven will be directly related to how closely one followed God's will in his life. Likewise, all those who reject Jesus Christ will go to hell and will be punished to the degree of how much evil they committed in their life. This is why God allows people to make their own choices.

Why wouldn't God just create everyone to enjoy the glory of heaven?Skeptics might claim that God, in knowing all the choices a person would make, would not need to create all the people who would end up in hell. This question also has some underlying assumptions. The assumption is that since God knows all the answers, He would have no need of "running the experiment."

Just put the good people directly into heaven?The assumption that God could just put the good people directly into heaven seems to be valid for God, but has some problems when applied to humans. For some reason, skeptics leave themselves out of the equation. They want God to run the thought experiment and put those souls who would make the right choice (believe in Jesus Christ) directly into heaven and not even create those who reject Him. The problem is that God would then be liable to the accusation of rewarding some people more than others, since reward is proportional to good deeds done in life. Since there was no real life, how could God hand out rewards? Should He tell people what they would have done and let them be content with that? How would those souls know anything about life, goodness, and doing the right thing if they had never lived before? God could be considered to be unjust, since His actions would not be based upon choices made by real characters. Would God just put those fake memories into their heads? If He did so, God would be creating deceptions, which contradicts His perfect character.

When people think deeply about their "perfect" plan about what God "should have done," they realize that there are logical problems. What most people would create, as god, would be robots, since they would have no choice at all. Ever try loving your computer? It is not a very satisfying relationship. So it would be with the robots that skeptics would send directly into heaven.

ConclusionThe "problems" about the loving God of Christianity posed by the skeptics rests on invalid assumptions. Based on an invalid understanding of God's foreknowledge, they seek to avoid the consequences of their free will choice by offering a "solution" that violates the character of God. Therefore, the "solution" would not be a valid solution for the God of Christianity.

Source

Well if the story is to be believed, god that knows all, and is the source for all creation, created the first and most beautiful angel, and when the angel decided he would not serve those created less than he, he was sent to a place god that knows all, made especially for him. So then he , that would at first not bow in service to the lesser created humanity, would now have those fallen of humanity congregated to bow in service to him in the hellish domain of creator god's making. I see it as a sado-masochistic codependency. To worship and seek salvation from that which created damnation.

That's why I know god is created in the image of man. All those traits are deviance in the human emotional matrix, which is created by god, if one faithfully believes. So then if we are created in the image of god, what does it say that we are possessed of personalities that make us damned unless we strive for salvation, within the ideal of the heaven or hell , that are first of gods making!?

More and more I am coming to the conclusion that free will is a concept not supportable in the Bible. Many times, God is said to have HARDENED someone's heart against Him. Likewise, God is given the credit for CALLING followers to Him. No one can understand the gospel, unless God intervenes and opens the individual's heart to the message.

Furthermore, Romans makes it clear that God creates people for certain purposes - does not the potter have the right to make useless pots and great vases with the same clay! And then in response to the obvious question - how can God send us to Hell if he creates us to go there, he writes that God is GOd is the creator and has the right to do whatever he wants with the created.

So where does freewill fit into this? It can be argued that God is an entity outside the constraints of time. Thus he not only "sees" the future, but the future has already happened - indeed our concept of future and past and present is meaningless in a realm without Time. Therefore the actions an individual carries out, though "predestined" since it's already happened and there's no way of avoiding that outcome, is still the choice made at the time, not an indication that the person had no choice in the first place. Or alternatively, it can be argued that "hardening" and "softening" hearts, or being "called" is just another way of saying you made a choice.

Whatever the case, the Bible supports predestination, not freewill, in my newfound opinion.

Just a thought, maybe.

Regards, PA

No

Ah, yes. We choose to go to hell. So a person living, in let's say, the far reaches of India, goes through life never even hearing of this "Jesus", dies ... and goes to hell for eternity. And this, you claim, is his freewill? Hmm ...

Reference: Your Opening Quote Has a Deep Flaw John Gannon
From: "Todd Smith"
To: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Subject: Response to John Gannon's letter "Your Opening Quote Has a Deep Flaw"
Date: December 19, 2001 5:00 AM

Cliff,

I read John Gannon's letter "Your Opening Quote Has a Deep Flaw" and felt compelled to write.

One thing that has always befuddled me about the free will argument is that eventually, according to the Christian religion, Jesus Christ will come again, and we will all either end up in hell or in heaven; presumably to stay at one or the other forever.

Why, then, if God is good 'n' powerful, having already made the mistake of allowing "evil" to exist, does he not just hit the "fast forward" button in time, taking us either directly to heaven or hell instantaneously, therefore quickening the punishment for the sinners, and avoiding the unnecessary pain for the ones destined to go to heaven? I had this thought when I was eight years old, for crying out loud, and my Sunday school teacher couldn't answer it. The problem with the "programmed robot" argument is that it presumes that free will must coexist with evil. This is ridiculous. God could simply make evil an impossibility, and we would have free will to do anything within the framework he has created. Our free will is defined only within the laws of the universe. The impossibility to do something does not hamper free will.

One more point to drive it home: Will those souls lucky enough to make it to heaven check their free will at the pearly gates? No. They will keep their free will, and have everlasting, immortal bliss in heaven. Christians who forward the "programmed robot" argument don't even realize their own religion refutes it. After I realized this point when I was a child, I imagined God was a cat, and we were the mice that he played with before he ate us.

Todd Smith
Peoria, Illinois

RESPONSE
http://www.positiveatheism.org/mail/eml8614.htm

The Freewill Argument

The Christians' objection to this argument involves freewill. They say that a being must have freewill to be happy. The omnibenevolent God did not wish to create robots, so he gave humans freewill to enable them to experience love and happiness. But the humans used this freewill to choose evil, and introduced imperfection into God's originally perfect universe. God had no control over this decision, so the blame for our imperfect universe is on the humans, not God.

Here is why the argument is weak. First, if God is omnipotent, then the assumption that freewill is necessary for happiness is false. If God could make it a rule that only beings with freewill may experience happiness, then he could just as easily have made it a rule that only robots may experience happiness. The latter option is clearly superior, since perfect robots will never make decisions which could render them or their creator unhappy, whereas beings with freewill could. A perfect and omnipotent God who creates beings capable of ruining their own happiness is impossible.

Second, even if we were to allow the necessity of freewill for happiness, God could have created humans with freewill who did not have the ability to choose evil, but to choose between several good options.

Third, God supposedly has freewill, and yet he does not make imperfect decisions. If humans are miniature images of God, our decisions should likewise be perfect. Also, the occupants of heaven, who presumably must have freewill to be happy, will never use that freewill to make imperfect decisions. Why would the originally perfect humans do differently?

The point remains: the presence of imperfections in the universe disproves the supposed perfection of its creator.

SOURCE
http://www.update.uu.se/~fbendz/library/cd...sible.html#just

That said ... Hell does not exist. Even the Church is putting this one in the rubbish bin where it belongs!

