Hell cannot exist

[Tavoh]

HELL CANNOT EXIST. This is my argument. I was raised in a catholic school most of my life, I learned much more than just the basics. God is all love and all knowing correct? Ok. He is perfect in every way etc. good we’re on the same page. Ok so I was taught in this school that god (because he’s all knowing) can see how you are going to live your life. He knows if and when you will pick A or B. He gives you free will but he knows what you will do with that free will. So if God is all knowing and all loving if he knows you are going to do things that are going to land you in eternal suffering for um, eternity. Why would he create you in the first place? Why would a Loving God CREATE a soul just so it can end up in suffering? Many priest tell me that “he doesn’t send you to hell, you choose to go” ok, this is a very different type of “choice” though. It’s like the teacher tells you don’t make sound with that pencil or I’ll send you to detention and 7 minutes later you play with pencil, it drops and makes a sound on the floor therefore you get detention. People can argue that you chose to play with the pencil and it fell. The teacher will say this was your choice and all the adults will agree but You will not. You didn’t purposely drop it. It’s not like she gave you a A or B choice of detention or go home after school and got to pick it out. So the end game is the teacher writing out the detention slip making the concious effort of sending him to detention. So this goes back to my argument, God is still Judging you, he is making the effort of basically “disqualifying” you from being able to get into heaven therefore you go to eternal suffering. So why would God, ALL loving ALL knowing create a soul that will just eventually end up in hell and suffer. I am not atheist, I believe there is a creator, I believe there is a afterlife. But I’m sure that a book written by man for man isnt going to be all true because of the desire we as man have for control over our own species. We say that " yeah sure, you don’t have to follow our rules that’s fine. But you go to hell for it."of course you don’t wanna go to hell and will do the things needed to prevent that from happening. Plus, how could god have written the Bible? Did he posses the apostles so he could have control over the pen? No, cause that wouldn’t be free will, so why not make yourself as a human? Oh wait. Jesus! He knew he was gonna die cause he’s Jesus, so why not use all that time to write a book to leave the human race behind, why have other people do it? Wouldn’t a book of Jesus be great? ONE BOOK, but no. Apparently just a prayer, that was documented 40 years after his death. Look I have an open mind, I hope that you have had one too while reading this. I’m not saying the Bible is a bull****, I’m just saying that there’s a lot of details that are. Thank you for your time. I’m 18 by the way

 

[anon90749130]

I don’t think you understand what hell actually is. Hell isn’t some place where a big red devil sticks you with a pitchfork and shoves you into a furnace no more than heaven is a place with pearly gates on a cloud that flying babies guard. Both heaven and hell are states of the soul. Hell is a state of complete separation from God, it is where we end up in when we detach ourselves from God and his love through our own sin. Heaven is just the opposite, it is a state of complete unity with God (not with his substance, but rather with his energies), it is where we end up in when we draw ourselves close to God by responding to his grace. In the end, we, not God, decide our own fate. God is simply trying to do everything he can to help us reach him, that’s why he sent Jesus Christ. If not, it wouldn’t be possible to find full communion with him.

 

[Vico]

God is all love and all knowing correct? Ok. He is perfect in every way etc.

You wrote: It’s like the teacher tells you don’t make sound with that pencil or I’ll send you to detention and 7 minutes later you play with pencil, it drops and makes a sound on the floor therefore you get detention. … You didn’t purposely drop it.
A. Not really like that, for condemnation of the baptized that die without sanctifying grace, because that state is only acquired with the intention, that is, through a loss of charity (sin is an offense against God).

You wrote: God is still Judging you, he is making the effort of basically “disqualifying” you from being able to get into heaven therefore you go to eternal suffering.
A. The reverse is so, because due to the mercy of God, sins are forgiven and purgatory given instead. Jesus Christ, with both divine and human natures, is the Just Judge.

You wrote: So why would God, ALL loving ALL knowing create a soul that will just eventually end up in hell and suffer.
A. Because moral evil is a necessary consequence of having free will, and free will is necessary for the merit of heaven.

