Would you send your daughter or son to burn in hell for millions of years...

[cynatnite]

because they didn't love you or believe in you?

Fucking insane, isn't it?

[ZombieHorde]

1. No, I would not send my son or daughter to burn in hell.

[LuvNewcastle]

2. No one deserves to spend eternity in Hell.

That is a twisted, sadistic belief.

[hyphenate]

39. Oh, there are a few I wouldn't mind

spending eternity burning in hell. Among those I would include would be Dickhead, Rove, Garrido, Fritzl, and any more like them.

[Zoeisright]

3. That's what finally turned me against religion.

That and spending years and years in the presence of 'Christians' who were some of the meanest mfers ever to come down the pike.

[Anakin Skywalker]

4. .

.

[get the red out]

7. agree!

I couldn't make that come out right in my mind when I was a kid.

[indepat]

11. What really turned me against organized religion were all those mfers who wore Jesus on their sleeve

but joined in the chant for pre-emptive war and gloried in the death, carnage and destruction that followed. If every one of them don't go to hell, there is no need/rationale for a hell imo. :P

[HysteryDiagnosis]

5. Isn't fair, is it. n/t

[saltpoint]

6. Does seem a bit harsh.

[whathehell]

8. No...and it's what got me to stop believing in Hell.

[BanzaiBonnie]

9. I caught onto that one when I was about 8 or 9

I remember exactly when it happened. In Sunday school we had just sung:

Jesus loves the little children,
All the children of the world.
Red and yellow, black and white,
All are precious in His sight.
Jesus loves the little children of the world.


And I was thinking back to what my teacher had earlier said about people going to hell and it just didn't fit. I started questioning and never stopped.

[Sam1]

14. Good for you!

[Jester Messiah]

10. If God were head of a nation...

We would've liberated the shit out of it by now.

[silverlib]

12. "Good Goats"

written by a Catholic priest -

not all Christians are "fucking insane," just as all liberals are not open minded, looking for common ground.

"This book lovingly and insistently reveals the fatal flaws--and the societal dangers--associated with the the all too popular notion among many Christians that God is love, and God is good. . . and yet God will banish most of humankind to eternal damnation.
The book is written from a Roman Catholic perspective, but it also provides a wonderful antidote to the vengeful God of Protestant Fundamentalism."

[SidneyCarton]

13. The common conceptualization of Hell is oversimplified and hyperreductive.

We create our own hell, within ourselves.

[Qutzupalotl]

17. Thank you. I think you're exactly right.

I liken the "eternal" aspect to a monkey trap: you'll stay there until you learn to let go.

[SidneyCarton]

18. Precisely.

The idea of the "many mansions" spoken of by Christ is that, in the end, one will settle in the afterlife in a place one is comfortable with. One man's heaven may well be another man's hell, and vice-versa.

[Vehl]

15. Infinite Punisment for finite "Sin"s do not make any sense

Especially when most of the "sin"s revolve around not believing such claims in the first place.

[Igel]

19. Precisely.

That's why there are people who are Xian but do not believe in infinite punishment.

Permanent punishment, sure. But not on-going and infinite.

Note that "punishment" can refer to a process or an event.

[Sam1]

16. Not insane just vengeful - but then there are a lot of vengeful

people in the world. At least God as not threatened us with rape.

[moobu2]

20. I wouldn't want to send them to a heaven either

after millions of years of it, it would be a nightmare, a never ending horror. But anyway, the religious elite use the idea of everlasting punishment in hell as a manipulative tool to control people in the same way some thoughtless parents use the threat of a boogie man if the child doesn't behave. There's no such thing as heaven or hell. Obviously, when we die, we die.... the end.

[SidneyCarton]

22. Such assumes a static eternity without the potential for growth or change.

[Igel]

21. "God is love" is commonly uttered.

"God is righteous," rather less so.

The two can be made to fit together rather nicely. It requires tweaking the definitions to make them compatible.

It also rather involves disposing of some pre-Xian beliefs and challenging papal authority. But most people who are Xians and not Catholics still genuflect fairly frequently before the Pope --they just don't realize it.

[Odin2005]

23. It's beyong insane, it's positively SICK.

[TreasonousBastard]

24. Knock yourself out and get the attaboys from...

the peanut gallery, but the fact is that not that many Christians believe in that sort of hell and eternal damnation.

