Hell is not discipline; it is torture

[Mathematician]

I've heard the comparison between parents' using force to discipline their children and God using hell to discipline his people many times while surfing the religious Web. However, if we are going to make a proper comparison between the god described by regular brimstone theists and a father born in flesh, then some things need to be improven on to restore credibility to the statement. Here's here I see an accurate comparison: I break a house rule of my father (and in the Christian sense I refuse to apologize for it). Thus for the rest of my life he locks me up in a broom closet, whips me every moment he can, and deprives me of food and water. Even when I come to realize that I was wrong, he continues the normal routine.

Eternal hell isn't discipline. It's torture. Discipline is meant to correct someone so that they can make the right decision later on. There is no 'later on' in hell.

This issue with the definition of discipline also applies to the concept that 'broken rule y = x years in hell'. People learn at different rates. If a child never uses a curse word after you spank him once, why spank him again?

 

[FerventGodSeeker]

I've heard the comparison between parents' using force to discipline their children and God using hell to discipline his people many times while surfing the religious Web. However, if we are going to make a proper comparison between the god described by regular brimstone theists and a father born in flesh, then some things need to be improven on to restore credibility to the statement. Here's here I see an accurate comparison: I break a house rule of my father (and in the Christian sense I refuse to apologize for it). Thus for the rest of my life he locks me up in a broom closet, whips me every moment he can, and deprives me of food and water. Even when I come to realize that I was wrong, he continues the normal routine.

Eternal hell isn't discipline. It's torture. Discipline is meant to correct someone so that they can make the right decision later on. There is no 'later on' in hell.

This issue with the definition of discipline also applies to the concept that 'broken rule y = x years in hell'. People learn at different rates. If a child never uses a curse word after you spank him once, why spank him again?

I don't think that it's a good analogy to compare discipline of an Earthly father to Hell. God does plenty of "disciplining" type of action while we're here on Earth, things that are meant to turn us around and teach us. By the time it's reached the phase eschatologically that a person has died and is condemned to Hell, it's gone beyond "discipline." Before a person has ever gone to Hell, when they stand before their Creator, they already know what they've done wrong and that they should have done things differently. It doesn't take Hell for them to figure that out. Hell is not rehabilitative. Why do we put some people away for life in prison? Do they learn something about how wrong their crime was in the 20th year that they didn't know in their 19th? Of course not, but they are serving a punishment that fits their crime. The same goes for punishment in Hell.

 

[Mathematician]

Good post.

Then what is the purpose of punishment without discipline?

 

[love]

Would your parents sent you to hell? I dont think so. How much more can the merciful God understand who you are. But there are guidelines. Seekthe Lord.

 

[MaddLlama]

I don't think that it's a good analogy to compare discipline of an Earthly father to Hell. God does plenty of "disciplining" type of action while we're here on Earth, things that are meant to turn us around and teach us. By the time it's reached the phase eschatologically that a person has died and is condemned to Hell, it's gone beyond "discipline." Before a person has ever gone to Hell, when they stand before their Creator, they already know what they've done wrong and that they should have done things differently. It doesn't take Hell for them to figure that out. Hell is not rehabilitative. Why do we put some people away for life in prison? Do they learn something about how wrong their crime was in the 20th year that they didn't know in their 19th? Of course not, but they are serving a punishment that fits their crime. The same goes for punishment in Hell.

Does everyone who gets sent to hell know what they did wrong before they got there?

 

[love]

There are plenty of laws to put people in prison. Alot of kids watch television and see the guy driving down the street smoking a blunt and think in somes aspects of soceity this is acceptable. These people dont belong in prison. Changing their attitude is very easy.
Hard drugs will tell their own story in your life if you choose that path. The courts should vocus more on violent indivduals who harm innocent people because of the hardness of their heart. If a person has God in their heart they will not cause unnessecary suffering to any member of the human race.