August 7, 1999
Have the Fires of Hell Been Put Out?


In his weekly general audience (July 28,1999), Pope John Paul II spoke about hell to 8,500 pilgrims and to the world. . . . "Last week," THE SENTINEL (Florida, August 2), reports, "the Pope defined hell, telling Catholics it is not a physical place and there are no flames—at the very least calling into question a thousand years of Christian art. . ." To this idea, the Rev. Charles Horton of College Park Baptist Church assented, "Hell is eternal separation from God's love. A separation from God is worse than fire."

Indeed, for over 100 years Bible Students have been teaching that the Bible "hell" is not a place of torment, but the condition of the unconscious dead.

No More a Place of Endless Torment!

Just a few years ago, Monitor Radio (January 1996) in London reported, "In Britain, the Church of England has decided that Hell is need of a makeover. In a new study, the church's 'Doctrine Commission' debunks the traditional image of Hell as a place of endless torment." This announcement was followed up in the British newspaper, THE INDEPENDENT: ". . . people will be bitterly disappointed by the Church of England's latest report. Hell exists, it says, but may well be empty. . . cold in its innermost depths. The idea that Hell is a place of endless torment or burning is denounced as contributing to a blasphemous picture of God as a sadist. Similarly, the report regards as unnecessary the traditional understanding of the soul as a substance separable from the body which flies towards (or downwards) at death. Instead, it proposes that the soul be understood as the 'information-bearing pattern of the body,' which may be held in the mind of God after death."

So what is hell then? "Hell is not eternal torment," said the Doctrine Commission, "but is the final and irrevocable choosing of that which is opposed to God so completely and so absolutely that the only end is total non-being."

Hell Has Terrified Christians for 2,000 Years:

In the U.S. INQUIRER Staff Writer, David O'Reilly comments (January 21, 1996) on this announcement, "The Doctrine Commission of the Church of England last week proposed that hell is possibly not an eternal realm of screams, agony, fire and pitchforks, such as has terrified Christians for 2,000 years. The Anglicans suggest instead that hell is most likely a non-place—a state of nothingness."

He also suggested that "the idea of annihilation of the wicked—rather than torment in an eternal hell—has gained in evangelical circles in the past several decades." Indeed, Billy Graham had already admitted, "When it comes to a literal fire, I don't preach it because I'm not sure about it" (TIME, November 15, 1993)

Sean

The Bible is not clear as to what happens to those who have not heard the gospel. Making a doctrinal decision either way is impossible, in my opinion.

I think there is often times exampled personalities that claim faith, by the book.

Fundamentalist history is written in blood. In an effort to command on earth what is professed from the heavens. If one does not believe in the mightier power, they shall certainly die in the name of heaven or hell, because it says so in the book, so say those that wield weapons of offense in the faith of that what's written on the page.

Where as those that live by the spirit that merely inspired the book, see that that which is made of man is corruptible unto the dominion of man. But those who embrace the spirit alive in all men, see god in every wo/man.

There is then in conflict the prescriptions to believe, defined by the politics of men. And written in contracts of blood, that intolerance is the way of god. After the long centuries of prayers beseeching the powers for peace, one would imagine we'd of at least heard us by now.

Indeed. If god answers the prayers of the faithful--even one!--then we should be living in a utopia.

YHWH doesn't answer prayers, he watches people think he does so that he can get ever so closer to the finish line

And what is the prize that awaits the creator of all things, at the cross of that finish line?

the creator of all things? that's funny considering that he is just one of the "almighty" race. He will come down and fight for his right to rule, he will fight us and others of his kind. His kind is scattered and each wants everything for themselves. We are in for the ultimate showdown

Nonsense is really not worth the space to identify what is blatantly obvious in your postings. I edit myself and take it for what it is.

And this is why such a book proves itself to be a very fallible work of men--like all religious texts. God could have easily dropped ITS "Holy Writ" down from the heavens on indestructible golden parchment in a universal language everybody could understand and put an end to all of life's questions ... and speculation to ITS existence.

Unfortunately, that never happened ... and never will.

Interesting. I was reading something recently that believers in supernatural/unexplained phenomena will point to ignorance to rationalize their beliefs - eg, hey did you see that in the sky, do you know what it is? No, it must be aliens then! That kind of argument.

What you are saying here sounds very much the same thing. There's no divine indestructible writ of God's law, therefore anything written by man cannot be right!

Just a thought.

Regards, PA

First, I don't appreciate being called ignorant, PA. Hardly called for. Second, an omnipotent/omniscient being would know full-well that IT could not trust ITS fallible creation to correctly interpret ITS holy law. Mistakes would be made causing great confusion (how many denominations are there?) and the falling away of devout believers. No, it must for once, personally intervene.

Excuse me? THe example I gave - You don't know what that was in the sky, oh it must be aliens - that is what I meant by pointing to ignorance. Another example would be the oft-used (and false) statement - humans only use 10% of the brain, therefore psychic powers come from the other 90%. Another argument from ignorance. We don't know what the other 90% is used for, therefore it must be for telekenesis (for example).

I was not in any way implying you were ignorant. SOrry for the misunderstanding.

As for the second, God did personally intervene - 2000 years ago (or near enough). No one believed then either

Why should they? Jesus did nothing that other holy men/faith healers (Apollonius of Tyana, for example) were doing (Paul warned of such men regularly in his epistles) at the time. He was just one amongst a crowd of such nutters (even his own family thought him to be "out of his mind") strolling the streets of first century Jerusalem.

If god intervened ... he did a very poor job of it--so much so, that even Jesus' own disciples/family questioned him, could hardly understand him.

What we have here is a man who says that he is God, and who claims that his miracles prove that he is God. The question that any normal person would ask is simple: Is this true? Is Jesus God, or was Jesus a normal human being?

Chapter 19 - Why didn't Jesus move a mountain?

Let's say you are walking down a New York City street one day, and you notice a man walking toward you from the other direction. There are two reasons why you notice him. First, he is wearing a long white robe and leather sandals. Second, he is obviously planning to talk to you. He has made direct eye contact and is motioning for you to stop so that he can say something to you.

You try to look at the ground and walk past him, but he actually steps right into your path and you stop short. He focuses his eyes on you and says, " I am the light of the world: he who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me. I am the prince of peace. I am God. Believe in me and you shall have Eternal life...."

You are thinking that this person is a total nut case. You are fingering the cell phone in your pocket, making sure that you will be able to dial 911 if you need to. Fortunately there are a number of other people walking by, so you feel fairly safe. And there is something about the intensity of his gaze... Instead of running away, you say, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Let me make sure I heard you right. You are God?"

Man: "Yes. I am God. I am the son of the highest. I am the lord of our righteousness. I am the horn of salvation. I..."

You: "Whoa. Slow down. You are God?"

Man: "Yes. I am God."

You: "Can you show me an ID?"