I blame Dante for perpetuating the myth, but there are, admittedly, a lot of Christians who like the idea of a place in the afterlife for those who didn't get justice here on earth.

(just as there's a lot of liberals here who would LOVE to have a hell for Cheney-- it's the same sort of emotional pathology)

[Realityhack]

25. You might want to be more precise about what you mean by "not that many"

Percentage wise perhapses. Raw numbers wise... I would call them a lot. More than enough to worry me.

[TreasonousBastard]

27. Why would it worry you?

[Realityhack]

29. Them not it.

they worry me because they have a very high tendency to be the same group that wants to turn the nation into a theocracy.
They also by definition believe in infinite punishment for a rather small 'crime' so I see that as a potential issue with my desire for a reasonable, rational, justice system.

[TreasonousBastard]

30. Feh. They've had little success so far, and whatever they've had is...

largely window dressing.

Just keep paying your ACLU dues and keep up the fight or they WILL take over.

(But that's true of everything.)

[Realityhack]

31. I think we may disagree on their degree of success...

and how significant that success is. But you are correct that it is not worth every second of my life worrying about it (and I don't)

[moobu2]

26. I dont think that statement is true.

All the polls I've seen in recent years show a majority of Americans believe in hell.

[TreasonousBastard]

28. Press them on it and you'll find what they really believe..

shortened version...

"Do you believe in hell?"

"Oh yes."

"So, Doctor Rabinowitz and his son Abe, your son's best friend, and their whole family is going to hell?"

"Well, uh, yeah, but, well, I guess so, but that just doesn't seem right... Maybe..."

Belief in hell, like so many other things, is a mile wide but skin deep.

[hyphenate]

40. Well, in my view

I am very much an atheist, but in my imagination, which can be very vivid, I DO have a place that would revel in hell everlasting for some people. Since I am a creative person, that "hell" is also very creative. :)

OTOH, I like to imagine individual hells tailor-made during these people's lifetimes more often. And since they are not dead, the tortuous existence I imagine is just more satisfying.

[rug]

32. That is insane but that is not the position.

[darkstar3]

33. '...but that is not [my] position.'

There, fixed it.

[rug]

34. Read up on hell. You'll learn the position.

As to the OP, it's a {deliberate} misconception.

[darkstar3]

35. Oh, I did all the reading on hell I needed to do

in the 18 years in which I was a Pentecostal. As to the OPs position, it fits perfectly with what I was taught as a child:

We are all 'God's children', but
Only those who accept Jesus as their personal lord and savior will live forever in paradise with him, and
All others will be told 'depart from me, ye workers of iniquity' come Judgement Day, and cast into the lake of fire with the devils whose work they performed for all eternity.

This is NOT a fringe belief. This is status quo in rural MO and many other places throughout the US. This is taught from the pulpit quite frequently at my old church, at the two other churches my friends from back home still attend, and every church I visited in my area prior to leaving the faith. The two exceptions? The Unitarians, and the Presbyterians (though I was only there for 2 Sundays, so based on Calvin I'm not ruling them out.)

My own mother believes I am going to hell because I no longer believe in Jesus. She told me this to my face. Of course, this is nothing new to her, since my father was hell-bound until I was in my teens. And before you say that's an assumption, you should know that I asked my mother point blank after Sunday School one day if dear old non-church-going dad would go to hell, and her response was "I hope not, that's why I pray for him every day, and you should too."

What sick-ass people tell an 8-year-old that daddy's gonna burn in hell if he gets hit by a car before he accepts Jesus? Pentecostals, that's who.

So according to the doctrine of thousands of Christians in the US, God sends his own children to hell for not believing that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Light. While this may not be YOUR position, it is a position that many Christians do hold, and stating that it is a misconception is flat-out wrong.

[rug]

36. Which Pentecostal group?

As a presumably now enlightened person you should realize that it is error to extrapolate from the particular to the general, as the OP does. Besides, the beliefs you describe of whatever group you grew up in represent, at best, a distinct minority position not shared by hundreds of millions of other believers.

The OP is flamebait fueled by straw.

[darkstar3]

37. .

