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QUESTION: Hell is one of the biggest ethical sticking points when people talk about Christianity: How do you defend the idea of hell?
Discussion
51 comments
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Can genuine love exist without freewill or justice? No. Without freewill it would be conformity. Without justice, it would be tainted.
Is eternal conscious torment biblical or do the scriptures instead show us conditional immortality determined by our free will which is intrinsic to choosing or rejecting genuine love! God is too loving to force anyone to spend eternity in his presence. The absence of God’s presence is “hell”.
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The general concept of hell in Christendom is not grounded in scripture and s heavily influenced by Greek mythology which came into mainstream Christianity in the dark ages.
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Of course Hell is ethical. Hell is also fair. We all deserve it. View things from the point of view of a holy God, not sinful man. “Confidence”, as you put it, is man’s defiant fist in God’s face. If you think you have a case, then obey the ten commandments for ONE DAY. You can’t. Your confidence will take you nowhere. Throw yourself on his mercy, and trust his plan to rescue you.
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Hell is an unavoidable truth that cannot be overlooked because folks find it offensive. Hell is offensive because folks are forced to face the dire consequences of their sinfulness. Jesus came to save the perishing, rather than shaking fists at hell, we must reach out to Jesus for salvation from hell and the grave.
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HELL and PURGATORY are two sister doctrines applied side by side by the Catholic church during dark ages to threaten and extort money from their followers.
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How we feel about it or what we think about it is irrelevant to its existence. Luke 16: 19-31, jesus treated hell as a reality. The subject of eternal judgment is mentioned in multiple place in Scripture. Our choice to believe or not believe is moot. Eternal damnation is part of the gospel but not the main part. The main focus of the gospel is reconciliation with God resulting from repentance of sin and through faith in Jesus Christ. But all of this is foolishness to the perishing if the Holy Spirit is not convicting the person of their sin and makes the aware of their need for salvation.
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The idea of eternal torture is completely immoral and unjustifiable. A punishment is only justifiable if it serves a logical FUNCTION. For instance, putting criminals in prison stops them from committing crimes and discourages them from committing future crimes. Torturing them in prison would be completely unnecessary, cruel, barbaric, and pointless. If God was just, he would simply wipe unsaved souls out of existence, rather than subjecting them to unnecessary cruelty forever. Torturing billions and billions of people doesn’t do anything for God. It doesn’t benefit anyone or produce anything good. It’s disgusting and monstrous.
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no it’s punitive :
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Sinless son of God died an agonising death for us. If we simply accept the gift of salvation, we go to heaven. If we wilfully reject it, we go to hell. I don’t see any problem.
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Hell was created for Satan and the fallen angels but humans chose to cut themselves off from God’s grace. God provided a way back into good standing. We need to accept that way, by accepting Jesus as our Savior.
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I like to point out that Hell allows for degrees of justice. We ALL deserve punishment. Believers don’t receive it because Christ did. The impenitent, however, MUST. Yet, not all sin alike. Was Ghandi equal to Hitler? Should Stalin not receive harsher judgement than Christopher Hitchens? Only if Hell exists can God punish sinners proportionately. As for whether or not it’s just, well, those who receive punishment always feel differently than those who give it. I thought my mom was evil for some of the things she did to me as a kid. As an adult, I understand why she had to punish me. In much the same way, when we mature to the right level (cross over and meet God) we will see what we do not here on Earth. ALL arguments against Hell are emotional, and assume humans are both more just, and more authoritative, than we have ever been. What God declares in His infinite wisdom, He has the absolute right, and is absolutely right, to declare it. It really is that simple.
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Well it may help if you flip the question around: is the absence of Hell ethical?
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Ethical? Number 1: God is our Creator. Who are we to judge Him by deciding what is ethical? 2nd: We are the most depraved creature on the face of the earth. We all deserve hell. It is by our creators shear act of mercy and grace that He made a way for another alternative.
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Speak about it truthfully, but also with love and kindness.
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Jesus talked about hell more than anyone in the Bible!
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How does someone that is made from the dust of the ground to quote R.C. rebels against his creator? Then ask’s if Hell is ethical. When we are all dead in Adam because of our Rebellion? God could have sentenced everyone to hell and would have been rightly justified in doing so. We ask if Hell is ethical? Is rebellion against a Holy God ethical?
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Hell is the place were God isnt. Simple as that.
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My explanation is I think easy to explain and except for people.
If freedom of will and choice is truly what we have, and I believe that to be true, then right now in this life you are choosing to be with God. As a result you will be with him in the next life.
But if you are choosing to be separated from God now, he still loves you and will honour your choice. So just like he’s not forcing you to love him and be with him now, he won’t do it after your dead. He will, out of love allow you to remain separated from him in eternity.
It’s not God punishing you, you chose it. He is simply honouring your choice.
