Posted on 07/15/2009 7:05:54 PM PDT by ConservativesKilledJesus
I've been a Christian my entire life. Since I was a small child. Seven years old. I prayed for salvation from hell. I dedicated my life to Jesus. And I meant it. As I grew up I spent my time studying and praying and witnessing. I decided in high school that I would go to seminary and be a minister.
I was a minister for a short time after I graduated from seminary. But then I quit temporarily. I had been talking to people about Jesus for years and there were so many questions that I felt deserved answered. I believe that if you ask you will recieve and if you seek you will find. Maybe not a car or that girl you like or stuff like that, but truth and understanding and wisdom. Those are things I knew God wanted me to have and I prayed and I studied to aquire them.
But I wasn't getting answers to hard questions that I believed I needed answered, so, for a time, I decided to postpone ministry. I was only in my early 20s anyway I thought. I wasn't ready to counsel people about life when I had barely begun to live myself.
I was a minister for a short time after I graduated from seminary. But then I quit temporarily. I had been talking to people about Jesus for years and there were so many questions that I felt deserved answered. I believe that if you ask you will recieve and if you seek you will find. Maybe not a car or that girl you like or stuff like that, but truth and understanding and wisdom. Those are things I knew God wanted me to have and I prayed and I studied to aquire them.
But I wasn't getting answers to hard questions that I believed I needed answered, so, for a time, I decided to postpone ministry. I was only in my early 20s anyway I thought. I wasn't ready to counsel people about life when I had barely begun to live myself.
That was over a 12 years ago. Since that time I've been married, returned to school for computer science, worked, started my own business. And I've prayed and studied and searched for answers.
For one answer really. One question. Above all of the others. Why does God torture people in hell for eternity if they are not saved?
I know the standard answers of course. People sin. God is just. God wants to save them. They have free will. They have to choose to be saved. I know all of that.
But why torture in hell forever? Why torture forever? Why torture at all?
If God is just, how is eternal torture for a lifetime of sin that is a relative blink of time fair?
If God is kind, why torture with fire? Why torture at all?
How does the same God who is punishing sins like murder torture people?
God knew before he created us that most of us wouldn't be saved. About 99% of humanity will not be saved. From the beginging to the end.
But most of all... how I am supposed to enjoy living in heaven in paradise in happiness while God is torturing my friends and family who weren't saved?
Someone once told me that God doesn't torture anyone in hell. Which I just couldn't believe they would even think let alone argue. Everything that exists is created by God and exists because God keeps it existing. God is infinite and nothing in existance exists apart from him. Hell exists by the will of God... by his thoughts and his actions. For ever and ever.
Not like you or I who build something and it seperate from us. Everything exists in God.
So, how, can God, who created all of existance, who cleary loves humanity, who loves justice, who loves mercy and kindness... how can God torture people in hell in fire forever?
And how can I enjoy myself in heaven with a God who tortures people I love in firey hell forever?
I can't. I won't. I can't love someone who tortures people for eternity. I can't be happy knowing my loved ones are suffering forever and ever.
And... after all that I've studied and all that I've prayed... I can't believe that the God who created this wonderful beautiful world and made humans in his image to experience the joys of love and of creation and of being creative... I can't believe that this God will torture 99% of humanity in fire forever and ever just for not accepting salvation.
To think that Hitler could have repented before he died and is in heaven happy as can be while all the Jews he killed are in hell burning for eternity?
I don't know what happened. I don't know how this eternal torture was attached to believing in God and in Jesus. But I can't believe in a God who is like this. Who can create the universe, but damns nearly all of his most treasured creation. No. It can't be true.
And even if it is. I would rather burn in hell with my loved ones then sell my soul to live in heaven with the one torturing my loved ones in hell.
That's my conclusion after over a decade of study and prayer.
I think that I have asked and I have recieved an answer. I don't know for sure. But I have faith that God is good and man screwed something of the message up along the last 2000 years.
IBTZ!
IBTZ!!
If you’ve already received your answer, what’s the purpose of your post?
ibtz
idjit
Bad theology makes Baby Jesus cry.
Off the meds, eh?
IBTZ!
hey dumbnutz,
God doesn’t torture them. They chose it by the way they live, idjit
One might say religion is a barrier between man and God - if one were exceptionally brave....or foolish.
IB4Z
Go read ‘The Shack ‘by Wm Paul Young..
F OFF! IBTZ
People choose hell by the choices they make in life. God doesn’t torture you, making those decisions wasn’t God, it was you. God can save you if you truly repent from your mistakes, sins.
That’s funny
I haven’t been IBTZ before.
The zot must come soon please.
IBTZ!
got one for you
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.