God the father

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Do sinners go to hell and suffer for eternity?

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No. Hell is nothing more than the grave, which is where we all end up eventually.If one was to receive eternal torment as taught, then the person would still be "living".
IOW being tormented throughout his eternal life, but only the righteous receive eternal life.Therefore the punishment is death, which is eternal in the sense that it is a permanent judgment. No resurrection.Eternal life is for the righteous and all others just cease to exist.

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I would hope that somehow I'm wrong, but that's not what either Jesus or the apostles taught. They all spoke in terms of eternal suffering. A couple of examples coming to mind are the rich man in hell and when Jesus advised that if one's eye offend him, pluck it out rather to have it cast into the lake of fire. The same with the hand. Elsewhere it is described as a place where the "worm dies not" and there's "gnawing and gnashing of the teeth." etc.

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By Rich Man, I'm assuming you mean the parable that starts at Luke 16:20. The point of the Beggar Man/Rich Man story is that our final judgment is not based on our wealth or position in society. We can be condemned for misusing our resources. The Greek Hades is just the backdrop to the story. Both the Beggar and the Rich Man were in Hades. All the dead go to Hades. The reference here is Gehenna, not Hades. The valley became the cities incinerator and a vivid symbol of destruction and an abomination. Apparently they even added sulphur or brimstone to keep the fires burning continuously. The fire burned continuously, the criminals weren't tortured continuously.If one was thrown into Gehenna, one was a criminal. The point was to get rid of that which causes one to stumble and prevent one from becoming a criminal. This was not a visual of eternal torment. It was a visual of a dishonorable death.You need to provide the specific scriptures. I think you're paraphrasing and it is difficult to address an issue when you're mixing pieces.

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The alternative to eternal hell fire is bliss beyond imagination.

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Where does Jesus teach this?

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I imagine that you think that your conception is a natural consequence of the idea that God gave us free will to accept or reject him. The consequence of death and the end of existence is nothing more than the result of exercising one's free will and rejecting God.

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I don't really understand your point. We all die.

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Consider a child who has overdosed on some drug. That child's death is the consequence of his free choice to decide to use drugs. If your child were to overdose, wouldn't you do everything in your power to keep your child from dying? I think any loving parent would. How is this different from a loving God letting some die and some live forever, just because his vanity was pricked?

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A hypothetical situation doesn't really work well if the scenario isn't the same.It isn't about God stopping anyone from dying, everyone dies; it is about who will be restored to life.A parent can only do so much to help their child survive or succeed in life. Ultimately the child has to want to.

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Not when the parent is supposed to be omnipotent.

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Why does that make a difference?Until they are adults, parents are the authority or ruler over their children.One parent ruling more "kingdoms" doesn't change that we can only do so much to influence our children. At some point it is up to them.

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PD writes:

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A parent can only do so much to help their child survive or succeed in life.

Rahvin writes:

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Not when the parent is supposed to be omnipotent.

PD writes:

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Why does that make a difference?

An omnipotent parent would be able to do whatever is needed to ensure their child survives and succeeds in life.
An omnipotent parent is not limited to "only do[ing] so much".

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You didn't answer the question. Why does omnipotence make a difference?Why would an omnipotent parent be able to do more?As I said in Message 47: Ultimately the child has to want to.
It isn't about God stopping anyone from dying, everyone dies; it is about who will be restored to life.

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No it doesn't.

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A child will want to play with fire.
As a human parent, you try (and probably fail) to prevent your child from playing with fire.
As an omnipotent parent, you successfully prevent a child from playing with fire.
Their 'wants' are irrelevant.

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I didn't say their "wants", I said they have to want to. IOW, people have to want to change their behavior. Babies and toddlers learning about the dangers around them is not the issue.You're moving away from the original point I was addressing in Message 47. The scenario given wasn't necessarily about a dependent child. It wasn't specific, but could go either way. It was an analogy concerning eternal torment.

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An omnipotent parent would ensure that their children were restored to life.

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You still haven't explained why. Why does omnipotence make a difference? This is the second time I've asked.Why would an omnipotent parent ensure that all their children were restored to life?

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Do you really not know the difference between a human parent and an omnipotent parent?
Do you really not see a difference between them?
Do you really not see how 'being omnipotent' would be different from 'not being omnipotent'?

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That doesn't answer the question.

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A human parent can only do so much to help their child survive or succeed in life.
An omnipotent parent can do all that is needed for their child to survive and succeed in life.

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Saying that doesn't mean that they can or explain what an omnipotent parent would do that a human parent wouldn't.

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Perhaps it would help if you could give an example of something that an omnipotent parent would not be able to do...

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You're the one that says there's a difference. What is the difference? This is my third request.

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I have already addressed these questions:

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All you've said is one can and one can't, but you haven't explained why one can and one can't. You've also not provided any support for your reasoning.The Judeo/Christian God is described as El Shaddai in the Old Testament and pantodrator in the New Testament. These are the words that lead to the idea of omnipotence. Pantokrator deals more with ruling authority, supreme authority.God gave them rules and consequences to guide their behavior, just like human parents. Omnipotence has nothing to do with whether one would or could do any more to help their "child" survive or succeed in life.

