My third issue with Christianity

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English is not my native language, so you might find errors in my spellings and I apologize for that and hopefully some day I will be able to write in English perfectly.

I’ve already addressed my first two issues with Christianity and thanks to all who’ve answered them.

My third issue with Christianity is HELL place where people will burn forever and ever and ever, I don’t see why would God send people to that place? It is for “satan” and his angels but why people should be there? There are few people that I guess they deserve to be in hell forever, like Hitler and the people who did 9/11 attacks…etc, these are people I would love to see them burn in hell forever, However, that let me fall into another trick where I have people that I love, my family, my friends, my moral idols, my hollywood stars, my favorite scientists…etc I love them all, I do care about them, yet, more than %95 of them are not Christians, and when I think about them burning in hell for what? for just not believing in the Christ? What about the good Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, Atheists…etc. I feel so sad and get into point where I really feel like going to cry for them when I see them laughing and enjoying their life, yet in the back of my mind imagine them burning in that awful place. Now that made me stop being Christian in order to stop this madness that was going to drive me crazy.

So, what should I do about that? How could I be Christian without the need to have these nightmares about my loved once, I really need help about this issue more than anything else.
 
What about the good Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, Atheists…etc
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No one goes to hell out of no fault of their own. That we can be assured.
It is for “satan” and his angels but why people should be there?
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The standard answer is that people choose to turn away from God, so they choose hell. I will admit, this is hardly convincing to people who cannot understand a merciful God condemning someone for all eternity. But it is not a wrong answer, it is just too simply worded IMO.

A merciful God would not be someone who ignores our actions and pretends they never happened. That is not mercy, that is not love, that is indifference. God loves us enough to give us free will, He also loves us enough to care about our choices. If He did not care, that would the opposite of love, it would be the ultimate injustice.
God gives everyone the opportunity to repent, He gives everyone the Grace they need to be saved. If someone has committed truly evil deeds, and has refused repent, then they have rejected God’s mercy, which is the ultimate manifestation of His Love, of Him. So condemnation to Hell is truly the acknowledgement of God of our choice to be without Him.
 
That’s a good question, Break, and a difficult one. However, “Hell” is the natural consequence of God respecting our freedom.

(As an aside, the Church does not teach that people who are not Catholic will go to Hell; it’s quite complicated - very simply, and this is too simply put, anyone can be saved, provided that do not overtly reject Christ and his Church and try to live a good life - we then entrust their souls to God.)

As a beginning, may I suggest this response by C.S. Lewis (from Mere Christianity):
“[E]very time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different than it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing into a heavenly creature or a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state of the other.”
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You are talking about the concept of free will
God gave human beings free will, that is true, but God never sends anyone to hell, people choose to go to hell.
You must understand the just characteristic of God, He is not only merciful, loving, infinite, eternal but he is also JUST. To send souls **against their own will to heaven **is not just at all.
We must attempt to understand God’s nature above anything else. God is a free God, in a sense, because does not force us to go to hell or heaven. It is up to us to choose.
While you might say, “But hell is such a horrible place, why does God allow souls to go there?” The thing is, it would be unjust of God to force everyone to go to heaven, against their will.
The reason, I assume, why you are upset that God would do such a thing is : We live on earth, with a sense of longing for God’s love. And to presume that God would take that away makes you upset. I understand that, given that God’s footprints are here on earth. In hell, there is no such thing as that, there is no longing for God at all, and to force these souls to do something they do not want, is totally unjust.

God is infinite. He is love itself, Truth, Mercy and Justice. Believe me, God is merciful, we do not know who goes to hell, nor do we have any right to say who goes to hell. We accept God’s mercy and trust in his Just nature. We do not know who goes to hell.
 
Those of others faiths are not automatically condemned to hell. You need to read the Catechism of the Catholic Church on this issue. This is what the Church says about those of other faiths:

Possible salvation of non-Christians: #s 846-848.
“Outside the Church there is no salvation”
846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers?335 Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:
Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.336
847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:
Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.337
848 "Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."338
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When Christ died on the cross he redeemed all mankind, not just believers. The grace of God was poured out on all mankind, thus all men have a “measure of faith” as St. Paul put it. God expects us to use the grace he gives us to do his will in this life. I have no doubt that many a faithful non-Christian will be in heaven instead of many an unfaithful Christian.

