Christians: How can God be loving and ever-forgiving, and then manage to send people to hell?

Jared Guttenberg: Christians: How can God be loving and ever-forgiving, and then manage to send people to hell?
Do people who simply say I can’t believe in God go to hell for eternity, and suffer?

Judaism believes that this violates God being loving, and offering endless chances. How can Christians believe in hell?

Answers and Views:

Answer by Sarah Palin
yet another contradiction of the bible that christians choose to ignore.

Answer by The Chosen One
Because Hell is not a true bible teaching

Answer by No Chance Without Woof Woof
Read the bible, does he really sound loving?

Answer by gutbucket
Either because he is evil and insane, or because he doesn’t exist.

Answer by 888
He doesn’t.

show me where God EVER forced ANYONE to believe in Him, & you will have a case.

You final destination is determined by your acceptance or rejection of Christ.

It is YOUR choice.

And, before anyone brings up Pharaoh:

Pharaoh CHOSE not to let the Israelites go, thus bringing destruction down on His own people. When the Bible says God hardened his heart, it wasn’t by any direct influence, but because of what God was doing to his people. If you were the leader of a country, whose people were being decimated by an unknown God, wouldn’t YOUR heart be “hardened” too? Pharaoh could have stopped the plagues any time that he wanted to, just by letting the Israelites go. he refused to, & paid the penalty for it.

Answer by Julius O
You are under the assumption that Hell means eternal Torment. The word is Gehenna, Sheol and Hades. The latter two mean grave, and the first means eternal death. Only means no hope of resurrection, not torment

Answer by Jess
God never turns away from us, but he gives us every freedom in the world for us to turn away from him. Those who REALLY turn away from him who are glad to express it, do go to Hell.

Life is a gift to perfect. Those who don’t see this are takers.
Life is a gift that we chose to advance our soul’s perfection for God. As hard as it is, it is an opportunity to learn and expand our souls.

Answer by Darwin’s Legacy
Simple, Love also involves being Just. A God that is just and demands justice is far more loving than what we see in today’s court system.

Answer by Lachrymose Lover
I believe God is all-loving and all-forgiving.

Although I’m not certain, and can never be until death, I would rather believe that Hell is very temporary, and that all will claim salvation and unity with God.

Answer by CelestialVoices
prankster god, tehee ^o^

Answer by Peter S
religion makes people hypocrites. Got it.

Answer by Melkha
Proving the xtianity is based of Greek myth and not on anything that is found in Judaism. Xtianity is in diametric opposition to Judaism.

Hell – Hebrew word – Sheol, literally pit for the dead, grave. The dead are conscious of nothing. Hell is the grave, none born miss it.
The xtian church stole the concept of eternal fiery torment from the ancient Greeks. Hades, god of the underworld, ruler of the kingdom of eternal fiery torment. The church stole this idea to control the people in both life and death. Final touches added by Dante’s Inferno and Paradise lost – John Milton.
Ooo, popular literature for doctrine !

From as many times a day as I type this, I say it has not only worked well for them in the past, but keeps working for them now and will continue to do so in the future until people begin to challenge them and search for the true definition of hell as being the grave.

Answer by The Carmelite
God only sends people to the place they ultimately choose to go to — by their words and actions. god gives us the means — grace, his Word, etc. to get to Heaven. But he does not impose them on us but, rather, respects our free will. We are free to accept or reject God’s gracious call. But based on our choices — we reap what we sow…

I myself am a school teacher…if a student has plenty of opportunity to work hard and study — but choose not to — does not have the right to ask why “I” failed him/her. They have failed themselves by their own choice.

Answer by Pamela
God is holy and loving
He wants all His children home with Him
but sin can not exist in His presence
so the only way any of us can be with Him
is to be holy in His sight.

When we accept the gift of grace
offered by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross-
our sins are paid for and we are Holy in God’s sight.

Not everyone will accept this gift-
some will insist on getting to Heaven
on their own terms
or try to deny their sin all together.

He has given us all the choice-
to accept His love for us
or reject it.

He does not send anyone to hell
God is not the bad guy here
He respects the foolish choices of the children He loves

****************************************************************
of course this is only good news for people who are convicted of their sin

Answer by bwjordan
Hell is separation from God. That’s something you choose, not God.
God does not expect anyone to be perfect. He does expect you to acknowledge Him. He has already chosen to love you – He gave you life. But he cannot force you to choose Him.
God loves you and wants you to be with Him. He loves you so much that He sent his Son to earth to die as an atonement for your sins. He loves you and wants to you to choose Him.

