An all-loving God and eternal torment?

Question

My fellow Christians, I've never understood how many of you believe that God is love (1st John 4:8), yet still maintain that He will torture the vast majority of humanity for an eternal duration of time for holding incorrect beliefs. It just doesn't make any sense to me at all. Could someone please enlighten me?

Answer 1

Steve, I'm writing a book about this hell thing.
Get a Strong's Concordance and look up Sheol, Hades, Gehenna, and Tartarus.
The Jews had no concept of an eternal place of punishment.

Answer 2

I guess I am an annihilationist because I don't believe that eternal torment is really something God would do. Destruction is my belief and that won't happen until the resurrection.

I guess people want to believe that they will go on forever. I actually had someone tell me that it was worse to think they would be destroyed than eternally tormented. I didn't get that... but then to each his own I guess.

Many have a hard time getting rid of the false beliefs that they have been taught since childhood. The false teachings that started with theRoman Catholic Church (which there is sufficient evidence in the Bible for it being the anti-Christ religion) The protestant movement rejected quite a few of the various negligent teachings of the RC church, but sadly... they didn't break far enough away and it is continuing to be taught in the protestant churches.

It is odd how Baptists will cite the gospel in a nutshell which is "God so LOVED the world, that he gave his only son" but in the next breath say if you don't accept the gift you will go to an eternal burning hell! What???? What sense does that make? What sort of gift comes with a penalty for not accepting it. Death is the natural consequence for sin. The GIFT is eternal life.

EDIT: they will also say that there must be payment for sin and if they don't accept Jesus, they must pay for their sins. Well, yeah.... The wages of sin is DEATH.... it doesn't say eternal torment.

Answer 3

you're good. the assumption-approximately a loving God growing to be a fiery place of eternal torment isn't in user-friendly terms. The Bible tells us that "God is love." (a million John 4:8) And Psalm 33:5 says that God "loves righteousness and justice". guy is "in God’s image" (Gen. a million:26) in that he exchange into created with ethical characteristics like those of God, together with love and justice. (Col. 3:10) So basically as burning somebody alive isn't an appropriate punishment for wrongdoing to us people, so too, a loving and basically God does no longer condemn somebody who has lived 70 or eighty years to eternal torment. the situation is that the assumption-approximately Hell as being an eternal place of torment is a false impression. The be conscious "hell" is present in many Bible translations, yet interior the comparable verses different translations study "the grave," "the international of the lifeless," etc.

Answer 4

The Lord is a just judge and will give every person an educated opportunity to accept and obey him, and he also knows who will choose never to do so! if i am a convicted murderer on death row, and the governer or the president decide to grant me a pardon, but i reject it, does that make the official who granted the pardon any less compassionate, when i get executed? The Lord will not be torturing anyone who ends up in hell, because they will have chosen to go there of their own free will!
The Bible says that it is not God`s will that ANY should parish, but that ALL would come to repentence, and that hell was created for satan and his angels!
That`s why it says that God so loved THE WORLD that he gave his ONLY SON, . . .
hell won`t come because of incorrect beliefs, but because of rejected opportunities and wrong choices!

Answer 5

If God is holy, then the only reason I can think of that he would torture the vast majority of humanity for eternity, would be if we deserve it. Maybe we're not as good as we think we are. If he saves just a few people, those undeserving few would say that God had to love them in order to save them.

Answer 6

Sorry pal, but this is a question people have been asking themselves for hundreds of years. I've heard people say before that "if someone wants to find God (in this case, through Christianity), He will make it happen." But can every single person that wants to get to heaven possibly hear the Gospel? No, unfortunately. So are they justified in being sent to Hell? It's just one of those things you can't quiet grasp, like the size of the universe, or eternity in general.

Answer 7

I believe that God is love, but he is also just. Every human being is born with a deisre to know their creator. Many seek him but few find him. The price is far too high for them to pay. For to know God is to die to self. Some seekers prefer to embrace science as their god. Others chose fame, or power, or other worldly pursuits. Either way, this was their choice, and they chose something other than God. It is throught the exercise of their freewill and denying the one true God that they are condemed. God does not send us to hell, we send ourselves. Because God is pure and perfect, we are unfit to stand before him. It is through his perfect son, Jesus Christ, that we are able to be in God's presence. You may have hear the song "He Is My Hinding Place"; literially he is our hiding place. When we chose Christ he enters us and we also enter him. He has covered our sins with his own flesh so that when God looks upon us in the end time, he will not see us, but will see a perfect reflection of Jesus. It is a great mystery. But once you have accepted Christ, and have died to yourself then and only then will you understand. I speak from experience, because I used to think exactly what you do today!

Answer 8

What's so hard to understand,If He created everything He can make up any rule He wants.
It's easy to be agnsotic,when you have all the comforts available to us today.100 years ago i doubt you would find any people promoting animal welfare programs like PETA,it is because most people on this sight have been brought up in a culture of relative safety.Food is available,clothes are available,shelter is available,medicine is available.So most peoples basic needs are met so they don't feel they need a higher source to depend on.
Remove any of these needs that we take for granted and you would probably see a radical shift in the collective thought.
Many people i gather are too young to have a realistic worldview,They produce all manner of historical banter to prove their anti deistic views,but never truly embrace history,or else they would see how simplistic their arguments are.There are 2 sides to every coin.

Answer 9

He is a loving and just God People who harm others should go to hell and burn for it like if they murder. It is not God doing it but universal law of karma. The cause and effect law. He does not torture people with incorrect beliefs. He allows criminals to feel the suffering in hell for what they have done. People with incorrect beliefs just go to a lesser kingdom after this life until they progress to a higher kingdom. There are 3 levels in the next life. The telstial,terrstrial and the Celestial which is the highest kingdom.

Answer 10

Let me propose another thought. God kept Adam & Eve from eating from the 'tree of life' after they sinned, so they would not live forever with sin and the consequences of sin, the pain and the misery that it brings in life. He didnt want them to suffer forever?
So if he didnt want them to suffer forever with sin at that time, it suggests to me that he would not let them suffer forever because of sin.
I'm thinkin' if a person is a sinner when they die, they are finished. kaput.
They will be raised at the second ressurection to be told what the sentence is, and why, and then be extinguished forever, not living in eternal torment as a consequence of sin. Sin is death.