A few weeks ago, an atheist visitor to this site posted something that I’ve heard many a person say who was raised in some form of Christianity as to why they no longer believe in it. I’ve also read quotes from several famous atheists and agnostics over time expressing the same basic complaint. “Hell” as traditionally taught in mainstream Christianity is too absurd, too cruel, and too unconscionable to have come from any real Supreme Being of the universe . And you know what? I would agree with them.

In the following article series I will endeavor to dig deeper into this subject and hopefully show that one does not need to throw the “baby out with the bath water”. Once the truth of hell is known, the God of the Bible should no longer be seen as a vindictive monster, but the designer of a sensible master plan for his creation.

I would ask all readers of this to please bear with me in my writing on such a broad-scoping theological subject such as this. I will try to do my best, but I know that I will probably fall short of the high bar that many who write for this site and have works posted here are capable of doing. With that said, here we go.

The False View of Hell

By Ron Shockley

Part 1 - The Objections are right

On many an occasion I’ve heard those who call themselves Agnostics or Atheists say that one of if not the primary reason that they can’t believe in the Judeo-Christian God is because of the traditional teaching of hell. They refuse to believe that an all powerful, omniscient, omnipotent, God that is suppose to be the supreme example of love and justice in the universe, would torture his creation - his very own “children”, for all eternity. And this compliant is an extremely valid one. Why indeed? Why would punishment for a finite amount of sin, carry a punishment that was infinite - never ending for all eternity? How could any loving Father, much less an all perfect Supreme God and creator of everything in the universe, torture his own imperfect children forever with no hope of any kind of reprieve? These are not just good questions and valid complaints in need of an answer. These are critically important truths that reveal the character of such a God. How could a God that torments his children forever be worthy of our love? Would not fear and contempt be a more likely response?

I must admit that if I truly believed that Scripture actually taught that the God described as “loving” within in it, also sent his creation to an endless eternity of suffering in hell, I would have to jettison a belief in such a God and become an agnostic - for such teachings would have to be a totally incorrect view of such a deity. As I would think that any intelligent, compassionate person who honestly examines the ramifications of an eternity of torture and what it says about the character of the one administering it would as well. How can one not see that eternal torture even done by the all-powerful God of the universe wouldn’t still be extremely cruel and overly vengeful?

Sure those that typically defend the traditional view of hell will say something along the lines that God as a perfect sinless being cannot tolerate sin. Therefore He must punish those that have chosen to remain in their sin for all eternity with punishment over all eternity. But does that really make sense? It just doesn’t seem to be justifiable in all possible situations. Granted a lot of people might feel that the poster boys of ultimate evil in human history like Hitler and other dictators who tortured and killed millions deserve to go to hell. And maybe it might even for those such as an unrepentant, sadistic serial killer. Yet while no one would deny that these people deserve punishment for their crimes, how long in horrible punishment would be really be justifiable? A thousand years, a hundred thousand years, a million, a billion? And the much bigger issue is the question concerning good people in other cultures who never heard of the God of Israel? Does a good person born on an island in the south Pacific in the time before missionaries deserve eternal torture in hell because he only knew and believed in an idol god in the shape of a tiki statue outside his tribal priest’s hut? When truthfully examined, the only real, sane answer to such a question must be an emphatic NO! Not to mention that we humans usually view torture repulsive and beyond acceptable conduct for civilized culture. How could human morals and sentiments be more compassionate than the one supreme God in all the universe?

