Why bother with Hell?

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TomS333

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“Hell is where the bad people go.” It’s where unrepentant sinners are damned for all eternity and punished by eternal separation from God. Apparently, in the End-times, God will “sweep away” (totally eradicate) Hell so that only Heaven and Earth remain. Hell is inescapable once you’re there. So why doesn’t God just immediately destroy unrepentant souls at the moment of their death instead of making them suffer for an eternity and then be destroyed?
 
Heaven and Earth will be made new because Earth has been suffering under the weight of sin. It was originally created perfect and good but was corrupted by the Fall of mankind. However, nowhere is it said that Hell will be destroyed. Instead, it states many times in Scripture that the fires of Hell will burn forever. It was originally prepared as a place for the fallen angels. Men send themselves there by rejecting God.

God does not annihilate the unsaved souls in Hell because that itself would be wrong…each immortal human soul is precious and should not be destroyed. God values and loves every soul He has created and is grieved when any of them choose to reject Him.
 
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TomS333 said:
“Hell is where the bad people go.” It’s where unrepentant sinners are damned for all eternity and punished by eternal separation from God. Apparently, in the End-times, God will “sweep away” (totally eradicate) Hell so that only Heaven and Earth remain. Hell is inescapable once you’re there. So why doesn’t God just immediately destroy unrepentant souls at the moment of their death instead of making them suffer for an eternity and then be destroyed?
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That is not correct. I don’t know where you get your information from but its wrong!

Hell is forever.
 
This is something that always bothered me. Hell makes no sense. No matter the mental gymnastics that are undertaken to explain that people want and choose to burn forever🙄 it just makes no sense. The choice of loving God or burning is straight out of a mafia movie there is no way around it in my opinion
 
I posted this to another thread. I think it fits here too;

The Christian religion is full of dualities that Christians have to accept in some way. Many non-Christians don’t accept them and label them contradictions. You end up with a never-ending battle between theologians and skeptics trying to harmonize and break apart. Examples-

God is merciful and gracious - so there’s heaven. But God is also just - so there’s hell.
Both our goodness and evil are finite since our lives are finite, but the reward and punishment are eternal.

Adding to it-

God is sovereign over all creation, yet man is responsible for his own deeds.
God is jealous, loving, yet also unchanging (a mashup probably caused when Judaism encountered Greek stoicism).

There are loads of others.

To your point - there are plenty of others out there who look at all this through eyes of faith and conclude that the only way mercy and justice both get carried out is that all are ultimately redeemed or that the damned don’t suffer forever and are annihilated (the second being fairly in-line with older forms of Judaism) - even though you wont find much direct textual support for these, ahem, “meta” conclusions in Christianity.
 
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lets say you ask a cute girl out on a date, she says no. You don’t accept her answer, grab her forceably, put her in your car, take her to a restaurant, chain her to a chair, and stuff food down her mouth, when she doesn’t want to eat, you have to do that jaw thing like you do a doggie to take its medicine.

Or, when she says “no”, you accept her answer.

I think any reasonable guy would chose the latter (accepting the answer) over the former (force).

As we are made in the image of God, and we have that same sense of right and wrong, God is the source of right and wrong, so He also would choose the latter over the former.

If we freely say “no” to God, what kind of good god would kidnap and chain us to do what we don’t want to do?

He will respect our “no” and let our “no” be “no”.

I wish to say “yes” and wish everyone else to say “yes” … though that’s just my opinion.

Blessings!
 
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The consequences of the girl saying no is that she just doesn’t go out with you. When you say no to God you get everlasting torment and agony. If the girls options were to go out with this person or burn for eternity the choice is obvious. The problem is what kind of God would create an existence with those two options. He knew when making us that we could follow him or be tortured. He knew full well that people would not follow him and then suffer but went ahead anyway. Plus he doesn’t even need us! He is fully self sustaining within the three person’s. If someone came to you and said follow or burn you could probably get a good idea as to what kind of person that is.
 
God didn’t make hell for us. It was for the angels that rebelled against Him. There would always be some second choice, some rejection of God. It would be hell any way you put it.
 
wkj_123 said:
This is something that always bothered me. Hell makes no sense. No matter the mental gymnastics that are undertaken to explain that people want and choose to burn forever🙄 it just makes no sense. The choice of loving God or burning is straight out of a mafia movie there is no way around it in my opinion
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Love God and do what He asks of you. That way you don’t need to waste time with your gymnastics.
 
God will sweep away hell ?
Did God tell you this today during breakfast - lol
 
Separation from an omnipresent God can only occur if one no longer exists.
 
If there was a stadium full of people, and cameras and big screen tvs everywhere, and you got dropped right in center field naked, and realized your naked self was seen at every angle by every one, and everyone in the country, I would guess you would run to the closest exit as fast as you could.

This is how it will be when you come before a holy God and see all your sins and all his love that you pushed aside. You will cover your face with shock and shame at your actions. Scripture says that those will want the mountains to cover them from the gaze of God. The nearest exit is not close enough.
No gymnastics required.

Scripture also says to clothe yourselves in Christ.

When you realize how much God loves you, you will weep for joy.
I wish this for you, and soon. It’s true. It’s real. God’s love is real. Don’t miss out another second.
 
Dime said:
Separation from an omnipresent God can only occur if one no longer exists.
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The separation is the same one that exists today between the devil and God. It is God’s presence that is torture to the devil
 
To destroy unrepentant souls would be totally unfair. To not exist anymore is not punishment at all.
 
Souls do not die and therefore cannot be destroyed. A person who can die had made a choice of rejecting God. Therefore his soul will not be with God. Think of hell as without God who do not live there.
 
The bottom line is, we need God. If we hate God, we are thereby deprived of what we need. Suppose food were not necessary for life, but still necessary to stave off the pain of hunger. The insane man who refuses to eat would suffer forever, because he refuses to partake of that which he needs. So it is with the damned- those who fully and totally reject God find themselves in everlasting torment because they cut themselves off from the fulfillment of their needs, and their condition is incurable because they are adamant in their rejection of God. Rather than repenting in the face of punishment, the damned perversely blaspheme God for His Justice and envy the blessed for their glory. In justice, a sinner cannot be pardoned without repentance, and the damned will never repent. Such is their perversity that they’d rather drag the saints down to Hell with them than join the saints in Heaven and submit to God. I admit, it sounds shocking to the ears of mortals, because most sinners don’t seem that bad. However, a little sin is an unstable situation- if you do not rout it out, you become worse. It is the nature of sin to pollute, consume and destroy, and a house divided can’t stand. Virtue and sin can coexist temporarily, but they are at war with each other. Inevitably, one or the other must prevail, and the person thereby become all good or all evil.
 
I’ve been hearing it said a lot lately that the fire that purges us in purgatory is the fire of God’s love. And that the fire in Hell is also God’s love. To be surrounded by God’s love, and yet hating and rejecting Him, would be truly Hell, for both the demons and the sinners. I don’t see this as being unfair or unjust in any way.
 
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