As a presumably intelligent person you should realize that it is error to assume specifics from commonly misconstrued generalities. As for the beliefs I describe being representative of a distinct minority, that may be true worldwide (and I certainly can't prove it one way or the other), but in my state it is the exact opposite.

Pertaining to the OP being flamebait, you DO realize that no specific group was mentioned, so no generalization was made? Oh sure, you can take it as a broadside at Christianity, and certainly you have, but you have no way of proving or even knowing whether the OP referred to a specific subset of Christian psychos who recently got his goat, or just Christianity in general. But of course, that's not the point.

Since I seem to have 'strayed somewhat from my original brief', I'd like to get back on point and state why I started this whole dust-up in the first place. I simply wished to point out that you can't dismiss the OPs point by saying that no one believes in what he talks about. Now if you want to call it flamebait, that's your bid'ness, but please don't assume that just because you don't believe in hell, other Christians agree with you.

ETA: Assembly, if you're interested, but also many of the splinter churches based in Assembly doctrine.

[cynatnite]

38. I was raised on fire and brimstone...if you don't believe...hell is that way...

and that's where you will stay...forever. Majority of people I know in my life truly believe that and I question their sanity...anyone's sanity, who loves a god that claims to love us, who will send us to hell for an eternity.

This is what a huge chunk of Americans believe...especially those 20 percenters who listen to Limbaugh and are Palin's lapdogs. They truly believe this insane shit.

[rug]

41. That's a distinctly minority view of hell.

Unless you're more specific that's quite a broad brush.

The convential view of hell is quite interesting, both psychologically and theologically. It has nothing to do with fire or damnation but with choice.

As to rightwingers, their view of religion is as deep as their view of clothing.

[iris27]

42. It is a majority position in the personal experience of most atheists posting here.

It is what I was taught growing up Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. It is also what is taught to Wisconsin Synod Lutherans (my brother-in-law), at least one branch of Presbyterians (my high school English teacher and one of my great-aunts), at least one branch of Methodists (my neighbors growing up), and all of the random grab-bag of Assembly of God/pentecostal/non-denominational churches my friends have attended.

Do you realize how condescending it is to tell people "oh, that's a minority view of hell" when 90+% of Christians they've ever encountered believe it? When their own immediate family has threatened them with it? It really doesn't matter to the personal experience of an individual that John Doe in San Francisco and Jane Smith in Boston believe that hell is simply "absence from God", when your own mother is telling you that "it's a good thing there is no sadness in heaven, so I won't miss you when you're burning in hell for all eternity".

[rug]

43. A personal experience is not a theological tenet.

The fact of the matter it is both a minority and an outdated view of hell.

To take such a view and then to extrapolate it to religion as a whole, while inferring politcal meaning, is frankly stupid. Not to be condescending.

There are other places and ways to discuss how one's experience with religion was horrid. But that's not what the OP - or you - wrote.

[iris27]

59. It doesn't have to be YOUR theological tenet to be a theological tenet that's

held by many Christians. Whether or not they are the majority is frankly irrelevant. I disagree with you on that but the hard numbers aren't really what matters. However many fire-and-brimstone Christians exist, there are or were enough of them to have made the idea of fiery, everlasting torment pervasive throughout Western popular culture, and again, for many of us, they are the majority of the Christians we have interacted with. None of us believes that ALL Christians share that belief. But enough of them do that it is not unreasonable for us discuss/disagree with/mock the idea of a God who is love allowing any of his creations to suffer in agony for all eternity.

If the OP had commented on a much, much less common belief among subsects of Christianity - say, snake-handling - I would agree with you that that was a distinctly minority position. I would still not think it appropriate for you to say "that is not the position" -- THE position -- like it's the only one. I would still think it condescending for you to tell people "read up on it...you'll learn the position", when there are practicing Christians, even if a tiny minority, who do indeed hold it as a tenet of their faith.

[darkstar3]

44. Convential?

'The convential view of hell is quite interesting, both psychologically and theologically. It has nothing to do with fire or damnation but with choice.'

I think what you meant was conventional, so I'll ask: By whose convention? What Christian group got together and decided that hell was one standard idea that had nothing to do with fire or damnation?

Oh, right, they didn't.

