THE LIE OF ETERNAL PUNISHING

ABOUT HELL
 
The scriptures of Christianity, Mormonism and Islam teach that those who die in unbelief and estranged from God will not be able to escape from horrendous torture. This torture will last forever. The state of torture is called Hell. It is the purpose of this work to show that the doctrine is extremely cruel. It denies that God is good. This book hopes that those who teach the doctrine or support any religious system that teaches it will see the error of their ways and stop.
 
Christians will not consider following a faith that says God had sex with a virgin for a good purpose. Presumably what God does is okay as long as it hurts people to the extreme. According to Christian dogma, an eight year old boy can go to Hell just for masturbating or for not accepting Christ. They find that more palatable. That says a lot about them. The sentence of everlasting punishment which involves everlasting torment and abandonment by God is the worst thing imaginable. If we can condone God allowing such a thing and creating such a state then we can condone anything. Why? Because anything else is not as bad as it.
 
DOES DYING IN SIN MEAN YOU SHOULD BE DAMNED?

Here, we are not thinking about what makes a person stay in Hell but are asking if they choose Hell by dying in unremitted sin as the Church maintains.

You can be sure that when you speak against the Christian and Islamic doctrine of everlasting punishment that the believers will try to blame people for being damned because they died unreconciled with God and they give out the pat answer, “It’s their choice.” They say he does everything to keep us out of Hell. The choice is made at death and not a moment before or after. The extreme nastiness of anybody saying such a thing and making such a terrible accusation is apparent from the fact that you can only say a person deserves something in proportion to the evidence for their guilt for there is nothing else to go by. Therefore to accuse anybody of deserving to suffer forever is to require infinite proof that they are that bad and such proof cannot be had. Death is so awful and you go to Hell at death if you deserve it according to Christianity. That doesn’t sound very sympathetic for such an awful thing as dying.

POINT 1. A choice can be reversed.

If God were good he would ignore my choice to go to Hell and wait until I make a better one. He could reincarnate me to give me a second chance. When he doesn’t have to send everybody who chooses Hell to Hell, he doesn’t have to send anybody. If I choose Hell now he ignores me unless I die. Doing evil to a person who wants abuse is wrong. Sending a person to Hell is evil for helping that person to repentance and salvation is better. Hell-fire religions show a profound lack of compassion and regard for repentance when they declare that a person who chooses Hell belongs in it in the sense that he or she ought to be sent there.

POINT 2. The rude idea that God can do as he pleases with us is wrong.

They say he owes us nothing – not the point, we should be able to improve. He is not afraid we will sin to the full if we think our chances will never run out for Hell guarantees that we will never change.

POINT 3. The idea that the souls in Hell are better off there as Heaven would be Hell for them anyway is plainly wrong.

Some give the doctrine of damnation a compassionate ring, “The souls in Hell have chosen to be separated from God forever so they have to be given what they want. The damned chose forever torment when they died and to give them anything else would be cruel so it is kinder to put them in Hell forever. If they were in Heaven they would hate it so much that they would rather be in the harrows of Hell.”

Who could seriously choose eternal torment? Those who have allegedly chosen it have chosen sin but not Hell. How could they choose Hell especially if they hate God for they know it pleases him under the circumstances that they are in the agony of Hell? It is not possible for any to pick evil unless some good is seen in it. If being in Heaven is bad for the wicked and that is why they won't be admitted to it then why is there torment in Hell if God thinks they should not suffer? God is still being accused of cruelty.

Nobody would choose everlasting torment. Nobody can resist a God of love and being with him and being his friend. Anybody who chooses Hell forgets what goodness is so the choice is a mistake and God can’t punish for that and especially he can’t punish with Hell. Even if they did hate God they would rather be with him than in Hell, to be in the place he made. It would be like letting somebody roast you on a spit while you claim to hate them. You wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. Instead, you would try to work towards repentance. Making up your mind to abandoning sin for any reason can be the first step to holiness and living without sin.

The damned would like Heaven better than Hell. They don’t need to be able to see God and enjoy him so it would be like a permanent holiday resort to them with trees and beaches and games and the celestial equivalent of sunshine. If God hasn’t the heart to put them in Heaven or a paradise then God thinks they should not be punished.

POINT 4. God can stop the Hell-deserving choice.