 

[jeffrey]

I don't believe in an actual hell. I love my children I would never in a million years torture them, not for a minute, let alone eternity. So, if God loves us more then I love my own kids, as the Bible would have you believe, how is the possible? How could a "loving" God do that? Because we don't believe in something that has never appeared, spoke in other then what people clam as thoughts, or made any effort to show himself? My kids see me. They here me. (Trust me on that one!) They screw up, I talk to them, I don't sentence them to torture. IMO, hell only exists to people that are trying to convince you that if you do not believe what they believe, your going to burn.. It's a sales pitch. Nothing more. Yes, there is a "God", something created us, or allowed or put together a chain of events that became us. Man has grasped the 'Idea" of hell to benefit his own agenda. If God can hear us, see us, he's got to be laughing his rear end off at the manipulation man has used to further his own, selfish desires.

 

[wmam]

Hell is the grave. Lake of fire is not the grave. Gey Hinnom? The Eternal Flame? Things that make you go Hmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!

 

[michel]

I've heard the comparison between parents' using force to discipline their children and God using hell to discipline his people many times while surfing the religious Web. However, if we are going to make a proper comparison between the god described by regular brimstone theists and a father born in flesh, then some things need to be improven on to restore credibility to the statement. Here's here I see an accurate comparison: I break a house rule of my father (and in the Christian sense I refuse to apologize for it). Thus for the rest of my life he locks me up in a broom closet, whips me every moment he can, and deprives me of food and water. Even when I come to realize that I was wrong, he continues the normal routine.

Eternal hell isn't discipline. It's torture. Discipline is meant to correct someone so that they can make the right decision later on. There is no 'later on' in hell.

This issue with the definition of discipline also applies to the concept that 'broken rule y = x years in hell'. People learn at different rates. If a child never uses a curse word after you spank him once, why spank him again?

Whicj is why I don't believe in "hell"; to me, hell is "not being with God"..living another incarnation, because I haven't "graduated yet".

AS a parent, I have watched my sons make mistakes, fall into obvious traps. As a father, there was no way I was going to punish them..........I was there to pick up the pieces, and try to set them on the right path; that's the job of any parent, including God..

I honestly believe that the God of the O.T has been so misrepresented - by mistake, errancy, or maybe for other reasons..............

 

[FerventGodSeeker]

Good post.

Then what is the purpose of punishment without discipline?

To show that God keeps His word.

 

[FerventGodSeeker]

Does everyone who gets sent to hell know what they did wrong before they got there?

I think so, although on Earth I think they are somewhat blinded by their own sin, pride, etc. When they stand before their Creator they realize, "Oh, I probably should have done a few things differently."

 

[Gentoo]

I've heard the comparison between parents' using force to discipline their children and God using hell to discipline his people many times while surfing the religious Web. However, if we are going to make a proper comparison between the god described by regular brimstone theists and a father born in flesh, then some things need to be improven on to restore credibility to the statement. Here's here I see an accurate comparison: I break a house rule of my father (and in the Christian sense I refuse to apologize for it). Thus for the rest of my life he locks me up in a broom closet, whips me every moment he can, and deprives me of food and water. Even when I come to realize that I was wrong, he continues the normal routine.

Eternal hell isn't discipline. It's torture. Discipline is meant to correct someone so that they can make the right decision later on. There is no 'later on' in hell.

This issue with the definition of discipline also applies to the concept that 'broken rule y = x years in hell'. People learn at different rates. If a child never uses a curse word after you spank him once, why spank him again?

I fully agree with this, and have wondered about it as well. I don't think it makes sense, but then I've stopped trying to make it make sense, I've given up on this concept.

 

[des]

I fully agree with this, and have wondered about it as well. I don't think it makes sense, but then I've stopped trying to make it make sense, I've given up on this concept.

Me too. I have no interest at all in this concept of God, because God would therefore be worse than the worst humans on Earth. You could argue worse than Hitler. Because although he tortured his victims and killed them, at least it wasn't for eternity. The idea that God sends people to hell for not some theological reason, say they don't believe in Jesus as their personal savour, is particularly disgusting, imo. You have a God that sends the Dala Lama to hell (I'm sure he knows about Jesus) who has only taught love and compassion, and some idiot like Pat Robertson goes to heaven. It is beyond
any kind of ethical concept. The infinite, all-knowing, loving God sends people to hell for eternity for disagreeing with him basically.

