Is hell fair?

[Scott C.]

Take the equation 2x / y; if you set x and y both to infinity, your answer is two, not one.

No, that's not right. Let I = infinity. (because I can't use that sideways 8 symbol).

2x/y = 2I/I
= I/I
= 1

But anyway, eternity is a long time to spend in hell, regardless of when you start.

 

[Katzpur]

Q. Say someone died 6,000 years ago, and went to this eternal hell. Then they will be always 6,000 years ahead of an unsaved person who dies today. Don't you think 6,000 years of extra torture is unfair of God?

I answer that,

After another six thousand years, the first person will have 12,000 years of torture, and the second will have 6,000 years of torture. That means the first person will have twice as much torture as the second person.

Another six thousand years after that, the first person will have 18,000 years of torture, and the second person will have 12,000 years of torture. That means the first person will have (18,000/12,000)= 1.5 times as much torture as the second person.

Say a million years have gone by. The first person will have 1,006,000 years of torture, divided by the million years of torture of the second person, for a ratio of 1.006.

You see that as you approach infinity, the amount of torture the second person suffers approaches the same amount of torture the first person suffers. So it is fair of God after all.

If I believed your premise was correct, I would have to conclude that your conclusion was correct. Since I don't believe that hell will be like you've described, I do believe it's fair.

 

[rojse]

Q. Say someone died 6,000 years ago, and went to this eternal hell. Then they will be always 6,000 years ahead of an unsaved person who dies today. Don't you think 6,000 years of extra torture is unfair of God?

I answer that,

After another six thousand years, the first person will have 12,000 years of torture, and the second will have 6,000 years of torture. That means the first person will have twice as much torture as the second person.

Another six thousand years after that, the first person will have 18,000 years of torture, and the second person will have 12,000 years of torture. That means the first person will have (18,000/12,000)= 1.5 times as much torture as the second person.

Say a million years have gone by. The first person will have 1,006,000 years of torture, divided by the million years of torture of the second person, for a ratio of 1.006.

You see that as you approach infinity, the amount of torture the second person suffers approaches the same amount of torture the first person suffers. So it is fair of God after all.

A great thread, using questionable logic and biting sarcasm to prove a point.

No matter how long you want to measure, the first person will have spent six thousand more years in hell. Although this would be less of a fraction of the total time spent enduring, no matter how much time occurs, there is still the six thousand years of difference.

 

[Francine]

A great thread, using questionable logic and biting sarcasm to prove a point.

Oh, somebody gets it!

 

[McBell]

Infinity is a concept, not a specific number. Anything that goes on forever is "infinite" even if it's bigger than something else that goes on forever.

Infinity plus 6000 is still infinity... but it's 6000 more than what you started with.

Infinity times two is still infinity... but it's twice as big as what you started with.

Infinity times infinity is still infinity... but it's infinitely times as big as what you started with.

Take the equation 2x / y; if you set x and y both to infinity, your answer is two, not one.

Imagine you have two people who start walking in opposite directions at the same speed on an infinitely large surface. After an infinite amount of time, what's the distance between the two people (let's call it 'A')? It's infinite. How far is it from one person to the starting point (let's call it 'B')? It's infinite. What's A minus B? It's infinite.

Just because one thing is infinite (e.g. from the beginning of time to the end of time, assuming that time has existed and will exist forever) doesn't mean it's equal to another infinite thing (e.g. from now to the end of time) - in fact, in that case, they're different by an infinite amount of time.

And to the OP, 6000 years will always be 6000 years, no matter how large a number you're comparing it to. 6000 may be an infinitessimal fraction of a billion, a trillion, or any other arbitrarily large number (even infinitely large), but it never suddenly becomes zero just because you compare it to some huge interval of time; it's always 6000 years.

However, all of this only touches slightly on what's wrong with the idea of Hell, IMO.

You seem to have missed my point.
I have heard repeatedly that infinity has to go both ways.
Meaning that if something has no end, it cannot have a beginning.
This is mostly used to defend the idea that God has no begining because he has no end.

I, personally find this idea to be rather flawed and nothing more than wishful thinking.
Why?
Because of pi.

 

[Darkness]

I don't see how Hades fits in since it has nothing to do with Christianity at all.

Hades is used a good number of times in the New Testament. Sh'ol would probably be a far easier word to use, as no other religion has it.

then when she fails...
I'll beat her black and blue
and torture her every day of her miserable little existance
for failing.

Satan cursed, “You punish us for the same things that you do. Bloody hypocrite. - the Revelation of Lucifer the Divine

 

[Hope]

I don't see how Hades fits in since it has nothing to do with Christianity at all.

Hades is the same thing as Sheol. Read the Bible.

 

[Azakel]

Hades is the same thing as Sheol. Read the Bible.

No need to read the book, just looked it up. But I must say I don't think anything Christian when I think Hades because it's not Christian, but that's neter here nor there.

 

[gnostic]

From what I understand, "eternity" means no time limit. So eternity in hell would means there would be no reprieve for the rest of the afterlife.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Not so. Suppose you wanted to get back to the first infinity you had before you doubled it. You divide infinity by two, and what do you get? Infinity!

Please recall what I said before:

Infinity is a concept, not a specific number. Anything that goes on forever is "infinite" even if it's bigger than something else that goes on forever.

An illustrative example:

You have red tokens and blue tokens. You place three parallel lines of tokens (one red and two blue), each 'X' tokens in length.

How many red tokens do you have? X. How many blue tokens do you have? 2X. What's the difference between the number of blue and red tokens laid out? X.

How long do your lines have to be before the difference between the quantity of red and blue tokens becomes zero?

