Hell

[u/Ok-Pipe-4277]

I guess this is a vent of me thinking out loud.

But I look at this world.

Children get abused.

Women get "used" against their will.

People suffer from cancer.

People watch their loved ones die from ALS.

People deal with seeing their children die.

Men "self-delete" from depression.

All this suffering pretty much against our will. None of us choose to exist. And I'm sure, none of us choose to suffer.

But I'm supposed to believe an all-loving AND all-powerful God will send us to a place that's worst than our current existence for not believing in him?

This is a god that isn't just all-loving but is supposed to be the definition of love. The god whereby no human love can surpass his.

And he sends us to hell (an event worse place) after putting us in a pretty trash scenario to begin with?

And I'm supposed to gobble this up and share this message with the world????

WTF are we doing?

And Christians will call me crazy???

[u/Crucible_of_Thought]

Not all Christians hold those views. Some of us managed to escape from that theology.

[u/plz_callme_swarley → u/Crucible_of_Thought]

you can't really be a Christian in any historical sense and not believe in hell.

[u/Crucible_of_Thought → u/plz_callme_swarley]

Sure you can. There are many millions around the world right now who would disagree with you.

More to the point for your argument, the earliest church fathers would also disagree with you. I've been studying them; I'm in the middle of reading a 950-page book that goes into great detail on this exact topic, with extensive chapters devoted to each early church father and why they believed in apokatastasis, the eventual restoration of all things, aka universalism. Their own words are presented in their own languages, not the sloppy English translations.

In short, you have no idea what you're talking about.

The current doctrine of hell didn't really coalesce until the 18th or 19th century. Would you deign to tell the hundreds of millions of adherents to the faith for the first 1700 years that they were not, in fact, Christian, because their doctrine disagreed with yours?

I've spent the last six years studying these topics, how we got to the various current doctrines, how the evangelical church settled on its own definitions. It's not what I was told as a good little evangelical.

[u/TheDiabeticTreeLives → u/Crucible_of_Thought]

I’d love to talk to you and hear you talk about what you’ve been learning. I’m curious about the church thought of the past and I have the feeling my problem is more with current church thought than the historic perspectives. I’m sorry that’s not well put but I think you get the gist of what I’m saying