I have a big problem with "Eternal Hell"?

Question

If God loves me, then how could he even create a place like Hell? Christians tell me that I have free will, that I can choose Jesus and be saved; or reject Him and go to Hell. But they don't answer my question. Eternal is beyond the end of time. Our life is nothing compared to its length. How can God give us such a short time, to do something that will determine or fate forever? They say God gives me plenty of chances. But if I keep rejecting him, then God will "harden my heart to him". Great! if I don't accept Jesus then God won't even bother with me after a while. I also heard a Christian trying to convert a person. When they started to dissagree, the Christian shouted "Ten thousand years from now, when you're in Hell, you'll remember this night!" So, I'll also have to spend all my time there regreting it. My last point is why is Hell called punishment? What good is punishment if it never ends? What would I learn from an Eternity in Hell? That is why I'm not a Christian.

I know that some Christian will leave a comment such as "You're right, I had a big problem with Hell. But Jesus saved me from it." or "If you don't accept the Lord Jesus Christ, you will have a problem with Hell, forever!" So please, don't post answers like these.

Answer 1

It's called revenge. A punishment where you can't ever make up for your mistakes is called revenge. Either God is really mean, or Hell doesn't exist. I'm willing to bet money on the latter.

Answer 2

If we love our fellow man so much then how could we create a place like Jail? Because we once lived in a society where there was lawlessness and things got way out of hand. The same way Heaven did when the Heavenly Host had free will.
Now there is the plain truth. Accept it or reject it.
GOD has shown love for you by sending Jesus to die on the cross so that all you have to do is accept that sacrifice and choose to stop sinning. If you are not willing to do that then fine. You have every rite to reject Jesus. You also have every right to whine and cry the rest of you life because GOD does not live up to your standards. Maybe he will change for you. Who knows. It's all about you and Jesus. The ball is in your court again.

Answer 3

I have asked myself that question through my life, and come to the conclusion, you can't have a God of Love and at the same time the God is the creator and guardian of everything in the Universe. To say he lets a Eternal Hell exist is like saying he is like a dictator similar to Saddam Hussein. If you don't do exactly what I say, when I say. then my men will torture you till you swear you love me and will be loyal to me. I think he is lot higher up than a Dictator, don't you?
Many people (tens of thousands) who have flat-lined on the operating table or died for a few minutes before getting revived, have reported seeing dead family members and often see a kind and loving figure, they say is Jesus who greets them warmly.
Some small children have memories of other lives in other towns that have been verified. Seems they can identify places and things and family members when they have never seen them in there present life. So that might be the answer. What ever is true. There is no Devil. He was created by the earliest or ancient priest even before Christianity to scare people into coming to temple and donating money to keep the priest working.

Answer 4

I do not believe in hell as most CHristians do. You are right, in that God would nt do that to His children, especially those who live a Christ-like life, even if they do not accept Christ as their Saviour.

I think many Christians are threatened by those who are happy in a different faith, or in no faith at all, and feel that the best way to convert anyone is to "scare the hell out of them".

IMHO, it's not Christ that non-Christians are rejecting, but some of the "idiots" that represent Him.

Answer 5

God has not made an eternal Hell. The punishment of Hell is eternal as it destroys life (it doesn't make it last forever). It is not a continual punishment, but the effects of destruction are eternal - death that will not result in life again.

The Bible calls it God's strange act. A God of love will not torture someone for eternity but He will destroy evil & the doers of evil. Peace will reign in His creation. Hell is intended for Satan and the angels who chose to follow him in rebellion. Mankind unwittingly chose hell when Satan led them to believe the first lie that still continues (You shall not surely die). God has made a way of escape for those people who want it - Jesus.

Jesus never threatened anyone with eternal hell because they didn't want to follow Him. He showed them love and people who wanted a change desired to follow Him because of His love. A Christian who throws Hell in the face of an atheist or anyone is basically lacking in one of two areas:

1. a cop-out on their part of not wanting to demonstrate Christ's love because they don't have it in their life

2. a lack of understanding of how to reach a person for Christ.

For a more complete bible study that shows the truth of hell not being eternal:

http://www.amazingfacts.org/items/study_guides.asp

There are a few studies for a complete understanding of hell:

Are the Dead Really Dead?

Is the Devil in Charge of Hell?

If you are really seeking for truth I would suggest taking all of the lessons. When I studied these the entire Bible started to make sense. Everything fits together beautifully - OT & NT, death, resurrection, salvation, grace & the law. Not just disjointed beliefs that don't have a rhyme or reason, but a complete picture.

Answer 6

First of all, God loved you enough to send His Son to die a cruel and barbaric death for you that no other person could have suffered. He endured physical, mental and spiritual agony that goes beyond our pathetic finite comprehension.
Imagine a person who is totally pure and hates sin taking upon himself all the sins of the world in a moment of time - If you watched the passion of the Christ you saw only a trivial part of what physical punishment Chist actually endured according to doctors who have studied and documented the physical aspect of the crucifixion and I am sure you relate in some small part to the mental anguish that He must have endured by taking upon himself the very thing that he loathed but had to die to remove from us.

Now considering that and knowing how people spat on Him and mocked Him don't you think that God is justified in preparing a place for those who treated His Son in this way?
If you had an only son and you sacrificed Him for someone else or more than one person and they hung him on a cross and laughed at Him and mocked him and spat on him how would you feel and what do you think you would do - reward them?

As for the punishment being eternal -- there was no way to avoid that since we are eternal beings. Consider that a person who rejected Christ would not feel comfortable in Heaven where everyone loves Him and one another. The thing we look at in the mirror isn't us. The eternal spirit inside us is the real us, and that spirit must live somewhere forever.

