I guess it’s pretty much a cliché at this point to ask why a loving god would want to throw people in Hell for eternity, but I don’t know that I’ve heard a valid answer. The conservative Christian radio stations, however, have a not-so-valid answer that they love to give. Apparently God DOESN’T want anyone to go to Hell, but if you don’t believe in Jesus and all that, He has no choice but to send you there.
So, um, why would an omnipotent being ever not have a choice? Doesn’t being all-powerful mean you can do whatever you want at any time? Does God have quotas to fulfill? I’ve actually heard people insist that God is bound to His own law, which makes me wonder why He’s constantly ignoring that “thou shalt not kill” commandment. But anyway, my main point is that these conservative Christians insist that God is all-loving, yet will torture people for eternity if they don’t think the right things. To hear some of these people talk, it really does come across as an S&M sort of relationship. God is all-loving, even though He’s constantly smiting and damning. These are the people who, when they talk about “serving God,” don’t just mean living in accordance with what they believe God desires. They actually mean groveling, apologizing, and avoiding doing enjoyable and harmless things because they think God wants them to be in constant supplication. Can you really call an insistence on constant servitude love? I can’t help but think they imagine God not as a bearded guy on a cloud, but as someone dressed in leather and holding a whip.
Still, as annoyed as I sometimes get at these preachers who think their kind and loving deity is going to mete out horrific punishment on anyone who doesn’t believe exactly the right thing, I suppose they don’t do a whole lot of harm. They’re annoying and stubborn, but they’re free to believe what they want, and the idea of the world being run by a magical tyrant who has convinced much of the world that he’s a nice guy is rather too far-fetched to scare me (although I’ll admit there are times when it SEEMS like an outside intelligence is messing with me). The real problem comes when they bring these ideas of the master always being right into their everyday lives. Is it really that surprising that people with this idea of a god who practices the toughest variety of tough love seem to be more inclined to beat their children, and to insist that wives submit to their husbands? Really, I don’t know that I’d ever say submission is a good thing. Humility, yes, but not submission. Insisting that people should obey you simply because you’re in charge is usually just an indication that you really shouldn’t be in charge. And I don’t see why that shouldn’t apply to gods as well as people. Sure, if there really is a supreme being with amazing supernatural powers, I’m sure he can make all of us do whatever the hell he wants. But that doesn’t mean we’d have to respect this being as a loving parent and ultimate arbiter of morality. If terms like “good” and “loving” can’t be viewed in the way we generally use them, they really cease to have any meaning at all.
VoVatia 
Pingback: An Arbitrary Arbiter | VoVatia
Pingback: You Always Hurt the One You Love | VoVatia
See http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/hell.htm and also consider:
“His Omnipotence means power to do all that is intrinsically possible, not to do the intrinsically impossible. You may attribute miracles to Him, but not nonsense. There is no limit to His power.
If you choose to say, ‘God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it,’ you have not succeeded in saying anything about God: meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix to them the two other words, ‘God can.’
It remains true that all things are possible with God: the intrinsic impossibilities are not things but nonentities. It is no more possible for God than for the weakest of His creatures to carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives; not because His power meets an obstacle, but because nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
To say that it’s your own fault if you end up in Hell kind of strikes me as victim-blaming of a sort. After all, not everyone starts out at the same point spiritually, any more than they do financially.
In the same way one might blame someone who had a deadly illness but refused the cure because he was “anti-vaccine” or did not want the painful but life-saving operation or refused to stop his pleasurable but life-threatening activities.
Your points about the actions of some Christians and brands of Christianity are just; however, not all types of Christianity are fungible. And the truth of Christian teaching does not rely on the characters of all its members, in the same way that some people are terrible mathematicians but that does not invalidate math as a whole.
In a sense we all do start out at the same point spiritually: we start out fallen, imperfect, “those things we know we should do we don’t, and those things we know we shouldn’t, we do.” We might not have the same spiritual benefits, like access to proper teaching, but oddly enough, Christianity even accounts for that. “For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them.” Each person is judged by “extenuating circumstances:” therefore persons who lived before the birth of Christ, or never heard of him afterward, have a chance to be saved. Even someone who has lived all his life in a “Christian nation” but never heard a version of Christianity he could place his faith in might be in this situation.
Yeah, my criticisms are generally geared more toward Christians who insist the important thing is that you believe, as if you can just force yourself to believe something. As vocal and politically influential as such people are, I’m inclined to think they’re a minority as far as Christians go, especially in multicultural societies. It does seem like Hell isn’t much of a deterrent if only people who also believe in Heaven accept its existence, but it’s not like I have any personal experience with either one.
Pingback: Resistance Is Blasphemous | VoVatia
Pingback: Mythed Opportunities | VoVatia
I’d like to thank you for the efforts you have put in penning this website.
I’m hoping to view the same high-grade blog posts from you in the future
as well. In truth, your creative writing abilities has encouraged
me to get my own site now ;)