The Baytown Bulletin Board

Written by Rich Deem

Introduction
Atheists often claim that Christianity could not be true because a loving God1 would not send billions of people to hell.2 Although this seems logically valid at first glance, it makes some assumptions that are not true for the God of the Bible.

True love is not permissive
The first false assumption is that love allows the object of that love to do whatever he or she wants. However, this permissive kind of "love" isn't really love at all. Any of you who are parents will recognize that allowing your children to do whatever they want to do is not loving at all. If you were to do this, your children would grow up to be spoiled selfish brats, incapable of loving other people. Permissive gods, who are caught up in their own intrigues, and so allow humans to do whatever they want without repercussions, are found in the pagan religions. However, the God of the Bible wants us to love Him and other people above everything else we do.

3God's moral laws have a purposeThe Creator God of the universe is obviously a God of order. The laws that govern the physical universe are so precise that we can calculate the positions of planets, stars, and galaxies thousands to millions of years into the future. Would a God of this kind of precision design moral laws that are random or changing? It doesn't seem likely or consistent with the character of the Creator that we know from the reality of the creation. Therefore, it seems likely that unchanging moral laws are consistent with the God of creation. The Bible says that the moral laws are consistent with the character of God.4 Therefore, the main purpose of the moral laws are to teach us what God requires for us to enter into His kingdom. The moral laws also allow us to live with each other on earth without hurting each other. In fact, if we all perfectly fulfilled the moral laws of God, we would be in perfect harmony with each other. Our failure to fulfill God's moral laws leads us to seek Him as the source of our salvation.

God's creation of free will beings must allow for the possibility of rejecting God completely. Since God created spiritual beings for the purpose of expressing love, those beings must have complete free will in order to express that love. Of course, free will allows for the possibility of those beings rejecting God and His plans. Unfortunately, most people do not agree that God's rules are good and do not want to live by them. In fact, the vast majority of people want to run their own lives without submitting to God at all. Somehow, they feel that God will just let them into heaven because they have behaved about as good, and maybe even better, compared to the rest of the people on earth. The problem with this idea is that God does not grade on the curve. All who enter God's kingdom must be absolutely holy, since no sin is allowed in God's presence. In addition, people must be willing to allow God to prevent them from sinning ever again, since there is no sin in heaven. This means that people must be willing to submit fully to God's will in order to get into heaven. Of course, all humans fall short of God's moral requirements. Therefore, God has made a provision to erase all sins that we have committed in this life and to perfect us so that we cannot sin in the next life. That provision for sin is through the sacrifice of God's son, Jesus Christ. Jesus took the punishment that we deserve and gives us the reward that we do not deserve - eternal life. In accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior, all our sins are erased, and Jesus works to change us into His image (if we allow Him to do so).

People prefer hell over complete submission to GodSo why doesn't God make everyone into perfect beings and allow them all into heaven? It would actually be more cruel if God were to do this, since many people prefer hell to the alternative (complete submission to God). All the people who end up going to hell will have done so because they actually prefer hell to being forced into the presence of God for all eternity. People like to live in their favorite sins and answer to no one else. They know that if they accept Jesus as Lord and Savior that God will want them to change their lives and they might have to give up some of their autonomy.

Conclusion
At this time in history, there is more evidence demonstrating the existence of God than at any time in the past. In addition, there are missionaries throughout the world proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ and the salvation that He offers as a free gift. Although the gift is "free," it will cost you your sin, selfishness, and pride. Since none of these character traits are allowed into heaven, those who insist upon holding onto these traits cannot enter into heaven, but must be separated from God in a place called hell. Therefore, those who go to hell do so voluntarily, preferring hell to complete submission to a holy and just God.

I'll take this paragraph-by-paragraph:

Paragraph 1: The first false assumption is that love allows the object of that love to do whatever he or she wants....

Wrong. This is not the assumption by the Atheist. The assumption is that a loving god wouldn't create a place of eternal torture for finite crimes. How is it justice that someone would get punished ETERNALLY, when even if they sinned every day for their entire lives, would only amount to about 60-90 years of sin. The punishment doesn't fit the crime. So the god of the bible wants us to love him, yet he establishes eternal torturous punishment for finite crimes. This is why he is not loving or just.

Paragraph 2: God's moral laws have a purpose. The Creator God of the universe is obviously a God of order."

Morality is not exclusive to your god or your religion. I would go as far as to say that worshiping a god that uphold infinite punishments for finite crimes is immoral. As humans, we can all strive towards morality together. Sure, we don't have a set of absolute dictates from a holy book, but working together we can strive towards a more moral society. In fact, the varying ideas of religion, including Christianity, have done a great deal in society to hinder the progression towards morality both in the past and still today. I could say that if we all adhered to Kant's categorical imperative, that we could all live in harmony. Your god and religion present nothing that we can't achieve on our own. The one thing that we won't have to worry about if we strive towards a unified morality is an eternal damnation hanging over our heads to scare us into worshiping false god constructs.

Paragraph 3: God's creation of free will beings must allow for the possibility of rejecting God completely.

God didn't just create free will beings, he also created the ability in man to sin against him, without man knowing the full consequences of sin. He also created the temptation that would draw man to sin AND he allowed the tempter in the garden to deceive man. All the while, being omniscient, he knew before he ever laid down the foundation of creation, what choice man would make, and that because of the deception he allowed into the world, that many people would be condemned to an eternity in a torturous hell. I would rather god never created anything.

Also, I think it's perverse that a god that would murder multitudes, would impregnate a woman without her consent and would condemn finite beings to infinite punishment, would require holiness from his creation.

The good thing is, this story is fake, and god is a false construct created by primitive man to enforce morality and fear.

Paragraph 4: People prefer hell over complete submission to GodSo why doesn't God make everyone into perfect beings and allow them all into heaven?

You see, this is a common misconception by Christianity. It's not that the non-believer prefers hell. No one would prefer an eternity of torment. It's that the non-believer can not and will not bow to an unjust creator. You can know a tree by its fruit. This has to be the same for your god. Just because you call him just, doesn't make it so. God's justice is clear to everyone. Infinite punishment for finite crimes is unjust. Your god wishes to be a king, and to do as he wishes, even if it means murdering multitudes of his creation. Let me ask you again. If I were to create a populous of sentient robots, that could think, feel and ponder their own existence, would I be justified in torturing them just to see if they would be loyal? Would I be justified in punishing them for eternity for things they have only done in temporary space/time?

So you see, we don't choose hell over submission to a just/holy creator. If your god is real, we are condemned to hell for not bowing to a villainous dictator that doesn't adhere to his own standards.

"G"

I'm curious, G. Do you believe people have souls or do you believe that we are just organic lifeforms that think and breathe and one day die and decompose? Do you believe in any sort of afterlife or do you think when we die it's all over?

I think that when we die, we decompose, our individual life is over. I see no evidence for an afterlife and I see no need for one. Essentially I would say yes, I think we are organic life forms that have developed the ability of higher reasoning, highly progressed language, tool use, etc.

"G"