Since God graciously made a way for us to escape eternal punishment and we choose to ignore Him or even worse mock Him and His word and His people - those of us who choose to reject His love must of necessity face judgment without mercy.

We fear earthly judges when we stand before them and we know we are guilty. We know we are going to be sentenced, and rightly so. Nobody denies that. How strange it is that men find it hard to understand that the Judge of all judges will also judge and sentence them. We get what we deserve!

The time we are given on earth is more than ample time to turn our lives to Christ. The average person used to live to 40+ years when our health services didn't exist, and now the average is more like 70 - 90 years for most people. If we can't make up our mind in 25,550 to 32,850 days then I think we will never make it up even if we were given twenty million years to do it.

We have no excuse. You are not a Christian because you have chosen to reject the sacrifice of Christ on your behalf.
Heaven and Hell are real. You must decide where you want to go when you die and you will never get there any way but God's way. He paid the price for your sin and mine and for all who will believe with their heart.

There is one more player in this who hates you passionately.
Satan wants to keep you blinded with intellectual reasoning that argues against God. God wants you to move toward Him in faith. You have a decision to make and you must make it before your life goes out of your body.

I pray you will make the right decision. Eternity is, as you said, "beyond the end of time." It is ten trillion trillion years of our time times ten trillion and longer. The lesson you will learn there more than any other is that there is no escape once you get there. Utter hopelessness will overwhelm you but you will not be able to do anything about it. The other option is spending that time in Heaven with Jesus who died to save you from that place. I will pray for you!

Answer 7

WHERE IS ETERNAL HELL?

Death by accident, sickness or desease, old age or death by fire or burial by fire?

Between Gen.1:26; and 1Cor.15:22-28,51-53 [ ALL ARE RESURRECTED ]; other than Acts 2:27-31; Where is eternal hell, David is still in his sepulchre, tomb, cave, pit, grave, hell or burial place Rev.20:1-6,12,13 [ ALL ARE RESURRECTED ]; these are going to be brought up out of their burial places [ No Satan is there, in 1000 years the heavenly firstfruits or first resurrected FOR THE NEW HEAVENS, are with Jesus to resurrect the earthly for the new earth. 2Pet.3:13; ALL IS MADE AS PERFECT AS IT WAS BEFORE EDEN,
Rev.21:1-5, 8 [ the second death and dead is dead ], Rev.20:7-10; After THE 1000 YEARS ends No Satan or Gog and Magog [ fire devours them ];

ANY LOST TO THE PERFECT KINGDOM OF GOD HAS SELF TO BLAME.

Answer 8

Hell was not created for man, but for satan and the rebellious angels.
Since matter cannot be destroyed, there must be a place to eternally house those evil spirits. It is sad that some make the decision to join them in "eternal hell" when heaven is an easy choice.

Answer 9

Please do not assume you know how I will answer your question. I will answer it from the original manuscripts of the Bible:
In short, there is no eternal "hell" written of in the manuscripts. I will tell you what it does say on the subject.
When Christ returns, there will be a 1000 yr. period of teaching and of disipline. Nobody is even judged until the end of that teaching period. Every single person will be given every fair opportunity to escape hell. Okay, now what is hell? Well let me tell you what its not: its NOT a pit of burning flame where all of us in Heaven sit around enjoying ourselves as we hear bad, bad old Uncle Henry scream and wail and beg to be taken out of the burning flame. Its just not written.
If you are to be condemned to hell, you will go into the "lake of fire". When you enter it, you are turned to ashes from within. It is only the smoke of you which rises up forever and ever; thats an idiom which means your gone, done, kaput.
It will take as long as it takes for you to walk into it, and then its done. When all who are condemned to it are gone, then the lake of fire is also done away with. The person who entered it will be blotted out of existance, meaning it will be as if they never existed at all. thats why people will not cry for you - you will hold no memory with them.
Any Christian who tells you that you will suffer in flames for eternity, is not reading scripture correctly. Do not listen to folks who lack knowledge. This was the whole lesson of the Book of Job. 37 chapters of Job's so-called "friends" telling him that he sinned, and to confess, etc., and then finally in the 38th chapter, God speaks up and tells Job the equivelant of : What are you listening to those idiots with no knowledge for? LISTEN TO ME.
Same thing here. Don't listen to people with no knowledge.
I think (and this is only my opinion) that God would respect you more if you listen to nothing, rather than if you listen to lies and follow their nonsense religion practices blindly. God's Word in truth is rarely taught in the churches. And yes, I think this is why there are so many who dump the baby out with the bathwater. Thats a damn shame, because if you read Gods Word with understanding, you will find that God hates the same things you do, with regard to "religions".

Answer 10

Maybe you can send us a message from hell, after a few thousand years of it, see what you have learned???
Or not.
Then again there are some scriptures left out of the Bible, the Canon, which, for instance...The Apocolypse of Peter, which basically tells of Peter asking God, why is there a Hell, and God says that it will eventually be destroyed, and I believe all will be forgiven.
But ofcourse He tells Peter not to write it down, yet it supposedly found its way into the 21st century.
So hmm., you have a good argument there...
Check out...
The Bible,non canocal books. or something like that...
You may find some interesting reading.
DJH

Answer 11

It is your choice not to believe in God, and you may be happy with your life without having God in it. What you are missing though is how much happier and better your life will be by accepting God into your heart and life, and until you do this you will never know how much better it will be. This improvement in your life will not neccesarrily be your pyhisical life but undoubtily in your spiritual life which will affect your physical life. The choice is wholely yours. When you die die your soul does not neccessarily go to heaven or hell. There is also a place called purgatory where those of us still living can pray for your soul in hopes that you may be brought in the kingdom of heaven. God does love all, he will never turn his back on you, it is you who will choose to turn your back on him and that is when you will fall out of God's grace and miss out big time, I will pray for you.