1 A God Who Loves Us 2 or Calvin's God by William West - HTML preview

UNIVERSALIST The “Age Lasting” Hell

An evil Pagan teachings That is attributed to God By those who say they worship Him

THE GOD SLANDERING DARK AGE DOCTRINE OF HELL MAKES GOD EVIL, CRUEL, SADISTIC, AND FIENDISH. By some unknown and twisted reasoning it is assumed that for God to be just He must forever torment the lost for His justice demands this; HOW DOES “GOD IS A JUST GOD” DEMAND THAT THERE IS A HELL OR PROVE THERE IS A HELL? From the first sin, God's sentence to Adam was not eternal torment but death. Throughout the Bible, the sentence for sin is always death, not torment. "The wages of sin is death." That His justice demands that He must forever torment the lost is without any foundation in His word. To put it pure and simple, it is a doctrine of man and it makes God evil, cruel, and fiendish for if the punishment exceeds the crime by millions of times, it is injustice, not justice.

If a man should put a single person that had raped and killed his wife in a dark pit and torment him day and night for ten years, most would condemn him to the hottest part of "Hell." Yet, some teach that God made mankind knowing that most of them would be lost, and many millions would never hear His word; yet He will torment them worse than anything we can imagine, not for ten years; but time without end. It will be God doing the tormenting; God will be the one who makes the fire and keeps it burning forever. Satan or the evil ones will not be tormenting themselves. Many try to justify God for doing more than any man can do, and being more cruel and sadistic than the most evil man could ever be by saying we cannot understand the evil of sin. The God of the Bible is a God of love and justice; not as many make Him: sadistic, fiendish, cruel, evil, and in character much like Satan. In the Hell that is preached today no one will be corrected by the torment; therefore, it can only be sadistic?

The Ultimate Evil: “The idea of never-ending conscious agony is so completely revolting to our instinctive moral and judicial senses that we could fittingly call it the ultimate evil. If were honest about the matter, this is exactly what it is. After all, is it possible to come up with a worse notion than perpetual fiery conscious misery – with no merciful respite or end to the suffering? The mere idea is so disturbing that it makes it a very hard subject to discuss calmly. How can anyone with an ounce of human compassion contemplate the idea dispassionately when the view of ceaseless torture is so profoundly disturbing?” Chapter eight, www.hell-know.net/

The Deprived, Revolting Evil: "To torment a child that dies without ever knowing anything about God or His word forever day and night with a torment worse than any pain we can have on this earth would not be 'justice,' but sadistic. What kind of a person could love a God who was tormenting his wife and children with more pain than anyone has ever had in this life? When we are in Heaven, do you think we will be singing of God's love and mercy while He is cruelly tormenting most of mankind and many you now love, your wife or husband, your father and mother, your child, your friend? Is there a greater perversion of Scripture than to attribute such characteristics to God? Is it reasonable to believe that the righteous in their glorified state can be indifferent to, and unaffected by, the endless sufferings of countless millions of their fellow beings; among whom would probably be found parents, children, husbands, wives, etc.? Is it possible that they will be destitute of deprived of qualities which are considered most lovely and godlike in this life; viz., piety, sympathy, compassion, commiseration for others' woes, etc.? Will insensibility to the woes of the wretched ever become a virtue? Will that which is a vice in this life, become a grace in the glorious future life?" From a web page by "Ron" which is no longer on the net.

Today, many think that the electric chair or hanging of a person who has killed many is inhumane though it takes only a few seconds; but these same people see no inconsistency in believing it is just for God to torment the same person, even if that person has never heard His word, with a torment which they say is much worse than the few seconds would be and this torment by God will not last only for a few seconds but for an endless eternity.

More Cruel And Sadistic Than Any Heathen God: THE CALVIN GOD, which is believed in and worshiped by many, is a God many times more evil, more cruel and sadistic than any heathen god. Before the Calvin God made the world, He rigged the outcome and chose to make most of mankind to be lost before He made them. He even made it impossible for them to believe, but will torment them forever for not believing. The torment by the worshipers of heathen gods soon end with death of the ones being tormented; but Calvinism teaches God made most men, many millions, just so He could torment them without end for eternity "for his good pleasure." According to Hell fire Calvin teachers, this torment will be many times worse than any torment by the worshipers of heathen gods; and will never end in the death of those being tormented. How could any person who has an ounce of compassion, love and worship such a God?

