Let us examine the concept of eternity. It is a concept, and is something that our minds literally cannot grasp. There is a video I have linked on the side of this page ("Hell: an excessive punishment") that has a good analogy for how long eternity is. Imagine a huge planet, made completely of bronze. Every hundred years a bird flies by, brushing its wing against the side of the planet. When the planet is completely worn down to nothing, that will have been the first day of eternity. It is too long a time for us humans to even understand. By God’s own book, no Christian should wish death or pain upon a non-believer, but God chooses to burn and torture people for eternity. Because he is all-powerful and this is his universe, he has the power to pull people out of Hell, or make it disappear completely. But no, he consciously chooses to torture people. Christians are more moral than their own God.What kind of omniscient, perfectly good being would burn and torture a living thing for any expanse of time? You and I certainly wouldn’t. But God is excused because he is so holy that he is above our morality. This creates a problem: is God good because he has good qualities, or is he good because he’s God? The existence of Hell, accompanied by the millions of people God killed in the Bible, leaves us to assume that God is good because he’s God - he is so far above us that whatever he does goes. This is a dictionary definition of might-makes-right, or a dictator. God obviously does not have the good qualities that his followers insist upon, but rather has such a high position that we are victims to whatever he wants. Does this sound like a supreme, perfect, and good being?
Such a supreme being wants and needs nothing. So what is he doing? Why do we concern him? Why did he come down to this tiny planet on the outskirts of one random galaxy in one corner of the universe and make little miniscule, material creations that have to prove themselves to him? Why is he so offended by these insignificant creatures if they don’t worship him? Why does he want people in Heaven? To have company? These questions are simply unanswerable by Christianity; they don’t know God’s true motives or his actual plan for us. All they know is that they must unquestioningly worship and praise him. They must realize that to someone who is outside of religion, it all seems very strange.
- Evan
I don't know if this helps, but this is the take I hear from most Christian blogs I'm reading. Not a Christian myself, agnostic actually, so this is just from what I've heard from other Christians. They say that God has always existed before time, and he is the uttermost origin of all goodness, righteousness, etc. So the so called "standards" that he holds humans to are the same standards that he himself holds to which are the ten commandments. He fulfills those perfectly, and he has never broken any promises he has made to people in the Bible according to the Biblical examples. However, what is strange is that the punishment of each crime committed varies from person to person, but there is always a punishment of some sort. According to God's mercy, there are some whose crimes are punished in this life, and others who are punished in eternity (hell). The only way to avoid the punishment in hell, is to believe in Jesus Christ to save you from the sins "crimes" that you committed after his death and resurrection from the cross. However, that means that the punishment is dealt with in the life of the person while they live. If this looks like the exception for some "so-called" Christians, it is because they are not "true" Christians according to some "true" Christians, and will be determined by God on Judgement Day. According to Christianity, it is impossible to fully measure how merciful God is to one person, compared to another, but their are Biblical examples of God's mercy being shown. It's also difficult to really understand all the factors that determines God's decision in forming the person's punishment compared to another persons for the same crime. The point is that God's standard is absolute, and if any of the commandments are broken requires a punishment of some sort that is carefully thought out by God. For example, if you have heard about the "killings" of the whole Caananite population, the killing is not against the 10 commandments. One of the 10 commandments is "Do not murder" which is a personalized, immoral act, and not "Do not kill" which could mean self-defense, etc. The Israelites were ordered to annihilate the Caananites, because the Caannanites' culture was corrupt with crimes such as child-sacrifice, ritual prostitution, worshipping of idols (many other gods), etc. However, God was not entirely unmerciful to them at this time, because he waited 400 yrs for them to turn from their ways, and he gave them ample warnings through examples of God's blessings on the Israelites when the Israelites obeyed God. So in this perspective, God could not be patient any longer with the Caananites and had to destroy them. How is this fair for the Israelites to commit this act? This act was done to prevent the Israelites to ever become infected with culture of the Caananites at all, and served as a warning to the Israelites that this type of punishment could happen for themselves too if they disobeyed God and committed the same crimes. So apparently, God is harsh in some of his punishments (according to the human perspective), but is just and balanced by the mercy that he dished out according to all the wisdom that he possesses to do this. That's why Christians say only God is just in making such a decision, and not people, and for some reason after the death and Resurrection of Christ, it eliminates any need for God to call punishment on people by making one nation destroy another. Weird, I guess.
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