Why is Hell forever - The punishment doesn't fit the crime?

Question

I'm atheist, but let's assume the Christians are right for a minute. In pretty much all societies, in the prison system there is a certain amont of jail time depending on the crime. Someone who stole a piece of gum is not gonna get the same sentence as a murderer. So why does god sentence people to hell forever. Shouldn't there be like time lines. Forever is pretty harsh. Why should someone who commited crimes all their life spend the same amount of time in hell as someone who was a good person all their life but didn't believe in jesus???

Answer 1

I can see were you are coming from. I have a couple points.
first, we are NOT God. and God has a completely different perspective from were He stands from were we stand.
second, in God's eyes all sin is the same amount sinful. so the punishment for 'small sin' is the same as the punishment for 'big sin'
third, if we have eternal life because of what we did on earth why should someone not have eternal death?
really, I see such a small part of all eternity and i am probably not very good at answering this, but it is how i see it...and you asked! :]
So yeah, I hope that didn't sound mean, cuz it wasn't meant to be mean! :]]]

Answer 2

God is just.

Sin is wrong.

The price everyone pays for sin is death.

You can choose to pay the price yourself or you can accept that Jesus Christ paid that price for you.

This is the way it is, especially since you started your question assuming Christians are right.

Heaven and hell are both packed full of sinners. Grace alone will allow some of the sinners to enter heaven.

The last part of your question sounds like something Jesus addressed in a parable. Without boring you with details, we are taught not to worry about how long anyone else in heaven has been saved. God can and will save people that lived for him for 1 minute and some that lived for 100 years. We all get the same reward in heaven. The reward is worth it.

I suppose you can look at hell the same way. Don't worry about what someone else did to get there, just deal with your eternal separation from God and let the others deal with their own.

I don't see anything unfair with this. You can choose now knowing what it is like. Have you chosen yet? It's never to late till the moment you die.

Answer 3

Mox.
It's not a punishment and there's no crime. It's a choice. It's a very simple choice in fact. It's just like choosing to have whipped cream on your mocca-grande at starbucks. Either you choose whipped cream or you don't. That's about the end of the comparison though. The consequences of the choices are not at all comparable.

Suppose for a minute that the Bible is right, there is a God of all. The Bible says God gave all humans free-will. That free-will allows a person to choose anything and everything including whether they believe in single Creator of all. The Bible says that if you choose to believe in God, there is a place of unimaginable splendor where you can spend eternity and if you choose not to believe, there is a place of unimaginable pain and despair where you can spend eternity. Even the concept of eternity is unimaginable to the human mind. We can speculate but that's about it.

It's really very simple. Look at it from a pragmatic point of view. If you choose to believe there is a God of all and in the end there is not, what have you lost? On the other side of the equation though, if you choose to deny there is a God of all and in the end there is, and all that stuff in the Bible is true and accurate ....yikes!

Consider this as well .... if you choose to believe in a God of all, you don't have to act and behave like the masses of people who call themselves Christians! I was raised in a home where the Christian faith was prevalent. As I have grown older, I find that people who call themselves Christians are the last people I desire to be around. Most are exceedingly judgmental and rather pius. They are often, what I refer to as, false-front people. They put on a different front depending upon their audience. They're not real. So as I have grown I still believe in a God of all but I don't go to church, have bumper stickers on my car and I don't preach. I don't have to because it's my personal choice to believe and nobody else's business.

The best part of all Mox is that you and you alone make that choice. Nobody else can do it for you or force you to do it their way. Thereby in the end, whatever that may be, you are responsible for your own destiny.

Answer 4

Try a slightly different perspective. An employer hires you to do a job, he gives you six months to prove yourself, you fail miserably and are fired. Is that employer obligated to give you another chance or are you just fired...forever? Should it depend on the way you failed...does it really matter to an employer whether you just refused to listen to his instructions or whether you caused his company to suffer a great loss...in either case, you proved yourself unworthy to work for that employer!

Works the same way with God. He has a plan for every one of us...a plan that incorporates our life here on earth and our eternal life in his kingdom. He gives us every moment of our life to demonstrate that we are willing to follow his plan for our existence...if we never acknowledge that plan here, why should he think it would be different in his kingdom. Yes, God wants us to be "good people"...but he's looking for a lot more than that. I may be thrilled to have a "good person" working for my company but if that person isn't capable of doing the job, he is just as fired as a "bad person"!

Answer 5

because in the bible it says a number of things that can make you end up in hell for ever first of all if you havnt givn your heart to the lord theres a possibility you wont end up in heaven but that doesnt mean that you cant its just a choice that you make god gave you a free will its up to you weather you hear him or not and god is trying to teach us that its not what you stole its why you stole it, its the principle of the matter that goes for all commandments and its not for us to judge those when judgment day does come it will be gods judgment that determends what happens but its not his choice that we choose to live this way he doesnt really want to see us go to hell thats why he sent his only son so that we would be forgivn and have eternal life with god in heaven and that all comes down to the choices we make

Answer 6

hell is the penitentiary, they are there for the Judgement of sin.

what is the Judgement? it is an event, at the end of time... when all the facts are in...

influence is the key to understanding damnation. your influence will either corrupt or construct, from one individual to the other, on down through time, until it has reached the shores of eternity.

Deut. 5:11 Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for he shall not be held guiltless.
that one sin is enough to damn anyone for all eternity.

do you see how offensive sin is to God?
it is even more offensive because they didn't accept Jesus... the cure to their sinful state. you'll understand, that Christ drank from the cup of wrath... and those who are damned will drink from that cup... but those in christ, will take another cup, the cup of life that is freely offered.

Answer 7

I allways wondered the same thing. From what i understand, hell is a place for separation from God.

Answer 8

Another atheist obsessed with GOD.

Answer 9

Nope you are given the choice eternity in heaven or eternity in Hell it is in your hands.

Answer 10

You know what happens when you ASSUME