Man: "No. I am God. I don't need an ID."

You: "Of course. OK. Can you tell me your name?

Man: "My name is Jesus2."

You: "Can you prove to me that you are God? That's a pretty stupendous claim."

Man: "Yes, certainly. Walk with me."

Jesus2 walks about half a block, and you come upon a homeless person in a wheel chair begging for change with a sign and a rattling cup. Jesus2 approaches him and says, "Good sir. May we interrupt you for a moment?"

Homeless man: Yes.

Jesus2: Have we ever met before?

Homeless man: No, I've never seen you before in my life.

Jesus2: Now good sir, how long have you been confined to this wheel chair.

Homeless man: Going on 20 years I'd say. Seems like my whole life.

Jesus2: Arise and walk. You are healed!

At this point the homeless person leaps to his feet screaming, "It's a miracle! I am cured! I am able to walk!" and runs off down the street joyously.

Now, what do you think about this? You need to make a decision here. Either this man is God and has just healed a person who has not walked for 20 years. That's option #1. Or... this man is not God, and there is some other explanation for what you just saw. For example, it might, possibly, be the case that Jesus2 is a homeless man too, and that these two homeless men might -- just might -- be working together on some sort of scam. That is option #2.

Chances are that you suspect that option #2 is the more likely of the two scenarios at work here. So you might say to Jesus2, "Wow. That was impressive. You just healed a guy who had been in a wheelchair for 20 years. But look -- I need something a little more convincing. See that skyscraper across th street? Can you pick it up and move it to the middle of Central Park?"

Jesus2: Which part of Central Park?

You: It really doesn't matter to me.

Jesus2: Well, there is a slight problem.

You: Really? What is the problem?

Jesus2: It is not my will to move the skyscraper.

You: Really? I thought you were God. Aren't you all-powerful?

Jesus2: I am God, yes. I am the bread of life. I am the blessed and only potentate.

However, it is not my will to move that skyscraper.

You: Why not?

Jesus2: It simply is not. I like Central Park the way it is.

You: OK. Move it somewhere else. Move it to a vacant lot in Jersey.

Jesus2: It is not my will to do that.

You: I see. Well, have a nice day!

And you would walk away.

Prove it

Think about it. If someone were to come to you and say, "I am God!", wouldn't you want proof? Yes, you would. Of course you would. And you would not want goofy proof. You would not accept something that looks like a faith healer's show at a tent revival, and you would not accept something that looks like a magic trick. You want real, solid proof. You want any person who claims to be God to do something that is clearly impossible, like picking up a skyscraper, levitating it through the air and settling it into the middle of Central Park.

Something like that, quite obviously, would have to be the work of an all-powerful God. Levitating a skyscraper and moving it from here to there is clearly something that no human being can do, so it would be convincing. There is no way to fake it. And millions of other people would be able to verify that, yes, the skyscraper did move from its original location to a new location. If the building were hooked into water, sewer, power and phone at its new resting place, that would be perfect.

No normal person, and I mean no one, would accept anything less than rock solid proof from a person who claims to be God.

Why should it be any different with Jesus? Jesus was a man who claims to be God. If he is God, then he ought to be able to prove it in a real, inimitable way. If he cannot prove it then, quite clearly, he is not God.

A Christian would say, "But Jesus HAS proven it! Just look at all of the miracles he did in the Bible! He healed the sick! He changed water into wine! That PROVES that Jesus is the Lord!"

Does that make sense to you? Imagine that someone, today, were to come up to you and say, "I am God, and I will prove that I am God by healing the sick and turning water into wine!" What would you say? Be honest. You would not believe this person because:

Everyone has seen all sorts of "faith healers" who can "heal" the sick. And we all know that this sort of "healing" is quackery. If it were true, then we would not need doctors, hospitals or prescription medicines. (see also Chapter 6)

Turning water into wine... Doesn't that sound like something that a B-grade David-Copperfield-wannabe magician would do in a nightclub act? There are a dozen ways that you could stage things to make it look like water is turning into wine. There is no reason why a normal person would accept a magic trick as proof that someone is God.

It is as simple as that. If someone claimed to be God today, you would never believe it if the evidence consisted of faith healing and magic tricks. Never. Yet billions of people claim that Jesus' faith healing and magic tricks prove that he is God.
Real proof

Let's imagine that Jesus truly is God. What might he have done to prove it? He could have started by taking one of his most famous quotes from the Bible and acting on it. In Matthew 17:20 Jesus says quite clearly:

For truly, I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.

To prove that he is God, Jesus would have moved a mountain. Especially since it is so easy. And Jesus would have written something down to explain himself. Here's what the first page of Jesus' book might have looked like:

My name is Jesus, and I am God. I know there are a lot of people out there who will doubt that I am God, so let me start off by proving it to you. Take a look at Mount Sinai. Everyone knows that, until today, Mount Sinai stood near here. It is the mountain where God, my father, gave Moses the Ten Commandments. Mount Sinai vanished this morning, and what was left in its place was a perfectly smooth, polished stone base measuring four miles square. Hundreds of years from now, people will find that Mount Sinai landed near a place that will be called Newark, New Jersey. When scientists dig into the mountain, they will find that the bottom of the mountain is also completely smooth and polished, and that the bottom of the mountain in New Jersey perfectly matches the polished plain nearby. Scientists will be able to align the mountain and the plain, looking at it rock crystal by rock crystal at a microscopic level. I have said many times that, if you have faith, you can move mountains. I moved Mount Sinai to show how easy it is, and to prove that I am God.

I know that that may not be enough, so let me offer a second proof. If you draw a circle, you know that there is distance across the circle. Let us call it the diameter of the circle. There is also a distance around the outside of the circle. Let us call it the circumference. If you divide the circumference by the diameter, you get another number. Let us call it Pi, and its first 6 digits are 3.14159. Pi is an irrational number. It is a number that is made up of an infinite number of non-repeating digits.

There will come a day when machines called computers will calculate billions of digits of Pi. If you calculate Pi out to the millionth trillionth digit, here is what you will find:

9823456451237823492278583495083498745....

Now, having proven that I am God to any rational being, through my documentable movement of a mountain and through my foreknowledge of Pi at the millionth trillionth position, here is what I want you to say to the human race as your creator, and as the creator of the universe...

Wouldn't that be awesome and amazing? If we had such a book, and if Mount Sinai had actually moved, then there would be no questions about Jesus. We would all believe that he is God. How could we not? Imagine what such a book would say on the following pages. A book like that, I am sure, would leave all of us in awe. (see also chapter 17)

Unfortunately, Jesus did not provide concrete proof of his divinity. For any normal person, that makes things simple -- Jesus is not God. We would not believe that anyone today is God without concrete proof. Jesus doesn't get a pass because he lived 2,000 years ago.

Key Point

Jesus did not provide any concrete proof of his divinity. For any normal person, that makes things simple -- Jesus is not God. To believe that anyone today is God, we would need concrete proof. Jesus does not get a pass because he lived 2,000 years ago.