But, just as Bruce Almighty found out, you cannot force someone to love you. “Forced love” is an oxymoron.

Answer by Samwise
That view of God generally indicates that the Christians who hold it aren’t keeping up their end of the loving and ever-forgiving part. Many of us hold that God doesn’t actually send anyone to hell; it’s only possible to get there on your own. Free will includes the fundamental freedom to choose to get away from God, and there’s nowhere else you can do that.

I also don’t accept the pop-quiz model, in which getting the correct answer to a question about belief in God determines where you go. I think people who reject the sort of brutally autocratic dictator portrayed as God by some of my fellow Christians are actually on the right track; certainly, the Gospels are full of stories about Jesus rejecting that same view of God.

Basically, if you’ve run into Christians who take the view that they’re right and your only hope for salvation is to do what they say, I’d advise you to walk away. But please understand that we’re not all like that. The problem with being “born again” is that we have to start maturing all over again, and everyone is likely to go through that famous three-year-old stage of wanting the rules made simple so they’re in control of their world. Some Christians never grow out of it.

Answer by Courtney W
First of all God does not send anyone to Hell, they simply choose to go there. Without God everyone would go to Hell, God is the reason and the only way that we dont have to go to that awful place, hes the only “way of escape”. Therefore without God we would all be doomed to a devils Hell but since God sent his son to die for us, he gives us a chance to live life eternally with him, and Hell is not temporary, you accept Christ as your savior and you have eternal life in heaven with him or you reject him and burn in Hell forever with everlasting torment, simple as that, i dont mean to be rude in any way but this is the truth and Gods word. Just accept christ and he is LOVE, christ himself is love, he is the reason we even have love, look at what he did, sent his son to die for us that we might be saved from that awful place, if you reject him then you reject the only true love there is. I pray that everyone just accepts him its so simple yet people make it seem so difficult, all you have you do is accept him and you wont ever have to worry about Hell! Hope i helped! God bless!

Answer by ciplez
I’ve always answered this argument saying ‘God’s righteousness should not bypass God’s love’ if God is a truly perfect being of infinite love, why does he have to destroy sh#t to get his point across? Sounds pretty human to me. And this is the same type of mentality we in turn subject each other to. You don’t kill someone for their own good, that sounds retarded, yet this is essentially the logic they’re accepting.

It’s relatively easy to examine the bible and tell it’s crap when evaluating with a clear unbiased mind, but it’s too hasty of some atheists and the like to dismiss it as pure folklore. It’s origins are definitely deeply rooted, but a literal interpretation is obviously not true.

Answer by INYOURFUTURE
From Adam and Eve up to the coming of the Promised Seed who was first spoken of in Genesis all believers had TO LOOK FORWARD and this is not taught in ANY local Christian church. Adam, looked forward after the fall and he was redeemed and led EAST and out of the Garden to a higher and new land. (once he and Eve were redeemed they had to LOOK FORWARD and that always means looking EAST to the future. Noah and family LOOKED FORWARD to the ARk and were delivered to a higher land and ended UP on Mount Ararat because THEY LOOKED EAST and FORWARD to their GOD GIVEN FUTURE. The next was the Israelites or a nation in the sequence. Once they posted the blood and turned their backs on Egypt, that too had to LOOK FORWARD as they traveled EAST and UP to the Promised Land. And of course Jesus the Promised Seed came in from the east and said, “My Kingdom is NOT of this world and He went to the cross and His cross separated Lucifer’s Kingdom which is on this side or the WEST side. This tells us and it is Scriptural that the Kingdom of Christ is in Heaven and on the EAST SIDE of the actual cross. NOw God never sent anyone to hell in the Old or New Testament but the same eternal problem exists. From Adam to Christ everyone and we are talking millions of people who did not LOOK FORWARD or the the EAST for their God given future obviously turned their backs and faced west on land and led themselves and their families to hell. In Judaism, that faith has the Old Testament Scriptures and the coming into agreement with the New Testament Scripture with Jesus and His cross between the Old and New Covenant. Be patient as I am getting to your answer. AS always the eternal Kingdom of Christ is in Heaven and also in the EAST and eternal future and one must be born again to be led by the Holy Spirit UP and into the eternal and invisible Kingdom which is to the EAST or our Republican wing BUT don’t expect Christians to tell any American this as it would affect the way Christians play American politics not as Christians but as American in their old nature. That said we see the same thing in today’s modern world with now billions of people and yes Americans also with their backs turned to the Kingdom of Christ in the EAST and they prove in the political arena that THEY ARE NOT LOOKING FORWARD to ending UP in the eternal Kingdom of Christ. This is clearly seen in our American Democrat wing and all left wings in every nation. The left wing is FACING west on land and NOT LOOKING FORWARD to their God given future which is and will always be their in the EAST. Because this side of the ACTUAL cross of Christ is under the control of Lucifer’s Kingdom it is his Kingdom that everyone born of the flesh is NATURALLY heading toward and they will end UP their in the future. Americans in our Democrat wing need only be reminded that NO one can expect to end UP in the Kingdom of Christ facing west on land and it doesn’t matter if they go to church or not. Facing west means they need “light” from the Christians and these fine Americans are not getting it from Christians because they are NOT taught to shed light on their ON kingdom but rather taught to invite the lost to the local church to hear the pastor and yes a few do get saved but look at the millions who are lost with out light from the Kingdom of Christ. Because Christians were led UP into the Kingdom of Christ when they were born again, they must extend the same invitation to all who live naturally in Lucifer’s Kingdom. Christians in the United States should be coming into this earthly nation supernaturally from the east and out of Heaven just as Jesus did in order to PROVE the Kingdom of Christ is open to all who believe for FREE.

