What is the point of hell?

[mentalkitty789]

I thought I would ask other people, preferably those of faith, what they believed the point of hell was. It is one of the concepts that drove me away from Christianity, well one of the many. Just because it comes off as excessively cruel and violent, and pointless in every way. Next to no one gets out of hell, and they are suffering for all eternity. Torture that does not end.
There is nothing gained from hell, the people who are suffering in it would go mad from the unending and never dulling agony. What makes it even worse is that the punishment is so disproportionate to the crime. Some claim Jesus went to hell, for three days. How is the eternity of suffering everyone else gets just, other than on the whims of someone with all the power?
Unless God is sadistic in the extreme, why make these people at all? Free will is a joke with an all knowing and all power god, in my mind. He has the ability to make anything happen, and knows the outcome of all his choices. So he knew people who would go to hell would choose wrong. God knew that man to fall to begin with, and being all-powerful, was able to set in course a series of events that would make it so it wasn't so.

It just doesn't add up to the claims of love and peace at all, to me...

 

[Timothew]

I agree with you. There is no Hell of eternal torture. Hell is a mistranslation of Hades and Sheol. It should be translated as the grave. Gehenna is also sometimes translated Hell. Gehenna is a valley outside Jerusalem. They may as well have translated Georgia as Hell.

According to the bible, the result of sin is death, not eternal torture in hell. Everyone has sinned and everyone dies. But we can receive eternal life after we die. Jesus Christ was resurrected from death, and we can be as well.

I like your username, Mentalkitty.

Tim

 

[ChristianT]

It's where

1) people who don't want a forced love of God along with:
2)choosing anything BUT God

Are/Will go.

Jesus died so our condemnation wouldn't be in effect for us, and those who don't want this can choose !God. But the result (because of their choice) is not God: agony of choosing it, regret of choosing it.

Some may also say that a day (or year?) in God's "time" is like 1000 years in our time.

Also, being eternally God, you may argue He eternally suffered for our sins and saved us (which would be accurate)

Some even say the dead go into non existence. (or reside in Sheol forever(which is the grave or *cough cough* death)). Either way: eternal death thru hell or Sheol is just as horrible. Especially when you compare it to the gift God has offered. Eternal life for those who believe, love, and follow Him.

Like most Christians, my faith is based on my love for God, and His infinitely greater love for me. Not on whether I'm going to hell or not. According to His Word, if I follow Him and obey Him, my home will be forever with God. That sounds great to me... Hence the "Great/Good News" or Gospel.

 

[mentalkitty789]

It's where

1) people who don't want a forced love of God along with:
2)choosing anything BUT God

Are/Will go.

Jesus died so our condemnation wouldn't be in effect for us, and those who don't want this can choose !God. But the result (because of their choice) is not God: agony of choosing it, regret of choosing it.

Some may also say that a day (or year?) in God's "time" is like 1000 years in our time.

Also, being eternally God, you may argue He eternally suffered for our sins and saved us (which would be accurate)

Some even say the dead go into non existence. (or reside in Sheol forever(which is the grave or *cough cough* death)). Either way: eternal death thru hell or Sheol is just as horrible. Especially when you compare it to the gift God has offered. Eternal life for those who believe, love, and follow Him.

Like most Christians, my faith is based on my love for God, and His infinitely greater love for me. Not on whether I'm going to hell or not. According to His Word, if I follow Him and obey Him, my home will be forever with God. That sounds great to me... Hence the "Great/Good News" or Gospel.

I have to disagree, eternal death is not horrible. It is devoid of feeling, it is nothingness. It is the Darkness beyond time and space where things that never existed go. (Oh my beloved Chrono Trigger~<3)
Either way, Eternal life seems just as horrible, an eternity being forced to go on, day after day, stretching onwards to eternity.
As for him being there for a thousand years? I don't but that, why not say a thousand years if that is what they meant?
Still who was the one who created Hell and made it so those who did not choose him would go there? It is a choice people are forced to make.
I do not believe because I don't see a reason to believe in god. I DON'T WANT TO BE TORTURED, if that is truly the case. To make me choose something that there is no reasonable evidence for, or the risk of eternal torture is cruel and absurd.

 

[ChristianT]

Then you know your fate. Death. Kaput. Lights-out. Forever. Oh well.

As for "dragging on," we'll be doing it with:
*no pain
*no fear
*no lust
*no hypocrisy
*no death
*no evil
*no weariness( which negates the complaint)

We are saved from:
*wrath, rightly caused by our own disobedience, rebelliousness, and sinfulness, diverted only by God's great love and mercy.

All we are left with is:
*joy
*love
*life
*integrity
*power
*God (Who also has the 5previous characteristics and more.

But since you don't want to live forever, you don't have to. Just don't blame God if He doesn't allow you into the Kingdom. The only reason you'd not be allowed is by your own choice not to accept the invitation. That is your choice, I respect it, and God will surely honor it on Judgement Day upon your petition. (even if you don't speak up, if you hadn't been saved, He'd still honor your rejection if eternal life)

{honor here I mean as He will do what you currently ask for: death over life}

 

[mentalkitty789]

Then you know your fate. Death. Kaput. Lights-out. Forever. Oh well.