Those who believe in the Calvin God say this God chose you to be saved or to be lost before he made the world. If you are one of the few chosen by this evil God to be saved, even if you live in the most out of the way place in the world and never know of God or Christ, when the time comes for you to be saved you will be. You can do nothing about it and you cannot say no. If you are one of the many he chose to torment forever there is no use to send preachers to you; there is no use for you to read the Bible or do anything; there is nothing you or anyone can do. According to Calvin this God made you just because he wants to torment you forever, and he will. Such a God is like a very rich ruler who torments a thousand people "for his good pleasure" and enjoyment, and chose you to make rich and happy. He would not be worthily of your love, but only your contempt. To destroy the evil, either in this lifetime or at the judgment is one thing; but to make them be evil before they were born, and then torment them without end with more pain than they can know in this lifetime for being what he made them to be is not justice. He would be an unjust and evil God. He made them evil and gave them no chance not to be, and then torments them for being what He made them to be. If you put a person who worked in a store in the electric chair for unknowingly short changing a person one cent, your injustice would not equal that of a God that made one person just so he could torment that person forever. Many say He did this with most of mankind. Most are filled with grief when a loved one or friend has some sickness that makes them suffer even when they know the suffering will soon end with death. Yet, they worship a God who they believe will take pleasure in the suffering of billions without end; and not only will he take pleasure in it but he will be the one that is tormenting them and making them suffer and he made them just so he could torment and make them suffer. CALVIN DID NOT GET HIS DOCTRINE FROM THE HEATHENS FOR THE HEATHENS HAD NO DOCTRINE AS CRUEL, AS FIENDISH, AS BLACK, OR AS UNJUST.

A Scandal Against The Almighty: "For were a woman to commit a crime against her husband, and he punishes her by holding her hand in the fire until the flesh burned off the bones, he would be pronounced one of the most cruel beings in the world; and if he were to escape justice, he would be hunted as a wild beast; and when brought to trial and condemned, he would be pronounced worthy of thrice the punishment that the law could inflict. And he would have been tried and condemned by men, most of whom, perhaps, believed that God would take that same woman, for that same crime that she had committed against her husband, and put-not only her hand, but her whole self into a Lake of Fire and Brimstone;-not for half an hournot for a day-not for a year-nor for ten thousand years only, but for all Eternity. Also, that this Burning of her in a Blazing Hell would be so agreeable to the determination of the Almighty that no pity could be excited, no mercy shown; but that there, in that Lake of Fire she should gnash, and groan, and wail Eternally. Oh! How horrid the picture! And what a terrible crime, even in the light of their own actions, to charge God with such cruelty!" John Kent, "Eternal Burning, A SCANDAL AGAINST THE ALMIGHTY" 1879.

A God Of Infinite Horror: "That God would rise the wicked and give them immortality only to torment them in a devil's hell unendingly is both gross and vulgar, even blasphemous. Such a God is not the one described in the Bible...If the God of heaven subjects innumerable billions to unending and indescribable torment, it can only be seen as the one infinite horror." Leroy Garrett, Restoration Review, November 1990.

A Mockery Of Truth And A Blasphemy Against Deity: "My opponent will make an effort to try and demonstrate that our loving, compassionate, merciful God will be content with nothing less than the perpetual, never diminishing, horrific torture of the vast majority of mankind. Not only is that not what the Scriptures teach, it has the distinct disadvantage of portraying our God as a Monster the likes of which the human mind cannot even conceive. It is to proclaim a God foreign to the inspired revelation. Thus, it is a mockery of Truth and a blasphemy against Deity." Al Maxey, Maxey-Thrasher Debate on the Eternal Destiny of the Wicked by two ministers of the church of Christ at: http://www.zianet.com/maxey/MxThrshr.htm - I recommend this debate to all members of the church of Christ of which he is a member, and to all who want the truth.

