God loves you. Enjoy your eternity in hell.

A question for Christians, particularly those of the inerrantist stripe.

28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Matthew 10:28, NIV

And:

8 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might 10 on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed.

2 Thessalonians 1:8-10, NIV

“Punished with everlasting destruction.” Is that what a perfectly merciful, perfectly benevolent Father would do to his children?

268 thoughts on “God loves you. Enjoy your eternity in hell.

  1. Ha, keiths must think the concept of debt is subjective.

    I must? Please share your phoodooesque reasoning.

  2. Alan, petrushka,

    Do you see your mistake?

    The use of abstract nouns like “evil”, “debt”, “nepotism”, and “rancour” isn’t fallacious — it’s essential. Both of you do it routinely, just like the rest of us, and for good reason.

    The only problem is your confusion regarding the fallacy of reification.

  3. phoodoo: Ha, keiths must think the concept of debt is subjective.

    The concept of subjective is subjective!
    The concept of think is subjective!
    The concept of concept is subjective!

  4. Mung: The concept of subjective is subjective!
    The concept of think is subjective!
    The concept of concept is subjective!

    It always frustrates me when I see people say that “concepts are subjective,” because that makes no sense at all, on the best understanding of what concepts are and what ‘subjective’ means. But I’ve long stopped tilting at that windmill.

  5. Alan and petrushka seem to have tiptoed away, and Mung, phoodoo and colewd show no signs of being able to answer my questions, so let me pose a couple more.

    The verses I quoted in the OP were from the New Testament, but of course the Old Testament is an even richer vein of stories demonstrating the Christian God’s appalling lack of love. I’d be remiss not to mention some of those.

    Let’s start with the Flood:

    I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.

    Genesis 6:17, NIV

    “I’m pissed off, so I’m going to kill every creature on earth.” Can’t you just feel God’s love in that?

    On a smaller scale, observe God’s great love for Uzzah:

    They moved the ark of God from Abinadab’s house on a new cart, with Uzzah and Ahio guiding it. David and all the Israelites were celebrating with all their might before God, with songs and with harps, lyres, timbrels, cymbals and trumpets.

    When they came to the threshing floor of Kidon, Uzzah reached out his hand to steady the ark, because the oxen stumbled. The Lord’s anger burned against Uzzah, and he struck him down because he had put his hand on the ark. So he died there before God.

    1 Chronicles 13:7-10, NIV

    Uzzah tries to keep the ark from falling, and gets killed for his trouble. He was truly beloved of God, wasn’t he?

    Praise be to the gracious, merciful and loving Yahweh.

    There’s your “loving” God in action, Christians. Care to explain?

  6. I told him, don’t you be touching that ark, Uzzah. That oughter teach him, I guess.

  7. keiths: Alan and petrushka seem to have tiptoed away…

    Petrushka can speak for himself if he feels the need.

    You may have retired to spend more time with your computer screen but I have other stuff to do and other stuff I prefer to do than bandy words with the character you play on the internet.

    My sole intervention in this thread was to ask those who agreed with the claim “evil exists” if they could support it. Your attempt so far falls short. Repetition is not an argument.

  8. Alan,

    You may have retired to spend more time with your computer screen but I have other stuff to do and other stuff I prefer to do than bandy words with the character you play on the internet.

    It’s interesting how your strong desire to discuss whether evil exists suddenly evaporated when I pointed out the goofy mistake you had made:

    The amazing thing about this discussion is that both Alan and petrushka think that to deploy abstract nouns like “evil”, “debt”, and “nepotism” is somehow inevitably fallacious, when in fact they are supremely useful and practically indispensable.

    To use an abstract noun is not invariably to commit the fallacy of reification. The fallacy only occurs when the abstractum is treated as if it were concrete. That does not happen when accountants talk about the debt on a balance sheet, when commentators discuss nepotism in politics, or when philosophers talk about the existence of evil as evidence against a loving God.

    Even more amusing is that Alan and petrushka both commit the supposed fallacy they are warning against, freely and with abandon. Consider Alan’s use of the word ‘rancour’, for instance. I guess rancor exists, but evil doesn’t.

    Too funny.

    I doubt anyone is surprised that you made another mistake. Can you bring yourself to admit it to us, and to yourself?

  9. I am pretty sure I know what keiths does in his spare time.

    He sets up a chess board with all the pieces sort of in the right places. He then moves the bishops around the table in a series of chaotic and illegal moves, slowly sets down his plate of cheese, then kicks one of the legs of the table as hard as he can, and the pieces go flying all over the carpet, and shouts, ah ha, I won again!

    Then he throws a half empty bag of cashews into his hamster aquarium and says, figure it out idiot.

  10. phoodoo,
    Adults can disagree. However one thing all the adults agree on is that you are not to be taken seriously.

  11. phoodoo:
    I am pretty sure I know what keiths does in his spare time.

    He sets up a chess board with all the pieces sort of in the right places.He then moves the bishops around the table in a series of chaotic and illegal moves, slowly sets down his plate of cheese, then kicks one of the legs of the table as hard as he can, and the pieces go flying all over the carpet, and shouts, ah ha, I won again!

    Then he throws a half empty bag of cashews into his hamster aquarium and says, figure it out idiot.

    Hahahaha!

  12. The eternal punishment in hell only applies if there is some kind of afterlife eternal existence … But is there?

    I have been researching the subject lately and I have come to the conclusion that there isn’t.

    In short, once the mythical beliefs of some kind of afterlife originating probably in Babylon, Egypt and ancient Greece found their way into Christianity, the need for some kind of panishment for the sinners arised, which gave way to the acceptance of the other beliefs like fiery-hell and such…

    But this created a paradox: where do the unbaptized infants go if they die prematurely? How about afterlife for the so so sinners or those who weren’t exposed to the teachings of Christianity? This created the way for other afterlife teachings: purgatory and limbo.

  13. So, if there is an eternal punishment, then keiths is right; its not compatible with God’s love.
    Also, this means that God failed to tell Adam and Eve about the real consequences of their disobedience:
    gen 2:16-17
    “16The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.

    Why did’t God tell them that they were going to be punished eternally in the fiery hell?

  14. J-Mac: Why did’t God tell them that they were going to be punished eternally in the fiery hell?

    Because none of it happened and it’s really just cobbled together fragments of ancient myths?

  15. OMagain, to phoodoo:

    Adults can disagree. However one thing all the adults agree on is that you are not to be taken seriously.

    Having run away from my questions, he’s moving on to the second prong of his “phlee and phlail” strategy.

  16. Rumraket,

    Because none of it happened and it’s really just cobbled together fragments of ancient myths?

    These Bible stories have “made up by humans” stamped all over them. It’s amazing that believers won’t see it.

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