(November 24, 2020 at 10:31 am)Confused-by-christianity Wrote: I don't know if "God punishes people with eternal torment".
I've heard a lot of people say God is like that - but I'm not so sure.
What do you mean you are not sure that God is described like that? Doesn't the Bible describe Jesus that way?
Like Matthew 25:41 Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
Or Matthew 25:46 Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
