The doctrine of hell does not bother me because in the two-thousand and sixth year since the year of our Lord, I, by the will of God, had my eyes opened to see who I was as God saw me.
I at once saw myself as one beloved of God and at the same time, saw myself as one who was in active rebellion against Him. I, saw, by the will of God, that I was at once, a murderer, an adulterer, a sexually immoral whoremonger, a reviler, a drunkard, a drug abuser and drug seller, liar, undisciplined, ruthless, faithless, heartless, hater of good, hater of authority, selfish, egotistical, maniacal, lascivious, boaster, prideful, arrogant thief among other things.....
This is all swell, except several things.
Firstly, even if you were a murderer, an adulterer, a "sexually immoral whoremonger", a "reviler" (whatever this specifically means), a drunkard, a drug abuser, a drug seller, liar, undisciplined, ruthless, faithless (this is not a negative trait), heartless, hater of good, hater of authority (this is also not a negative trait), selfish, egotistical, maniacal, lascivious, boaster (obnoxious, but not exactly wicked), prideful and arrogant thief it would not be enough for you to condemned to hell. Even the actions of Hitler would not warrant eternal torment.
No-one, by consequence of living a finite life is deserving of infinite punishment. It is by definition infinitely disproportionate and unjust.
Now, secondly: Supposing you are self-hating enough about your former self to really view yourself as so wretched (I have no doubt you're also describing negative thoughts you've had as actual crimes, as if they really happened. I know the Abrahamic Religions have a penchant for thought-crime). Supposing that you really were as awful as you say - not everyone that is not Christian is like or equivalent to that.
Most people in fact, are not and would not describe themselves as that. Especially those like me who do not see vices in certain characteristics you described (such as "faithless" or "boastful").
This revelation of God pierced my soul and cut me to the quick, exposing me for all that was in my heart.
Then I daresay, God or no God you were rather credulous.
Outwardly, I was your typical young twenty year old. Inwardly, I was a ravenous man. Not unlike the demon possessed man in the land of the Gerasenes who cried aloud night after night and roamed through the tombs naked, bruising himself with stones, delirious with grief, hatred, sorrow, and loneliness.
Oh dear me, hyperbole much?
You sounded like an average 20 year old yet you look back with intense masochism and described it as evil-incarnate.
Like so many men and women who saw themselves as sinners when convicted of their inner sin sick condition after having had the light of God shine upon them, I knew I needed a physician. I knew I needed to be made well. I knew it was not a doctor that I needed however, for my sickness was not of the physical sort at all. My sickness came from within, in my heart. I cried out in the torment of my exposed soul which sought to hide from that radiance bright. But Christ was already there waiting and did not suffer me to wait a second. He was there, even before I cried out, waiting for me, with such unspeakable patience and love. He had been waiting for twenty long years. I did not have to run and find Him! I did not have to ascend up into the heavens to find Him there, nor did I have to descend into the depths of the earth to seek Him out there. He sought me out, and His seeking, caused me to seek Him.
-yawn-
He had been standing at the door of my heart knocking for some time.... I had heard it clearly at first, years prior, when I was in church sitting with my mother. I was afraid, as most young children are. I did not really understand that sense, that urgent compulsion within my breast that made me almost stand up of its own accord and walk down the aisle. Even then I had some sense, however small it was, that I was in need of forgiving. That I had done some things that God was not pleased with. Things I would never tell anyone, not even my mother......And so Sundays came and Sundays went....I grew up and eventually that voice, that knocking grew dimmer and dimmer, until it was altogether silenced, drowned by the cacophony and bustle of teenage life.
See above.
So my friend, when you ask me about hell, and why it does not bother me, that some people are going to ultimately be there for eternity, I can honestly say that I myself deserved it.
No, you didn't.
No-one does. No-one ever will. The punishment is far removed from the crimes. It cannot be justified.
I am simply being honest. I also know that I am no different than any other person who has ever lived. If I need a Savior, everyone does.
How arrogant.
You may well need a saviour, or you may just think you do. At any rate, you're welcome to that. The idea that everyone else does because you think you do is absurd.
There is none righteous, no not one. If I had died in my sins, I would have had no one for my defense except myself, and I would have made a lousy lawyer indeed!
Seriously?
To see the injustice of hell is trivial. Your emotional and hyperbolic rendition of your life does not redeem the contents of it, nor the permanency of it all.
For what could I say to Him who sees all and knows all?
That the infinity of hell for finite crimes is unjust. That some of the things you label as "sin" (such as say, homosexuality, faithlessness, disobedience etc) are not actually sins. That you as God allowed me to exist with the disposition towards committing sin thus making you as God indirectly responsible for my state.
Plenty of valid arguments exist against it.
