Hell and the Play Nice Christian

[ether-ore]

That's not as bad as the bulk of Christianity but still has a few fatal flaws:

The idea that someone must suffer for transgressions is very primitive. The need for revenge is a base emotion that can be overcome with intellect. If we can do it, obviously God can do it.

Since God is omniscient and creates everything, evil is all on him. You can argue free-will all you want but it doesn't matter. When God creates someone and gives him or her free-will, God knows exactly what he/she is going to do with it. Why create someone when you know that person is going to do evil?

If anyone deserves any amount of punishment, it's God.

Just a follow up response for the purpose of explaining my understanding of punishment. I understand that you put no stock in the scriptures, but in order to explain, I have to refer to them. I won't bother with citations because I feel that would be meaningless. But here goes...

Christ says that those who do not repent must suffer even as He suffered. I think most Christians consider what happened on the cross as the only thing that matters, but Christ suffered in Gethsemane as well, and this is important point to understand.

What I think and what I believe is that as Christ bled from every pore; what was taking place was that He was in the process of becoming immortal. Immortal beings do not have blood in their veins. What they do have, I do not know, but from all that I have read... it is not blood. For example, when Christ appeared to the Twelve after His resurrection, He said to them that "a spirit hath not flesh and bone as ye see me have." I consider it significant that He did not say "flesh and blood". With a thorough reading of the scriptures, one may see the difference.

When Christ was on the cross, He did not die from being hung there. He was immortal and could have hung there indefinitely, but He had to finish His mission for our sakes. He gave up His life of His own accord. One piece of scriptural evidence is that when pierced in the side by the Roman soldier with a spear; clear liquid is reported as having come out of the wound... not blood.

Here is the point concerning "punishment" those who do not repent will have to go through that painful transition from being mortal to immortal on their own without any help from God. If they had repented, the Christ's suffering would have negated that necessity and they would be changed "in the twinkling of and eye".

This may not have helped, but I wanted to offer an explanation as I understood it.