Why Would a Loving God Create Hell?

Tal, was that less-than-charming anecdote really necessary? Believe it or not, the rest of us don't require your gory war stories in order to understand the meaning of the word "evil". Unfortunately, most people are all too familiar with evil, and even if most of us never see it at quite that level, we all know how nasty people can get. There's no need to resort to shock tactics.

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Mutate and Survive

Hi Phat,What you say is true and I wouldn't seek to deny that. I am no prude when it comes to violence in the media, but the violence in movies and games is fictional. Even when the fiction is based on reality, it is usually handled a little more sensitively than Tal's attempt to use a presumably true story of a man's death to prove a trivial point. Context matters.Regarding the OP, I find it more troubling that God continues to countenance the existence of Hell, than that he should have created it. If Hell exists, then there are millions of people suffering unimaginable torment as we speak. This situation has lasted a long time and will continue for eternity. For all this time, God, who supposedly loves us, has seen all this and done nothing. Maybe he thinks this is proper, but I couldn't possibly imagine how such callousness in the face of suffering could be morally justifiable. Nothing could justify such cruelty.
Not even the just are excused the suffering. My mother is a Christian. Let us suppose that she leads a good life and goes to heaven. I, for whatever reason, do not get to join Club Paradise and I am consigned to Hell. My poor old Mum must now endure eternity, knowing that her first-born is enduring the eternal fires, a fact which will rather take the shine off heavenly existence I suspect.
I find the whole concept of Hell deeply offensive. Too often it has been used as a stick, with which to beat people into behaving and believing.

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Mutate and Survive

Hello ICANT, That isn't really the point. I was making an example about someone in heaven missing their relative who is in hell. How they get to heaven is irrelevant to the point being made. Two things here. How insane would I have to be to refuse God's pardon in those circumstances? I reject God partly because there is no evidence, partly because I find his antics repugnant. If I find myself in the afterlife, suffering in hell, and I'm then offered a divine pardon, of course I'll take it, however immoral it might be. After all, I now have all the evidence I could ever want and I would do anything to escape hell. Unfortunately the moral aspect of hell is unchanged. This offer amounts to "agree with me or I'll torture you until you do". It is no more than a threat of violence, if I fail to agree with God's terrible behaviour. It is immoral.Secondly, if God is cruel enough to send me to hell for failing to bow to his threats of violence, he will wipe the memory of his crimes from everyones memory? That is even more sick and unethical. His crime is no less for having wiped away the memory of it.

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Mutate and Survive

Jar, that is the best single piece of advice that anyone can offer, be they Christian, atheist or otherwise. If you look forward to a heaven full of virtuous heathens, then I may not believe it myself, but I wish you good luck with it.

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Mutate and Survive

I once spent an interesting morning chatting with two Mormons, at the home of some friends who were practicing Wiccans (you should have seen the Mormon chaps faces when my friends suggested that, since we had started with a Mormon prayer, we should end with a Wiccan blessing!).
We were told that if we refused to accept the Church of LDS's, we would unfortunately be damned. I brought up the problem of the virtuous heathen, using the example of a man who lived his whole life in Mecca, and thus had never heard of Mormonism. What would his fate be? I was told that the heathen would be granted the opportunity to change his mind when he arrived in the afterlife. If he chose Mormonism then, he would be saved.
Now this hardly seems fair to me. I know all about Mormonism, so I must make my decision in the here and now, with no evidence to guide me. The lucky heathen however, gets to make his judgment right there in the afterlife, where he now has a good idea that Mormonism is true. Of course he will accept it under those circumstances.
Furthermore, this kind of thinking suggests that when evangelical Mormons spread the knowledge of their creed, all they are doing is giving more people an opportunity to refuse the church in this life, thus damning them. The Mormons would be better off keeping their faith a secret, so that more people would be offered the more attractive choice after they die.
ICANT's bargain seems similar to this, only with added torture.

