
MAJOR CONFLICTS OVER HELL
CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIAN vs. SECULAR BELIEFS

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Overview:
Conservative Christians generally:
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Consider the Bible to be inerrant -- free of
error. |
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Interpret Bible passages literally, unless a symbolic meaning is clearly
indicated. |
This leads most of them to believe that God has created a system for actual punishment
of most humans in a
real Hell after their death. Although Bible passages appear to
be ambiguous about who will be sent to Hell, most conservative Christians
believe that Hell is the destination for all individuals who are "unsaved"
at the time of their death. According to an estimate by the Southern Baptists,
70% of American adults are in this state. Probably on the order of 80% of
Canadians and perhaps 90% of people worldwide are unsaved, and thus headed for
Hell according to this belief system.
This belief in a literal punishment in a literal Hell conflicts with
secular standards of morality, which are accepted by most people, including
conservative Christians. Conflicts
exist in the following areas:
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torture of prisoners. |
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imprisoning individuals for thought crimes. |
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unreasonably long sentences. |
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the purposes of incarceration. |
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religious freedom issues. |

Torture of prisoners:
The U.S. Constitution, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, similar constitutions of democracies worldwide, and
various declarations of the United Nations prohibit cruel
and unusual punishment, including torture of
prisoners. Countries which have a policy of maltreating prisoners
in this way are considered pariah nations by the rest of the world.
This conflicts with numerous references in the
Bible, which imply that God has created Hell for the
specific purpose of torturing prisoners. Various biblical passages
refer to shackles, whipping,
flesh eating worms, incredible thirst, total darkness, and unbearable heat in Hell.
What is considered profoundly immoral by most religious and secular
leaders on earth is routine in Hell, according to the Bible.

Imprisoning individuals for thought crimes:
In countries with advanced human rights records, people are
sentenced to prison because of what they have done, not for what
they think -- i.e. not for thought crimes. Rejecting the Gospel is basically
a thought crime. It involves no overt act. It
does not directly affect another person. It does not threaten society. In
fact, there are some indications that Atheists have a lower
level of marital divorce and bigotry than
some Christians.
Some pariah nations who grant few human rights to their citizens arrest
and imprison individuals because of their beliefs and teachings. Amnesty
International and similar organizations commit most of their effort
towards freeing such individuals, whom they call "prisoners of
conscience."
Again, this conflicts with many passages in the
Bible which appear to state that all unsaved persons will be routed to
punishment in Hell after death. They would clearly be guilty of thought
crimes -- of holding beliefs about deity, humanity and the rest of the
universe which do not include trusting Jesus as Lord and Savior. According to
many conservative Christians, the Bible clearly states that Hell is reserved for
such unsaved people.

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Unreasonably long sentences:
In most counties, prisoners are given sentences of various durations.
However, almost all inmates are given the possibility of eventual parole later
in life -- generally after fewer than 25 years incarceration.
This conflicts with numerous references in the Bible,
which appear to imply that imprisonment in Hell is forever -- for all eternity,
without any hope of relief or release. Many people feel that an infinite sentence for a finite crime is fundamentally unjust.

The purposes of incarceration:
In most counties, prison is seen as a method of rehabilitation and/or of
warehousing convicted criminals. Punishment is seen as a minor function of the
prison system; punishment is generally limited to loss of freedoms.
This conflicts with numerous references in the
Bible, which appear to imply that the purpose of Hell is punishment--
to cause unbearable pain to its inhabitants. There do not appear to be any
references in the Bible which suggest the eventual rehabilitation of the
inmates in Hell, or of simply warehousing them for later release.

Religious freedom issues:
The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the Charter of Rights
and Freedoms in Canada, the constitutions of other countries, and
various United Nations documents, guarantee that everyone enjoys religious
freedom. This includes the right to follow their own spiritual path, to
change their religion at any time, to practice their religion (within
certain limitations) and to proselytize to others. Some countries deny
some of these rights to their citizens. In some areas of the world, it is
an offense punishable by execution for a person to change their faith from
the state religion to a different faith. But these countries are generally
severely criticized by human rights advocates, and international courts.
Conservative Christians generally believe that only a small subset of
humanity will attain heaven. Many believe that Christians who are unsaved
and persons of other religions will be punished in Hell. In essence,
religious freedom does not exist after death.

Additional ethical and logical problems with Hell:
Some belief systems about Hell have some apparently unjust or
illogical features, when studied within the limitations of human knowledge.
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Within the Roman Catholic belief system, two people could die on the
same day, after committing a mortal sin and sincerely attending the Sacrament of Penance.
If one sinned first and experienced the sacrament later, then they would go to Purgatory
for a while and then to Heaven. If the other person performed these same activities in the
reverse order, they would spend eternity in Hell. One's destination would thus be
dependent upon luck, and the order in which deeds are performed. Some feel
that this is not fair or just.
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Many conservative Christian denominations teach that
those who are saved
by repentance and trusting in Jesus as Lord and Savior will be saved and
attain heaven at death. Those who have heard the gospel and rejected
it will go to Hell. This raises the question of what happens to
persons who have never heard of Christianity, Jesus or the Gospel. In
the past, religious conservatives generally believed that they would
not be saved. This belief has been the main motivation for the
worldwide missionary movement. Lack of trust of Jesus meant eternal damnation, even if
they did not trust Jesus because they never had the opportunity to
learn about him and his teachings. This appears to be fundamentally
unjust and immoral to an increasing numbers of Christians and others.
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Resolution to these conflicts over Hell:
Some approaches have been proposed:
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Many denominations teach that the apparent immorality
of God's actions in Hell are not real. All of our concerns will be resolved at the Final
Judgment. Everyone will then understand the justice, wisdom, methods and mercy involved in
God's decisions to punish the vast majority of the human race, without ceasing, for eternity because they held wrong
beliefs.
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Some conservative Christians are in a state of flux over
the issue of sending persons to Hell who have never heard of Jesus,
his Gospel or Christianity. There is a growing belief that
people who have never been exposed to the gospel
will have some sort of second chance to be saved after death. A
consensus is yet to be reached on this point.
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Some conservative Christians promote Annihilationism:
the concept that punishment in Hell is not eternal. 1
Rather, it is finite. Its duration is set for each individual in
proportion to the number and seriousness of their sins during their
life on earth. After people have paid for their sins in Hell, they are
annihilated and exist no longer, in any form. This concept does avoid
the concern that many people have over an infinite sentence for a
finite crime or sin.
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Some conservative Christians interpret the many severe
tortures in Hell symbolically. They suggest that Hell is not a place
of severe punishment. The main suffering of its inhabitants is caused
by their simple isolation from God.
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Some conservative Christians have proposed that God
has two main aspects to his nature: he is both a God of love and a God
of wrath. His concepts of morality are quite dissimilar from ours.
Genesis talks about God's wrath when he carried out an almost complete
genocide of the human race during the worldwide flood. The Book of
Revelation talks about God's wrath being inflicted upon humanity
in the form of terrible punishments during the end times. He is the
creator of the universe, and is both kind and just. It is his perfect
sense of justice that actually requires the eternal punishment of
unbelievers.
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