Worst Than Gods Of Paganism: "Paganism in its worst forms has never surpassed, if it has equaled, the savage and terrible descriptions which have been given by Christians of their God. The character ascribed to Him; the dreadful wrath and vengeance with which He is moved; the cold and malignant purpose of creation in regard to million of souls; the stern severity and gloom of His government; the horrible and never-ceasing tortures which He will inflict on His helpless, children-all this, and much more of like character, defies the power of language to set it forth in its true light, or to present it in a manner adequate to its shocking revolting reality." Thomas Thayer, "The Origin And History Of The Doctrine Of Endless Punishment."

Makes The Universe A Theater Of Cursing And Blasphemy: "What, then, is the doctrine of endless misery? Stripped of all its drapery, it is no more or less than this: That a large part of the human family are doomed to suffer the most intense and indescribable torments as long as God shall exist, without the least hope or possibility of being benefited by their sufferings. In some part of this beautiful universe, God has prepared an awful, dismal, burning hell, and there countless myriads of human beings shall weep and groan, unpitied and unrelieved, while ceaseless ages shall roll; and when ten thousand times ten thousand years shall have passed, they shall have as long to suffer as if their sufferings had but just began. And, then, to think of the number of the lost to remember that there are on this earth not less than eight hundred millions of human beings, and that out of these there are not more than fifty millions that can be saved, upon the broadest system of partialism; and that, by consequence, there must be more than seventy thousand souls going down to hell every day; and, then, to think of generations that have past, and reflect upon the vast and countless multitudes that must be congregated in that huge reservoir of tears and woe; the very thought bears the lie upon its front. The degree of the punishment outrages all ideas of proportion between guilt and punishment, and the number of the victims shocks all feelings of humanity or mercy. It makes the universe a theater of cursing and blasphemy, rather than a field for the display of the boundless perfections of a merciful and benevolent Creator." I. D. Williamson, An Examination Of The Doctrine Of Endless Punishment, 1860.

God The Tormentor: Spurgeon, one of the greatest of Baptist preachers, said, "When thou driest, thy soul will be tormented alone; that will be a hell for it; but at the day of judgment thy body will join thy soul and then thou wilt have twin hells, thy soul sweating drops of blood, and thy body suffused with agony. In fire exactly like that which we have on earth, thy body will lie, asbestos like, forever unconsumed, all thy veins roads for the feet of pain to travel on, every nerve a string on which the devil shall forever play his diabolical tune of hell's unutterable lament." From his sermon "The Resurrection of the Dead." Like most who believe God will forever torment many billions, he must have some revelation that is not in the Bible to tell him about their suffering. In his day most orthodox Protestants believed the Devil would be doing the tormenting, but today most orthodox Protestants think he was wrong, that God is the one who will be doing the tormenting. The man made "Hell" is forever changing. What was orthodox in his day is no longer orthodox. For many Baptists his truth is no longer truth.

Ebenezer Erskine in "The Judgment" "How shall the adulterer satisfy lust when he lies on a bed of flames? The swearer shall have enough of wounds and blood when the devil shall torture his body and rack his soul in hell. The drunkard shall have plenty of his cups when scalding lead shall be poured down his throat, and his breath draw flames of fire instead of air."

An Atrocious Slander On God : Henry Ward Beeches speaking of Michael Angelo's painting, The Last Judgment said, "Let anyone see the enormous gigantic coils of fiends and man; let anyone look at the defiant Christ that stands like a superb athlete at the front, hurling his enemies from him and calling his friends toward him as Hercules might have done; let anyone look upon that hideous wriggling mass that goes plunging down through the air-serpents and man and beasts of every nauseous kind, mixed together; let him look at the lower parts of the picture, where with the pitchforks men are by devils being cast into cauldrons and into burning fires, where hateful fiends are gnawing the skulls of suffering sinners, and where there is hellish cannibalism going on-let a man look at that picture and scenes which it depicts, and he sees what were the ideas which man once had of Hell and of divine justice. It was a night-mare as hideous as was ever begotten by the hellish brood it-self; and it was an atrocious slander on God...I do not wonder that men have reacted from these horrors."

Jonathan Edwards, "The world will probably be converted into a great lake or liquid globe of fire, in which the wicked shall be overwhelmed, which will always be in tempest, in which they shall be tossed to and fro, having no rest day or night, vast waves and billows of fire continually rolling over their heads, of which they shall forever be full of a quick sense within and without; their heads, their eyes, their tongues, their hands, their feet, their loins and their vitals, shall forever be full of a flowing, melting fire, fierce enough to melt the very rocks and elements; and, also, they shall eternally be full of the most quick and lively sense to feel the torments; not for one minute, not for one day, not for one age, not for two ages, not for a hundred ages, not for ten thousand millions of ages, one after another, but for forever and ever, without an end at all, and never to be delivered."

