A conundrum for Christians.
This is a question for the Christian religion since other religions won't have the same beliefs.
God sends sinners to hell. Or, people send themselves to hell and God allows it. Or, Satan sends people to hell and God allows it.....etc. Many people have different interpretations.
If God didn't want sinners to go to hell, he could make them immortal. Then they would never die and go to hell. (That's just one of many ideas.) So God must want sinners to go to hell.
The above portion summed up--- Either through action or inaction on God's part, people go to hell where they are tortured for all eternity.
Here's the conundrum--- Some people would not want even the most evil person in existence to be tortured for all eternity. Therefore it logically follows that these people are more compassionate than God.
Basically an altered version of the "problem of evil" is what you have here. I think Universalists (who consider themselves Christian) have an answer to your question since they don't believe anyone gets sent to Hell. There also are some theological views that repudiate the idea of eternal damnation- that is, the torment in Hell is not forever. There are other ways of trying to answer your question, but right now I'm just too tired to bother.
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I can't remember if hell was mentioned at all in the old testament... it seems to be a more modern invention... kinda like the stick to offset the carrot of eternal bliss...
The addition of hell turns the entire new testament into an act of extortion... and god is revealed to be not too different from your neighborhood gangster... of course, Moses was a gangster long before christ got into the game...
Sayeth Moses:
"Yo, pharOH! Ya might wanna be lettin my people go there, numbnuts... it'd be a shame if maybe some frogs started fallin from the skies or the river accidentlly turned to blood or somethin... I'm just sayin'... wouldn't want nothin to happen to that son o yours, right?"
DentArthurDent
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I would say that you have answered your own question, many humans are more compassionate than god, something that does not appear to be particularly difficult. From the bits I have read of the bible god seems to have very little compassion
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IsThisReal:
It's an interesting point, I'm not sure I have an answer you'll agree with. And it's my normal policy to never bring either Heaven or Hell up in a religious discussion. It's never a good idea, and almost always starts a fight. But I'll withhold judgment, so here we go:
Here's the thing: Yes, God is compassionate. He's saved my ass from doing some really stupid stuff, and helped me turn my life around. My faith in Him has helped me through some really tough times, and I know it's helped my family. I've watched faith help other folks turn their lives around as well.
On the other hand, God is just. He laid down the rules, and if we don't follow them, we burn. He'll help us out any time we ask for it, but He's not going to just give away for nothing what He's made for us all. What kind of justice would it be if God welcomed a pious man into heaven after a life of devotion, then grabbed a man who'd spent his life mocking Jesus and threw him into heaven?
That's not compassion either. Compassion is when a man lying in a drunken stupor in a gutter looks up and asks for help. Compassion is when a man on the row looks up and asks for forgiveness. Compassion is when a troubled young man looks up and asks for guidance and is helped out of a crippling year-long depression.
God gives us all chances to believe, chances to change our minds and welcome Him. If we spend the rest of our lives spurning him, we'll go to hell, according to my religion. Accept Him, risk it all and live for him, we go to heaven.
As for immortality, Adam and Eve screwed that up for us all. And again, that was a case of God punishing us for not following the really simple rules He laid down. "Rule One of, uhhh, one: Don't eat from that tree!" Shouldn't have been hard to follow. Considering the simple fact that we're not living in the Garden of Eden right now, I'm rather glad I probably won't live to be 75. Another 50 years is quite enough.
Orwell:
If you're referring to the question if God created evil, it's a logical problem. If A is to be defined, we have to define not-A. If we never define not-A, then anything can be considered to be A. In creating light, God defined darkness. In defining "good", God defined "not-good".
If you're referring to the question of why God allows evil to continue, that's different. I don't know you very well, but let me hazard a guess that you have a family or a friend that loves you deeply. Would you prefer to be accepted because you're the only option, or loved they choose to love you? If I end up married, I'd rather it be because she loves me above all others, not because she doesn't love me, but I'm the only male left on the planet.
If God was the only option, then how could we not serve Him? He'd be the only option, since not-God wouldn't exist. He'd ruthlessly stamp out all instances of not-God, so you'd serve out of knowledge or fear, not love. I think He'd rather be loved. I know I would.
The concept of punishment for not conforming to God's will is straight out of problems of humans controlling other humans by horrifying them of the promised consequences. It is a very crude method of control and functions on personalities who are essentially obedient. People who are disobedient and clever very frequently do very well indeed. In real life as opposed to the fantasies of theologies if you disobey the laws of staying alive and taking proper care of yourself you very quickly injure yourself or suffer from poisoning or falling off a cliff or slipping on the ice and breaking bones or drowning or whatever. These are not "punishments" in the theological sense, they are merely absolute results of stupidity or bad luck or ignorance. There is no morality involved. Reality has no morality, merely consequences. Promised punishments or rewards after death are empty.