Fundamentalist Christians often wonder why others would reject this sort of God. To me, I can't understand how someone would embrace "Him".

--des

 

[lilithu]

To show that God keeps His word.

Jonah 3: 3-10

3 Jonah obeyed the word of the LORD and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very important city—a visit required three days. 4 On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: "Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned." 5 The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. 6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. 7 Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh:
"By the decree of the king and his nobles:
Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. 8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. 9 Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish."

10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.


By the logic you use above, a God who keeps his word would have smoked Ninevah.

 

[jamaesi]

In Islam hell is seen as sort of a discipline. After a certain amount of time, you will pass on through to Heaven. Of course, there are some people who are going to stay there a very long time, if not forever...

 

[FerventGodSeeker]

Jonah 3: 3-10

3 Jonah obeyed the word of the LORD and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very important city—a visit required three days. 4 On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: "Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned." 5 The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. 6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. 7 Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh:
"By the decree of the king and his nobles:
Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. 8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. 9 Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish."

10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.


By the logic you use above, a God who keeps his word would have smoked Ninevah.

Verse 4 there is a conditional prophecy. It's a warning to Ninevah. Ironically, Ninevah later on does turn against God again and God does destroy it.

 

[James the Persian]

I quite agree with the OP, but that is very much the western view of hell. What if the gates of hell are locked from the inside (as I believe C.S. Lewis once put it)? That would be more the eastern view. In other words we place ourselves there, it's not eternal punishment from God but eternal self-punishment despite God. That puts rather a different spin on things, does it not?

James

 

[FerventGodSeeker]

I quite agree with the OP, but that is very much the western view of hell. What if the gates of hell are locked from the inside (as I believe C.S. Lewis once put it)? That would be more the eastern view. In other words we place ourselves there, it's not eternal punishment from God but eternal self-punishment despite God. That puts rather a different spin on things, does it not?

James

As a "Westerner" I agree with that description, Lewis made an excellent illustration there. I don't think anything about the "West" denies that description of Hell. Everyone who goes to Hell deserves to go there because of their own actions.

 

[James the Persian]

As a "Westerner" I agree with that description, Lewis made an excellent illustration there. I don't think anything about the "West" denies that description of Hell. Everyone who goes to Hell deserves to go there because of their own actions.

Your use of the term desert shows just how western your view is. The doors being locked from the inside has nothing to do with desert, but has to do with the fact that it is our attitude to God that condemns us to hell and not God's attitude to us. Nobody, no matter their actions in this life, deserves heaven - it's a gift of God. You'd do well, i think to investigate some of the Church Fathers, such as St. Isaac the Syrian to see the view (now mostly eastern but the common heritage of east and west) that Lewis had in mind. He was far less western in outlook than your answer to my post.

James

 

[Paraprakrti]

I've heard the comparison between parents' using force to discipline their children and God using hell to discipline his people many times while surfing the religious Web. However, if we are going to make a proper comparison between the god described by regular brimstone theists and a father born in flesh, then some things need to be improven on to restore credibility to the statement. Here's here I see an accurate comparison: I break a house rule of my father (and in the Christian sense I refuse to apologize for it). Thus for the rest of my life he locks me up in a broom closet, whips me every moment he can, and deprives me of food and water. Even when I come to realize that I was wrong, he continues the normal routine.

Eternal hell isn't discipline. It's torture. Discipline is meant to correct someone so that they can make the right decision later on. There is no 'later on' in hell.

This issue with the definition of discipline also applies to the concept that 'broken rule y = x years in hell'. People learn at different rates. If a child never uses a curse word after you spank him once, why spank him again?

I agree with you. Some Christians just believe that an eternal loving God tortures individuals, which is obviously unacceptable.