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Mutate and Survive

ICANT,
Nowhere in your post do you address my point. I am well aware of the story of the fall of man, thank you. All it amounts to is God saying "Eating this fruit is wrong. Dare to disobey and it's lake of fire time.", which strikes me as grossly disproportionate. People have found it within themselves to forgive worse crimes. The idea that God is so callous that he cannot forgive this slight affront, even whilst his children suffer eternal torment, is truly appalling. To claim that he is also loving is absurd. Yes, the concept of original sin. More plumbing the depths of evil. If you wronged me and I responded by punishing your children, how would you feel? Would you consider that just? I am no more responsible for Adam's actions than I am responsible for Britain's former slave trade. This credo is hateful, cruel and offensive beyond belief. So if all this was decided before Adam and Eve ever tasted that fruit, why did God go through with it? Why not simply put the fruit out of their reach and save us all from the damn fire? What a waste of time. Not only does God countenance suffering, but he deliberately planned for it, encouraged it and chose not to prevent it. If that fits your definition of "loving" you need a new dictionary.
Face facts ICANT; your god is an evil monster. He makes me glad I'm an atheist.

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Mutate and Survive

ICANT, I'll take a stab at answering your questions, if that's OK. The main problem is that I don't think that your example is a fair comparison to what you have said about God, the fall and damnation. I'm afraid that my first quibble comes on line one. I have committed no murder. I assume that my having murdered someone in your example is a metaphor for original sin, the sin of Adam and Eve. I do not accept original sin. I am not responsible for a crime committed by my most ancient ancestor. Even if I did accept responsibility, the death penalty is far too harsh a punishment for scrumping. It is also worth mentioning that the death penalty seems merciful compared to the eternal lake of fire.
To me, your example reads more like this;I have been accused of stealing fruit, a relatively minor crime that I did not commit.
I have been falsely convicted.
I have been sentenced to die in the gas chamber, a punishment out of all proportion with the alleged crime.Let's continue with your version; Green-lip mussels, in a fragrant broth of Thai herbs I think. Mmmmmmmmm. Of course. But with the following caveat; I will accept the pardon, out of desperation, but I would be lying if I said that I thought it was fair. At this point you have to understand this; it is the President's fault that I am here in the first place.
In your example, the President is a stand-in for God. As I have outlined already, God could have prevented the fall. He could have forgiven Adam and Eve. He could have chosen a less severe punishment, but instead chose the most terrible punishment imaginable. Most importantly in this case, he could have chosen not to punish me for the sin of my ancestor. Let's see how this applies to your example.The President knows that I stole no fruit.
He knows that it was, in fact, someone else.
He has already executed them.
He has already executed billions more innocent people for the same crime.
He could have prevented the original crime from ever occurring in the first place.
He acted in such a way as to ensure that the crime took place, even though he knew in advance that it would occur.
He chose to send me to the gas chamber, rather than inflict a more measured punishment.
He has left me to suffer for the last twenty years, when he could have freed me at any time.
Only at the last moment does he chose to save me from the fate he condemned me to, apparently on a whim.
Most gallingly of all, he also seems to want me to love and respect him, despite his behaviour.What do I think of the President? I think he's a scumbag. But then I get that a lot with US Presidents.

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Mutate and Survive

Hi ICANT,
I'm sorry,but your questions are not relevant to the discussion, for the reasons I outlined above. Your example is a bad fit for your ideas about Hell and salvation, as outlined in Message 109. Stop obfuscating with irrelevant side issues.
Why would a loving and moral god tolerate torture?

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Mutate and Survive

ICANT, We are. The torture I refer to is the torture that supposedly occurs in Hell. Your response about God being a god of justice is insufficient justification for the cruel and unusual punishment of Hell. God's "love me or burn for eternity" escape clause is even more unreasonable, only compounding the offense. I would love to know what crime you think I have committed. For that matter, what crime has the virtuous heathen committed? Or a baby who dies before having had a chance at accepting Jesus as saviour?
If a human being tortures someone they are quite rightly regarded as beyond the pale. If God does it, it's justice. Go figure. If God is morally superior to humanity, why is he unable to abide by the same moral standards that we expect of people? I would have thought that he could do better.

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Mutate and Survive

Hi tthr3, Only an egomaniac would want to become a god. I have no such desire thanks.

