So it is clear that failing to believe (which a person can’t force on themselves - the evidence is sufficient to convince or it is not) is hell-worthy.
What? You haven’t demonstrated anything of the sort. When I asked you to back up this claim, you said you didn’t want to go into which offenses are damnable. Now you’re claiming it again. So I’ll ask you again – which passages connect the furnace of fire to failure to believe?
Ok, so why does your god need to hold such a large threat if he values free will?
There’s no connection between the level of punishment and the freedom to disobey.
Something of infinite value? If your god tosses the less than standard ones into a furnace of fire for all eternity, he can’t value it that much.
That does not follow. It
might, if you could establish that God doesn’t try very hard to keep us out of hell.
‘Scripture’, as you call it, is full of contradictions which you must stretch long and hard to explain.
The universe, and scientific study of it is a much better bible.
Again,
you are the one who insists on restricting the conversation to scripture.
Is Gehenna commonly known for being a furnace of fire where there will be a wailing and a gnashing of teeth?
It is where the Jews incinerate their refuse. “Furnace of fire” seems appropriate. And obviously someone consigned to such a place would wail and gnash their teeth.
But if he tosses even one soul into the eternal furnace, the value of the relationship is clearly far from infinite.Then why does he burn some of them?
You need to draw out this connection more clearly, because it doesn’t make sense to me. God values the relationship infinitely. The fact that humans freely choose to destroy the relationship, resulting in infinite punishment, does nothing to disprove that statement.
Why would you think that these concepts were understood hundreds of years ago by people who did not know that the earth revolved around the sun? (meaning the various authors/editors of the bible)
Because they were better at philosophy than we are.
It is possible that you have studied it more than I, so how can you still believe everything in the bible?
I have never said that I believe everything in the bible is literally true. In fact, I have said the opposite so many times my fingers are numb. You know that perfectly well.
Do you think the earth having 4 corners and resting on pillars is accurate?
Yes!
I’m just kidding, trying to get your heart rate up. Of course not.
Since some of the bible is so obviously not correct, it is fair to say that any claim of the bible may be true or may be false. Including the one about Jesus being the son of god.
I have no interest in going into this with you, and you have no interest in learning about it, so why bother with the Biblical literalism tangent?