For religious people, however, it is a different story. If you ask a religious person about Jesus' divinity, you may find yourself in a conversation like this:

Norm: If Jesus is God, why didn't Jesus ever prove that he is God?

Chris: He did! He performed many miracles, and he was resurrected. That proves that he is God!

Norm: Why did he not prove that he is God in a way that is definitive and scientifically provable -- for example, by moving a mountain?

Chris: He could not do that! That would take away man's free will to believe in him. People must come to God through faith.

Norm: Why, then, did Jesus perform the miracles described in the Gospels?

Chris: To prove that he is God. If he had not done the miracles, culminating in his final most miraculous resurrection, we would not know that he is God.

Norm: I thought that if Jesus performed miracles to prove that he was God, then it took away our free will.

Chris: No.

Norm: Isn't that what you just said?

Chris: No. What I just said is that Jesus' miracles prove that he was God.

Norm: So why didn't Jesus perform real, concrete miracles like moving a mountain?

Chris: Because that would take away our free will.

Try having this conversation yourself with a Christian and you will find it to be a very odd discussion. The circular logic will make you dizzy:

Jesus had to perform miracles to prove his divinity, and that doesn't take away free will...

...But if Jesus performed miracles that we could see and scientifically verify, it would take away free will.

Any normal person can see reality. The reason why Jesus did not perform concrete, verifiable miracles is because Jesus was a man like any other. The "miracles" discussed in the Bible were not miracles at all.

A hidden God?

Here is a line of reasoning that Christians will frequently use to try to rationalize Jesus' behavior. In the book "The Case for Faith," the author Lee Stroble interviews Peter Kreeft, Ph.D. Dr. Kreeft says the following:

"Scripture describes God as a hidden God. You have to make the effort of faith to find him. There are clues you can follow. And if that weren't so, if there was something more or less than clues, it's difficult for me to understand how we could really be free to make a choice about him."

Clues? Hidden? According to the Bible God incarnated himself. He created an entire human body named Jesus. That is not a "clue" -- that is a huge, obvious piece of evidence. It is very hard to "hide" a 170-pound human being who is running around performing miracles on every street corner. Then you collect the stories of those miracles and publish them in a book. Where is the hiding in that?

There are examples of God's desire for publicity throughout the Bible. The best known is God's parting of the Red Sea in the book of Exodus, chapter 14:

Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.

That is impressive, and it is utterly obvious. Thousands of Israelites witnessed this event. There are many other events that are equally obvious: manna from heaven, the Ten Commandments carved onto stone tablets, the Passover massacre and so on. All of it is described in the Bible, which God wrote so that billions of people can read about these events and experience them vicariously today.

It is pretty hard to hide something that you do in front of thousands of people and then describe and publish in billions of books. Clearly God is not a hidden God.

But there is an even more impressive sign that we often forget. If God exists and God wrote the Bible, then rainbows are actually proof that God exists. God is not hiding at all. If you read Genesis 9:12-13 you will find this:

And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth..."
What could be more obvious than that? God left a sign for all future generations, according to the Bible. Clearly God does not want to hide.

There are also plenty of cases in the New Testament. For example, Matthew, Chapter 17:

After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.

Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters--one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah."

While he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!"

These are not exactly the actions of a God in hiding. Apparently the free wills of Peter, James and John were not that important to God. And again it is published in the Bible so that billions of other people can read about it.

Or take this passage from the book of Matthew, Chapter 3:

As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."

Again, not exactly a hidden God.

Or this passage from the book of Luke, Chapter 2:

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."

The free will of the shepherds was certainly tarnished a bit here.

In 1 Corinthians 15:6, Paul says,

Then he [Jesus, after the resurrection] appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time.

Those 500 people must have lost their free will. And John says:

Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written. (John 21:25)

That's an awful lot of miracles -- so many that the world would not have room for all the books describing them. Presumably at least one person witnessed each miracle. Think of how many names fill just one phone book. Now imagine a whole world full of phone books. That's a lot of people. Weren't all of their free wills affected? How is God hiding if millions of people saw Jesus and the miracles he performed?

Jesus claims to be God, and Jesus is a physical being running around Israel for all to see. He apparently performed millions of miracles in front of millions of people. The God of the Bible is not hiding -- God is so hungry for publicity and exposure that he actually incarnates himself and then starts performing miracles for everyone on the planet. Then he creates a God-breathed book to describe everything and publishes billions of copies all over the world.

Yet, for some reason, God wants none of us today to see any of those miracles because he "needs to remain hidden" so that he will not "taint our free wills." Does that seem likely? Or is it more likely that Jesus never performed a real miracle? When you combine this evidence with the fact that Jesus answers no prayers (see section 1), it is clear to us what is actually happening.

Drawing a conclusion

Key Point

If Jesus needed miracles to prove to people that he is God, and if it did not hurt their "free wills" to see these miracles, and if all these miracles were written down and attested to by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John so that we could all experience them vicariously today, then why is it wrong for us to see a real miracle and have actual proof today? Why didn't any of Jesus' miracles have a physical permanence that would transcend time and prove his story to everyone? Because Jesus was a normal human being just like you and me.

Here is an important question for you to ask yourself: If Jesus needed miracles to prove to people that he is God, and if it did not hurt their "free wills" to see these miracles, and if all these miracles were written down and attested to by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John so that we could all experience them vicariously today, then why didn't Jesus perform a single real miracle? Why didn't any of Jesus' miracles have a physical permanence that would transcend time and prove his story?

To better understand the question, try this: Imagine that you are watching a magician like David Copperfield on television. He "heals" a few people -- makes a blind person see, makes a lame person walk, etc. He demonstrates that he can "turn water into wine." Then he goes one step further and says, "I am God! I have just proven it to you by my miracles!"

Would any of us believe him? Of course not. To believe that someone is God, we would need incontrovertible proof. We would not accept magic tricks. We know that they are meaningless.

God is not trying to remain "hidden" -- all we have to do is open the Bible to see it. And it is obvious that, if a person were to claim to be God today, we would demand real proof. Therefore, the fact that Jesus did not perform a single miracle that is visible and testable today proves to all of us that Jesus was a normal human being, just like you and me.

SOURCE
http://whydoesgodhateamputees.com/god19.htm

The question posed in the intial post is one of the reasons that I find the concept of hell completely flawed.

God reportedly is an all knowing creature that created the entire universe and the laws that govern it. Everything is attributable to god and nothing is beyond his will. He/she setup the systems, created the humans; every aspect of our person.

God is also said to have a perfect love for humans, a love so far advanced beyond our understanding of love. That being said logically god has the ability to change the system that has been created by him should he will it to be changed.

