What do we hear about Hell, from almost every Christian denomination? If you are good, you go to Heaven, and if you're bad, you go to the other place. Where every centimeter of your body, will be in flames, not for a moment, but for eternity. You will experience unending, blistering, burning misery.

He made us. No one asked if we wanted to be made. Everybody has a propensity to do things wrong. And if we should die today, with one sin not confessed, will we immediately go to a place to be tortured eternally? That is what most of evangelical Christianity teaches. But is it true? Is it biblical? And if it is, how can we possibly love a God like that?

Lets take a closer look at this subject before taking evangelical Christian dogma as fact.

2 Peter 2:9....
"The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment, to be punished.

Q: So, if the unjust are being reserved for punishment until then, would they be burning in a lake of fire now? And, if the wicked are not in hell now, where are they?

John 5:28, 29....
“For the hour is coming, in the which ALL that are IN THE GRAVES shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.“

We have an Old Testament passage that says the same thing:

Job 21:30, 32
The wicked is reserved to the day of destruction,.. yet shall he be brought to the grave, and shall remain in the tomb.

Romans 6:23 The wages of sin is DEATH, but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Humans DO NOT possess immortality, or as is termed in come circles, an “immaterial spirit.”

Genesis 3:22 .....
"The Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken."

Q: If the penalty for sin is eternal burning, then Jesus did NOT pay the full price to redeem humanity. The penalty for sin, is not eternal torment in flames , but perishing. Otherwise Jesus would still be burning.

John 3:16.....
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

The penalty for sin is not eternal torment. The penalty for sin is death (perishing).

So, if there is no everlasting fire, what will happen to evil people?

Psalm 37:10, 20 .....
"For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be,..the wicked shall perish,... into smoke shall they consume away."

Malachi 4:1,3.....
"The day comes, that shall burn as an oven; and all .. that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that comes shall burn them up. ...And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet."

Revelation 20:9
"And they [the wicked]went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them."

3 words in the Bible are translated “hell”......

Old testament:
1) Sheol, means grave

New testament:
2) Gehenna, Valley of Hinom, Jerusalem (city dump)
3) Hades, from Greek mythology

Greek/ Roman philosophies about the immortality of the soul, early found their way into the Christian Church, and therein have remained until this day. That is why we have this erroneous doctrine of eternal torment so deeply ingrained within most of Christianity

Matthew 10:28...
"Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."

Isaiah 28:21
"He [God] shall be wroth, ...that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act."

You do not love your children more than God loves His. In Genesis it says it grieved Him that He had made man on the earth, and that He had to bring a flood. But are those people still drowning? No. Neither are there souls burning forever in hell.

Q: But doesn't the Bible speak of ”unquenchable fire?”

Matthew 3:12...
"He will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

So, are the righteous saved going to be sitting on the outside walls of the New Jerusalem, watching the wicked burn, throughout eternity, eating pop corn, for entertainment?

A: They will burn with (unquenchable fire) that can not be put out, until they are consumed.

Jude 1:7 The results of the fire are eternal, not the fire itself

Q: Rev 20:10 Doesn't “tormented for ever and ever” mean endless time?

Exodus 21:6 ....
"His master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever."

1 Samuel 1:22 "shall abide forever"
1 Samuel 1:22 "as long as he lives"

For ever and ever is a biblical expression which means until the end of the age, not necessarily an unending length of time.

so I won't go to hell simply because I don't accept jesus as my savior? that shoots Pascal's wager all to hell then, does it not. why accept jesus if I won't go to hell anyway?

I really like your perspective , your willing to make a sacrifice , for the overall benefit of all life .

I may not agree with what you say , but can I agree with what you feel .

There is no hell below us or anywhere else; nor will there be.

I'm not sure what the percentage is, but the vast, vast majority of Christians believe in everlasting fire/ torment. But that does not make it true.

What a black eye it gives God, though. And this false doctrine makes God into a monster.

And some feel, a Genesis flood does, too.

I guess we would have had to have been there, to experience the nature of people back then. If indeed they were very wicked.

There is no hell below us or anywhere else; nor will there be.