2 Tim 2:3-7 3 Bear your share of hardship along with me like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. 4 To satisfy the one who recruited him, a soldier does not become entangled in the business affairs of life. 5 Similarly, an athlete cannot receive the winner’s crown except by competing according to the rules. 6 The hardworking farmer ought to have the first share of the crop. 7 Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.

Yes, there are many attributes of God:

God is absolutely perfect. (De fide.)
God is actually infinite in every perfection. (De fide.)
God is absolutely simple. (De fide.)
There is only One God. (De fide.)
The One God is, in the ontological sense, The True God. (De fide.)
God possesses an infinite power of cognition. (De fide.)
God is absolute Veracity. (De fide.)
God is absolutely faithful. (De fide.)
God is absolute ontological Goodness in Himself and in relation to others. (De fide.)
God is absolute Moral Goodness or Holiness. (De fide.) D 1782.
God is absolute Benignity. (De fide.) D1782.
God is absolutely immutable. (De fide.)
God is eternal. (De fide.)
God is immense or absolutely immeasurable. (De fide.)
God is everywhere present in created space. (De fide.)
God’s knowledge is infinite. (De fide.)
God knows all that is merely possible by the knowledge of simple intelligence (scientia simplicis intelligentiae). (De fide.)
God knows all real things in the past, the present and the future (Scientia visionis). (De fide.)
By knowledge of vision (scientia visionis) God also foresees the free acts of the rational creatures with infallible certainty. (De fide.)
God’s Divine will is infinite. (De fide.)
God loves Himself of necessity, but loves and wills the creation of extra-Divine things, on the other hand, with freedom. (De fide.)
God is almighty. (De fide.)
God is the Lord of the heavens and of the earth. (De fide.)
God is infinitely just. (De fide.)
God is infinitely merciful. (De fide.)

Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, by Ludwig Ott.

 

[kesa82]

This sounds like a question for, " Ask an apologist ". I haven’t checked to see if this forum still has that. I suspect not.

If you are soliciting though only a personal opinion , then ;

I think / suspect / believe that the relation of God to man , is like the relation of a lover to their beloved.

A lover can propose, offer, suggest, plea , lobby for, strive to convince, but that is all.

To compel love is to transform it into rape.

Perhaps, if you live long enough, and are fortunate (?) you will experience this yourself.

You will love someone, and offer that love to them, and they will eschew it , as if you had given them a rotten fish as a gift , they will eschew it , and instead chase after , and suck up to , people who, truth be told, do not care about them and never will , or to chase after things , objects, which cannot even know or love anyway . And you will know, already, without being psychic, that their rejection is slitting their own throat. That rejection will end badly for them
It will end badly FOR THEM.
YOU would have it end otherwise FOR THEM. Your reaction to their self-destruction will not be vindication , not satisfaction at being proven right . Your reaction will be , " Oh No ! " , and profound grief and regret as you watch the train wreck happen.

No need to speculate about the afterlife here. You can observe this in this life.

HELL CANNOT EXIST.

I guess you have not met , and spent time with , for example , a serial killer ?

I have. And in as much as I can say I am convinced of anything, I am convinced that person was already in Hell , right here, in this life.
No need , again , for afterlife speculations. I saw and experienced what I saw and experienced here.

So if God is all knowing and all loving if he knows you are going to do things that are going to land you in eternal suffering for um, eternity. Why would he create you in the first place?

Let us say that your beloved , your soul mate, the sun in your sky, the pivot around which your life revolved , was Adolf Hitler ( Well, apparently there were a few people, not demons, like his mother and father for example, who loved Hitler ) .
Would it be better if that person never existed ?

Yes ? But if “yes” , then , how is "better " to be arrived at, or defined, to begin with , in non-existence?

Does non-living dust know good or evil ?

Let’s look at it the other way around . In my case , I believe in an afterlife because, without it, concepts like , “good” , “bad” , “right” and "wrong " otherwise devolve into pure, meaningless , gibberish.