"Free will" is often touted as the reason why god would allow his most beloved creations to send themselves to hell. Somehow humans are supposed to be fully aware of the risks of hell based on flimsy evidence of such a place. Without a complete concept of hell, nor very clear directions as to how one arrives there(different religions have different opinions). Humans thereby have no ability to even conceive of this hell, let alone be able to keep themselves from ending up there as the supposed guidelines for entry are based on sin; something that every single person on earth does.

The only peson in the history of humankind to go without sin is the son of god, a person with godlike powers and in my opinion not a good person to be setting the standards as he is a part of the holy trinity and who knows what abilities he has or doesn't have when it comes to being able to go a life without sin.

With only one person in the history of man hitting the guidelines for entry to heaven it seems like the bar is set a bit too high in my opinion.

The fact that he was tortured to death absolving humans of their own sins just doesn't make sense, if god can setup such a loophole to his own design why is it that god cannot setup another loophole to at least allow for human to at least have a full understanding of those risks of hell beforehand?

Furthermore, why would god even allow his most beloved creations to send themselves to hell? an eternity of constant torture for a limited amount of sin(Even one sin-one minor infraction in an otherwise perfect life is enough to warrant an eternity of torture) is incredibly unfair and hardly seems to be the rules created by a perfect being of perfect love.

Even with the flawed lagic and love of a human being, I would not let my worst enemy spend an eternity in hell, let alone a loved one...or a pet hamster.

It just doesn't make any sense to do so when god reportedly has the ability to change the outcome with a simple wish to work things out after the person dies with a chat about the mistakes made...

The concept of hell just makes no sense.

Well said.

That would be a 'solid' proof of being King Kong, not god!



Do you think god is chatting with Hitler and Milosevich right now about the 'mistakes' made?
I wouldn't want to be in Saddam's shoes when it's his turn to 'work things out'!

You just don't understand that gods are not about peace and love, they are about greed and power

PA, I understand your argument. If God is precognisant (which he should be if he is all-knowing), then he should know which people will be non-believers and will go to hell. If he knows this, then he knowingly creates people to go to hell. It isn't a matter of finding out which ones will go to hell and which to heaven, because God wouldn't have to "find out" he would already know.

Fluffybunny, good post. I've also thought that it doesn't make sense to go to hell for eternity. Even human lives (50-100 years) are relatively short compared to the life of the Earth, much less eternity. It doesn't make sense to suffer indefinately for the mistakes made in a second.

^^I've come to that conclusion myself to an extent (though I'm not sure if he had an active hand in my creation or just set the ball rolling, if you know what I mean).

However, I have also come to the conclusion that Hell is not an everlasting place of torture. As I've said before, Hell is separation from God. And since God is Life (according to the Bible), to be separated from that which gives life is to be dead.

See what I'm saying!

Regards, PA

Some of the things people reject most about Christianity are actually a Christian "mythos" that has no basis in the Bible. And by Bible, we can only acknowledge those books which Jesus himself acknowledged as Holy, and these are the Old Testament books. The rest were written after his accension, and therefore must remain unsantified and suspect.

In the "real" Bible, then, we do not see the flaming torment of Hell, imitated from the Greek Hades. We only see the quiet, non-fiery resting place of Sheol.

In the "real" Bible, Satan is an obedient servant of God, not a dualistic opponent stolen verbatim from Zoroastrian mythology.

In the "real" Bible there is virtually no mention of demons, yet the New Testament is filled with them because it was a popular Greek belief.

So if "Hell" seems a ridiculous concept, understand that it is not really a "Biblical" concept, but rather, a Pagan Greek "addition" added to the post-Bible Christian "mythology" to encourage more pagans to "join the club".

It would seem the only real requirement of god For its/his so called savour is mute capitulation and anyone failing to believe is deemed a sinner and punished regardless of how good one is in life doesn’t sound very just to me

Righteous dictatorship maybe just most certainly not

This is interesting, and would be hopeful, except that he goes on to attack a Strawman.



Notice how he hasn't actually answered the real question, which is If God, who is omniscient, can see the future and destination of his creations, why does he bother creating people whom he will end up punishing? Instead, he states "God allows everyone a choice." Wrong; if God, by definition, knows exactly how things are going to turn out and lets it continue, he is only giving you the illusion of choice.



Another dodge on the actual question asked by skeptics; logically speaking, he's beating on a strawman, a caricature of an actual argument. Regardless of whether God planned for you to exist or not; if he is omniscient and presumably (since this is the christian God)all-powerful, while does he allows the damned to even exist, since they only exist to ultimately suffer after death?



Ironically, he reveals the idiocy of his religious beliefs. He argues that the damned exist in order to be taught, to save others lives. What he doesn't answer is why do they have be the damned? Why doesn't God create everyone, in their nature, to choose to be saved at the end and go to heaven? For that matter, why do God's people "need" people to help? Surely there are better ways to enlighten someone than creating people to be sacrificed so that the "Chosen" can have the illusion of being specially enlightened.



Note that he still is dodging the actual question, of why God creates people that are doomed to go to hell, instead filling up space with his unproven beliefs.



And why is this a bad assumption, Mr. Deem? Doesn't being omniscient mean that you, by definition, don't need to do experiments in order to find out knowledge?



And why would God "need" to hand out rewards in the first place? More amusingly, what he is saying God would be forced to do is what God is supposedly doing already; granting his followers eternal bliss while condemning the skeptical, heretics, and unfaithful to damnation. In other words, "rewarding some people more than others."



So they replace it with a father figure. The idea that an omniscient, omnipotent being could have any kind of real, intimate relationship with those who are limited, not omniscient is an oxymoron; there's simply nothing to relate them.



And so Mr. Deem ends his article, ironically one filled with personal opinions, question dodging, red herrings, and strawman. Perhaps somebody should tell him that deception is of the Devil in christianity.

Jesus is not the only being that ascended into Heaven. As did Enoch, and Elijah. Of course, I do understand your point though.

We have free will through our own thoughts and choices. Would a loving creator create us knowing we might go to hell? yes, because hell is a state of mind not fire, brimstone and eternity. We choice to live in our own misery in this life and afterward but we are not doomed to it for eternity because we didn't worship God or his son. Christianity might not be all wrong in that sometimes external faith helps us to walk in the path of love. if you are willing to believe in Jesus than you want to walk like him right? However people are capable of this without the belief of a Christian, Jewish, or any other god. it is achieved through love. We all have that universal capability which would explain why there are so many people who never even heard of Jesus and will enter the realm of the "holy" as Christians think of it. Faith is just secondary to love,,,faith helps some of us walk the path but everyone is different and love is not. Love is the same for everyone and it is why we are not doomed for lack of faith. Just my thoughts.

If I were to think of it in a Christian sense I would say it makes no sense that we are given one life, expected to believe in the possibility of a miracle 2,000 years ago and categorized by that belief in heaven or hell. I would say no loving creator could be so childish and petty. that is my belief and I'm sticking to it. To be "loving" and truly loving not just human love is to be perfection. it is forgiving, understanding, compassionate, mindful, ingenious. I love my children more than anything in human terms. I would not create them to be banished for not having believed I made them. I imagine a creator of perfect love would be far more capable of loving us more than we love others here....Just my thoughts.

