God should not let people roast in Hell for eternity

[RickyRetardo]

There is no good reason why God should have people punished by burning in Hell forever.

If you did something wrong while you were alive on earth, that might mean you and the universe would benefit from some punishment to condition you against making the same mistakes in the afterlife. But there is no act you could do on this earth that is equivalent to burning someone forever.

It's not possible to commit an act this evil within the constraints of physics. Even physics limits how much you can make a person suffer.

If roasting in hell forever is your punishment, it means that your punishment is objectively disproportionate to any crime you may have committed. And if God punishes people disproportionately, he certainly cannot be "merciful". Merciful means letting people off easy and forgiving them. Not giving them infinite punishment for non-infinite transgressions.

If noticing this means that I will end up burning in Hell forever, then that itself conditions me against God. I don't choose to feel like roasting in the lake of fire for 999999999999999999 times infinity years is disproportionate for whatever you do or don't do in the span of the few years between birth and death. It just seems very obvious. I figured that the punishment should at worst be proportionate to the crime (and Jesus in the New Testament is very merciful--let he who is without sin cast the first stone. But in the Old Testament, it says that God creates both good and evil--and while people may say he's merciful, if you actually read the Old Testament he does not seem very merciful at all--plus, despite what Jesus says in the NT about how no "jot or tittle" will change, Jesus DOES change the Old Testament laws (and this is a big part of why Jews today don't consider him to hav been the Messiah). Otherwise the Christian penalty for adultery or apostasy would be stoning to death, which is not merciful--and God would still demand the sacrifices of animals, which also is not merciful).

I can't believe in a God that roasts anyone eternally, especially not just for not accepting Jesus Christ. It seems like a terrible belief with the only benefit being it scares people into not being evil. Aside from that there is no actual benefit in letting people suffer forever. It's worse than even murder. But lying to people that you'll roast them forever could theoretically make some sense I guess--however, not actually doing it.

Even then I don't think it really makes that much difference; most Jamaicans are Christians and Jamaica has a lot of violence. Most Japanese and Nordics are agnostics and non-religious (the Nordics might be nominally Christian but they don't generally literally believe the whole Bible or in eternal Hell) and Japan is one of the least violent countries, same as Norway or Sweden. So evidently the threat of Hell doesn't really make a difference to whether people commit grave sins or not. It seems that violence is more likely caused by hopelessness and feeling like violence is the only solution, or by mental disorders, or both.

If you took a bunch of Japanese or Nordic kids and subjected them to the slum conditions that exist in the most violent parts of Jamaica, they probably wouldn't grow up to be so peaceful.

Another idea: now, most Christians don't believe they do this, but if God or Jesus after you die comes and says, "you sinned but I am going to give you one last chance to repent", and shows you what burning in Hell for eternity really is like, probably no person would choose that. And if they did, it would be because they were either somehow so insane that they didn't understand the concept (which would make it messed up to actually let them go there, because insane people can't understand acting in their own interests versus against them and so they aren't held fully responsible for their actions) or so extremely masochistic that they would enjoy burning in Hell, which would make it not even a punishment to begin with, because they'd be happy in Hell and therefore to them, Hell would not even be bad.

And beyond that, if God knows everything, he knows whether you'll end up going to heaven or hell before you're even born. In that case, you can't defy his perfect knowledge. Even if you're presented with the apparent choice to do good or evil, if God knows (before you even exist! before you even understand what "evil" could even be) for sure you'll choose evil, then you can't actually choose good, because if you did, you would be disproving and defying his omniscience.

[Blank]

Who are you to tell God what he should and should not do? God gives judgment and warnings of his judgment. Hell is the final judgment. And God offers mercy through his Son Jesus Christ. If you reject Jesus and still go on with your sinning then its your own fault. You think you can do whatever you want and God will just look the other way? You don't want Jesus. You don't care about forgiveness. You just want to commit your sins that God warned you about and still somehow be allowed in heaven. It doesn't work that way. You either choose Gods way and ask for forgiveness and turn away from your sins or you ignore God and continue to enjoy all your sodomy and fornication and adultery and lying and stealing and whatever else God has warned you about and perish.

God created you. He has the right to make a requirement to who is allowed into his kingdom.

[The_Adventurer]

He doesn't. And there's not a single line in the bible that says he does.

The concept of Hell came from Greek myth and most of what we know and believe about Hell came from writers like Milton and Dante and paintings done hundreds of years after the bible.

[RickyRetardo]

Who are you to tell God what he should and should not do?

A person with a rational mind, which supposedly was given to me by God himself.

God gives judgment and warnings of his judgment. Hell is the final judgment. And God offers mercy through his Son Jesus Christ. If you reject Jesus and still go on with your sinning then its your own fault.

What about all the people who lived before Jesus, like Buddha, or all the neanderthals, or Homo habilis?

And what about the Muslims who truly and honestly believe that if they "accept Jesus" and worship him, then they will go to Hell for committing idolatry? I can make the assumption that you think they honestly don't believe that and they're just pretending, but that's completely non-falsifiable and you don't really know that, even if you think you do. If you don't believe that, then I ask your pardon for making that assumption.

You just want to commit your sins that God warned you about and still somehow be allowed in heaven.

Now you are bearing false witness against me, which is a grave sin. Tut tut.

God created you. He has the right to make a requirement to who is allowed into his kingdom.

Just because you created someone doesn't give you the right to roast them for eternity.