Now... let's look at what happens when X equals infinity:

- how many red tokens do you have? An infinite number.
- how many blue tokens do you have? An infinite number (but twice as many as you have red)
- how many more blue tokens do you have than red? An infinite number.

Effectively, what your argument is doing is just trying to confuse things by using a funky scale of magnitude. Compare it to this: "yes, you've broken your toe, but that's nothing compared to dying. Once you and some other person who never broke his toe are dead, you'll be in pretty well the same state and having broken a toe will seem immaterial... so you haven't really broken your toe."

No, that's not right. Let I = infinity. (because I can't use that sideways 8 symbol).

2x/y = 2I/I
= I/I
= 1

You haven't taken limits in school yet, have you?

Your jump from line 1 to line 2 is incorrect. 2I does not equal I. The same thing I told Francine applies to you: infinity isn't a single number like "8" or "pi" that you can multiply and divide by. One infinite thing can be larger than another; all "infinity" means is that it goes on forever; you can do this slowly (e.g. X as X ---> infinity) or quickly (e.g. 2X or X^2 as X ---> infinity).

But the same question goes for you, too: you've got a line of red tokens and two lines of blue tokens. How long do the lines have to be before you have an equal number of red and blue tokens?

But anyway, eternity is a long time to spend in hell, regardless of when you start.

Yes, and someone who spends 6000 years more there will always have spent 6000 years more, even after an infinite amount of time.

You seem to have missed my point.
I have heard repeatedly that infinity has to go both ways.
Meaning that if something has no end, it cannot have a beginning.
This is mostly used to defend the idea that God has no begining because he has no end.

I, personally find this idea to be rather flawed and nothing more than wishful thinking.
Why?
Because of pi.

I find that idea flawed too. I hadn't come across it before, though, so I didn't pick up on your intent.

 

[Sola'lor]

If I believed your premise was correct, I would have to conclude that your conclusion was correct. Since I don't believe that hell will be like you've described, I do believe it's fair.

Agreed. I believe Hells fair but I don't believe in it as commonly described.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

Another thought occurred to me: many Christians believe that right now no one is in hell. Until Christ returns, those who die go either to Hades (which is hell-like, but not technically hell) or to Paradise (which is heaven-like, but not technically "heaven"). According to this belief, no one truly enters hell till after Christ's second coming and the great Judgment.

Technically they don't go to hell either, it's the Lake of Fire.

 

[kadzbiz]

The whole concept of Hell or the Lake of Fire or whatever you want to call it, is just ridiculous. So what happens there? You burn? What burns? You skins burns does it, your bones and hair and muscle? So then when it's burned, in let's say about 3 seconds in a lake of fire, then what? You get your body rejuvenated to burn all over again? Huh??

 

[athanasius]

The reality of hell is total separation from God. God is all good and all loving. If you are totally separated from all goodness and all love then you would suffer. People do it to themselves. God may gives them free will and calls them and they decide for themselves if they want his love and goodness by their actions. If they do not then God will honor their free choice and they will Separate themselves from him Eternally. And that is fair because we decide after all. No one forces us to love him and follow him. We either do or don't.

 

[McBell]

The reality of hell is total separation from God. God is all good and all loving. If you are totally separated from all goodness and all love then you would suffer. People do it to themselves. God may gives them free will and calls them and they decide for themselves if they want his love and goodness by their actions. If they do not then God will honor their free choice and they will Separate themselves from him Eternally. And that is fair because we decide after all. No one forces us to love him and follow him. We either do or don't.

and you are ok with that?
Personally I do not like ultimatums.

How exactly is this any different from someone holding a gun to your head and telling you that if you do not do {insert action here} you will be killed?
I mean other than with God you burn for all of the rest of forever and beyond.

 

[athanasius]

and you are ok with that?
Personally I do not like ultimatums.

How exactly is this any different from someone holding a gun to your head and telling you that if you do not do {insert action here} you will be killed?
I mean other than with God you burn for all of the rest of forever and beyond.

Your making a false assumption that God threatens you to heaven or that God is not merciful and just. But that is not the case. He will force no one. He will gently call you and keep giving you chances throughout your life. If you for some reason are not convicned of his calling or never got a chance to leanr about him, he certainly would not hold you culpable for that. But if you are convicned of him and say no to him then he will honor your wishes and your free will. And you won't ever have to spend a eternity in the presence of person you don't care for or reject anyway. So yes its totally fair thanks to your free will and intellect.

 

[rojse]

and you are ok with that?
Personally I do not like ultimatums.

How exactly is this any different from someone holding a gun to your head and telling you that if you do not do {insert action here} you will be killed?
I mean other than with God you burn for all of the rest of forever and beyond.

You need to extend the metaphor to state "if you do join me, though, you will have all of your earthly desires met."

Hmm... is there really a choice in that at all? Either receive carrots for the rest of eternity, or continually get hit with a stick?

 

[kmkemp]

I think that certain knowledge of hell is far too lacking to make a judgment about whether or not it is just, don't you think (even if humanity was considered the standard of moral judgment)? All that really matters to me is that being with God for eternity is far better than being without. If you make the opposite decision, then you have made your bed, so to speak.

 

[crystalonyx]

Any supposed god that makes anyone suffer for eternity in any way is a monster.

 

[Sola'lor]

The reality of hell is total separation from God. God is all good and all loving. If you are totally separated from all goodness and all love then you would suffer. People do it to themselves. God may gives them free will and calls them and they decide for themselves if they want his love and goodness by their actions. If they do not then God will honor their free choice and they will Separate themselves from him Eternally. And that is fair because we decide after all. No one forces us to love him and follow him. We either do or don't.

Well said. I agree with this.

Any supposed god that makes anyone suffer for eternity in any way is a monster.

God doesn't make us suffer. The suffering is a natural result of our own action. God doesn't cause the suffering.