‘First of all, I am not defending Calvin, nor am I a Calvinist per se. And regardless of your take on annihilation, EVERYONE whose name is not written in the Book of Life is cast into the Lake of Fire, regardless of the severity of their sins!’
First of all, you need to reconcile the Revelation image with all the rest of Scripture. Not all of Revelation is literal. For example, here is the Revelation description of the birth of Christ:
“12 A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; 2 and she was with child; and she *cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth.
[The Red Dragon, Satan]
3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were seven diadems. 4 And his tail *swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child.”
snip
“13 And when the dragon saw that he was thrown down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child. 14 But the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, so that she could fly into the wilderness to her place, where she *was nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent. 15 And the serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, so that he might cause her to be swept away with the flood. 16 But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and drank up the river which the dragon poured out of his mouth.”
Do you believe that is literally what happened when Mary gave birth to Jesus? If not, why do you believe the lake of fire is literal? Revelation is written in imagery, in the Apocalyptic style. It is not all literal. You can’t say, ‘The parts that have already happened are not literal, but the parts that are yet to happen are literal’, because there is no indication whatsoever that that is the case. Rather, the entire book is Apocalyptic, & attempts to make certain parts of it completely literal is an error in interpretation.
“Incidentally, you God creates souls knowing full well the majority will be tormented eternally in the Lake of Fire. How is that any different?”
All the difference in the world. The God of the Bible gives people a choice. They can choose to accept His free gift of eternal life & live forever in heaven, or they can reject Him & suffer “eternal punishment”. If they reject Him, it’s of their own free will. They choose their destiny. Nothing could be more different than creating a sentient human, able to feel pain, agony, despair & torment, & giving that person no option but to suffer “eternal punishment”. Now *that* is Sadism.
Re: the term ‘perish’. If the Bible spelled out exactly what it means to ‘perish’ via the ‘second death’, we would not be having this discussion. But it doesn’t. It does indicate, as I quoted above, that in the ‘eternal darkness’ of damnation there will be ‘weeping & gnashing of teeth’. How can annihilated people weep? If, otoh, the ‘second death’ is eternal separation from God, the damned could both ‘perish’ in the spiritual sense & weep at the same time.
Ah, now we are getting to the point. This statement suggests you do not hold that there is a destination for all unbelievers called the Lake of Fire. Do you also reject the millineum, the judgement of Satan, the New Jerusalem et al?
I will leave this parting thought:
Matt 10: 28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
Destroy means eternal torture, right? And the greek word translated "hell" here is gehenna, not hades or tartarus.