Why Would God Create a Person Who Would be Destined for Hell?

like....why would god put the tree of knowledge and the serpent in the garden of eden?

if god considers us his children, then why give adam and eve the test for their faithfulness? my goodness! it's like giving a 2year old child a dagger and patiently waiting for whats going to happen later on to that child and blame the 2 year old if he cuts his hand....poor ideologies. we must understand that adam and eve are ignorant and innocent "humans" they don't have any knowledge of what is good and bad....later on after so many generations WE are to blame for the original sin....poor us! it's just to much....now why would god create a person who would be destined for hell? FOR HIS ULTIMATE FUN! that's all. remember....if you love your children you wouldn't want any bad things to happen to them, all you want is for them to be happy and healthy, but not HELL.

Not necessarily. You want what's best for your child. That's not always the same as bad things happening to them. And from the child's perspective it might look quite different. Wanting what's best, and not wanting bad things to happen are actually quite different.

Chicken pox for example. Having it at a younger age is better than having it as an adult. From the parent's perspective - Is it loving to let your child to hang out with "diseased" children, knowing they'll get infected, but also knowing it's better than wrapping them in cotton wool and them getting it as adults, a potentially fatal disease at this age? From the child's perspective - why do my parent's let me be infected? DOn't they love me?

Or to take another example. Someone was telling me about their child who had teething problems. The child was crying and screaming that it hurt. Only one thing they found made them feel better, a cold bar that they could suck on to relieve the pain. But every time they tried, their father would stop them. How cruel. The child is in pain, and the parent denies them something that makes it feel better.

Do you know what that cold bar was???????? A bar, just at the right height for a child to reach with their mouth?

.............................................................

....................................................

......................................

..........................

................



Let's face it, keeping eternity in mind, we are but children. God is the parent, and though we don't always know why God does things, it is always in our best interest.

Just a thought.

Regards, PA

Chicken pox for example. Having it at a younger age is better than having it as an adult. From the parent's perspective - Is it loving to let your child to hang out with "diseased" children, knowing they'll get infected, but also knowing it's better than wrapping them in cotton wool and them getting it as adults, a potentially fatal disease at this age? From the child's perspective - why do my parent's let me be infected? DOn't they love me?

Or to take another example. Someone was telling me about their child who had teething problems. The child was crying and screaming that it hurt. Only one thing they found made them feel better, a cold bar that they could suck on to relieve the pain. But every time they tried, their father would stop them. How cruel. The child is in pain, and the parent denies them something that makes it feel better.

there is a vaccine available in the market right now for that disease. i would have them vaccinated at an early stage rather than to let them suffer later on whether young or adult. being the parent of this innocent child, it is my responsibility to give them the best.

Teething problems? are you kidding me? that is a natural thing experienced by everyone. don't tell me adam and eve suffered teething problems? what i am talking in my post is children regardless of age. don't tell me if one reaches adulthood he is no longer considered god's child?

PA, you have stated this many times before that "hell is not an everlasting place of torture. As I've said before, Hell is separation from God. And since God is Life (according to the Bible), to be separated from that which gives life is to be dead. "

But what do you mean exactly? If I am 'separated from god" for my sins, how long is that for? If I'm dead, I can not atone for my sins or transgressions, and therefore will never again have the chance to get to god. So isn't that hell?

Or are you saying that we have this life ONLY to 'get in good with god" and be assured of a place in heaven? Seems just slightly unfair to me, a life of 0 to 100+ vs an eternity of 'separation'. Or are you 'separated' for a period of time, then forgiven and pardoned? How does a dead man judge how long he has been 'separated'?

I'm not looking to argue, I'm just wondering if you could explain this concept a little better.

just my two cents...for me i think that hell is on earth...what we are experiencing right now is hell...poverty, war, restlessness, political turmoil...etc. if this ain't hell i wonder what kind of hell the bible is talking about, if this ain't punishment yet i don't think it's right to be punished again if we die. i think that punishment for our sins are called karma, it goes back to us and we suffer the consequences of our actions. I don't even think that we have to suffer an eternal doom because we sinned, if so, the bible contradict what it said and will portray god as a ruthless punisher and not a forgiver.

IMO Hell is only a word, nothing to see here folks ...Fear the greatest downfall of man and guilt... Without them we might actually begin to get along.......

chicken pox lasts about five days a few spots alittle calamine the benefit a life long immunity, the vaccination is untested (except on our children) the effects to the immune system well who knows but as a parent would i take that chance???A compromised immune system doesn't sound like I'd want to cripple my kid with.Also True story a mother who breast feeds her child will pass on everything she is immune too..True or false you wonder???? Well i did too, i did not vaccinate for CP I go for the lifelong immunity thing myself, a CP outbreak hit my kids friends who were vaccinated guess what they all got it except for my kid. Just another persepctive

see? vaccine or breastfeeding boils down to one thing...will you still want your child to suffer? why are we researching and studying whats best for our children? because we love them and thats it. talking bout the topic though...

Welcome pere as in 'french' or 'food' or acronym???LOL true we can agree whats best for the kid lol...

Excellent thread! Love the topic!

INDIVIDUALS GIVEN CHOICE OF SERVING GOD

Page 1 Rebuttal

Okay...where do I begin? I have read everyone's posts, and I must say, I disagree with a lot of opinions expressed on this thread. From the beginning God intended for all of his children to have god-like characterisics. Adam & Eve had "free will" to live their life accordingly with only one disclaimer: Do not eat the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden. The Lord gave specific, not implicit, instructions not to do this. Yet, Eve's gullibility led to where we are today. This is directly pointed out in Genesis 3:1-7



Genesis 3:12-19



Because God's commandments were disobeyed by Adam & Eve, they became acutely aware of the differences between right or wrong; good and bad; obedience & disobedience. Thus, this trait was passed down to their children; childrens children for the rest of mankind.

You see, God did not create man to go to Hell. HE wanted us enjoy everlasting life. We make the decision to reject Christ or accept Christ into our lives. Please read John 3:16-18

Contrary to what Paranoid Android stated, the free will concept is supportable in the Bible. God HARDENS himself to those that reject Him & His word. I guess the proper terminology would be reprobate mind. If you turn away from Him, you are predestined to damnation!

seanph, to answer your question - the person living in India that has never been introduced to the Lord cannot be held liable. However, those that know of God but yet still turn away from him will be severly punished as referenced in Peter 2:20-22.

Furthermore, I differ with your statement that the Bible is fallible works of man. Men were moved by God's spirit to write. 2Peter 1:20:



AnuKabal, God is the one who was; the one who is; and the one that is coming. There are NO other "almighty" races.

