Massive controversy between Christians right now: Is Hell eternal punishment?

[coffeeveritas]

Hell would have to be eternal, wouldn't it? So as to illicit eternal faithfulness from the believer who fears it, should they transgress and be found unworthy of Heaven.

Well the point of the book (Love Wins) is that it doesn't have to be eternal. Being scared of God is not the point at all; the point is to experience something real here and now, to become a better person, to love people, and to take care of our environment. It's supposed to be about find a new life in the midst of death and chaos. It's supposed to be motivated by what we're passionate about, and a new-found sense of deep love.

What you said is pretty true though, that is what a majority of Christians have been saying for years. Scare tactics to try to shock people into blind obedience of a god and a set of rules that they don't really care about. The basis of life is obligation and duty, not passion. You are told you have to constantly be anxious over whether or not you've sinned. It sucks, I want to personally apologize to anyone who's ever been to a place like that. It's where I grew up, and walking away from it was the best move I've ever made.

This is how god changes his mind about condemning humanity infinitely, for finite errors in their flawed god created human nature. He suffers and dies as a symbol of love, and thereby takes away the worlds sins.
No conditions to that. No, I take away the worlds sins contingent upon these terms and conditions.... Those came later. At first, it was simply god came to die as Jesus to take away the worlds sins!
Later, the scriptures, (thank you Paul), declare the conditions. That as long as someone believes this happened. That god Jesus died to cleanse the world of it's sins, then they are saved from sin.

Yes, that is the consensus view put forward by whatever group of white, western men have been determining theology for the last fifty years. The dirty little secret of the Evangelical church is that there has never been a "traditional" view of hell, and indeed there has never been one, complete set of doctrines that "all Christians" believe. That's a fairy tale. The biggest move in theology in the last half-century has been contextual hermeneutics, which basically means "White men of European descent do not get to decide who God is." So various scholars have completely undermined the idea that there is one, single idea of hell that everyone has to conform to. Actually Rob Bell's idea probably represents a better argument than the traditional crowd.

So yes, the story you cited is the one that people have been hearing for years, but that's the opinion of a group mostly made up of older, conservative, white males. Rob Bells input is "Jesus makes everything right in Love" the end. There are no conditions, no one has to do anything.

Of course, it's all bullshit.
However, there are people who need to feel worthless for being who they are, so as to strive to be worth something more in the eyes of their creator when they're dead, so as to have a goal for living day to day.
Those people are called Christians.

Hmm, good point. Once again the message has been that people have to feel bad about themselves to be Christians. Once again, I grew up in that church. Of course it's completely wrong, we should be happy with ourselves because we are important.

As for having a reason to exist, everyone has one. It may be as simple as "to play video games and get laid" or it might be "to be the richest rich person", but everyone has a story in their head of why they are currently living. There are of course people wrestling with a feeling of purposelessness, but that just goes to show you how disconcerting it is not to have a purpose. The goal of Christians should be to find their own, unique purpose that contributes to goodness in the world. I'm on that track myself, and it feels good to be pursuing a dream I really believe in to help other people.

I can't find any way around the need for hell to be real. Otherwise what are we being saved from? What sort of savior is necessary with no cosmic persecutor?

Well in the book hell is real. You can see hell on earth when you look at what happened in Rwanda. Hell is also a place people go when they die, but it's not forever, and the purpose of hell is to strain out all the bitterness and hatred in people's hearts so they can they go on to eternal happiness. In any case having the hatred strained out of your heart sucks, and living in hell on earth sucks, so need to be saved from both.

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Has it become such a place? Fuck man I was there not 12 months ago, what happened? All the palefaces die of west nile?

Haha! Yeah, it all depends on where you go. There are still some places where you start seeing rebel flags and you know you've hit klan country. I lived in North Carolina for basically my whole life and for the most part black people and white people got along just fine. One of my friends was engaged to a black guy and nobody thought anything of it. Back in the day interracial marriage would have met with gunfire.