If God is infinite perfection then to be with him to be as happy as possible, so happy that one will not part from him. God could give this happiness to all people for a second so that they will never sin no matter what happens to them. Even if they are sinners he can do this for it is necessary to prevent sin. It is better to condone their sin to destroy it than to let it be. This makes it nonsense to blame sinners for their damnation. It’s not really condoning when you have to overlook sin to destroy it. Actually it is the contrary.

If we sin for we do not know how attractive and fulfilling God is, then no sin is based on a really informed choice.  God has the duty to inform us.  Sin is not really sin for it is not properly chosen.  It is evil to call anybody a sinner or to say they need Jesus to die for their sins to atone.

POINT 5. If any venial sin exists all should be venial.
 
Even the smallest sin tells evil which cannot be controlled to exist and brings it into existence. Evil is infinitely bad because when you bring it into existence to cause disorder the disorder could end up being infinite and everlasting. Venial sin is a lie.
 
If Roman Catholicism is correct to declare that some sin does not take away your friendship with God and expel him from your soul and make you ready for Hell then all sin should be of this kind or venial in other words. All sin deserves Hell so God must be pretending that some sin does not deserve Hell. By ensuring that some sins do not cast him out of the soul and deserve Hell he should make sure that none of them do this.

The more reason you have to think that there is somebody inside a shed you are going to blow up the more evil you are if you blow it up anyway.
 
If Hell-deserving sins are possible, God should have concealed his existence, more than religion says he does, so that nobody could reject his love deliberately so that they would not be guilty of an unlimited offence that deserves never-ending torture when they sin. When he makes so many of us unintelligent we should all be unintelligent. It is chiefly his fault if anybody decides to live in Hell. God could have miraculously made us unable to grasp that he is the infinite perfection so that infinite sin would not be possible. People could grow through suffering as much as they do now and all go to Heaven after that.

POINT 6. If God exists and any are saved then God ignores the Hell choice for all deserve Hell so the choice is not the reason for damnation.

All sin is mortal for God hates it infinitely and we  all sin so nobody goes to Heaven. If anybody does go then God is not letting choice get in the way of saving people. Choice is no excuse for damning people.

POINT 7. God should not kill people in mortal sin.
 
If God doesn’t want anybody to go to Hell then he shouldn’t end their lives when they are in mortal sin and should wait until they have obtained his forgiveness first instead.
 
The Bible vindictively has God who orders certain sinners brought out to be stoned to death brutally and never even mentioned allowing for them to have a chance to repent.

God does want souls in Hell and is lying if he says that he does all he can to keep people out of it. He takes the lives of people in mortal sin. Religion says he has to do that. Then why can’t he put them on another planet in another body where everything is exactly as it is on earth making them think they have never died so that they may repent of their mortal sin in time? This wouldn’t encourage sin when people don’t know about it.
 
God gives some people long lives. They have got a better chance of repenting and avoiding Hell than others who die young in mortal sin. This is not fair. Rome says it is for God doesn’t owe anybody more chances but that is a very unfair teaching. He does for if we all have done good then we all deserve the grace of repentance.
 
Apologists assert that if God gave everybody the same chance people would sin to the full until they think their chances are nearly up. So it is a sin to make sure that you won’t die suddenly by running to the hospital for regular check-ups.
 
If Jesus were doing his best he would appear to all the people on earth so that they might convert. Christianity foolishly blurts that it would do no good as if it were not worth a try.
 
Blaming the damned for their plight is cruel because God set them up to make the wrong choice. It is mostly his fault. No it is all his fault for though they deserve it they should still be protected from Hell.
 
To say that the damned are in Hell through their own deathbed choice and that it is not God’s fault is to accuse them unjustly and to take the tyrannical God’s side. It is even worse when you are less sure there is a God than you are that they exist. It takes a lot to pretend that the damned made the choice not God when it is mainly because of him that they made it. What evidence is there that they chose Hell? To say they did is to say that they were so incredibly evil that they could make an evil choice and stick to it forever. That is a very serious slander for no mortal sinner – not even a Hitler could be that bad. It slanders us all for we are all seen as sinners who deserved Hell. Religion is happy to smear people to get what it wants. To accuse people of a sin that makes God make sure they will never change and rot in Hell forever is not as bad as accusing them of maintaining that choice themselves moment by moment for all eternity. Doctrines like this lead to people being very shallow even if they hide it well.
 