Quit splitting hairs. You know the point I was making. There is a vaccine. Only a few years ago, that vaccine did not exist, and having a child get chicken pox was much preferred to leaving it til adult-hood.

As for the teething problem's, again, you overlooked my point. Teething is natural, I don't deny that. It's not my point! The child wanting to relieve the pain by sucking on porcelin, and the Father denying the child that, that is my point! The child must have thought his Dad was mean and evil, yet the Father only ever had the best intentions.

Try and look at the concept I am discussing, not try and pick holes in my analogies.

I also am saying we are all God's children, regardless of age. Again I repeat my original statement - wanting what's best for your child isn't always the same as keeping your child free of pain.

Regards, PA

btw, I didn't notice..... welcome to UM pere

I believe separation means death. It may sound unfair, but our life on Earth is an all-or-nothing affair. God is Life. To be separate from that which gives life is to be dead. I don't really see why people are so against this. Many skeptics I have spoken to find solace and comfort in the idea that when you're dead you're dead. Yet put it into a Christian context and they're suddenly all up in arms over it.

THough to be fair, no one really knows what happens after death, I'm just giving my opinion. I don't KNOW for a FACT that this is the way things are. This is my opinion based on my reading of scripture.

See what I'm saying.

Regards, PA

INDIVIDUALS GIVEN CHOICE OF SERVING GOD

Page 2 Rebuttal

seanph:



Totally false. Jesus was placed on Earth to serve one purpose and one purpose only: To carry out the will of God!

Another thing, it impossible to see God and live. Please read: Exodus 33:20, John 1:18, & John 4:12. You also don't need to see God to believe as referenced in Hebrews 11:1, Roman 8:24-25, & 10:17. So you see, he doesn't need to show you ID, proof of his ability to move a building, or pass a litmus test. God is known by his visible works. For further explanation please read Romans 1:20 and Psalms 19:1-2.

Fluffbunny, I personally enjoy reading your post, but I disagree with you wholeheartedly on the below referenced statement:



True, God is a loving God, but he also a jealous God! Just like you love your parents, sister, brother, uncle, aunt, cousins, friends, etc. He wants you to love him with the same fervor. All he request of us is to accept Him in our lives & live by His principles. Nothing more; nothing less! Jesus has already paid the price for our sins so that we can have everlasting life.

As far as the risks of hell, the Bible is laced with this subject. In fact, the New Testament has over 162 references warning you of hell. 70 of these references were uttered by our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ himself! He doesn't choose (predestined) people to go to Hell, WE CHOOSE TO GO TO HELL!

Make no mistake about it, we all fall short of God's will. However, He is a forgiving God. As long as you repent for sins, He will toss those sins into the lake of fire. They will be forever striken from your record! Fluffbunny, that's the loophole you so eloquently addressed.

Paranoid Android:



No I don't!

According to Matthew 25:46

As far as Hell being a place of torment? I couldn't disagree more. Here are the following passages that discuss this:

Matt 7:19, 13:40, 25:41
Matt 18:8, 25:41
Mark 3:29
Matt 5:22, 18:9, Mark 9:47
Matt 23:14, Mark 12:40, Luke 20:47
Matt 23:33
John 5:29
Matt 13:42, 50
Mark 9:43, 45
Mark 9:44, 46, 48
Mark 9:44, 46, 48
Matt 13:42, 50
Matt 8:12, 22:13, 25:30
Luke 16:23; Luke 16:24; Luke 16:28
Matt 8:12, 22:13; Matt 25:46

Judge for yourself!

draconic chronicler:

I basically disagree with your entire post. So much, that I would have to create a thread entirely to debunking your theory.

pere:

Read my prior comments concerning Hell. Again, we are not predestined to go to Hell, we choose to go to Hell!

Hell, as heaven, is on a spiritual plane. It has no physical dimensions. Heaven is not a place either. Heaven is wherever God is. Hell is wherever God is not. ANd wherever God is not is Nothing (note the capital "N").

BUt if it makes you feel more secure in your Faith to see Hell the way Dante describes it, be my guest. Who knows, you might even be right. GOod luck to you. I prefer to think that God, the true Loving God, would not send his creatures to a place of eternal torment. The true Loving God that I believe in would not be so cruel.

Regards, PA

Oh, I almost forgot...... those passages you quoted: most of them don't mention Hell at all Another large portion of them are parable's - you do know what a parable is? The rest of those passages (a very small number - Matthew 18:8-9, Matthew 5:22, Mark 9:43-48, Matthew 25:46), it can be argued are figurative (this my preferred opinion, since these four passages are not supportable through the rest of the Bible as literal).

As I said, feel free to believe what you want. I'm not forcing you to believe my way. But I would look over those passages again, if I were you.

Regards, PA

btw, was there any specific reason you, at times, quoted the same Bible passage over and over again?

I have been raised in christianity, so I used to believe that hell is a place of eternal, fiery torture for those who don't believe in the Christ as Saviour, and in extreme cases, those who question the authority of the church. This obviously means that the majority of humanity is destined for eternal, fiery torture. Not very fair for a loving and forgiving God I thought, but then the church does not seem to deeply embrace fairness or forgiveness. A vengeful and unforgiving God more suits a pulpit that spews eternal, fiery condemnations for everything from style of dress to political affiliation as a matter of standard practice. Hell also fulfills the strongest motivational force for the church in its arsenal of flock control, fear! Believe me or not. There are no statistics on how many people attend church, not out of belief in God, but more out of conditioned fear of a fiery torture. It would be a good bet that if fear of hell were eliminated, church revenues would drastically shrink.

However, in most instances "hell" is translated from words which mean a hole in the ground into which bodies are placed after death. Other instances leave it highly unlikely that hell is a place exclusively created for the eternal torture of unbelievers. This is what I began to believe once I researched it for myself.

Of all biblical concepts, hell is one of the most mysterious and feared. The word "hell" appears 54 times in the Bible, 30 times in the Old Testament, 24 in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, hell is taken from the word, Sh'owl, pronounced sheh-ole' or Sh'ol; Hades or the world of the dead (as if a subterranean retreat), Sheol, including its accessories and inmates: KJV--grave, hell, pit. It is interchangeable with the word grave or a pit. Basically, hell is a hole in the ground where bodies are buried. A thorough study of its appearance in Old Testament scripture will show it is not referred to as place of eternal fiery damnation.

In the New Testament it is taken from three words. First, you and I will examine the one from which the fiery place of eternal torture, so often associated with this word, is taken, Ghenna. It may surprise many to realize that I actually know where this place is, not an ethereal place where Satan dwells, but actually the Jerusalem city dump. The word is Geena, pronounced gheh'-en-nah of Hebrew origin; valley of the son of Hinnom; ge-henna, or Ge-Hinnom, a valley of Jerusalem, used figuratively as a name for the place or state of everlasting punishment: The actual place referred to is Hinnom, a deep, narrow ravine separating Mount Zion from the so-called "Hill of Evil Counsel" to the southwest of Jerusalem.