That is, if my fate is to become manure, then it seems to me, a split second after I become manure, I won’t be thinking , feeling, or knowing that it sucks to be manure, or that it is great to be manure.
That there is some merit in manure, or manure is utterly pointless.
That most humans dislike manure, and only flies and worms and things like that love manure.
But of course I won’t even be asking , " What are humans and flies and worms ? "
Or give a flip about their likes and dislikes.

Nothingness is…nothing.

Not thought, not feeling, not opinion, not definition,

Personally, my favorite name for God , and for the afterlife is , " The threshold of coherence / comprehension / intelligibility. "

Of course I have been told I am full of it.

But, so far, in 50 years , in my opinion , I have yet to hear a counter-argument that sounds like anything except ,

" Right and wrong , good and bad , have meaning , meaning outside of perpetuity and eternity , because…well…because…because. Aww , just quit asking that , you annoying jerk ! "

It seems to me that what applies to the time after , must likewise apply to the time before.

You say it was better that he had never existed ?

Ok. But you are only able to say that because he did exist.

 

[MaryT777]

Hi Tavoh,

Surely you would agree that a God would be a God of perfect love for us, mercy and JUSTICE?
It’s that simple really to me.

Of course given this is Catholic answers the Catholic point of view is in the Catechism of the catholic Church but I like your question.

It is food for thought and good for dialogue towards a better understanding of where others are “coming from.”

I hope you might agree with me that God must be just as well is loving and merciful, thus Hell for those that put themselves there as you have learned in Catholic School.

 

[Tavoh]

Many of you had said that “hell” is separation from. God and heaven is unity with god. Well that goes along with spirit science not to much Catholicsism. What about the lake of fire? What about the paintings that depict judgment day and half the people get dragged to a pit of fire and the other half go to the pearly gates? Dantes inferno? And god is all knowing! If he knew you were not going to end up loving him and end up in separation from him and never be happy again, for eternity, and he loves you so much why make you in the first place? Think about it. The church says if you miss one Sunday of church and don’t confess, then you go to hell. How is that not a control tactic? God can’t be what we think, we as a species have only lived for about 5000 years and we think we know this many details about gods divine plan?? Seriously?? I don’t even think that the English language can depict one word that comes out his “mouth” let alone an entire bible, because we are very very far from infinite knowledge, our DNA is 2% higher than that of an ape, and them at there smartest is a normal toddler. And god is INFINITLY SMARTER??? give me a break. We cannot know god, Jesus really only left the Lord’s Prayer, which was translated many times to get to English. We say heaven they mean the sky. Etc. I know god exist, he must. But if hell exists then he is rather not all loving or not all knowing.

 

[anon90749130]

Many of you had said that “hell” is separation from. God and heaven is unity with god. Well that goes along with spirit science not to much Catholicsism. What about the lake of fire? What about the paintings that depict judgment day and half the people get dragged to a pit of fire and the other half go to the pearly gates? Dantes inferno? And god is all knowing! If he knew you were not going to end up loving him and end up in separation from him and never be happy again, for eternity, and he loves you so much why make you in the first place? Think about it. The church says if you miss one Sunday of church and don’t confess, then you go to hell. How is that not a control tactic? God can’t be what we think, we as a species have only lived for about 5000 years and we think we know this many details about gods divine plan?? Seriously?? I don’t even think that the English language can depict one word that comes out his “mouth” let alone an entire bible, because we are very very far from infinite knowledge, our DNA is 2% higher than that of an ape, and them at there smartest is a normal toddler. And god is INFINITLY SMARTER??? give me a break. We cannot know god, Jesus really only left the Lord’s Prayer, which was translated many times to get to English. We say heaven they mean the sky. Etc. I know god exist, he must. But if hell exists then he is rather not all loving or not all knowing.

You are ignorant of anything the Church teaches.

