Maybe we can get some different responces and more people involved, rather that just debate UR.
Why does God need to torture people for eternity?
What is this place that unbelievers are destined for, that Christians are trying (or supposed to be trying) so desperately to save people from? Whatever it is, God died so I wouldnt have to go there.
Hell, God's eternal torture chamber, where the greater part of all humanity will spend eternity. What is the purpose of this place? Well, punishment, Christians tell us. But punishment for what purpose? Since there is no remedial value to hell, no chance of learning your lesson and getting let out, what good does the punishment do?
Even the most cruel human torturers usually have a reason for their torture. Make the appropriate confessions, tell them what they want to know, and the torture will usually stop. Or at the very least, you can eventually die. But Christians make God out to be the very worst kind of torturer
As a Christian, I was always uncomfortable with this. In an attempt to explain hell while leaving God's reputation for fairness intact, I deferred to a more C.S. Lewis-type explanation. Rather than having God create a place like Hell and sending people there, I saw Hell more as a result of rejecting God. It was the ultimate "you got what you asked for." God was saying, "You really don't want me around? Fine. I'll leave." And the result was hell, the absence of everything good, which vanished when God did.
But then traditional christianity teaches God is omnipresent..all places at all times...how can he be that and not be in hell.
In America we pride ourselves in prohibiting something called "cruel and unusual punishment." We look aghast at dictatorial regimes that torture its prisoners and dissidents. Yet even the worst atrocities committed under the cruelest tyrants of this world are nothing when compared to what Christians say God has in store for us. A poignant way to illustrate this is to look at what Christians believe about Jews, especially Jews that were imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps. Although Christians generally do not discuss this, it is what they must believe, for it is built into their system of "divine justice."
Christians define as hell bound anyone who does not accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. This includes just about all practicing Jews. So imagine this scenario: as the millions of Jews slaughtered in Hitler's death camps passed into the afterlife, they awoke to find themselves burning in hell. Not only was there a lack of food there, there was no food. Not only was there poor drinking water, there was no water. Not only was there pain, there was the most intense pain imaginable, and it was unrelenting. Sort of like being tossed into the ovens of Auschwitz alive over and over. And not only did this suffering just seem like it would never end, it really never would.
Most of these Jews certainly were praying to God, loved him, cherished
the moment they were released from the pain, Certainly at nights you could hear the cries and pleas to God as they suffered so. Just imagine how they will feel when they face the God they loved and find he is worse than Hitler.
Simply what is it in God's Character the need to torture forever...or for you moderates,,seperate himself forever from the mass of his creation.
Why does God need to torture people for eternity?
What is this place that unbelievers are destined for, that Christians are trying (or supposed to be trying) so desperately to save people from? Whatever it is, God died so I wouldnt have to go there.
Hell, God's eternal torture chamber, where the greater part of all humanity will spend eternity. What is the purpose of this place? Well, punishment, Christians tell us. But punishment for what purpose? Since there is no remedial value to hell, no chance of learning your lesson and getting let out, what good does the punishment do?
Even the most cruel human torturers usually have a reason for their torture. Make the appropriate confessions, tell them what they want to know, and the torture will usually stop. Or at the very least, you can eventually die. But Christians make God out to be the very worst kind of torturer
As a Christian, I was always uncomfortable with this. In an attempt to explain hell while leaving God's reputation for fairness intact, I deferred to a more C.S. Lewis-type explanation. Rather than having God create a place like Hell and sending people there, I saw Hell more as a result of rejecting God. It was the ultimate "you got what you asked for." God was saying, "You really don't want me around? Fine. I'll leave." And the result was hell, the absence of everything good, which vanished when God did.
But then traditional christianity teaches God is omnipresent..all places at all times...how can he be that and not be in hell.
In America we pride ourselves in prohibiting something called "cruel and unusual punishment." We look aghast at dictatorial regimes that torture its prisoners and dissidents. Yet even the worst atrocities committed under the cruelest tyrants of this world are nothing when compared to what Christians say God has in store for us. A poignant way to illustrate this is to look at what Christians believe about Jews, especially Jews that were imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps. Although Christians generally do not discuss this, it is what they must believe, for it is built into their system of "divine justice."
Christians define as hell bound anyone who does not accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. This includes just about all practicing Jews. So imagine this scenario: as the millions of Jews slaughtered in Hitler's death camps passed into the afterlife, they awoke to find themselves burning in hell. Not only was there a lack of food there, there was no food. Not only was there poor drinking water, there was no water. Not only was there pain, there was the most intense pain imaginable, and it was unrelenting. Sort of like being tossed into the ovens of Auschwitz alive over and over. And not only did this suffering just seem like it would never end, it really never would.
Most of these Jews certainly were praying to God, loved him, cherished
the moment they were released from the pain, Certainly at nights you could hear the cries and pleas to God as they suffered so. Just imagine how they will feel when they face the God they loved and find he is worse than Hitler.
Simply what is it in God's Character the need to torture forever...or for you moderates,,seperate himself forever from the mass of his creation.