Hinnom is first mentioned here:
Joshua 15:8. And the border went up by the valley of the son of Hinnom unto the south side of the Jebusite; the same is Jerusalem: and the border went up to the top of the mountain that lieth before the valley of Hinnom westward, which is at the end of the valley of the giants northward:
It was formerly the place where the idolatrous Jews burned their children alive as a sacrifice to Moloch and Baal. A particular part of the valley was called Tophet, the "fire-stove" or furnace, where the children were burned. After the Exile, in order to show their abhorrence of the locality, the Jews made this valley the receptacle of the refuse of the city. As with refuse, in those times it was burned to keep down vermin, the obvious offensive odors, to maximize space, and a fire was kept constantly burning there. Excavations carried out at this site from 1975 to 1980 by an archaeological mission turned up remains of nine burial caves around the ravine. In earlier excavations of the actual dump, it was found that the fire was still smoldering after centuries. Here we have all the elements of the modern concept of Hell. A place of death, a burial area, destruction, anything placed in this fiery pit was consumed, a fiery furnace, where in the past children were burned alive, and unquenchable and everlasting fire, which is burning to this day.

Here are the instances where Ghenna is used:

* Matthew 5:22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.
* Matthew 5:29 And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. 30 And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
* Matthew 10: 28 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.
* Matthew 18:9 And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.
* Matthew 23:15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
* Matthew 23:33 Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?
* Mark 9:43 And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: 44 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. 45 And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: 46 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. 47 And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire:
* Luke 12:5 But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.
* James 3:6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.

The next word is familiar to most, the Greek word Hades. And, as with the Hebrew word Sheol, it is interchangeable with the word grave. There is a serious problem trying to designate this as a place of eternal fiery torture rather than a burial place, the problem being, mainly, that Jesus spent three days in Hades after his crucifixion. Since it is clear that this place was actually a sepulchre, not a furnace, and that Jesus committed no sin to warrant such punishment; it would justify the logical conclusion that this is the grave. Attempting to insinuate that Jesus had to go to this fiery Hell to defeat it presupposes that such a place exists without solid scriptural evidence. Jesus performed his ultimate miracle by defeating death, not fire. In the case of Lazarus, it must be noted that this is a parable and is used in a metaphoric sense as with the use of the word Ghenna. The word hell is translated from is haides, pronounced hah'-dace; properly, unseen, i.e. "Hades" or the place (state) of departed souls: KJV--grave, hell.


What amazes me is how similar my old beliefs (christian beliefs) about hell were so similar to ancient greek mythology.

GREEK MYTHOLOGY: ( got it from google )

Hades - The dark god of the dead, who ruled in the underworld, which also had the same name. His parents were Cronus and Rhea, and Zeus and Poseidon were his brothers. His queen was Persephone, who stayed with him six months of the year, thus causing the season on Earth to change to winter.

The underworld was a dark and gloomy place, guarded by the three-headed dog Cerberus, who gladly let the souls in but never let anyone out. It was divided into two parts: Erebus and Tartarus. The latter was the deepest cave, similar to the Christian hell, with many criminals being tortured forever: Tantalus, Sisyphus and Tityus were all suffering there. Not all people went to hell, if you were a part of a religious or were an Amazon you had a different resting place.

Hades was also called Pluto

Tartarus is the lowest region of the world, as far below earth as earth is from heaven. According to the Greek poet Hesiod, a bronze anvil falling from heaven would take nine days and nights to reach earth, and an object would take the same amount of time to fall from earth into Tartarus. Tartarus is described as a dank, gloomy pit, surrounded by a wall of bronze, and beyond that a three-fold layer of night. Along with Chaos, Earth, and Eros, it is one of the first entities to exist in the universe.
While Hades is the main realm of the dead in Greek mythology, Tartarus also contains a number of characters. In early stories, it is primarily the prison for defeated gods; the Titans were condemned to Tartarus after losing their battle against the Olympian gods, and the hecatoncheires stood over them as guards at the bronze gates. When Zeus overcomes the monster Typhus, born from Tartarus and Gaia, he hurls it too into the same abyss.

However, in later myths Tartarus becomes a place of punishment for sinners. It resembles Hell and is the opposite of Elysium, the afterlife for the blessed. When the hero Aeneas visits the underworld, he looks into Tartarus and sees the torments inflicted on characters such as the Titans, Tityos, Otus and Ephialtes, and the Lapiths. Rhadymanthus (and, in some versions, his brother Minos) judges the dead and assigns punishment.


Now, if one chooses to embrace the concept of an eternity of suffering in a furnace, that is ones prerogative, but it is not a biblical concept based on a strong foundation. It can be speculated and implied, but there is ample evidence against this concept.

Also, reading the information on this link might change your perspective on hell:
WHAT THE HELL DID YOU THINK?

Actually Seanph.... The bible does speak somewhere in it that those that have not heard of God are not judged to be condemned to Hell. And it does say in Revelation that by time Jesus comes back to earth that everyone man in every land will have heard of Jesus because the Antichrist would have rule over earth at the time so everyone would know of Hell and Heaven.

Paranoid Android:



Incorrect statement! Hell, Hades, Sheol IS a physical place; not a spiritual plane as you were led to believe.

Where is Hell? Hell is inside the Earth! Ephesians 4:9



Matthew 12:40



The scriptures (and parables) have denotative meaning; not connotative!

Please read Dr. Maurice Rawling's Book 'Beyond Death's Door' for a written account of those that had first-hand experience of the place we call Hell.

By the way, you are absolutely correct, our loving God does not want to see his children sent to a place of fiery torment. We make that choice by rejecting Jesus Christ!

You're right. I should also have mentioned the roots of the word Hell have nothing to do with fiery torment - thanks OracleTracker for bringing that up. There is no way you can objectively come up with Hell as a place of fiery torment, unless you have an agenda (which is what the church did when they first invented the concept).

Regards, PA

Science 101, I really appreciate your faith; I have always been a little envious of those who can just accept, without question, a spiritual belief. I think that is a blessing in itself.

However, I can't help but to add a little sarcasm by saying, that if you actually believe that hell is in the center (or anywhere inside) of the Earth, I'd like to help you sharpen your spears so that we may begin to chuck them at the moon; I'll bring the beers.

What's with this babbling of "free will." It's a nonexistent fantasy utilized by the self-delusional masses.

While we are not "robots," our "will" is only the function and result of a deterministic sequence.

The laws of physics also prevents the existence of Free Will.

I would advise you not to argue with people who are obviously born with less intelligence and logic than others; it is pure luck that we are the ones who can see the truth, and it's up to us to free the world of the chains of religion.

Of course, I may be lazy and merely laugh gleefully at the herd of sheep that live in this world. It's a funny ordeal; if they can't be helped, then their only purpose would be to provide a good laugh and make my day a little brighter.

Keep it going, religion(s)!!!

You're doing so much good for society.