Why Would a Loving God Create Hell?

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Why would a god that created you and loves you send you into eternal fire just for not believing in him? Why is god so threatened by my disbelief that he would force me to experience eternal pain and suffering without any chance of redemption? Only a vindictive and tyrannical god would do such things.
So, what about freewill? Christian?s say that god gave us freewill to believe and do whatever we want. Yet if we don't follow the exact path god set for us we go to hell. How is this freewill? If anything it is the opposite of freewill. So unless god is very confused I don?t see how he can be both loving and caring and still allow for hell to exist.
Or am I missing something here?

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You are missing Act II in this Epic we call life. You are assuming Act I (Eternal Love - God) is true and since we are in Act III (Humans on the stage)I have a stong suspicion you think you exist. But you are missing Act II which is the entrance of evil. Why does every story that we love have a villainn? It's hard to think of a story without one. Every story has a villain because yours does, though most people don't live like it. All the stories we've been telling about the presence of an evil power in the world, all the dark characters that have sent chills down our spines and given us restless nights; they are spoken to us as warnings.There is evil cast around us.War. Famine. Betrayal. Murder. Surely you know there is an evil force in this world. I probably don't need to delineate the evil I've seen in Baghdad in the present, not to mention unspeakable horrors of the past. What is evil? Where did it come from? What is its motive? How are we to find refuge from its claws?Evil is the answer to your question.

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We never seem to acknowledge that we have been wrong in the past, and so might be wrong in the future. Instead, each generation writes off earlier errors as the result of bad thinking by less able minds-and then confidently embarks on fresh errors of its own. --Michael Crichton

You are quite right in that we are responsible for our own actions. I never stated otherwise. If an enemy patrol probes my line in combat I am responsible for everything my squad does or fails to do. As a soldier in a war I have to make decisions based on what the enemy does. We call those TTPs (tactics, techniques, and procedures).The same is true in life. How you respond to evil, personified as an independent entity or not, is all up to you. Nevertheless the bible teaches that there is an enemy and that enemy has an influence on people. A couple of months ago we caught some AQI in the act of an EJK (Extra-Judicial Killing). They had taken some guy out of his house, killed him by pouring acid on his head, and then proceeded to rape the dead body in the middle of the road even though the guys head was now a smoldering skull with a bit of facial hair.I'm going to wager that this has been, is, and will forever be considered evil.

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We never seem to acknowledge that we have been wrong in the past, and so might be wrong in the future. Instead, each generation writes off earlier errors as the result of bad thinking by less able minds-and then confidently embarks on fresh errors of its own. --Michael Crichton

Sure He could. But power doesn't equal goodness. Anyone who has met a bully knows the truth of this.

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Power can do everything but the most important thing: it cannot control love...In a concentration camp, the guards possess almost unlimited power. By applying force, they can make you renounce your God, curse your family, work without pay, eat human excrement, kill and then bury your closest friend or even your mother. All this is within their power. Only one thing is not: they can't force you to love them. This fact may help explain why God sometimes seems shy to use his power. He created us to love him, but his most impressive displays of miracle--the kind we may secretly long for--do nothing to foster that love. As Douglas John Hall has put it, "God's problem is not that God is not able to do certain things. God's problem is that God loves. Love complicates the life of God as it complicates every life." --Philip Yancy, Disappointment with God

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Any parent or lover knows this: love is chosen. You cannot, in the end, force anyone to love you.Which brings us to the challenge that God faces in rescuing a people who have no idea how captive they are.

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Suppose there was a king who loved a humble maiden. This king was like no other king. Every statesman trembled before his power. No one dared breathe a word against him, for he had the strength to crush all opponents. And yet this mighty king was melted for love for a humble maiden. How could he declare his love for her? In an odd sort of way, his kinglyness tied his hands. If he brought her to the palace and crowned her head with jewels and clothed her body in royal robes, she would surely not resist--no one dared resist him. But would she love him?

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She would say she loved him, of course, but would she truly? Would she be happy at his side? How could he know? If he rode to her forest cottage in his royal carriage, with an armed escort waving bright banners, that too would overwhelm her. He did not want a cringing subject. He wanted a lover. --Soren Kierkegaard, The King and the Maiden

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He wanted a lover. So the great king disguised himself as a beggar and went alone to the maiden's door in the woods to win her heart. And that is a parable of Jesus of Nazareth. God himself, the King of all creation, takes on human flesh and enters our story as one of us. He sets aside his glory, clothes himself with humility, and sneaks into the enemy camp, under cover of night, and tells us, "I have come for you."On the other hand Kierkegaard's tale doesn't capture the cost the King will have to pay to ransom his beloved. He will have to die to rescue you. Remember, God warned us back in the Garden of Eden that the price of our mistrust and disobedience would be death. Not just physical death, but a spiritual death--to be separated from God and life and all the beauty, intimacy, and adventure forever. The coming of Jesus was far more like the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan. A dangerous mission, a great invasion, a daring raid into enemy territory, to save the free world, but also to save one person (YOU). Yes, God is offering you a free gift, but that gift was purchased by Jesus in the form of a terrible death on the cross. It isn't like he's up in heaven, yawning, flippantly holding his hand out dangling salvation like a pepperment candy. It cost him a great deal to offer you the gift and he offers it freely. The evidence may in debate for you, but I've read and seen enough to draw my own conclusions about the evidence. However this is another thread entirely. Edited by Tal, : Added a line for the second quote.

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We never seem to acknowledge that we have been wrong in the past, and so might be wrong in the future. Instead, each generation writes off earlier errors as the result of bad thinking by less able minds-and then confidently embarks on fresh errors of its own. --Michael Crichton

Your faith is strong.

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We never seem to acknowledge that we have been wrong in the past, and so might be wrong in the future. Instead, each generation writes off earlier errors as the result of bad thinking by less able minds-and then confidently embarks on fresh errors of its own. --Michael Crichton