Question 1 for Christians

As an agnostic, I have a series of questions for Christians. I have no antipathy toward Christians or any other religion, and my own sense of morals and ethics has been informed by the world's great religions. I ask the moderators' indulgence in creating separate threads for questions, as experience has shown on other forums that each one tends to provoke a discussion.

Question:

Is God all-loving? If that's true, why would He send people to hell?

 

This life counts. If one botches it, one is punished. God is our father, and fathers punish their wayward children. Consider how you have benefitted from punishment, throughout life.

 

How does one benefit from going to Hell? I was always given to understand that that was a one-way trip.

 

Benefit? One doesn't. That's the point. One suffers in Hell, for all eternity. Consequences. There are consequences for one's failure to live an ethical and moral life.

 

1. You didn't answer Libsmasher's question about whether or not God is all-loving.

2. In your response to him, you said, "Consider how you have benefitted from punishment, throughout life," after saying that being sent to Hell is a punishment for living incorrectly. I suppose I don't see the purpose of asking how he has benefited from punishment throughout life if the punishment we're currently discussing isn't meant to have benefit.

 

I was always struck by how non-descript or sterile the definitions of heaven and hell were in terms of Christian dogma! I mean to say going to heaven what does that entail?

Can we please be a bit more definitive about our fates - for example if I were a Islamist Jihadist and martyred myself I'd get 76 doe eyed virgins to have and to do with how I please (d'ya think they'd come with black stockings!!) Now that's what I call tempting - if I were inclined to be a martyred jihadist that is!!

 

God IS all-loving, yes. But he gives us a choice.
Be good, love your neighbor, help those in need, etc...or do bad, hate people, harm others.

If we do good, we get rewarded with eternal life (heaven).
If we do bad, we go to eternal punishment (hell).

We have freedom. It's a gift from God. Freedom, however, does not mean the ability to do what we want. It's the ability to do what we ought to do. If it were the former, i should be free to kill people i don't like, steal stuff and never work.

Incidentally, for those protestant denominations out there who refuse to acknowledge that hell exists, could you please tell me why you think that? It's all over the bible, just as are mentions of heaven. You calling God a liar when he says you'll suffer eternal damnation, the fires of hell, for disobeying him? Even though you believe him when he talks about eternal joy (heaven)? Hmm...

 

God only loves those who obey and follow Him. No......His love isn't unconditional, IMO. God doesn't love Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot or any other diabolical monster. We benefit from punishment by learning the negative consequences of bad behavior. If we're never punished, we grow up deluded into believing we can do anything we want, which of course isn't true. God wants us to behave, thrive under His providential care, and achieve greatness therein. Let us engage in ethical monotheism.

 

I seem to recall in the cobwebbed recesses of my brain that God loved everyone no matter how much of a dingbat they were! You know the loving and benevolent God kindda thing, turning the other cheek all that malarchy - what happened then..... he have a bad day or a visit from the IRS?

 

If men do bad things, other than murder, men will send them to prison, but eventually let almost all out. But God condemns them forever - doesn't it seem as if He is less forgiving than men?

 

He forgives us if and when we repent, depending on what we've done. Whether or not we spend all eternity in Hell for our sins is up to God, and only He knows. It's a mystery. Did Hitler repent before blowing out his brains? Would it have mattered much if he did? Dunno. Only God knows.

 

Here is an example of the Creator hating someone.

Malachi 1:3 (NIV)
2 "I have loved you," says the LORD. "But you ask, 'How have you loved us?'
"Was not Esau Jacob's brother?" the LORD says. "Yet I have loved Jacob, 3 but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his mountains into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals."

Hard to speak for the Creator of all but if I had to try……

Salvation according to Christianity is a free gift. If the Creator does not push His own way on you......Giving you free will. How could he force you to go with him in your next life, if you have clearly chosen not to go?

It would take a pretty mean Creator to make you spend eternity with him when you clearly made the choice not to do that when you had the chance to decide for your self here on earth.

If the place He offers for the next life has no more pain, strife, jealousy, anger…. We would have to let go of allot of our natural selves to be able to be happy in that place and also not corrupt it. If someone was turned off by these kinds of things, they would be horribly miserable in a place like this. That would be more hell than the hell we talk about normally.

A lot of the stories of hell are not from scriptures, they are from the imaginations of artist like Dante's Inferno

 

God has to make a choice between being all loving for each individual, or for the greater good.

If he is all loving for the greater good, then it would be acceptable to send evil people to hell for the benefit of everyone else. However, if God is all loving for the greater good you have to wonder why he allows natural disasters to indiscrimantly kill innocent people.

How does it feel to worship the worlds biggest killer of innocents?

 

I always figured that God is neither all loving nor vengeful. He/She is there if you open your mind and listen, and if you want to talk or even argue with him, go right ahead.

We make our own Heaven or Hell by the ways in which we choose to live and it has nothing to do with the literal extortions and mandates any bible.

 

I went to church when I was a kid, and listened for a long time. Never heard anything.