How can Christians who say 'God is love' also believe in hell?

Question

I mean, REALLY? Did you ever get burned? How does that feel?! Try putting a burning match just below your finger and hold it for 3 seconds.....

Now STOP! THINK!
IMAGINE the indescribable agony and pain that a person would feel when his whole flesh burns FOREVER!!!

And how is even a lifetime of continuous heavy sin justify an eternity of being burned?! How is that just...how is that merciful...is this what you call LOVE??

Note: I am Christian myself; I just don't believe in the pagan unprovable and sometimes even SADIST doctrines of the mainstream 'Christianity'...

All the evangelicals, the Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists, Pentecostals etc...What makes them think the man has an immortal soul in the first place? How can you PROVE from the Bible that this is what happens after death?? There are countless verses in the Bible where it is frankly said that '....the wages of sin is death'! Couldn't that be more clear?
And what about all those 'revival meetings' where people just think they are 'saved' the moment they've 'given their heart to Jesus' without actually making any effort to change their life! And all the toddler baptizing(the babies are 'saved' before they can even talk!) strange pagan rituals and practices that the Catholics and the Orthodox Church, for example, observe?
I personally have nothing against Christians or , in fact, anyone on this planet but I think that today's Christianity has gone way off track...
This web page here can enlighten anyone, beyond description:
http://ucg.org/booklets/
THIS can answer all of your questions!

I am aware that the word 'hell' has three different meanings in Hebrew. And for people it signifies 'the grave' or the 'Heenna- the place where the corpses were burned up near Jerusalem' - basically being thrown in to the lake of fire means you just DIE - just seize to exist! But many a people just don't get it. Many atheists and people in general have been repelled by this terrible concept of the 'fiery pit of torture'.
Christians who believe in hell and etc. Don't get me wrong. I do read my Bible and I do believe that Jesus, our Lord has died for our sins and is God. I just wish you would have tried and proved these beliefs to yourself and get out of 'fantasy land' and find the truth by yourselves!

Answer 1

Excellent question. I would have to seriously examine my morals if I worshiped or condoned the actions of such a sadistic being. I could NEVER be a Christian.

Answer 2

God is love, but that's just one of his many characteristics listed in the Bible. It also says he is jealous, angry, vengeful, that he feels grief, etc. When the Bible says God is Love it doesn't mean He is love and nothing else. We can't forget the other parts of God's character when we try to wrap our minds around who He is.

His most central characteristic is holiness and he demands the same from us or we pay eternally with our lives. Since we can't be holy, he gave us his only son to die in our place.

If you have a child it is probably easier to understand. If not, imagine the thing that's the most precious to you. Can you imagine willingly giving your most precious child to be sacrificed for a bunch of nasty people that don't deserve it? This is where the love part comes in. If I did that, people might get the idea that I was either nuts or that I really really loved the undeserving people. Now think about freely giving of this sacrifice and the reactions of the people who were so eternally grateful that they graciously accepted your gift and thanked you for it. And then think about the people that said "no thanks, screw your sacrifice" after your son had suffered and died. How then am I to deal with the ones that didn't accept the sacrifice? Do I treat them the same way as the ones who did? I don't think so!!! This is where the HELL part comes in.

Hope that makes sense.

Answer 3

Let's compare God to a loving Daddy.

When Daddy takes Mommy out for a quiet dinner on Mommy's birthday, Daddy trusts the oldest child to take care of the younger children.

When Daddy is away, Big Brother brutalizes his little sisters.

So Daddy takes away all the toys of Big Brother and sends him to his room.

Big Brother gets so angry, he burns down the house.

Now, Big Brother is sent away to reform school.

Finally Mommy and Daddy and the little sisters are able to live in peace.

God's love is like the love of that Daddy.

To love and protect his little girls, Daddy and the police had to send the evil brother away and hell was created by a loving God for the same reason.

Its a place God sends evil people who would destroy the beauty of heaven if God let them in.

God would not be love if He allowed us to be brutalized by evil people.

So God created a place called hell so that good people would be protected from the bad people.

I hope that makes sense.

Pastor Art

Answer 4

People of most religions believe that the suffering that they are experiencing is caused by someone else and will be relieved in the future by god. Most people never comprehend or even consider that they are the cause of all their own suffering. So, they believe that by paying lip service to their made up god, he will reward them for doing a good job of suffering and punish those they believe did not do a good job of suffering. It is all made up nonsense, Hell is a fiction, that has no basis in reality. God loves, and does not judge. There is absolutely, positively nothing that anyone can do to alter the love that god has for us. Anyone who believes in Hell or preaches Hell is truly lost.

Answer 5

If eternal torment is true than the following biblical verse is a lie.

Revelation 21:4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

Answer 6

Well you have a choice, GOD gave us the power of making choices. You can either choose to accept GOD as your one true savior, or not.

GOD's son Jesus died on the cross and accepted all of the world's sin, yours, mine, everyones. Jesus died on the cross so that we could be forgiven. I call that love, and mercy. He poured out his blood. Jesus could've ended his torture at anytime. He stayed there though. Imagine the amount of love it takes for someone to do that. I don't think anybody alive today, or in the future can compare. So I say that if we can't even be appreciative of that, then that's the conseqeunces, and if we think what we go through is hard. We really can't compare to what Jesus went through for us. All of that because he loved us. I think that's pretty amazing and I'm glad he's my GOD.

Answer 7

Hell is a metaphor, not to be taken literally as fire and brimstone. (where people get the idea to take the Bible literally, I will never know. And even if you wanted to TAKE hell, fire and brimstone literally, why would it burn? It is your soul that goes, not your physical body. Your physical body stays in your coffin, our brain is not functioning which is why it does not FEEL pain. So if it is your soul that gets thrown into the "pit of fire", it won't *feel* pain, as your soul is no longer connected to your physical "earthly" body.

Answer 8

Hello, I think the great 15th century political philosopher, Niccolo Machiavelli may give a good analogy for our purposes. He says in his book, The Prince that a ruler may govern his people by either love or fear to lead them in the right direction for the benefit of society and his realm. Ultimately, it is best to rule by fear, tempered with a bit of love and compassion when needed since in our human nature, love is far more easily betrayed than is fear. For example do you pay your income tax because you are patriotic. need to help the needy, pay our hard working politicians, support the military on the war on terror, look after struggling welfare mums or do you pay it because of crippling penalties, interest compounded daily, seizure of assets or sharing a jail cell with Bubba the Butt pirate? Cheers, Michael Kelly

Answer 9

1- beings have a last state. for us, this is death. if you die in sin, you stay in sin.

2- God and sin cannot be together, so you can't get to Heaven. You are not His person to change if you die in sin

3- God does not reside in Hell. His residence is what keeps Heaven perfect.

does that answer your question? no offense, but you're literally the 4 trillionth person to ask this question...

Answer 10

Amen brother! I am with you. That is a carry-over from pagan religions. Think about it. Jesus came to give us eternal life. If unsaved people live forever in hell then they too, have eternal life and that can't be. I think it also crept into Christianity because a scripture in Revelations was misinterpreted. It says of the beast and the false prophet,"the smoke of their torment will rise forever." The "smoke" of their torment, that is the memory of them, not that they will be tormented forever.