But since you don't want to live forever, you don't have to. Just don't blame God if He doesn't allow you into the Kingdom. The only reason you'd not be allowed is by your own choice not to accept the invitation. That is your choice, I respect it, and God will surely honor it on Judgement Day upon your petition. (even if you don't speak up, if you hadn't been saved, He'd still honor your rejection if eternal life)

{honor here I mean as He will do what you currently ask for: death over life}

Quite frankly I don't know if I would accept or reject the offer of eternal life. So long as I wasn't alone, and had someone I cared about, or an off switch when the pain of losing everyone I cared about came and went too many times to bare.
I'm not making any choice other than the claim that the Christian God exists. If I don't believe something exists, why would I care about any claims about hell, unless they damaged the validity of the claim? Which from my perspective it does.

Edit: Although those concepts of eternal life are literal eternal life, not the concept of the afterlife.... Great now I'm thinking of Dr Who...

 

[ChristianT]

Oh, I'm not even sure if people go to Hell. There seems to be no scriptural proof saying people go there, so I say it doesn't exist as a torture device for 'infidels'.
Hell as revealed in Revelation, was created as the final punishment of the devil, false-prophet, and beast to reside in torture forever (as an equal and opposite reaction to the devil's actions throughout history and his rebelliousness). The medieval Catholic Church, along with a lot of extreme behavior and beliefs, may have altered this revelation into a scare tactic for weak-minded people. Either way, Hell exists biblically as the place of judgement for the Devil.

 

[omanid]

proverbs 16:4 and john 6:44, mentalkitty.

 

[ChristianT]

Good points Oman.

 

[mentalkitty789]

proverbs 16:4 and john 6:44, mentalkitty.

I don't know the bible by heart anymore, would you be so kind as to acutually say what they are? Or at least provide a link to said lines?
To simply some lines from the bible, with out being kind enough to actually state the lines or provide a link, does little to convince anyone of anything, or be productive in any manner.

 

[Timothew]

I don't know the bible by heart anymore, would you be so kind as to acutually say what they are? Or at least provide a link to said lines?
To simply some lines from the bible, with out being kind enough to actually state the lines or provide a link, does little to convince anyone of anything, or be productive in any manner.

I know, it drives me crazy when people do this.

proverbs 16:4 and john 6:44, mentalkitty.

The sorrows of those will increasewho run after other gods.
I will not pour out their libations of blood
or take up their names on my lips.

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.

 

[mentalkitty789]

I know, it drives me crazy when people do this.

The sorrows of those will increasewho run after other gods.
I will not pour out their libations of blood
or take up their names on my lips.

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.

Thank you Kindly.

I still don't see how that justifies anything, why would an all-loving god so be so cold and cruel? Also the first doesn't apply to me. I don't run after other gods, or any for that matter. You might as well say I chase fairies.

 

[omanid]

google exists.

 

[Nails74]

Thank you Kindly.

I still don't see how that justifies anything, why would an all-loving god so be so cold and cruel? Also the first doesn't apply to me. I don't run after other gods, or any for that matter. You might as well say I chase fairies.

Hi mentalkitty,

Where do you get the idea of an "all-loving" God?

To answer your OP, I will give you two verses to start with...

The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather from His kingdom everything that causes sin and those guilty of lawlessness. They will throw them into the blazing furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. [Matthew 13:41-42]

It is a clear evidence of God’s righteous judgment that you will be counted worthy of God’s kingdom, for which you also are suffering, since it is righteous for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you and to reward with rest you who are afflicted, along with us. This will take place at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with His powerful angels, taking vengeance with flaming fire on those who don’t know God and on those who don’t obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction from the Lord’s presence and from His glorious strength in that day when He comes to be glorified by His saints and to be admired by all those who have believed, because our testimony among you was believed. [2 Thessalonians 1:5-10]

 

[Humble Pie]

Hell is a place of punishment.

 

[omanid]

The LORD has made everything for his own purposes, even the wicked for a day of disaster
proverbs 16:4

 

[omanid]

also, i wasnt assuming you had anything memorized; dont worry.

 

[mentalkitty789]

Yeah it is nothing personal. It would just be polite to put up what you acutally meant instead of putting up two verses that confuse me.
Also most claims I hear are that god is kind and loving. Which makes me wonder why reality is the way it is at all.
If God isn't all-loving, the only other god I could imagine is a sadistic one, based on the tales. The deeds he commits appear to be disproportionate to the crime, being far more cruel than they need to be. Why would I want to worship a cruel god though, because he'll torture me if I don't? I don't believe might makes right.

 

[Nails74]

If God isn't all-loving, the only other god I could imagine is a sadistic one, based on the tales. The deeds he commits appear to be disproportionate to the crime, being far more cruel than they need to be. Why would I want to worship a cruel god though, because he'll torture me if I don't? I don't believe might makes right.

You used to lean toward Christianity, correct? Do you remember the 10 commandments?

 

[mentalkitty789]

Yes, I used to. I went to a catholic Sunday school and made it to my first holy communion. Then started thinking too much.