Benson, "He will exert all his divine attributes to make them as wretched as the capacity of their nature will admit...They must be perpetually swelling their enormous sums of guilt, and still running deeper, immensely deeper, in debt to divine and infinite justice. Hence after the longest imaginable period, they will be so far from having discharged their debt that they will find more due than when they first began to suffer." He has God charging interest on the debt of the suffering sinner owes Him at such a high rate that the sinner gets more behind as time goes on. If the punishment exceeds the crime by billions of times would it be justice or injustice?

Dr. E. Beecher said it, "Involves God, his whole administration, and his eternal kingdom in the deepest dishonor that the mind of man or angel can conceive, by the violation of the highest and most sacred principles of honor and right, and on the scale of infinity and eternity" Page 225. "The human mind cannot be held back from abhorring such a theory, except by the most unnatural violence to its divinely inspired convictions of honor and right" Page 306, Conflict of the Ages.

WHAT KIND OF JUSTICE IS THIS? To fill many books with the most harrowing descriptions of torment would not equal the torment we are told that God will give to just one person for all eternity. After someone who never knows of God in his lifetime on earth has been in torment in Hell for not believing in God for trillions times trillions of years, we are told they will still have eternity with not one second less time to suffer. Those who believe in Hell say, "It is justice." My question to them is how do they know it to be justice; where did God tell this to them? It being justice is something they had to make up to try to justify their heathen Hell even if they make God be much more evil than Satan. They are saying, “Stepping on a persons lawn may get you a disapproving look, but stepping on Gods lawn will get you eternal torment by God.” No one could know this without a revelation from God and there is no such revelation, it is an addition, it is making God evil just to justify their evil teaching.

DO YOU WONDER WHERE IN THE BIBLE THEY FOUND THINGS LIKE THE DEVIL POURING SCALDING LEAD DOWN THE THROAT OF A PERSON AND MANY THOUSANDS OF LIKE THINGS? THE ANSWER IS THAT THEY ARE IN THE SAME PASSAGE WHERE THEY FOUND HELL AND THE SAME PASSAGE WHERE THEY FOUND THE NAME OF HELL. THEY FOUND THEM IN THE TEACHING OF MEN, NOT THE BIBLE.

"As a child, Robert Ingersoll heard a preacher proclaim the doctrine that God subjects sinners to unending torment in hell. Ingersoll decided that if God were like that, then he hated Him. Later he wrote of this belief that it 'makes man an eternal victim and God an eternal fiend. It is the one infinite horror. Below this Christian dogma, savagery cannot go.' There are substantial moral and logical difficulties in believing in a God who tortures His enemies forever. Like Ingersoll, thousands of thinking men have turned away from such a God" Tim Crosby in Ministry.

E. Petavel, D. D., "The lamentable results of the Platonic doctrine may be seen in the theology of a Tertullian and an Augustine,-theology called orthodox.--which makes the God of love an Executioner whom innumerable victims will curse eternally. Such a doctrine is a burden even to its adherents. It has drawn from them admissions, which we are bound to record. Henry Rogers declared that 'for his part he would not be sorry to see every child die at the age of four years.' Albert Barnes admits, with a soul full of anguish that he cannot understand why there are men destined to suffer forever. 'The Gospel,' says Isaac Taylor, 'fills us with a universal sympathy which sometimes make us regret that it must be true in all its teaching.' Calvin himself cannot refrain from confessing that the decree of God concerning sinners seems to him horrible ('decretum horrible fateor'). In a word, the traditional dogma conducts to pessimism by making evil eternal. What has been the result? Extremes meeting, the doctrine of eternal suffering has led to Universalism. More or less secretly many of the partisans of the traditional dogma, unable to hold it any longer, have quitted their position, to embrace the hope of a universal salvation; while others wander in the penumbra of eschatological skepticism" The Extinction Of Evil, Page 78, 1889.