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Mutate and Survive

ICANT, I love the way you refer to your religious opinion as fact. Therein lies the problem. If we are barred from God's estate, for whatever reason, the only other place we can go is the devil's estate, and that place is run by a psychopathic torturer. A torturer who was specifically sent there by God. So we have a situation where God denies access to his estate to those who did not believe in him. At the same time, God has made sure that the only other estate in existence is occupied by the devil, leaving us literally between hell and a hard place. This makes us effectively refugees from hell. Civilised people do not send others to face torture. That would be considered a breach of human rights. The proper thing to do is to offer asylum to those who are at risk of torture. God (in your version of things) is willing to refuse asylum to those who fail to get the right answer to his little guessing game :"Does God exist?" Get this right, despite having absolutely no evidence to guide you, and even a good deal of evidence to mislead you, and God will relent.
That is no way to run an asylum policy.This would not be such a problem if belief in God were a simple matter of fact, but the truth is that there is no evidence for God's existence. Since you are a creationist, you must believe that God deliberately created the world. Yet he has left us with no evidence of his authorship. This is what makes your version of God's bargain so disgusting. Your god is playing us at a game, where the stakes are our souls and the odds are stacked in favour of the house. So if I believed in God, and agreed to his offer, but still hated him for his cruelty and expressed my disapproval of his behaviour, would he accept that? Or must I love Big Brother as well?

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Mutate and Survive

Hello ICANT, Erm...I hate to break it to you big fella, but you kind of do. There is no other possible way to describe the beliefs you have outlined. You may ascribe to a personalised version of Christianity, rather than adopt an specific religion "off the peg", so to speak, but your views are most certainly religious. That may be true, or it may not, but what is certain is that you do not know any of this for sure. No indeed, I would be much, much angrier. You see right now, I'm just angry about the idea of Hell. It is a great comfort to know that it is almost certainly not real, but merely an offensive and harmful idea.
Were I to discover that this sick scenario were more than just a twisted fairy tale, well then I really would be angry, because I would be faced with a divine being who had sat idly by whilst some or perhaps all of my lost loved-ones roasted in hellfire. That is simply unforgivable. Why does your god show such little charity? I thought it was one of his cardinal virtues. Agreed, but I would be quite happy to believe in god, given proof that he existed. I never disputed that. My point is that even if I believed in him, I would still be unable to condone his actions, much less love him. Right now, I view your sociopath god as being nothing more than your imaginary friend. Were I to discover that he was real, I would get really pissed off. Of course I wouldn't dare criticise him for fear of a red hot poker up the arse.
So answer the question; I accept God's offer of a pardon, but I still think he's a rotten swine. Do I still get into heaven?

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Mutate and Survive

Hi Purpledawn. I agree with you completely. I should make clear that since I am debating ICANT, it is his concept of damnation that I have been concentrating on. I'm interested in pointing out some of the innate flaws in his model of hell and original sin. I'm also interested to hear how folks who believe in both hell and a loving god manage to square the circle. No argument here. Hell is a nasty concept,one that has caused a great deal of anguish and mental illness over the centuries. That it is based on a mistranslation just makes it worse. Whatever your angle, it needs to be taken on.

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Mutate and Survive

Could be. So funny I nearly fell off my chair. Boy, religious people are crazy aren't they? Let's not listen to them! {Biblical quotations removed}Shoddy logic ICANT. A painting of a pipe is made in the likeness and image of a pipe, do you agree?
A pipe can be used to smoke tobacco, do you agree?
If a painting of a pipe is made in the image of a pipe and a pipe can be used to smoke tobacco, then a painting of a pipe can be used to smoke tobacco, do you agree?

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Mutate and Survive

ICANT,

quote:

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A painting is the image of the pipe it is not made in the image of the pipe.

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You are splitting hairs. There is nothing in the phrase "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" to suggest that we share all of God's attributes. You say that because God is enduring, and we are in his image, we must be enduring too. This is just an association fallacy.
How far do you pursue this logic?
Let us suppose that God is omnipotent.
We are made in his image.
So, by your logic, we are also omnipotent.
You can't claim that we have eternal life using this argument, because it is inherently flawed. Perhaps you might prefer to answer this question, which is slightly more on-topic;

quote:

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So answer the question; I accept God's offer of a pardon, but I still think he's a rotten swine. Do I still get into heaven?
  —Granny

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Do you have an answer?

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Mutate and Survive