—if people do not like the way hell is described i guess they might just go there and see how they would describe it.—
Thing is, for me it was not that I didn’t like it. Rather, it didn’t fit with my understanding of the personality of God. And this is the most important part: When I actually studied it, I found that the “consciously suffering for days without end” paradigm is not what is taught in the bible. Yes, it speaks of gnashing of teeth, and it says that where the lost go will be for all eternity, but there are a lot of ways to interpret that when we are talking about a place outside our physical creation we currently occupy. And “time” is part of that.
I’ll use a very short section of a sci-fi book I read once as an example. A character in a space ship that was being chased by another space ship had the ability to envelop a thing in a field that “froze” the object in space and time. Then, at any future time, even after thousands of years, the application of a “key” would undo the effect. The people who had been encased in this field would think that not one second had passed. It was as if time had completely stopped for them, and then started again.
So he used it on the ship chasing them, and since they were in deep space, one could assume they would be in that position until the end of time, though they would not be aware of the passage of time.
So, I think of hell as a place apart from God and since nothing can exist outside the presence of God, they cease to function, and they will be in that position for all eternity. They are not coming back.
The bible is actually pretty clear about it when it says they go to “death and destruction”. If we read that anywhere besides the bible and did not have a pet theory to protect, we would interpret that to mean, well, what it clearly means. But when the bible says it, and we’ve been preconditioned with centuries of teaching on “eternal suffering”, we try to twist the words to mean something they don’t.
This is a big deal to me because when discussing Christianity with non-Christians, this “eternal suffering” thing is a HUGE roadblock. Rather than “scaring them” to repent, it causes them to throw the whole thing out as myth. And the reason is simple: It contradicts the whole “loving God” message, as demonstrated in the analogy of the man asking the woman to marry him. They simply can’t get past it.
If it was a legitimate stumbling block put there by God, I would have a different opinion. But I think it was put there by well meaning (perhaps) men many hundreds of years ago as a way to get more people to accept Christ. And it probably worked to get people to go to church and give money, but it contradicts the scripture and the personality of God. Sure, they will not come into eternal life, but the opposite of eternal life is eternal death according to the bible. And death is “eternal” not as an ongoing activity but, rather, something that stays the same for eternity: You die and you STAY DEAD.
The only scripture that seems to contradict this is the fate of the humans in the end that accept the mark of the beast. Key word: Seems.
Thing is, for me it was not that I didn’t like it. Rather, it didn’t fit with my understanding of the personality of God. And this is the most important part: When I actually studied it, I found that the “consciously suffering for days without end” paradigm is not what is taught in the bible.
I also have an other idea but there are too many if,s
If i understood what ever lasting life is it would maybe help me to understand what the unsaved are going to face,
I can think of two ways that we might have eternal life and if i am wrong on them, which is a very good possibility then i would probably be wrong on the other also.
I should have read your comment a little better and thinks for the clarification.