So if you people believe God to be cruel from sending you to hell, explain that he’s not doing that. He provided a way through his Son at great emotional pain to him to give freely the gift of eternity with him because that’s what he wants for their life. But he will honour their choice, what every they decide. -
Rebecca was on point, Joel made good points, Ashley was way off.
Hell is the just penalty for everyone. Hell isn’t the absence of God but the presence of God, namely His wrath. It was once asked “how can God be good and send people to hell?” The answer is “how can God be good and NOT send people to hell.”
If He’s truly good, then ALL evil must be punished. Our definition of good IS NOT the standard, God’s is
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He is not limited to how we think.
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This question has a logical flaw of begging the question. First is there a God? If yes than he is the standard for ethics and morality. Second, this assumes that he is unjustly sending people to hell. Let’s say he didn’t send people to hell at all(for arguments sake) would people who don’t want god now want him later? Thirdly
Violation is connected to the intrinsic value of the person being violated. For example if I kill a cockroach the intrinsic value is very low and I would not be held accountable. But if I torture a human for fun (again these are examples) I have committed a crime because people have a greater intrinsic value. In regard to God a eternally perfect being the intrinsic value is eternal greater than that of a human. Partly because we are created and more importantly because his intrinsic value. Thus when we violate his perfection there is an eternal consequence because of his intrinsic value. -
I don’t have defend it, it just is. If someone truly does not want to be in the presence of God, then they will experience, by choice, eternal separation from Him. Pure misery.
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So, are you saying it’s unethical for a murderer or rapist to be prosecuted and sent to jail? This question highlights the issues of free choice and justice. Love required both. Hell is isolation from God. God will not force anyone to spend eternity with Him.
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God is just so He has to punish sin. Either your sins are forgiven because of Jesus’ perfect atonement or you’ll have to spend eternity in hell paying for your sins because you’ll never be able to pay the penalty of perfect justice with a fallen nature. Hence, the duration of hell.
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You cannot defend HELL as it Is real!
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God is loving and merciful, but He is also mighty and just and will punish the wicked.
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(22) “For as the new heavens and the new earth
which I will make shall remain before Me,” says YHWH,
“So shall your descendants and your name remain.
(23) And it shall come to pass
That from one New Moon to another,
and from one Sabbath to another,
all flesh shall come to worship before Me,” says YHWH.
(24) “And they shall go forth and look
upon the corpses of the men
who have transgressed against Me.
For their worm does not die,
and their fire is not quenched.
They shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.” (Isaiah 66) -
The apostles were commanded to go out and preach the gospel or good news, which of course means Jesus. I don’t worry about hell I worry about how well I know my Jesus.
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First of all, y’all talk like we even deserve to go to heaven. Heaven is a gift not an entitlement.
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Isaiah 55:8-9
8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.
9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts. -
I’m new here. This post is filled with a fallacious understanding of what sin is. This video is pure garbage. Is this the kind of garbage that gets posted in group?
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God’s scriptures are very clear regarding Hell. All of God’s scriptures are ethical in His own ways (Isaiah 55:8). Non-believers will always have problems with God’s ways.
The real question is…does God have a ethical (righteous judgment) issue with Hell or is the ethical issue with non-believers?
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Jesus speaks more of hell than what he does heaven.
Have you ever considered that man loved sin so much and did not want to let go of it’s pleasures so they decided to create a god according to their own imagination who showed unconditional love but overlooked injustices?
This is also called idolatry. Worshiping something or someone other than God as if it were God.
The Bible is very clear on exactly what hell is, what we will endure if we end up there(God forbid) and exactly how long we will be there(for all eternity)
If you say that hell does not exist or is not as the Bible describes it to be then you make Jesus out to be a liar.
Now between mankind and Jesus I think I’m going to go with Jesus on this one…and every other one.
A just judge Cannot simply overlook the breaking of the law without carrying out and enforcing a sentence…if he did then he would no longer be just nor truly loving.
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Why are you so bothered by the Christian doctrine of hell? If hell is not what the Bible declares it to be then why do you have to fear it? If it’s not real then you have nothing to worry about right?
I think the reason people make such a big fuss about it is because in your heart you know it to be true so instead of humbling yourself and submitting yourself to the one who created you…you are exactly as God’s word declares you to be. Defiant in the face of God with a wicked and rebellious heart and a mind that is at war with God and his word namely Jesus Christ.
The Bible declares that man loves the darkness and hates the light. What communion does darkness have with light? The light came into the world and the darkness comprehended it not.
You cannot get past what Jesus himself declares of what hell is, who will go there, what they would have to endure there, why they ended up there and also how long they would be there. The scripture is very clear whether you choose to believe it or not.