Spirit science? No, it’s not. This goes back to the early Church and into the mystical tradition of the Church, and you can especially find some of these points emphasized among Eastern Christians. I don’t think you understand Christianity very well and you need better catechesis. You can’t just shrug it off, if it wasn’t Catholicism, then I simply wouldn’t be telling you it. But it is Catholicism. The Catehcism of the Catholic Church says:

"We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves: ‘He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.’ Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren. To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called ‘hell.’" - CCC 1033

Now, to quickly address this, all those paintings you see are just representations made by artist; they aren’t meant to be taken literally. Indeed, God is often painted as an old man, yet we know that God is spirit and has no form. You cannot take these as literal, to do so in some cases would actually be heretical. I cannot emphasize that enough.

Now for your accusation as a control tactic? Nobody is forcing anyone to go to confession, that’s completely your choice. You have to make the choice whether or not you want to be in communion with God and be filled with his grace, not us or anybody else. No one decides for you, it is between you and God alone. Confession is just part of the process of growing closer towards God, and we have freewill to reject this or take it. Not receiving the grace of confession does lead one away from God and can also inhibit spiritual growth.

God is not “infinitely smarter”, as you put it so mockingly. God is God, he is existence as it is. He is contained in no genus but himself, he is simple, and creator of all things. If God wasn’t omniscient, then he wouldn’t be God. These are some of the most basic philosophical truths about God that those outside of Christianity would confess.

You know, I think St. Athanasius of Alexandria sums this all up very beautifully in one simple sentence:

"The Son of God became man so that man might become God." - St. Athanasius of Alexandria (On the Incarnation of the Word [330 A.D])

These words have echoed their way throughout Christendom in all ages and have even found their way into the Catechism. They are one of the most fundamental Christian phrases you will find.

 

[MPat]

Why would a Loving God CREATE a soul just so it can end up in suffering?

Did you notice that “just”? For if there is any other goal to be achieved by creating a human who is going to end up in hell, your argument falls apart here. Do you have a proof that such other goal is impossible?

Wouldn’t a book of Jesus be great? ONE BOOK, but no. Apparently just a prayer, that was documented 40 years after his death.

OK, let’s say you got such a book. Now what? What would change?

Do you really think you would believe in that case?

You know, shouting something like “Evidence! More evidence! I refuse to believe unless I get more evidence!” is not a sure sign that evidence is really needed. The key word tends to be “refuse” and not “evidence”…

Look I have an open mind,

How do you know that?

The church says if you miss one Sunday of church and don’t confess, then you go to hell. How is that not a control tactic?

Let’s say that it is. Now what?

You don’t like it? And…? Does that somehow prove that it is impossible, or unjust?

(And yes, actual Catholic position is a bit more nuanced. But even this strawman seems to be winning against you. )

 

[Jknifeman]

The thing is Hell shouldn’t exist, because nothing can exist without God and Hell is a place without God, but it exists. It may just be a state of nonexistence where you are aware of the wonderful gift you threw away, but at the same time it can be a place of brimstone and demons like we imagine. The real hole in your point is that God is Omnipotent. If he wished to lie he could and it wouldn’t be sin simply because he is God and is Omnipotent as a creator. However for our sake he places limits on himself so we know he’s telling the truth and not manipulating us. This is where God’s love for man comes in, this infinite thing which makes it so that he cannot lie because he doesn’t want to. It’s not that he cannot, it is stated that he cannot, but since he is omnipotent he can but chooses not to, and by virtue of his omnipotent nature and his infinite will, he cannot lie. Thus Hell can exist without God because he wills it, the reason why is beyond our understanding, Most likely God created Hell as a place for Satan and his fallen angels, and most likely it was originally quite pleasant (As pleasant as a place without God can be), but he said I cast you into fire as he knew that the moment Satan was away from God’s will which defeated his hatred for God born out of his envy Satan’s hatred would lead to the torture of himself and all who followed him. God doesn’t cause Hell to not exist because it’s a place for those who choose not to choose him, and that would be extremely cruel to the creatures he created and against the free will he gave Man. Thus God chooses not to destroy hell and cannot by nature of his omnipotence but still can if he wanted to. The simplified version of this is: You question God’s ability, you test him like a doubting Thomas, You cannot visualize something as simple as a four dimensional cube (a Tesseract in mathemics) which is merely composed of cubes instead of squares (1D is composed of a point, 2D is composed of lines, 3D is composed of squares, 4D is composed of cubes) so how can you possibly hope to visualize or even comprehend something that is outside of time, exists in all things (which means that God is a 10 dimensional being or a dimensionless being depending on what side of the equation of General Relativity and string theory you take), and has existed always and will always exist, a true definition of infinity when you can’t even comprehend the notion of a basic mathematical infinity with anything other than the base notion of a sideways eight and the notion that the number is limitless. The notion that you can state that Hell cannot exist and be wrong cannot be concretely proven as no human can define God and there is a lack of evidence which provides proof, but with all the circumstantial evidence there is a crazy small percentage that you’re right (like 0.1*10^-10000 small) as with the literal mountain of circumstantial evidence I just gave against your argument I see very little chance that you are right. And I didn’t just say “Hell exists” I provided near-validation through scientific evidence that Hell exists by virtue of the inability of every human that has ever existed to comprehend the true meanings of the words God, Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory.