Answer by hillbilly
All people eventually die, and there are only two places in eternity—Heaven, or Hell. Where you spend this eternity is up to you. If you say, and keep saying, “I don’t want God or Heaven” then you will doom yourself to the only other place as God won’t force you to go to Heaven if you don’t want to go. He keeps giving opportunities daily for all who will, to come. If you wait until you are on your deathbed to convert may be too late as I know of a guy who (may have already been a Christian and I think he was), dropped dead as he walked across his living room floor and was dead before he hit the floor. This happened only a few days ago. Now, today, is the time for salvation. God bless.

Answer by Dan T
Well I’m Buddhist, not christian, but I have attended a catholic school when I was younger, and grew up Congregational.

From what I can gather God does not send anyone to Hell. It is more like the Buddhist concept of Karma,
where those who have done wrong, and do not feel any regret for the wrong they did, and have a build up of negative karma at their death, will be reincarnated in hell, which is an embodiment of their evil deeds.

So Hitler will be in hell, but if you steel a candy bar, and is good the rest of your life, you will be reincarnated in heaven.

Answer by Lightning From the East
The idea of a loving God sending people to hell for eternity is not easy to accept. Why would God, who is full of mercy and grace, send people to a place of torment for ever and ever for not trusting in Jesus even though they are nice people, or never heard of Jesus, or were sincerely trying to find God? Is that fair? Is that right?

When people ask these questions, they are appealing to what they perceive as fairness. They are looking at the issue from their human perspective. But this perspective is not necessarily the right one. If God exists, and He does, then it is He who is the One who says what is right and fair, not us. So, we need to see what the Bible says about what is right regarding sin and salvation and make a decision afterwards.

The Bible tells us that God is holy, “You shall be holy, for I am holy,” (1 Pet. 1:16). Holiness is incorruptibility, perfection, purity, and the inability to sin, all of which which are possessed by God alone. Holiness is the very nature of God’s character. His character is perfect, without flaw, and He is the standard of all that is right and good.

https://carm.org/loving-god-would-never-send-anyone-hell

Answer by dogmadness4
The idea is he forgives only those who seek redemption.

Answer by Linda Bailey
God never said the wages of sin is “eternal torment”. He said the wages of sin, is death. One must read the original text in order to discover the absurd mistranslations in today’s Bibles. “Hell” correctly translated means “grave”.

I would also like to add this: ” For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour of the whole world; who WILL have ALL men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.” To believe that God will send countless souls to a place of eternal torment is to undermine God’s word and proclaim that Jesus has failed in his mission to be the Saviour of the WHOLE world, and ALL men.

Answer by Slevin
As sinful humans we all deserve to go to hell, God does not owe us forgiveness. However God in his never ending mercy and grace decided for his own reasons give eternal life to those he has selected to save which is called predestination. But yes, those who do not believe in God will go to hell. And it in no way violates Gods love.