You know very well that there is no such thing as a conventional view of hell, or there wouldn't be so many Christians who disagree about its nature. You also know very well that the commonly held idea of hell in Western culture IS about fire and damnation.

If you want me or anyone else to even come close to accepting your assertion that this view of hell is a 'distinct minority', then it's time to put up or shut up. Name for me please any list of denominations that believe hell is NOT about fire and damnation, and then provide any scientifically reliable membership information that comes close to proving these people are the majority.

If you can't, your claim in #43:
'To take such a view and then to extrapolate it to religion as a whole, while inferring politcal meaning, is frankly stupid.'
applies directly to yourself, and you are simply projecting to the rest of this board.

[rug]

45. Start with paragraph 1036

of the Catechism of that Catholic Church. That's one billion adherents.

Now go to the Eastern Churches. That's another 300,000,000.

Now go to the Anglican Communion. There's another 75,000,000.

I'll give you the Westover Baptist Church and Jimmy Swaggart, which you appear to consider representative.

You can do the rest of your homework yourself.

[darkstar3]

46. You should go back and read that Catechism.

Paragraph 1036 states only that scripture supports the idea of hell, and that hell should be motivation for you to choose Christ, as well as motivation for you to convert others to Christ. source

This paragraph states in no way what the nature of hell is, but rather uses hell as a scare tactic much like Pascal's wager.

What I find very interesting about your selective post is that you skipped paragraph 1035 just above, which states, and I quote:

The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, "eternal fire."617 The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.

'Eternal fire' is believed to be the nature of hell by Catholics, which by the CIA world factbook and your own admission make up over 1 billion adherents, or more than half of worldwide Christians.

So not only are you guilty of selective reading and interpretation, you are also flat-out wrong in your belief that 'burn in hell for millions of years' is a 'distinct minority' opinion among Christians. The majority of Christians, Catholics, believe that non-believers will burn in eternal fire.

Edit: Putting back the '617' reference I tried to remove for board clarity, but that obviously was important.

[rug]

47. Actually, no.

Did you fail to see quotation marks?

The punishment is not fire but separation. Furthermore, since hell is outside time the phrase "millions of years" is as meaningless as the rest of the drivel you recall from your days of "belief".

If you bother to read up on the subject, rather than recall your trauma, no one is sent to hell but arrives there from a series of choices.

If you prefer, we can talk about the state of education after I tell you about the bear of a teacher I had in third grade.

[darkstar3]

48. Go and READ

The quotation marks taken from the source are there because they are a quote from the Bible itself. I deleted from my post the reference '617', which made no sense in the context of this forum but points to a reference on the source website where they got the 'eternal fire' quote from, and in fact, it is several references.

As for separation, that is not the only punishment of hell, but the 'chief punishment' as you saw from my quote.

Once again, you read selectively and dismiss what doesn't fit with your original generalization.

ETA: 'no one is sent to hell but arrives there from a series of choices.'
Yes, and no child is ever spanked, but rather receives their spanking from a series of bad choices.
This argument completely ignores the fact that the parents in this situation are also making a choice. They could have chosen from a myriad of ways to correct their child, but chose the draconian and violent one. Similarly, since hell is a punishment and God is the parental figure enforcing it, it is God who has made the draconian and violent choice and therefore is responsible for sending people to an eternity of suffering.

[rug]

49. If you understand the teaching on hell to be damnation by God into a physical eternal fire,

you do not even know what you do not believe.

[darkstar3]

50. I have sources, do you?

I have researched what I do not believe so that I can be educated when I discuss it with others. Do you know what you believe? Do you know what your fellow congregational adherents believe? Are you sure? How?

Show me the sources, and I will consider them.

[rug]

51. I gave you one, When you finish reading it, get back to me.

I will consider giving you more.

[darkstar3]

52. In other words you have no other sources,

but you reserve the right to continue to disagree with me in the face of the evidence. You have every right to do so, but disagreement doesn't make you correct, and until such time as you can prove your assertion that the doctrine of hell as 'eternal fire' is a distinct minority view among Christians with sources, you're just blowing smoke.

Edit: word choice.