Thoughts such as these should logically come from any open-minded thinker really putting honest thought into the intelligence possessed by a being capable of the creation of the entire universe. A being that intelligent and powerful would be beyond the pettiness, selfishness, and vindictiveness of putting the pinnacle of his creation through suffering and torture over all of eternity for not loving and obeying his rules. Rules which God himself would have had to put in place for his creation to follow - knowing full well of their possibility of not abiding by them. Honest objections such as this are continually offered up by many theists and non-theists alike. Here are just a few interesting quotes from those who have earnestly thought about this very subject:

• “A civilized society looks with horror upon the abuse and torture of children or adults. Even where capital punishment is practiced, the aim is to implement it as mercifully as possible. Are we to believe then that a holy God - our heavenly Father - is less just than the courts of men?” - Sidney Hatch

• “Imagine such a doctrine, you may; but seriously believe in it you never can. The thought is too shocking even to human nature; how much more abhorrent, then, must it be from divine perfection. The Creator must have made all his creatures finally to be happy; and could never form any one whose end he foreknew would be misery everlasting. We can be sure of nothing if we are not sure of this”. – Bishop Newton (1704-1782)

• “An idea, which has terrified millions, claims that some of us will go to a place called Hell, where we will suffer eternal torture. This does not scare me because, when I try to imagine a Mind behind this universe, I cannot conceive that Mind, usually called “God,” as totally mad. I mean, guys, compare that “God” with the worst monsters you can think of - Adolph Hitler, Joe Stalin, that sort of guy. None of them ever inflicted more than finite pain on their victims. Even de Sade, in his sado-masochistic fantasy novels, never devised an unlimited torture. The idea that the Mind of Creation (if such exists) wants to torture some of its critters for endless infinities of infinities seems too absurd to take seriously. Such a deranged Mind could not create a mud hut, much less the exquisitely mathematical universe around us.” – Robert Anton Wilson

• “When all has been considered, it seems to me to be the irresistible intuition that infinite punishment for finite sin would be unjust, and therefore wrong. We feel that even weak and erring Man would shrink from such an act. And we cannot conceive of God as acting on a lower standard of right and wrong.” - Lewis Carroll (author of Alice in Wonderland), “Eternal Punishment,” Diversions and Digressions of Lewis Carrol

• “And yet this same Deity says to me, “resist not evil; pray for those that despitefully use you; love your enemies, but I will eternally damn mine.” It seems to me that even gods should practice what they preach.” – Robert Ingersoll

• “For me it is in-explainable how a person who holds the orthodox view [of eternal torment] can at any time have a glad moment in this life. He is constantly mingling with people whose final destiny will be to be tormented eternally without end…To me it is even more in-explainable that such an ‘orthodox’ person can expect even a happy moment in eternity, when he knows that contemporaneously with his blessed estate continues the endless torment and agony of innumerable millions of the accursed. Can he, if he loves his neighbors as himself, yes, even if he has just a little bit of human love and is not solely a selfish wretch, have even a single happy moment?” - John Persone, Swedish Lutheran Bishop

• “I see the doctrine of hell as being probably the major stumbling block to the return of a de-Christianized world to Christ. The doctrine of eternal damnation, more than any other teaching of the church, produces atheism. If you examine closely all the big name atheists—like Feuerback and Nietzsche—it is this teaching more than any other that offended them and turned them away. Out of these famous atheists came all the movements that have caused so much hell here and now. If God is to practice what He preaches, then it makes it hard to believe in eternal damnation.”- Unknown

While I find it encouraging that so many have seen the fallacy of the idea that God would lock people away in hell for all eternity. I also feel that it is extremely unfortunate that so many others turn totally away from a belief in God altogether. For the official record we have of the Judeo-Christian God (most commonly known as The Bible) actually tells a rather different story than what most people have been taught about hell as mainstream believers. Taken as a whole and viewed using the cultural world-view of the Hebrew people it was written by and about, instead of the cultural world-view of the Greeks who conquered them and later melded their philosophical ideas into early Christianity, Scripture plainly tells us that hell is not a place of conscious existence – much less eternal torment. Even the softer, more modern, more politically correct concept of hell as an “eternal separation” from God in some dark solitary corner of the universe is contrary to the plain facts of what the Bible describes.

coming next week in Part 2, “Scripture shows man was designed a fully mortal creature - not an immortal one“.