THE CAUSE OF ATHEISM AND STUMBLING IN MANY Matthew 18:6
A DOCTRINE THAT MAKES ATHEISTS

God has been made so cruel, and this doctrine is so unthinkable that it has probably created more atheists, and caused more weak believers to fall away than any other false teaching. The dread of Hell has caused misery and metal anguish to countless millions and INSTEAD OF THE HORROR OF HELL TURNING MANY TO GOD TO ESCAPE ETERNAL TORMENT, MANY MILLIONS HAVE BEEN TURNED AWAY FROM SUCH AN UNJUST GOD. The doctrine of Hell is one of Satan's best tools to turn many away from Christ. Do you want to give an account to God at the judgment for teaching it? No heathen religion has a God as unjust and fiendish as many "Christians" make their God.

Edward White said, "It cannot be denied that the frightful doctrines on the future of humanity...supported by the general authority of nearly all Christendom for at least fourteen centuries, are regarded with contemptuous skepticism by the bulk of the existing male population of Europe, who assigns these articles of 'the faith' as the chief reason for their ever extending and fierce revolt against Christianity" Life In Christ, Page 65, 1878.

GOD IS NOT A GOD OF TERROR, A CRUEL AND EVIL BEING THIS DOCTRINE MAKES HIM TO BE. DO YOU THINK HE WILL SAY TO THOSE WHO TEACH HE IS UNJUST, "WELL DONE, GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT...ENTER YOU INTO THE JOY OF YOUR LORD" [Matthew 15:21]?

If the reason anyone converts is because of a fear of Hell, his or her conversion is just superficial, not real, not because he or she had a love for God, just afraid of being tormented in Hell. A conversion because of the fear of Hell makes a hypocrite, not a Christians. The harm that has been done by the heresy of eternal torment is beyond belief.