[rug]

53. Here, live it up.

PETER LOMBARD, IV sent., dist. xliv, xlvi, and his commentators; ST. THOMAS, I:64 and Supplement, and his commentators; SUAREZ, De Angelis, VIII; PATUZZI, De futuro impiorum statu (Verona, 1748-49; Venice, 1764); PASSAGLIA, De aeternitate poenarum deque igne inferno (Rome, 1854); CLARKE, Eternal Punishment and Infinite Love in The Month, XLIV (1882), 1 sqq., 195 sqq., 305 sqq.; RIETH, Der moderne Unglaube und die ewigen Strafen in Stimmen aus Maria-Laach, XXXI (1886), 25 sqq., 136 sqq.; SCHEEBEN-KÜPPER, Die Mysterien des Christenthums (2nd ed., Freiburg, 1898), sect. 97; TOURNEBIZE, Opinions du jour sur les peines d'Outre-tombe (Paris, 1899); JOS. SACHS, Die ewige Dauer der Höllenstrafen (Paderborn, 1900); BILLOT, De novissimis (Rome, 1902); PESCH, Praelect. dogm., IX (2nd. ed., Freiburg, 1902), 303 sqq.; HURTER, Compendium theol. dogm., III (11th ed., Innsbruck, 1903), 603 sqq.; STUFLER, Die Heiligkeit Gottes und der ewige Tod (Innsbruck, 1903); SCHEEBEN-ATZBERGER, Handbuch der kath. Dogmatik, IV (Freiburg, 1903), sect. 409 sqq.; HEINRICH-GUTBERLET, Dogmatische Theologie, X (Münster, 1904), sect. 613 sqq.; BAUTZ, Die Hölle (2nd. ed., Mainz, 1905); STUFLER, Die Theorie der freiwilligen Verstocktheit und ihr Verhältnis zur Lehre des hl. Thomas von Aquin (Innsbruck, 1905); various recent manuals of dogmatic theology (POHLE, SPECHT, etc.); HEWIT, Ignis Æternus in The Cath. World, LXVII (1893), 1426; BRIDGETT in Dub. Review, CXX (1897), 56-69; PORTER, Eternal Punishment in The Month, July, 1878, p. 338

That will get you up to speed to 1913.

What have you got besides the PTL Club, your childhood memories and the CIA Factbook?

[darkstar3]

54. Well since i can't click on any of your references,

I tried to Google the last one. Here's the first link that came up: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07207a.htm.

As you can see, this 'Catholic Encyclopedia' is yet another source that shows the doctrine of hell as a place of eternal punishment and fire for those who are 'not worthy of eternal life.'

I have no idea what PTL means.

Aside from all of that, the Catechism of the Catholic Church is considered to be the authoritative educational document on what the Catholic Church believes and institutes in doctrine. If you disagree with it, that's fine, but Holy Mother Church does believe in an a place of eternal fire where non-believers will be sent by God, and they call it hell, and you can read more about that in the source link that I posted above.

[rug]

55. You either read extremely fast or you haven't read at all.

Or you are blindly clinging to your belief as to what believers believe.

"We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbour or against ourselves: "He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren. To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called Hell."

Paragraph 1033, CCC.

[darkstar3]

56. So now you change your argument?

We were talking about the nature of hell, and now you want to talk about how people get there?

It IS true that Catholics (and Lutherans, BTW) believe that people send themselves to hell, I can't argue with that since it is clear in the Catechisms of both their faiths. But now you're arguing over the word 'send' in the OP, as opposed to your original argument on the nature of hell. Way to move the goalposts.

As to the actual doctrinal belief that humans send themselves to hell by their own choices, this is simply an attempt by believers to absolve the parental God figure of his responsibility in the internment of billions of souls in a place of eternal torment. See my ETA in post #48 for clarification.

[rug]

57. No, it's the same point. pay attention.

[darkstar3]

58. Yeah, we're through here.

You have consistently shown that you are interested only in parsing the statements made by others in an attempt to dismiss their argument rather than answering or caring about substance. I'm sure it's a fun game for you, but I find it boring and tedious, so I wish you good day, sir.

[iris27]

60. Wow, rug. Way to

be a prick.

[rug]

61. I get that way when I feel I'm talking to Orly Taitz.

[olegramps]

62. You haven't provided any sources except your unsupported opinion.

Now just where could all these Christian have gotten the notion that people condemned to hell where not being punished with fire:

Matthew 13:42: "And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."