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That's the difference of omnipotence. If you have the ability to have an effect, then you are ultimately responsible for that effect happening or not. An omnipotent parent can simply give eternal life to all of its children, whether they want it or not, and can even make them want it, because that's what omnipotence means!

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Omnipotence is more about ruling authority. See Message 70.

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The Omnipotent Creator could have simply created a Universe where nobody ever dies.

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But he didn't. How do you know an omnipotent creator could have done that?You're presenting all these characteristics for an omnipotent being. What omnipotent being are they based on?

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An omnipotent parent can choose to do so regardless of the situation, however, because omnipotence means the ability to do anything.

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You need to show me that omnipotence does mean the ability to do anything. Saying it doesn't mean it does.

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Ah - I see you were knowingly using an uncommon definition of the word 'omnipotent'.
Perhaps if you had explained that you weren't using the normal meaning of the word we could have got to this point sooner.

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Why were you being deceitful?

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Excuse me, but I'm not the one who brought up omnipotence. Rahvin did.You jumped on my Message 54 which said: Until they are adults, parents are the authority or ruler over their children.One parent ruling more "kingdoms" doesn't change that we can only do so much to influence our children. At some point it is up to them.Deals with ruling. Just because you didn't read or comprehend the whole post is not my problem.I asked you three times to explain the difference and you provided no support or meanings.How dare you insinuate that I'm being deceitful because you didn't read carefully. You had your chance to explain and didn't.Well, Pot, perhaps if you had explained what definition you were using we could have made some headway.Since it pertains to God, I look to see how it is used in the Bible when referring to God.

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Or, perhaps more humorously: You keep using this word, Omnipotent. I do not think it means what you think it means.

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Love that movie! The definition doesn't say the ability to do anything. God can do what he is able to do and wants to do. God was unable to remove evil from the world or didn't want to. I would say unable given his disappointment.The New Testament deals more with dominion, not ability.In relation to this topic, I was trying to give subbie answers supported by the Bible. I wasn't trying to support dogma or tradition. Not my style. IMO, it is easier to withstand a sales pitch when one has more facts at their disposal.If we're just making stuff up, then anything goes. The churches still have to have some basis for claiming God can do anything. I'm saying it isn't supported in the Bible.So saying an omnipotent parent could or would do more than a human parent has no basis. It's fiction.God uses rules and consequences just like human parents.
Everyone dies and God decides who he wants to bring back.Hopefully Christians have been reading the right rule book.

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Ok, let's go with this. If God is loving, and loves all of us as a father loves his children, why would he not want to bring back everyone?

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I'm not a father (quite yet) but even if my child rejected me, I would want to bring him back. Why doesn't god? Does he, in fact, not love me as a father loves their child?

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Children weren't quite so "sacred" in the first century. The Jews considered infanticide to be a crime for humans. From what I've read in the Bible, I don't think the same applied to God.This is the backdrop for the New Testament. Religion evolves with society. It may lag a bit, but if we bring God up to today's standards, odds are he will bring everyone to life since we don't like seeing anyone lose out or not bring anyone back at all. Of course that would depend on when he decides to do this. A few ages from now, who knows what the prevailing feelings will be.Another possibility since people feel that omnipotent means God can do whatever we dream up, God will probably wake up from this horrible vision and rethink his plans for this planet. Types of love in the BibleThe Greek words Eros (sensual love) and Storge (family love) are not used in relation to God or Jesus in the New Testament.Agape (selfless, sacrificial, unconditional love) is used in relation to God. Parents try to train their children to behave a certain way. Some children are easier to train than others. We set rules and consequences. When our child breaks the rules, we still love them; but they still suffer the consequences. One child breaks the rules and one doesn't; then one child suffers the consequences and the other receives the "prize". The idea that everyone gets candy no matter how they behave isn't an incentive to behave.The idea is that if you want to go to the after party, your name has to be on the list. To make the list you have to meet a certain criteria. It's one way to get adults to behave and play well together. Hopefully Christians have the right set of instructions.As with any parent; God can always change his mind at any time. Edited by purpledawn, : Changed Subtitle

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But, unconditional love would seem that no matter how bad the kid is, he'll always be loved and welcomed. He may not get candy, but he'll always be welcome.

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Once our children become adults and choose their lifestyle, we still love them unconditionally; but they may or may not be welcome visitors without behavior changes.

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I guess its "unconditional" and "eternal" that are giving me issues. I can totally understand punishment and "prizes," but both would be as a way to condition someone, and as such, would have to be less than eternal.

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Yes it is a way to control people. The picture Jesus painted with Gehenna was the destruction of the criminal's body in the fire. The idea being that the body is destroyed so there isn't anything to resurrect. So behave so you don't get burned up as a criminal.For all we know God may have a good reason for not wanting to resurrect wicked people. Maybe the process doesn't work right with a wicked soul.

The OP presented the issue of eternal suffering. I showed that the Bible writings don't support that the wicked suffer eternally. Message 34
Truth About Hell

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If I were God, some sort of purgatory, where a person has an eternity to change their behavior such that they might be "welcomed home" would be the more unconditioned love response.

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They have a life time to change their behavior and don't, then they have an eternity to change their behavior. What's the incentive to change?What is taking place in your Purgatory to cause them to change their behavior?