EVERLASTING HELL BELIEF GIVES MY LIFE MEANING!"

Christianity and Islam teach that at death, if we are estranged from God by sin, we will go to Hell to suffer forever and once we go there it is impossible for us to leave.  Catholics call such sin mortal sin.
 
Most of us get the sense of life being valuable without caring much about God or religion or Hell. Also, if there is no God we cannot say we should feel our lives are useless and have no meaning! No truly good person would tell you to feel that way if there is no God or his existence can be disproven. Feelings are good at lying to us and if our lives are useless that does not mean we have to feel they are useless. One thing is for sure, those who say God and meaning in life are inseparable are not good people and are implying we should despair if he does not exist. In fact, if it is right that people should suffer in Hell forever then clearly the ultimate reason must be that it gives our lives meaning. This is not true therefore Hell is an evil doctrine and those who praise God who punishes forever in Hell are condoning something so evil that even the Devil can't do it.
 
How can a person make people think he is caring when he condones the everlasting punishing of sinners by God in Hell? It is claimed by some that Christians caringly preach Hell because without Hell life is bland! So we are to believe in Hell and condone the punishing of the sinners forever just because it makes our lives more meaningful! The Handbook of Christian Apologetics says that. The book speaks for Christians who argue that life is bland if everybody will be okay in the end and that the fight against evil will be seen as a less serious war than it can be. But who cares as long as the battle is fought? At least it is a clear admission by believers that life is not worth much to them unless there is a Hell - so they want to believe in Hell! That can only be out of spite for it involves wishing that people who die in sin would go there forever. It is rooted in unstable selfishness. Those who want there to be a Hell for their own pleasure will be the ones most entitled to end up in it.
 
They seem to think that unless you see evil as worse than what it is you cannot fight it right and appreciate good better. But to see too much evil is to embrace evil and to bless evil. It is evil to exaggerate evil.
 
It is ludicrous to say that the prospect of everlasting evil is good for it makes us hate evil more and even more eager to fight it. If we are really good we will not need to believe in Hell to do this. Also, how could you want to fight evil hard if it is going to win with many people immersed in it forever and ever?
 
One thing is for sure, the believers are right that if Hell is justified the thought "life is bland and fighting evil is not important if everlasting punishing is a myth" is true. Think of it this way. If it exists then it is good. It can only be good if it makes life better and fighting evil important. The refutation is simply that fighting evil is important whether there is a Hell or not. Does it really matter how evil we think evil is as long as we see well enough that it is intolerable? No.
 
The thought "life is bland and fighting evil is not important if everlasting punishing is a myth" is the only excuse for it for even justice is not enough. This is admitted on page 290 of the Handbook of Christian Apologetics which says that our choice is the fundamental reason for the existence of Hell. Thus we have proven that Hell is a vindictive doctrine. And do not forget that if Hell is justified, our belief in it must be justified as well. If the thought "life is bland and fighting evil is not important if everlasting punishing is a myth" is a horrible thought then people only accept it when they want to be horrible.
 
The Church says that Jesus only told us what we need to know to get meaning out of life. He told us about Hell which means that if you believe in Christianity you have to believe in this malicious argument for Hell that "life is bland and fighting evil is not important if everlasting punishing is a myth".
 
It is outrageous to say people should suffer in Hell forever to make life interesting for others.
 
The Handbook complains that if there is no everlasting punishment then our choices make no infinite difference. It means that we can make choices that can put us in infinite misery or infinite happiness. Infinite means it lasts forever with no end.
 
Who cares? Are we to say that Hell should exist so that we can feel that our choices make an infinite difference? That is spiteful.
 
And it is only the choice at death that makes the infinite difference. The rest of the choices we make in life don’t matter in terms of making a choice with everlasting and permanent consequences.
 
To argue that people must go to Hell and this gives the rest of our lives meaning for it shows what we can lose is to use the damned as a means of making yourself feel better. 
 
FURTHER READING
 
APOLOGETICS AND CATHOLIC DOCTRINE, Most Rev M Sheehan DD, M H Gill & Son, Dublin, 1954  
APOLOGETICS FOR THE PULPIT, Aloysius Roche, Burns Oates & Washbourne LTD, London, 1950
ENCHIRIDION SYMBOLORUM ET DEFINITIONUM, Heinrich Joseph Denzinger, Edited by A Schonmetzer, Barcelona, 1963
GOD IS NOT GREAT, THE CASE AGAINST RELIGION, Christopher Hitchens, Atlantic Books, London, 2007
 ‘GOD, THAT’S NOT FAIR!’ Dick Dowsett, [OMF Books, Overseas Missionary Fellowship, Belmont, The Vine, Sevenoaks, Kent TN13 3TZ] Kent, 1982
HANDBOOK OF CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS, Peter Kreeft & Ronald Tacelli, Monarch, East Sussex, 1994
HAVE WE TO FEAR A DEVIL? Fred Pearce, The Christadelphian Office, Birmingham
HEAVEN AND HELL Dudley Fifield, Christadelphian Publishing Office, Birmingham
HELL – WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT IT, John R Rice, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, 1945
JEHOVAH OF THE WATCH-TOWER, Walter Martin and Norman Klann, Bethany House, Minnesota, 1974
LIFE IN CHRIST, PART 3, Fergal McGrath SJ, MH Gill and Son Ltd, Dublin, 1960
RADIO REPLIES VOL 1, Frs Rumble and Carty, Radio Replies Press, St Paul, Minnesota, 1938
REASON AND BELIEF, Bland Blanschard, George Allen & and Unwin Ltd, London, 1974
THE BIBLE TELLS US SO, R B Kuiper,  Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, 1978  
THE DEVIL, THE GREAT DECEIVER Peter Watkins, The Christadelphian Birmingham, 1992
THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF BIBLE DIFFICULTIES, Gleason W Archer, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1982
THE FOUR MAJOR CULTS, AA Hoekema, Paternoster Press, Carlisle, 1992
THE KINDNESS OF GOD, EJ Cuskelly MSC, Mercier Press, Cork, 1965
THE LIFE OF ALL LIVING, Fulton J Sheen, Image Books, New York, 1979
THE REAL DEVIL, Alan Hayward, Christadelphian Bible Mission, Birmingham
THE REALITY OF HELL, St Alphonsus Liguori, Augustine Publishing Company, Devon, 1988
THE SERMONS OF ST ALPHONSUS LIGOURI, St Alphonsus Ligouri, TAN, Illinois, 1982
THE TRUTH ABOUT HELL, Dawn Bible Students, East Rutherford, NJ
WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT HELL? Radio Bible Class, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1986
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO HEAVEN?, Dave Hunt, Harvest House, Eugene, Oregon, 1988
WHY DOES GOD? Domenico Grasso SJ, St Paul Publications, Bucks, 1970