What excuse could I bring to satisfy the Holy God who created me and showed me the way therein that I should have walked?
Plenty. See above.
If I had dared to defend myself in the presence of the Almighty then it would have only served to confirm my sentence of condemnation.
What a travesty of injustice. How does defending yourself confirm your sentence? You describe this trial as if it were a show trial being held in a banana republic with a corrupt hand-picked judiciary.
I would have not had Jesus there by my side as my propitiation. He would have caused to pass before my eyes the hundreds of times the Holy Spirit was convicting me and pleading, begging me to repent and to turn from my sensual wickedness. And all the times I ignored that pleading.....He would have caused to pass before me the countless sins I committed, in thought, word, and deed....sins so innumerable that to endeavor to count them would itself take an eternity....
So much for a non-biased court, eh?
When a person stands before God on judgment day, oh that dreadful day for the unrighteous, faithless, and wicked...that day will not be a day for excuses.
Au contrare, I can think of no better day.
If you think about it....how could it be? What excuse could a wicked man give God for living wickedly that would suffice???
A good response would be asking how God defines "living wickedly". I suspect if he is as you say then God would affirm that living wickedly is simply being imperfect. This is something that we can't help given that we are born and will die imperfect
by God's choice. To insist that we live to impossible standards is unjust. We could never meet such requirements. The trial you speak of between a non-believer and God is a farce. The solution you propose to avoid it does nothing for our "sinful" impulses God so rail against but merely provides an opt-out and divine pardon. This is not justice.
Lord Lord, I did not know it was wrong to cheat on my wife!
We can affirm through reason that it is wrong to cheat on your partner. No God required. At any rate, such an action does not command a place in eternal torment as punishment. The punishment does not fit the crime. In fact, that someone would cheat on their wife or husband has absolutely nothing to do with God.
Lord, I did not know that it was evil to lust after women in my heart and harbor all sorts of vile thoughts in my mind!!!
It isn't. The idea of thought-crime is wrong and carries all kinds of unsavoury implications.
Lord, I did not know it was wrong to hate others because of the color of their skin!!!
Racism can be seen to be wrong trivially and without appeal to God. At any rate, such an action does not command a place in eternal torment as punishment.
Will these excuses satisfy the Holy requirement of a righteous God?
No, but better non-grovelling arguments will. Or they should be.
The sad part is that in seeking to justify himself, the man would be adding one more sin to the list.....that of lying!
Speak for yourself, ser.
For not only did the man know that all of the above were wrong, but is seeking to justify this wrong!
Your Strawman Non-believer is yours and yours alone. Perhaps you would respond in such a way. I would not.
I wonder how different the trial would have to be if you had come to God as a Muslim, rather than an Atheist. I should imagine God would find it a lot harder to shame a Muslim, someone who has devoted their life to God.
And then of course, Christ would allow to play before the man, every instance of the man's life that the gospel had been proclaimed in his hearing and it entering in one ear and out the other, never making its way to his heart, and the man would be reduced to tears and shame....
Yes, this is a show trial.
You realise this? A complete show trial. No court would act like this.
Eternity is not to be seen as a million years or a billion years or even a trillion years....Eternity is the very absence of time itself....There is no measure of passing time there....
Yes, I know.
And so, for eternity, the man is consumed....consumed by his own hatred, his own malice, his own pride....this consuming is like a fire that never goes out....for there is no one there to put it out....each person there is so self-centered, so self-sufficient, that they would never even think about anyone but themselves....this pride....this fuel which feeds the flames that ascend forever and ever come from the very soul of the one it consumes....perpetually...eternally.
Of course, this is yet another smear on non-believer and yet you don't know it.
This is not how I would act. Perhaps God may condition the circumstances to make it how I'd act yet that would be nothing more than manipulation. At any rate, if the eternity is so awful and so wretched for those consigned to hell then why does God not simply remove them from existence? Why the need to observe as billions upon billions of people (most of whom are likely innocent or guilty of little more than simply being human) suffer permanently.
Hell is a horrific place.....more horrific than anyone can possibly imagine....so horrific that Christ warned that if our eyes cause us to sin that we should pluck them out, that if our hand causes us to sin that we should cut it off....why? It is far better to enter into life maimed, than to be cast into the hell of fire whole.....
Perhaps the solution is to just remove Hell. It is causing all kinds of injustice that appear to transcend its realm and infect moral thinking here on earth.
Hell is real because God is real. If it had not been for Christ no one would have hope. Those, however, who are well, have no need of a physician, but they that are sick.
"Hell is real because God is real" does not follow.
Anyway, your analogy here implicates God as the being that made us all sick by the way. You may describe him as the cure but by necessity also implicate him as the cause.