Some admit that nobody would choose to go to Hell forever but hold that they do not choose Hell but sin and that is why they are in Hell (page 28, Whatever Happened to Heaven?). But that is wrong and absurd. Sin does them no good in Hell for there is no money or sex there only suffering. And it is also absurd to say they choose Hell. So it is absurd to reason that when they choose sin, Hell is part of the equation so they choose it just every bit as much.
 
It is undeniable that when we are dying we are so scared of the thought of going to Hell that there is no way we would choose to go there and we would repent as soon as we see the gates of Hell. If we wanted to go to Hell we would not be afraid. But the Church still tells the very obvious lie that we choose Hell.
 
The Church says that God is love and justice. The two go together – they never conflict. The notion of God preferring to punish destroys this doctrine for it is concerned about justice and not love which desires the healing of the sinner. Love is supposed to be the best attribute but this has it suppressed.
 
POINT 8, If you can say people who die in sin as a result of sudden death before they had a chance to change their minds about going to Hell have chosen Hell, then why can't you say that homosexuals or heretics once they commit their "sin" have made a final choice? Why can't you say if they live good lives after their sin or if they claim to have repented they are lying and they are still destined to go to Hell? In brief, why single out the dead?  Why can't the the final choice against God be made decades before you die?
 
It is fairer to choose the living than the dead. The living could be said to be throwing away the chance to repent which can't be said of those who die suddenly. If you claim the right to believe that sinners who die go to Hell forever, then you can't deny somebody the right to believe that this final choice can be made in life as well. You can say for example that a Christian who converts to Islam will never be forgiven even if she or he pretends she or he is. There is something warped about disapproving of people saying that or being angry when they do if you believe that those who die in sin choose Hell forever.

OTHER THOUGHTS

* Hell is Eternal and that is Why it Has to Be a Prison.

Nothing forces God to put us in an eternal Hell. He could keep us in time.

If you believe that there is no time in Hell then you believe that the person cannot change for where there is no time there is no alteration. But God can withdraw them from eternity and put them in time so that they might change.

Hell cannot be timeless for there is nothing terrible about undergoing a moment of great agony in time. In eternity it is the same thing except that there is no past or future but it feels the same as the present moment does. It is like a frozen moment without a sense of anything passing. If Hell is punishment for infinite malicious intent it has to be worse than that.
 
* God Punishes therefore Hell is a Prison.

New Age and trendy religion says that God never punishes but we punish ourselves.
 
This has connotations of believing that evil should be condoned not punished for punishment is bad. Punishment is bad when God won’t do it. It mocks Christian morality and also society. If we punish ourselves then is the hatred others will have for us if we do evil punishment? It can’t be for hatred is wrong. And if God attaches bad results to certain sins such as promiscuity and alcoholism so that we can punish ourselves then is he not setting it up that punishment will follow? Is he not punishing us after all?
 
It is hard to restrain a stab of affection for God upon hearing this sweet stuff about a God who never punishes. Upon thinking, the only thing we have to restrain is disappointment.

Do we punish ourselves instead of being punished by God? It is surmised that the heavy drinker’s punishment is ill health which he has brought on or inflicts on himself. This makes God look like a mere gutless pleasure-giving bland bore. But in reality, God thinks that it is good enough for him and only refrains from punishing for he doesn’t need to administer it. By not acting to stop the suffering he is causing it and meting out retribution. God made and sustains the law that drink would harm so he is punishing. God does punish.

Also, the drinker is not intending to punish himself so the doctrine is absurd beyond belief. The drinker sees the suffering as a means to the pleasure of drink or a worthwhile result of it. If people like going to jail and being there then it is not punishment any more. Punishment involves the use of force on the victim and the removal of their freedom.

It does not matter if the drinker is punished by God or punishes themselves.  They need help.  To say they are sick when they do wrong and need punishment is just vindictive. 

I was aware of the wrongness of the doctrine since the first time I heard of it which led to much confusion in my religious thinking. But the point in bringing all this up is that if we are punished by God then he must force it on us. We must still be able to sin because if we are not, then we don’t deserve the punishment anymore. Think. If a murderer loses his reason then he cannot be justly punished any more for his crimes. If he got a life sentence, he must be paroled. This means that we can be forced into Hell and manipulated to stay there and sin there.

So we see then that the doctrine of being made to stay in Hell makes God evil. If God is good then it is untrue. 

FINALLY

Human nature by definition is changeable.   It may take years for a person to change but they do.  Hell depends on a person being incorrigible forever which is an attack on human nature.  The doctrine is a punishment to our ears.