Matt 25:41: "Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." This passage relates to Jesus' judgment of all the world.

Mark 9:43-48: And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched." The reference to fire is repeated three more times in the passage for emphasis.

Luke 16:24: "And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame." This is a plea described as coming from an inhabitant of Hell.

Revelation 20:13-15: "...hell delivered up the dead which were in them...And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire."

Revelation 21:8: "But the fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." Brimstone is sulphur. In order for sulphur to form a lake, it must be molten. Thus, its temperature must be at or below 444.6 °C or 832 °F.

[rug]

63. That's right, the Bible is based on the melting point of sulphur.

Read through the thread if you want sources to the understanding of hell. That is, if you want to be disabused of your biases.

[darkstar3]

64. Now THAT'S comedy

'disabused of your biases' :rofl:

You provide sources that debunk your own interpretation of hell, call me 'Orly Taitz' when I point that fact out to you (still don't know :wtf: that's supposed to mean, except that you're a jackass), and then proceed to throw around the word BIAS?

You are a parody of yourself. You are living proof of Poe's Law.

[rug]

65. Oh hi Orly. Tell me your views on reincarnation.

[darkstar3]

66. I'm sorry, were you talking to me?

Oh, I get it, living in your own deluded little world makes you think you're actually funny.

Here's a news flash: we're not laughing with you, we're laughing at you. That is, after all, what happens when you make a total ass of yourself.

[rug]

67. Exactly how many people do you have in your head?

[darkstar3]

68. "FUSHTA!!"

:rofl:

[rug]

69. I see your 18 years in the Assembly of God didn't keep you out of the movies.

[olegramps]

72. Where in the world are you coming from?

This is I would think in the most authorative source that Christians could look to.

[rug]

74. If you think the Bible is a chemistry text you know as little about religion as you do science.

[NotTheist]

70. Make them suffer super bad!

No, I would send them for billions of hundreds of trillions of years to be brutally tortured, humiliated, beaten, raped, punished, abused, mocked and insist other painful degrading things happen to them.

[deutsey]

71. That's why I don't believe in that notion of the divine.

If God is omniscient, God knows everything.

If God is omnipotent, God is all powerful.

If God is omnipresent, God is everywhere.

Given those attributes, God would know that by creating the universe billions and billions of his creatures were going to be doomed to spend eternity suffering in hell. God would also know that there would be an evil power that would deceive God's creatures and lure them away from God's love and unwittingly toward hell. And to counterbalance this threat to God's creation, the best God can do is come up with a plan for salvation shrouded in debate, obscurity, and contradiction that happened in a remote part of the Roman Empire?

Sounds like a weird way to set up a universe if you're a loving God. That's why I have problems with that fundamentalist notion of God. I do, however, believe in a divine power underlying all life throughout the cosmos, something similar to the Advaita Vedanta view of Brahman.

There are many Christians, however, who accept a universalist theology of salvation available to everyone at any time. It's not fair to lump all Christians together in the fire and brimstone crowd.

I'm not providing this article as evidence of my claim, but this article is on how a big-time evangelical has said God called him to espouse universal salvation:

http://www.uuworld.org/life/articles/145503.shtml


SNIP

Watching a news report one night in the spring of 1996, he was getting worked up about the genocide in Rwanda. His assumption was that the victims were bound for hell, persecuted yet unsaved. Feeling angry at God, and guilty that he himself wasn’t doing anything about it, he recalls, he fell into a sort of reproachful prayer: “God, I don’t know how you can sit on your throne there in heaven and let those poor people drop to the ground hungry, heartbroken, and lost, and just randomly suck them into hell.”

He heard God answer, “We’re not sucking those dear people into hell. Can’t you see they’re already there—in the hell you have created for them and continue to create for yourselves and others all over the planet? We redeemed and reconciled all of humanity at Calvary.”

Everything Pearson thought he knew was true started unraveling, as he began to realize: The whole world is already saved, whether they know it or not—not just professed Christians in good standing, but Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists, gay people. There is no hell after you die. And he didn’t have the good sense to keep it to himself.

SNIP

[Deep13]

73. My mother would. nt