You know this....how?It is heartbreaking to experience the actual hell knowing that you will never experience the same environment you had on earth!
Because you are superimposing your human conception of "love" onto God.I personally doubt there is an eternal hell. It is just difficult to believe that there is an eternal existence of punishment. It is difficult for me to imagine a God of love, a Creator of this universe to have designed it in such a way.
For what purpose has a benevolent God created hell. Perhaps it is to dissuade people from committing the actions that may harm them or others. As a parent tells a child, don't cross the street and enter that jungle, if you do, you will be eaten by a lion who lives there. Or perhaps there is an actual hell that does lasts for eternity. But it is difficult to fathom why a benevolent God who has created humanity would fashion such an existence for mortal souls.
If the existence of an eternal hell is real, what sin causes one to go to hell. We as soldiers kill in the name of national pride and are glorified as heroes. Then there are those who are born gay without a choice on of their own. If the soldier is a glorified hero and the gay person condemned to hell for the way he or she is born, how is this justified?
There is an anomaly to common sense and to our inner most conscience when we start thinking in the ways of hell as punishment. The Lord strikes fear into the hearts of people and with it comes obediance. But true meekness is brought about without fear of hell, without want of anything, and having no pride of ego in his or herself.
I personally doubt there is an eternal hell. It is just difficult to believe that there is an eternal existence of punishment. It is difficult for me to imagine a God of love, a Creator of this universe to have designed it in such a way.
Thats a terrible way of thinking.I'd rather believe there's a hell and find out there isn't.....then believe that there isn't - and find out there is....
Couldn't agree more.Because you are superimposing your human conception of "love" onto God.
Hell is real.
Hell is temporary. (it will be thrown into the Lake of Fire after the final judgement)
Hell is infinitely intense torture - physical, emotional, spiritual.
The torture of Hell is continued for eternity in the Lake of Fire.
Then that solidifies my choice NOT to have kids.
I don't want them to possibly fail, and go "there."
I imagine many people are distraught who try to reconcile their assumed unwarranted, unrequested birth - and hell as we know it.
Even existentialism is enough, some times. And, then you have to make sure you also don't do enough to go to hell. Or, (since it is God's choice who He draws anyway,) hope you are on God's radar, and you aren't a vessel created for destruction and learning so that His chosen can learn and live.
As human beings we are bounded in both time and place. That is to say, we are finite. On the other hand we think of God as completely unbounded. God exists outside of both time and space. God is present everywhere and at all times. That is to say, God is infinite. This is the orthodox theistic understanding of God. To compare the finite to the infinite is beyond our human comprehension. Even to compare a grain of sand to Mount Everest falls far, far, far short. All of this brings up a number of questions in my mind.
The first question being “How is it even possible for a finite creature to offend an infinite God?” Could a grain of sand offend Mount Everest?
The second question being “If it were possible for the finite to offend the infinite, would the infinite punishment of a finite creature be just?” I will attempt to craft an analogy. You are in a park enjoying a picnic lunch when you glance down and notice an ant crawling across your sandwich. You are offended. How do you react? You have a number of options. You could ignore the ant. You could brush the ant away. You could move to a different location. You could kill the ant. You could kill the entire ant colony. You could capture the ant and confine it and proceed to torture it for several weeks until it finally dies. That last option is quite inadequate as a comparison to hell because hell is infinite in duration whereas the ant can only be tortured for a finite length of time.
To me the concept of hell flies in the face of any concept of a just and compassionate God. Hell would seem to be an entirely human invention based on a vindictive concept of retributory justice. Perhaps we have the wrong idea of hell. Perhaps we have the wrong idea of justice. Perhaps we have the wrong idea of God. I completely reject the concept of hell as it is traditionally understood in most Christian churches.
Hell is real.
Hell is temporary. (it will be thrown into the Lake of Fire after the final judgement)
Hell is infinitely intense torture - physical, emotional, spiritual.
The torture of Hell is continued for eternity in the Lake of Fire.