I'm not sure what the percentage is, but the vast, vast majority of Christians believe in everlasting fire/ torment. But that does not make it true.

What a black eye it gives God, though. And this false doctrine makes God into a monster.

And some feel, a Genesis flood does, too.

I guess we would have had to have been there, to experience the nature of people back then. If indeed they were very wicked.

As I wrote in an earlier post, this Christian jargon "accepting Jesus" is a distortion. It almost makes it seem like we have to stoop down to accept something unpalatable to us. But what truly can be unpalatable is our admitting and confessing our unworthiness. None of us can live up to the degree of holiness that God is.

His invitation TO US is "Come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart."

Ownership is our biggest problem , it gives us a reason to fight , and to kill.

Its an illusion . For a complex organism to survive , it needs a self . It needs to protect , nourish , and sustain , a body that cant live on its own . The self makes it all possible . The drawback is that the self , becomes more real , than the environment that put it there to begin with .

That definitely has a ring of truth to it. I think the malady is called egocentricity. "It's all about me." The world revolves around ME.

Taint so.

In the North American "Great Awakening" revivals of of the mid 1700's and early 1800s, fear of hell fire was heavily emphasized. And people were "converted." But by what? The love of God?

The scripture saith "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." And that is what first struck me when I first ever opened a Bible as a young person. It was Psalms, chapter 1. I trembled as I read:

"The way of the ungodly shall perish." (vs 6)

Let's look at the Hebrew word translated "perish," in Psalms 1...ä·vad'

According to the Lexicon and concordance on the website, Blue Letter Bible, ä·vad' means:

perish, vanish, be destroyed
perish, die, be exterminated
to blot out, do away with, cause to vanish

I do not see anything in these meanings to suggest in the least, eternal torture/ torment. Do you?

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. That whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

The Roman and Greek pagan beliefs of the immortality of the soul that crept into (not the apostalic) but the early catholic church, and then into Protestantism, are with us until this day. They persist because they became concretized as dogma.

The scripture states that eternal life is "the gift of God." Humans do not naturally possess eternal life. Only in God, is there eternal life. He does not give the gift of eternal life to those who will be judged as evil doers/ unbelievers.

They simply will cease to exist.

the 1700 and 1800s. ah yes, that period of time when a hundred million native americans were murdered or had their lands stolen by mostly Christians. those ungodly folks sure did perish even while fighting for their lives and those of their loved ones. in the name of god excused as god's will?

the world would simply be a safer place if religion could just be eradicated from human minds.

just goes to the point that being a xtian does nothing to prevent evil doing that has been going on for centuries. and of course with majority of convicted felons that populate our prisons being xtian there is nothing to suggest that it has slowed much. the world would simply be a safer place if religion could just be eradicated from human minds.

Too true, what you say above.

I have been in a debate on a forum thread about such things. And here is what one self proclaimed "orthodox" Christian wrote about this God, whom they believe will give the wicked bodies made out of asbestos, so they can burn forever. I agree. This picture of God is not a good one......

"[Walt],you are implying that if God operates in a way that is different than what you would expect, then He is not worthy of your adoration, worship, or love. So what if orthodox Christians are right about this? You sound like you are prepared to reject the God of orthodox Christianity who is a God of both infinite love and infinite justice, infinite grace and infinite wrath. If righteous wrath is truly a part of God's being, do you reject this God?"

Let's be fair. A millennium of divine-ordered genocide probably has more to do with God looking like a monster than anything else.

It's right there in the book. :/

We're not stone , we're organic organisms .

We dig toxins from the earth , that the earth has protected us from for millions of years . We love what we can do with it , but it was there for our own protection .

There was plenty of other ways to get our kicks on top of the earth . What is free , and abundant , cant be monopolized .

Its killing us , its killing everything on our planet , we know it , and yet we cling to it , as if it was our salvation .

We're not so smart , we're typical animals .

God has been pulled , and stretched , like taffy . The title is like candy , it doesn't mean anything anymore . Nature , and universe , has remained consistant , it will always be what it was before .

Before we came along , and distorted it .