 

[Tavoh]

How do you know that? Are you friends with him? Have you met him?

 

[esieffe]

With all due respect, you are just using earthly reason and platitudes in your argument. We have Christ’s own words for one thing, and hundreds of Saints and theologians for another. Our Lady has spoken about saving as many souls as possible from hell. There is way more against your argument than for it.

 

[Jknifeman]

Circumstantial evidence has been given, if he doubts my argument then I believe he cannot be convinced.

 

[Tavoh]

How is it that out of all the religions in the world you just happend to be born into the right one? As a child many of you were taught that certain things are undeniably true because you were sourounded by people who loved ina agreement, if you were born in the Middle East you’d be Muslim and they will die holding in to their beliefs just like you so what makes you more right than them? Or any other religion for that matter. And I know a great deal about the Christianity , im just one of the only ones that doesn’t let everything get shoved down my throat over the threat of hell. And learn more of spirit science before you comment on it. It involves Jesus, it says that hell is not a place but rather separation from the unity of love (God) and I still haven’t gotten an answer on why god would create a soul just to end up in suffering if he knows what it will do. I’ve just gotten answers like " he tries to save you but you won’t take the help" or " that’s why he sent Jesus " ok all fair. But why would he create you in the first place, before you sin before you even think about sinning. Some of you said " because if he didn’t let you sin it would t be free will" but why would he put you in this earth knowing you were going to be a serial killer ?

 

[Tavoh]

If you doubt mine then you cannot be convinced of the truth either. Your religion contradicts itself because it was developed by man maybe not created by man but surely developed.

 

[XndrK]

Where does the Church contradict itself?

 

[Tavoh]

By saying that god is all knowing and all loving yet he creates souls that will end up in eternal suffering. How does tht make sense. And you can’t say that it’s not “suffering” they depict the lake of fire in the Bible. The Catholic Church has said that it is indeed physical pain you feel in hell

 

[MPat]

How do you know that? Are you friends with him? Have you met him?

As a matter of fact, yes, we kinda are (at least we are supposed to be working on it), and yes, we kinda have (for example, in the Eucharist).

For that matter, have you tried looking how those same questions work against your own position? You do make claims about what God would or wouldn’t do. How do you know that?

 

[Tavoh]

Think about it, if he’ll didn’t exist. The church never even mentioned the idea of a hell nor did the Bible. Why would people bother going to church? There’s no threat. There’s no long term consequence so why would people bother if they know they’ll go to heaven anyways?

 

[anon90749130]

God is trying to save us though, he does not send us to hell, he is actively trying to save us from hell. God wants us to be with him.

 

[anon90749130]

You have no basis for these claims though, you don’t have any understanding of what the Church teaches and the theology of it all.