If you had the concept of hell beaten into your brain since before you understood language, sure, I get it. My Mother said "If you do/don't ______ you'll go to hell and burn forever" on a daily basis. Hell was the ultimate oogy boogy man that (tried) to keep kids toeing the line and going to church and saying their prayers.
Then you grow up. And you realize that no rational entity would eternally punish any being for . . . even the most heinous of behaviors. It's not something that an entity that was good, knowledgeable, powerful, and forgiving would do. And certainly not for simply refusing to believe it exists, because the evidence is lacking. No. Only a punitive, power-mongering, sadistic human being would come up with such a concept.
Seriously, the xtians believe that god created human kind flawed. Set them up for failure in the Garden of Eden just to start with. (Seriously, the all-knowing god had to know that they would eat that forbidden fruit - if god was all-knowing.) Decided some years later that he had made a mistake and kills all but a few of them. Decided some years later that he needs a major blood sacrifice to atone for the sinful nature that he created. Then set up an eternal lake of fire that would hold all of those that did not accept this sacrifice. Which, at this point in history, is about 5 billion living people (7-pushing to 8 billion people on the planet, about 1/4 of them some brand of xtian, tho' many of the thousands of sects will claim that only THEY are going to heaven, so you would have to amend the number to about 7 billion) plus all of the unbelievers back to Australopithecus . . . wow, how many humans would that be? Are we thinking about creatures that have language, can reason, or what? What about the dinosaurs? Oh wait, some churchy jerk at some point declared that only humans have "souls". Well.
So from the word "go" this supposedly all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving deity knew - before "creating Adam and Eve" - that more than 3/4 of all these "created" beings were going to be tortured forever?? Nope. Just nope. I don't know about you, but for me, at some point, reason just had to kick in. If there is a hell, God is the most evil concept ever created.
Then you grow up. And you realize that no rational entity would eternally punish any being for . . . even the most heinous of behaviors. It's not something that an entity that was good, knowledgeable, powerful, and forgiving would do. And certainly not for simply refusing to believe it exists, because the evidence is lacking. No. Only a punitive, power-mongering, sadistic human being would come up with such a concept.
Seriously, the xtians believe that god created human kind flawed. Set them up for failure in the Garden of Eden just to start with. (Seriously, the all-knowing god had to know that they would eat that forbidden fruit - if god was all-knowing.) Decided some years later that he had made a mistake and kills all but a few of them. Decided some years later that he needs a major blood sacrifice to atone for the sinful nature that he created. Then set up an eternal lake of fire that would hold all of those that did not accept this sacrifice. Which, at this point in history, is about 5 billion living people (7-pushing to 8 billion people on the planet, about 1/4 of them some brand of xtian, tho' many of the thousands of sects will claim that only THEY are going to heaven, so you would have to amend the number to about 7 billion) plus all of the unbelievers back to Australopithecus . . . wow, how many humans would that be? Are we thinking about creatures that have language, can reason, or what? What about the dinosaurs? Oh wait, some churchy jerk at some point declared that only humans have "souls". Well.
So from the word "go" this supposedly all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving deity knew - before "creating Adam and Eve" - that more than 3/4 of all these "created" beings were going to be tortured forever?? Nope. Just nope. I don't know about you, but for me, at some point, reason just had to kick in. If there is a hell, God is the most evil concept ever created.
"The family that prays together...is brainwashing their children."- Albert Einstein