What kind of justice would it be if God welcomed a man who had a quick conversion, and then got hit by a truck and went to heaven, but rejected a former preacher who lost his faith after a rough bit of things and sent him to hell? Not only that, but an infinite punishment towards a finite person? Could that really ever be just? The punishment is beyond the person's meaningful comprehension.
Not only that, but is the matter of justice really that important? It does not matter what others are paid, so long as we get what we agreed to. Matt 20:1-16
Finally, as for God's rules, a major issue comes down to man's ability to know these rules. After all, you are claiming that just treatment depends upon a man coming to know a certain set of dogmas, but the issue is that the evidence for these dogmas isn't overwhelming, and most people do not find the religion compelling, as witnessed by the large numbers of people born into the religion, the lesser number of people leaving the religion, and the even smaller numbers of people entering the religion.
I wasn't aware that compassion had a lot to do with the actions of the other party, particularly given that the natural state of man seems to include the issue of original sin, a baseline issue that prevents the unsaved from asking to be saved in the first place. (Rom 3:10-11, Isaiah 44:20, Jer 17:9) At the very least, reducing the strength of the prior claim, it is hard to claim that the average person is not in a state where their knowledge is strongly limited, and as such would compare asking God to help to asking Santa for the same, and that reasonable compassion would recognize the limitations in knowledge. I suppose you can argue Rom 1:20, but the issue is whether you can prove it other than by assertion to your scripture.
Chances depends upon knowledge to do so, if we do not know to do so, then how do we have a chance to believe and to change our minds. You basically have to make a large assumption about the experiences of other people, or about what can be known in reality.
Ah, yes, but the issue is how is it just that we are punished for the actions of a person who isn't us? I mean, neither you nor I nor anyone on this board is Adam or Eve, so how is it that we are justly punished if another person acted. Not only that, but how is the punishment just? If the apple was of knowledge of good and evil, then how would either have the moral ability to be held accountable for such an action? It seems they would not have this ability before the apple. Not only that, but how did the apple change human physiology? Finally, wouldn't this kind of massive inbreeding be bad for the human species?
Well, no, that isn't a logical problem. I could also define things as blurgied, but non-blurgied things do not have to exist, or even be able to logically exist.
Doesn't God try to forcefully make himself the only option though? Deut 28:15-68 I mean, pretty strong words for a being that is just trying to maintain our freedom. Not only that, but what about heaven? If people end up going to heaven, then aren't they forced to love God? Or can they just be shoved down to hell? If they can just be shoved down to hell, and heaven extends over an infinite period of time, then wouldn't everyone go down to hell due to the fact that a non-zero probability of rejecting God would exist for each person at every moment?
Well, no. How does not having a choice imply fear? You could just be psychologically constrained against ever thinking about leaving God, as the very idea might not be able to occur to you. Not only that, but how do you define love? If this world ended up not having free will in the manner that you think free will exists(as many neuroscientists think given the lack of a mechanism) then would that mean that love actually did not exist? Or would it mean that your conception of love would be wrong?
techstepgenr8tion
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The whole concept of 'sin' I believe stems from the fact that our universe was built to work on very concrete parameters of operation. By creating a universe full of steadfast rules (at least on a level larger than quantum physics we'd think) there is fall-out and unintended consequences. The idea that I get from the bible and my own glance at Christianity is that because of this and because of how we're structurally built - we're built to be animals. When people talk about evil or sin, they're really speaking of the animal having more control of the person than the spirit or what someone would argue is the enlightened human being within them. Even at that, truly living by the laws presented by the old testiment is impossible - because in this world to do so without a single glitch or misstep, ever, is that impractical. The message of the gospels seems to be 'These are goals, you want to shoot for them and do all that you can to live by them, but its expected that you won't be able to - you aren't really built to be able to' hence the trancendence of sin through faith.
I really don't know what I believe in in terms of hell, but I'd agree that (if there is a God) everything is by design and that there is some amount of situational Calivinism aparent in all of this. Many people, I included, would debate that the vagueness of our universe and its origins is largely to keep free will or whatever we'd consider approximating it in the background intact. You would think he shows compassion on those who he created to not have the mental capacity to see certain things or alternately to those who he wired not to see him or who's life experiences he guided in that direction - there are a lot of unanswered questions on this. On the other hand though, the unanswered questions don't make this schematic evaporate as a reality, if anything were just stuck finding our own answers.
