So, I've been an ex-Christian for about 4 years now, and one thing still irks me even to this day. In evangelical Christianity (in which I was raised...and I suppose most denominations of Christianity in general,) it is believed that God is supposedly love (1 John 4:8), yet at the same time, it is believed that God tortures people for eternity in hell. It would be one thing if it were temporary and corrective, but it isn't... it is eternal. What purpose does an eternal hell serve, exactly? Can someone who is willing to torture his own "children" for eternity be seen as "loving?" That just sort of sounds like an episode of Criminal Minds. Even if God cannot "allow sin into heaven," why not just annihilate the person, both body and soul? Why is torture necessary?
Triumphant_loser,
You are not a loser!!! God is love, exactly as He says He is. God is not angry with you for asking such an important question. Back in the times of the Israelites some Gentiles and some Israelites who had fallen away from God had burned their children in fires, to false Gods. God stated that such things had never even come up into His heart, Jere 7:30,31. You only need a small lesson, Theodicy!! Not Theomachy!!
The truthful answer is just as you seem to believe it should be. God does NOT punish or torture ANYONE forever!!!
The word hell is a corruption of the Greek word Hades, and only means the common grave of mankind, in many places in some Bibles. The problem came about by the KJV using the same word Hell for several other words that did not mean the same thing, as Gehenna, and Lake of Fire, Tartarus, and just the grave of all mankind. When Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees, he sometime warned them of Gehenna, this was a different place than just the common, otherwise if would not have been a significant warning if they were all going there, Matt 5:22,30,32, 18:9, 23:33. Jesus used the term Gehennabecause it was a garbage dump in the first century, and there was a fire going all the time in it, to burn up trash,and garbage, and brimstone was thrown to make the fire hotter. So Jesus used this symbol to represent The Lake of Fire. The difference between Gehenna and Hades, there is never a resurrection from Gehenna, the reason Jesus warned the Jews.
One thing written in the scriptures proves beyond a doubt that Hades or Hell is not a place of torment or punishment is: Jesus was in Hades for parts of three days. God certainly would not have allowed His beloved son go to a place of torture, torment, or punishment, Acts 2:27,31.
The Bible says that all who are not in the book of life are going to The Lake of Fire, but notice it is the SECOND DEATH, and is a symbol for anything going there will never be seen again, whether flesh and blood or even Hades, Rev 20:13-15.
So you see God is a loving God, the problem was not with a god but with the men who translated the Holy Scriptures, they wanted to frighten people into obeying the scriptures.
IMV, it's your perspective that is wrong.
I have a nephew who was battling alcoholism. My house was open. A spare room was used. My help was there to help him through his issues.
He decided to leave and continue his lifestyle.
It would be wrong for you to accuse me of torturing my nephew. It would be wrong to accuse me of making him go through hell. It was his decision. The torture is of his own making.
There are those who believe that the body and soul will be annihilated. I'm not all knowing and I don't know all the particulars. I just keep the door open for those who don't want to be tortured anymore.