The doctrine of Hell puts those who teach it in dilemmas from which they have no way out.
[1] Dilemma number one: According to most who believe in Hell only a few will escape it, but they say all who die before the age accountably will escape Hell and will go to Heaven. By their own teaching, the Abortionist maybe sending more to Heaven and saving them from Hell than preaching is. Yet, many preachers that teach "Hell" with all its horrors bitterly oppose abortions, which by their own teaching, is saving more from "Hell" than they are. Why? According to their own teaching, in the US alone by abortion millions have been sent to Heaven but most of them would have ended up being in eternal torment if they had lived. If I believed their teaching about Hell, I would be all for a sure way to save millions from an eternity of torment and put them safely in Heaven.
[2] Dilemma number two: Many pagans count girl babies of little or no use and kill many of them. For centuries, millions of girl babies in China have been killed at birth. Today, because of the law in China of one child per family, many girl babies are being killed at birth by parents who want a boy. According to the teaching of those who believe in Hell there are millions of Chinese girls in Heaven that would have been tormented in Hell if they had lived, but not many Chinese boys are in Heaven.
[3] Dilemma number three: According to them, the children killed in the Old Testament in Gehenna would be blessed for by not having a few years of life with pain and problems they will forever live with God in Heaven.
There are many more dilemmas like these. How many children have been sent to heaven by wars? How many children were send to Heaven when the two A-bombs were dropped in world war two; do we need more wars and bombs to keep more out or Hell and to send more to Heaven? How many children will be in Heaven because they had no food or some sickness? By their teaching, a child that is killed or dies soon after birth is blessed over those that live for most of them that do not die as a child will live forever in torment and all those that do die when they are a child will live forever in Heaven. According to their own teaching (if they were right), Heaven will have more in it that was killed as a child than by all the preaching.
Annihilationnation is God giving people freedom to choose not to accept Christ and the life He died to give them. Their not-accepting Christ and life means they have chosen to accept death. God gives them their choice, and lets them pay the wages of their sin, death, for they have chosen not to let Christ pay it for them. He is a just God, not a cruel sadistic God who will torment forever. Some say, "God is a God of justice and sin must be paid for, or God would not be just." Yes, but being sadistic is not justice in anyone's book, and the very fact that He is just would not let Him cruelly and sadistically torment anyone forever without end. The wages of our sins were paid by the death of Christ; those who have not been baptized into His death will pay for their own sins in the second death, not by having scalding lead poured down his or her throat for all eternity. God made all out of nothing and has the right to send any back to nothing. Sending those back to nothing that choose to not give Him the worship He is entitled to is His right and there is nothing cruel about it. They have the life He has given to them and have chosen to live it for themselves.
MAKES GOD HAVE A DOUBLE STANDARD One for Him and another for us
What would be wrong for us, to torment all that do not believe, is made to be right and good for God to do “for His good pleasure” on a scale that is infinitely greater than would be possible for all men combined to do.
Many have tried to lessen the cruelty in a number of ways. [1] Perhaps the most common one is to make Hell be only in the mind of the lost. Billy Graham said, "I have often wondered if Hell is a terrible burning within our hearts for God, to fellowship with God, a fire that we can never quench." This does not help any and maybe makes it crueler. Mental pain is as bad and sometimes worse than physical pain. God tormenting most of mankind by making them live in mental pain for eternity would not make Him any less cruel. [2] Some have tried to justify this cruelty by saying the punishment must fit the crime. If a person commits a crime against a person he or she does not know, it is not as bad as the same crime would be if committed against his or her mother and the same crime committed against God is infinitely worse, but no one could know this without a revelation from God; where in Gods word does He say the same trespasses become infinitely worse when it is against God? Jesus teaches that what ever we do or do not do for mankind we do or do not do it for God [Matthew 25:40, 45], and He makes no distinction as to whom the sin was against. For centuries many of the best thinkers in the orthodox churches have tried to find a way to justify Hell. I think the best they have done is to say the same crime/sin committed against an infinite God demands an infinite punishment, and God would not be just if He did not torment all sinners forever; they have tried to make it look as if He has no way out and must torment in Hell. What new revelation do they have that makes God be wrong when He said, "The wages of sin is death"?
· First: they are speaking where the Bible does not say anything and are making God be bound by their theology; therefore, they give God no choice, making God be bound to forever torment most of mankind all to justify their "Hell."
· Second: God's law in the Old Testament had the same punishment if the sin were against man or against Himself. To lie was the same if the lie were to a person or to God. His law was an eye for an eye no matter whom the sin was against. Their theology makes it be one eye if the lie were told to a person, but if the same lie where told to God it would be an endless number of eyes.
· Third: If any sin against an infinite God demands an infinite punishment of eternal torment in Hell, all have sinned. If the only payment for our sin against an infinite God is eternal torment, Christ did not pay it for us. If the payment is death, Christ did pay it for us.
_· Fourth: God made us and if He had chosen not to give anyone eternal life, to let us pass out of exists, to return to not existing, He would still be a good and merciful God for giving us the life we have. But, God has given us much more if we will only believe and obey Him. He has given His only Son that we may given life, not death. He has saved us from the wages of sin; the death that we deserve and given us life. · Fifth: Who could love and worship a God that according to traditional
doctrine would have made our father, mother, wife or husband, our
children, and many we know and love just so He could torment them
and He gives them no change to not be tormented.
Throughout the Old Testament, God destroyed His enemies, Sodom and Gomorrah, the flood, drowning in the Red Sea, etc. He did not torment them forever. The Bible does not teach it is the character or nature of God to torment the lost.
Not only is Hell an addition to the Bible but also Hell is many times crueler than anything the pagans ever even thought of. Because for most it is something that is far away and not something they can see now, I do not think they can see how cruel they are being too most, or how cruel they are making God be. Because it is not something that is not real to them, they are able to tell themselves "it is justice." If the Hell they teach was real and they could look over into it and see God tormenting most of mankind in the terrible way they now teach that He will be doing, they would be terrified of such an evil being as they say their God is. HOW CAN ANYONE NOT SEE THIS?
The doctrine of an immortal soul that cannot die and must forever be tormented is the most heartless doctrine any person ever believed. BELIEVING IN HELL IS AS HEARTLESS AS ANY PERSON CAN BE, AND IS LOVING AND WORSHIPING THE MOST CRUEL, SADISTIC AND FIENDISH OF ALL GODS. If being created in the image of God means mankind cannot die but must forever be tormented, then being in the image of God is a curse for most of mankind; it would have been better for them to be as animals are. God made all things that are, if Hell does exist, it could only have been God that thought it up and made it. DO THOSE WHO TEACH THE DOCTRINE OF HELL REALLY BELIEVE IN HELL? The plain inference is that they do not believe in it. They see some of their family, thei