ThatRedHairedGrrl
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As Awesomelyglorious has pointed out, for choice to be meaningful, there has to be a number of options, not just an either/or with the /or ending in eternal torture. Someone can love you because you're who you are. Or they can love you because you're the only choice - but you could, if you were totally psychotic, make yourself the only choice by eliminating the competition, or by threatening them with horrible things if they don't love you.
I've had this happen to me on the human level - two people in my life, who weren't even prepared to treat me decently or accept me as a person, nevertheless demanded my presence and affection, and tried to limit my life so that I didn't have access to possible 'rivals', or even opposing viewpoints. Having experienced that kind of pain and craziness, I'm not prepared to accept that an infinite, unconditionally loving Being would use, effectively, emotional blackmail on humans. I'm not prepared to think He/She/It would inflict pain on beings so small and limited for breaking rules they only barely understand. These are gut feelings, and could of course be wrong, but I'm prepared to stick by them if only because, for me, the alternative is believing (if I'm going to believe anything) that the Universe is being run by a psychotic monster. Which I don't want to believe, and that's my choice.
I'm reminded of the old fable, I think it's one of Aesop's, about the wind and the sun and how they made a bet as to which of them could get a guy to take his cloak off first. The wind whipped up a storm, but the guy just hugged his cloak around him closer. Then the sun shone down on him...and as he got warmer, he took his cloak off. Moral being, you get more reponse from people by warmth than by force. Applies just as well to Christianity, I think.
What difference would it have made if we'd been given the message: "You are accepted and loved, infinitely and always, no matter what" ? A huge one, I think. As it is, the emphasis on pain rather than love drove me away from (at least the evangelical kind of) Christianity a long time ago, and has done the same for plenty of other people.
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I think Hell is only a place for people so consumed by greed and hatred that they will not admit they have done wrong, even when directly presented with the facts and the full knowledge of the consequences. I won't claim to have come up with this myself but I have adapted this idea into my personal interpretation of Christianity "Heaven and Hell are both populated entirely by forgiven sinners". It is impossible to live a perfect life, yet all are forgiven because God knows that better then anyone else, Hell is simply a place for people who reject the forgiveness that is freely given.
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techstepgenr8tion
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I have to agree, I have a similar notion at least that its very unlikely and counter-intuitive to be the case. I figure that if I choose to do good and be good because its what I want - that's what really matters. If it turned out that my best efforts didn't mean much in the end, I wouldn't really worry about it because at that point I'd realize that he wasn't my kind of guy anyway.
If god exists then Charles Manson would make a better model for compassion.
ThatRedHairedGrrl:
What difference would it have made if we'd been given the message: "You are accepted and loved, infinitely and always, no matter what" ? A huge one, I think. As it is, the emphasis on pain rather than love drove me away from (at least the evangelical kind of) Christianity a long time ago, and has done the same for plenty of other people.
Well, that's why I'm here. Among many other things, I've found two very interesting things here: Non-Christians used to dealing with only the street-corner-preacher Christians, and street-corner-preacher Christians. So I'm here to talk to them, get them to be a little gentler, and to show the rest of you we aren't all going to berate you into believing. I rarely, if ever, bring up Heaven and Hell, the afterlife doesn't concern me in the least.
That's the way my entire church goes about it, and the way it teaches members to witness: Remember first that God loves them, and it's a lot easier. Just be friends, let God do the rest.
Yes, the heaven/hell thing is rough. I'm not even sure that eternal punishment in hell is logical, a couple millenia ought to be plenty. But that's not my call, and the rules are pretty easy to understand. If you haven't read them, send me your address, I will personally send them to you. They're written down in this cool book we read fairly often. We call it the Bible. My church gives them out for free, I swear I will send you one myself.
I figure, the eternal punishment/reward thing is up to God. I don't really care if it exists. I will do His will as best I can in this life because I think it's the right thing to do, and I do not for a single second envy the lives I see most non-Christians leading. I think Christianity presents the toughest challenge as far as living up to it's code of conduct, which is one of the reasons I enjoy it so much.
The_Cucumber:
100% nailed it, man. All we gotta do is repent and ask for forgiveness and it is ours. Key word is repent, but our forgiveness has been paid for. I think God tries to remind people of what He's offering all the time. And I don't think He stops until that person dies, at which point I think it saddens Him at what happens next.
If you mean the rules on the nature of hell, then not exactly. There are 3 major positions on hell, eternal punishment, temporary punishment, and annihilation. Conservative theologians are usually alright with the first and the last as well, as many of the verses taken to mean eternal punishment can also be translated to have the eternal change of being destroyed, and some verses seem to be translated best as ones of destruction. The second is Biblical defensible, but usually shunned as Universalism is considered negatively.
In any case, what translation do you give away? NIV? ESV? NKJV? Another popular one that didn't come to my mind enough.