Jesus told the parable of two brothers who were asked by their father (God in the analogy) to go into his fields and work (the needs of others, spiritual and physical). One said yes, but didn’t do it. The other said no, but did it anyway. It was the one who did it that pleased the father. It is the same for those who have never heard of Christ. If they do what pleases the Father in heaven by his grace–that last part is very important–they will be saved. It is God who decides who will be saved, not we humans. 🙂
 
The Church does not teach that every non-Christian goes to Hell simply by virtue of not being a Christian. Rather, she teaches that every person is responsible for doing good and avoiding evil in accordance with the degree of truth that has been made known to that person. A person that has never heard the Gospel can be saved if he or she obeys the natural law and the dictates of his or her conscience, although admittedly this is much more difficult to do without the grace of God in the Sacraments (hence the need for all Christians to evangelize the world and proclaim the Gospel to all men).
 
I think rafarose’s point is key. God does not send people to hell. They choose to go there.

The existence of hell follows naturally from the existence of free will, which is a necessity for real love. In order for love to be authentic, it must be freely chosen – not coerced. And if people have the choice, that means there is a possibility for them to choose against loving God. That’s what hell is: choosing to live apart from God. That’s what Satan and all the fallen angels did. They chose to do their own thing rather than follow the Lord.

Hell is not simply a punishment for a life ill-lived. Though a life ill-lived is often an indicator that a person has chosen against God.
 
TheBreak said:
English is not my native language, so you might find errors in my spellings and I apologize for that and hopefully some day I will be able to write in English perfectly.

I’ve already addressed my first two issues with Christianity and thanks to all who’ve answered them.

My third issue with Christianity is HELL place where people will burn forever and ever and ever, I don’t see why would God send people to that place? It is for “satan” and his angels but why people should be there? There are few people that I guess they deserve to be in hell forever, like Hitler and the people who did 9/11 attacks…etc, these are people I would love to see them burn in hell forever, However, that let me fall into another trick where I have people that I love, my family, my friends, my moral idols, my hollywood stars, my favorite scientists…etc I love them all, I do care about them, yet, more than %95 of them are not Christians, and when I think about them burning in hell for what? for just not believing in the Christ? What about the good Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, Atheists…etc. I feel so sad and get into point where I really feel like going to cry for them when I see them laughing and enjoying their life, yet in the back of my mind imagine them burning in that awful place. Now that made me stop being Christian in order to stop this madness that was going to drive me crazy.

So, what should I do about that? How could I be Christian without the need to have these nightmares about my loved once, I really need help about this issue more than anything else.
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I don’t believe God sends people to hell just because you are not a Christian. That is not the teaching of the Church. (It can be the teaching of some Christians but it is good to ignore them). Hell is a very interesting question. How can a loving God permit it? It may be that God does not create hell. We do. The angels created it because of their refusal to become what they can be by Grace. However this might be I am certained it is the awful way of life that creates this hell within us. It has to be some grave matter. The devil created this hell because he had fallen from a great height. But in man this was not so. Man had fallen initially from a small height. In other words it was not that severe. Man’s sins if they are not mortal in nature can be handled by our God. But committing mortal sins is another matter. In simple words it can be the crime of the century. Committing mortal sin after mortal sin will change your own God given disposition to one that can actually give you hell. As long as you do not commit any mortal sins this condition may not come to you. So if you are still a good person and you are not a Christian you are still open to the many Graces God sends out. A person might not realize that “everything is from above and is from the Father of light” but that does not mean you cannot benefit from it. The Sun shines on all no matter if you are good or bad. You might not realize the goodness of what the Sun does for you but you receive it anyway. In the same manner this is how God treats those who as yet do not recognize Him. His Light still shines on them.
 
catholic.com/tracts/the-hell-there-is

newadvent.org/cathen/07207a.htm

vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p122a5p1.htm

In the Apostles’ Creed it says Jesus descended into hell.The Apostle’s Creed is not Scripture, but a summary of faith.

From Catechism of the Catholic Church
633 Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, “hell” - Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek - because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God.480 Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the Redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into “Abraham’s bosom”:481 "It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Savior in Abraham’s bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell."482 Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him.483

theapologeticsgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Did-Jesus-Descend-Into-Hell.pdf
 
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