God says that today I set before you life and death…you choose for yourself what you want. We are all uncomfortable with the doctrine of hell for the same reason a criminal who just committed a crime cannot sit still next to a police officer…because he(the criminal) knows the law and knows the consequences of breaking that law and knows the authority and purpose of the police officer so he just wants to get away from the officer the same like when we are not right with God… we tend to just want to get away from him but we cannot run away from him forever because God had sent out an arresting officer called death and he will find us no matter how well we’ve hidden from him all our lives and because God is the standard of good and we broke his perfect moral law he laid down the law and now we are sentenced to death whether we like it or not.
God does not take pleasure in the perishing of lost souls. He gives sufficient grace for us to get to that point where we will choose between life and death and unfortunately many choose death and close their own door to freedom and salvation.
God is both all loving and all just.
If God we’re not just he could not possibly be all loving.
If a judge had a criminal before him who murdered and raped your mother, wife and little girl in front of your very eyes and after hearing his case the judge finds the criminal guilty as charged the judge then says look you’re guilty and deserve the death penalty but…because I am a good and loving judge I’m going to let you go but only for this one time. Just promise to never do it again.
Would you as the husband of that wife, the son of the mother and the father of that little girl be content with the outcome of that trail?
Would the judge truly be just and loving if he were to let that criminal free without enforcing the harshest punishment?
No! He’d be just as cold and wicked bad the accused.
So if a human judge who is flawed wont allow such an injustice to go unpunished how much more would God who is the defined the standard of good not allow those who broke his moral law to go unpunished.
Yet he is loving as he had made another way for us through his only unique sin Jesus Christ who took on our transgressions upon himself so that we did not have to pay the price of sin. He renewed our hearts so that we no longer desire unrighteousness but that which is good according to God.
Hell is very real exactly as Jesus proclaimed it and by right you should fear going to a place like that.
Fear is not your enemy in this case…fear is your friend. It’s like jumping out of a plane with no parachute…I’m sure you would be fearful of doing so and you’d be right because you’d most likely be squashed when you collide with the earth and in that instance fear is your friend because it’s warming you of grave impending danger and so to fear going to hell is your friend warning you of the eternal danger that lay ahead for those who do not believe in Jesus and forsake their wicked ways.
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Indefensible. In the end there will “no more Night “. Therefore, the phrase “tormented day and night” must necessarily be confined to this world and not transferable to the next. Also, once we did not exist. Therefore our non-existence is already proved possible. Clue…
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Only cowards have to “defend” their Faith. With science, history, Scripture, and love on our side, we crawl before nobody. We keep them on the ropes by asking the right questions to keep that pea underneath their mattress. The burden of proof of debunking Christianity is on them, NEVER the other way around. Let them “defend”.
“DO NOT ARGUE WITH A FOOL. HE WILL DRAG YOU DOWN TO HIS LEVEL AND THEN BEAT YOU WITH EXPERIENCE”.
-Romans 8:31?
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Ethics is unloving human philosophy created by those in the fever dream of sin. Morality is better than the best thing you have ever imagined. God’s love is better than the love you think about. His goodness is better than your most innocent ideal of what goodness is or could be. God has crucified his only sired son, who humbly took it for those who were his enemies! If you reject such a great and freely offered salvation, then why WOULDN’T you deserve infinite punishment?!
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It seems that the video is suggesting that hell is used to scare people and manipulate them to do what the church wants them to do or worse yet to profit financially from it. The doctrine however comes not from any church or institution it comes from the bible which we believe is God’s word. If you reject that you don’t need to worry about ethics. If you do believe it would be unethical not to teach it.
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To say Hell is unjust or unethical assumes you know the extant of the evil done. That you know the depths of sin when rebelling against God. It is likely our sin warped minds cannot conceive of the depths of sin. So then who would have the gaul to tell God what the punishment for crimes should be.
One must also disagree with justice in all its forms. We must also know that when God overcomes all sin that the depth of his mercy, love and justice will be made clear. Even the sinner will know they deserve the punishment. -
Looks like a Christless swipe at Christianity.
This video is a misery fest.
New Age garbage. -
How do you defend the idea of prison and keeping people safe from them that belong there?
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I find it much harder to defend a heaven for us.
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Yes its is, if God is love
Hell must exist -
Any philosophy or thought process that puts me in a position to judge God is a flood one and should be rejected. God is beyond our judgment. whatever is good is good because God is declared it good and because it’s the thing that God does. He literally is what defines good and the embodiment of it. He is just, moral, etc.
this also is a thought process that has an exceptionally low view of how evil and wicked our sin is. If we realized how wretched and disgusting and holy evil our sin is, then we would ask how God could ever give us an opportunity at heaven… Nobody would ever question the reality of hell or the ethics of sending people there.
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Would letting evil go unpunished be ethical?
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Those who do not want to know love, the true and beautiful love of God are in hell as we speak.
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Christ sends noone to hell. He only honors their choice to go.
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the point is not so much that people are GOING to hell, but that we all DESERVE to go to hell.
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Not much (if any; if there was, I missed it) in the way of Scripture, there. Philosophical maunderings by the fifteen minutes of fame folks.
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