Let's talk about the kid in Africa who has never heard the name Jesus, yet lived his entire life selflessly serving his family and sacrificed his own life at a young age to keep his siblings alive.
ECT supporters believe that a just God would punish
this kid with the most painful form of torture known to man for trillions of years?
Because the missionaries didn't get to him in time?
Because he was somehow supposed to trust in the name of Jesus despite even knowing of His existence?
In order to believe that such punishment is justice, you
MUST deny
every sense of decency, humanity, and ethics. You
MUST believe that there is
NO difference between good and evil - for such treatment by human standards is
THE MOST EVIL THING ONE COULD POSSIBLY DO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And what does an ECT supporter believe actually happens to these people who are punished with eternal conscious torment?
After the first day, they would have to become insane, mindless zombies. The mind can only take so much. After the first week, they would brain dead. After the first month, they would be very brain dead. After the first year, they would be very, very, very, very, very, very, very brain dead. And after the first decade they would be very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very brain dead. Care to speculate how brain dead they would be after just a thousand years?
Let's have a brief sample of how long this torment would last. In the view of Young Earth creationists, the earth is about 6,000 years old. This is the amount of years from Adam to you. Now multiply that number by the number of atoms that make up this planet. That's 10^49 X 6,000. You would end up with more zeroes than there are characters in this entire thread combined. Now remember what we're counting - we aren't counting seconds, minutes, or even hours... we are counting
centuries.
Are you familiar with what the number google is? This is google:
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Now if I understand their position correctly (correct me if I'm wrong), the ECT supporter believes that the little kid in Africa who lived his life in service to his family and laid down his life so that his siblings could live - the little kid in Africa who NEVER ONCE heard the name Jesus - deserves to be punished with the most painful form of torture known to man for more than
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centuries. And this is the view held by the vast majority of christian churches?
That kid gets the same punishment as Adolf Hitler? Eternal conscious torment?
This is justice?
And when someone challenges this belief by using dozens of bible verses that teach the complete opposite, only
ONE person has what it takes to defend ECT?
Point 1:
The bible specifically states more than 34 times throughout scripture that immortality is given as a gift to the righteous only. In Genesis, God casts Adam and Eve out of the garden specifically to protect them from the curse of immortality.
1 John 3:15; Mark 10:17; Mark 10:30; Luke 18:18; John 3:16; John 5:39; John 6:54; John 6:68; John 10:28; John 17:2; John 17:3; Acts 13:48; Romans 2:7; Romans 5:21; Romans 6:23; 1 Timothy 6:19; Titus 1:2; Titus 3:7; 1 John 1:2; 1 John 2:25; 1 John 3:15; 1 John 5:11; 1 John 5:13; 1 John 5:20; Jude 1:21; Genesis 3:22; Revelation 2:7; Revelation 22:2; Revelation 22:14; John 4:14; Revelation 21:6; 1 Corinthians 15:53; 1 Corinthians 15:54; 1 Timothy 6:16
Point 2:
The bible expressly states that the wicked shall be destroyed, slaughtered, and burned to ashes repeatedly throughout scripture. Our example of what will happen to the wicked is Sodom, which is no longer burning.
Mathew 10:28; Romans 6:23; James 1:15; 2 Corinthians 7:10; 1 John 5:16; Revelation 20:14; Revelation 21:8; Philippians 3:19; Psalm 145:20; Mathew 7:13; Psalm 68:2; John 3:16; John 10:28; Jude 1:7
Point 3:
If the punishment for sin was eternal conscious torment, Jesus must still be dead. Or else his tiny sacrifice of simply death must be meaningless in the face of God’s eternal anger.
Isaiah 53:5-6; John 10:11; 1 Peter 2:24; Mark 10:45; Hebrews 10:9; Romans 3:25; 1 Peter 3:18; Ephesians 5:25; Leviticus 16:10; 1 John 3:16; Deuteronomy 21:22
The view of Annihilationism is this:
"The wages of sin is DEATH, but the gift of God is eternal LIFE in Christ Jesus our Lord."
That pretty much sums it up.
Here's another way of putting it:
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in Him shall not PERISH, but would have eternal LIFE."
The view of ECT is this:
"The wages of sin is eternal life in torment, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in Him shall not suffer eternal TORMENT, but would have eternal LIFE."
It just so happens that only
one of those beliefs is biblical.
Questions for the ECT supporter:
1. What does the Tree of Life mean to you?
2. What does the bible mean when it repeatedly states that eternal life is a gift for the righteous?
3. How did Jesus pay our price for sin if the price he paid was death, instead of eternal torment?
4. Why does the bible repeatedly talk about the wicked being destroyed, killed, and burned up if they live forever?
5. If Sodom is our example of eternal fire and what will happen to the wicked, how is it no longer burning?
6. How do people thrown into a lake of burning sulfur survive for trillions of years in said lake?
7. Why would God want sin and people who hate him to be around for eternity?
8. How can God ever deliver justice to the wicked if the act of punishment is eternal and can never be complete in its implementation?
9. If the body and soul can be killed in hell, what could possibly be left over to suffer?
Now if an ECT supporter out there would like to come forward and present a coherent, big picture rebuttal to Annihilationism, PLEASE DO SO!!! I AM BEGGING YOU!!! LITERALLY!!!!