Why does God allow the existance of people who go to hell?

I've always questioned why God, who is omni-present, allows the existence of people who will never make the decision to become "saved", and will go to hell.. According to the Bible, we all make our own decisions, and we are responsible for those decisions. But, if God KNOWS our decisions will place us in hell, then why would he allow us to come into existence? How can God "love us all" if God knows we are destined for hell?
What about the people who are born in total seclusion, and never have the chance to even hear about the Bible? Why would they be equally responsible compared to the ones who willfully ignore the Bible?
It all doesn't make sense to me...

I'll take a stab at an answer. It's because we were given free will. I believe with free will, we can make the choice whether or not to be good or evil. I believe God may know all possible outcomes but it is up to us to decide which path we will travel. Good or bad, it is up to us.

Ahh probably an atheists greatest question. Not saying you are one but indeed this would have to be at the top of their list. I can not discern why God does what he does, but IMO since love seems to be a prime motivator for him to create, it would be because some of us would learn about love and that we would return the love he has for us. The jury is still out on whether there is eternal suffering in Hell. I actually believe a Loving God would not condemn someone to hell for eternity just because someone used their brain that they were given and made other choices.

reply to post by orionthehunter


you said everything i would of said

however i'm not the biggest believer in the normal GOD, but i do believe in a higher being or something i cant imagine.

but if he was true i guess he would do the reasons are everyone is born equally good and bad, but its what you do which defines you as that.

it is a choice.
freewill.
God, or your subconscious, doesn't know you are going to be bad. It is your choice.
So perhaps hell is your realization that what you have done, was over all not good.
Self-esteem is worse than what others say about you.

we all know what we truely deserve.

God has unconditional love for all of us. Unconditional means that there is nothing that you can do to make him love you more, nothing you can do to make him love you less. He wants you to love him, too, but he's not going to force you to do so, that's the free will bit.

If you choose to follow God's way, it's your choice, your decision and your responsibility. We believe that we will be judged on how we behaved on Earth, how we treated others, how we handled our relationship with God.

There are faiths that believe that, in the end, God does forgive all, and everyone is granted his kingdom. But, for the most part, that seems rather unjust. Would you want Stalin or Hitler to get a "stern talking to" and that would be it, they'd be treated the same as Mother Theresa or someone else that sacrificed their life to better others?

Consider a mother whose son is arrested and put in prison for robbery. She most likely still loves her son, but she mourns for his bad choice, is likely disappointed, and probably wouldn't break him out of prison if she could, hoping that his punishment will change him, or at least keep him from robbing others.

Who knows the god of the bible might be real, but not exactly how they portray him in the bible. Remember the bible was written by man. Men make A LOT of mistakes. A god would not send a good person to hell because he did not believe in a guy who existed 2000 years ago. That would defeat the perfectness of god. Honestly I believe in the god of karma. Hell is subjective. If you are a good person you would not go to hell, if you are a bad person you will go to hell. I also read that eternity was originally translated from "eon". Meaning that no one stay in hell "forever" but for a period of time, i they did bad things.

reply to post by monkeySEEmonkeyDO


God created Hell for Satan and his followers. Man, by his own free will is the only creature that God has made who makes the decision to go to Hell.
Do you think that God rejoices when one of us would rather be in hell than in Heaven?

reply to post by rangersdad


Yes he does. If a man lives his whole life being good and helping people, and i he does not believe in a guy 2000 years ago, he goes to hell? God is a kid with an ant farm. We are a game; nothing else (that is only if the god of the bible exists)

You can help thousands, millions of people, but doing it for completely the wrong intentions. Our good deeds are filthy rags compared to a Holy God and the Heaven he prepares for us. Millions of good deeds amount to barely a speck, it is your spiritual condition that matters but the mind cannot comprehend it.

reply to post by orionthehunter


But doesn't that still contradict the notion that god is all knowing? If he really was he would know the 'possible outcome' that you would choose. If he doesn't know that, he isn't omniscient.

Originally posted by Maddogkull
Who knows the god of the bible might be real, but not exactly how they portray him in the bible. Remember the bible was written by man. Men make A LOT of mistakes. A god would not send a good person to hell because he did not believe in a guy who existed 2000 years ago.

From a theological perspective, yes he would. God gave Abraham his covenant, his personal connection and promise, and that covenant followed to Abraham's descendants, the Jews. If you are Jewish, and you follow Jewish law, including making proscribed sacrifices, you continue to have the blessing of God's covenant.

For the rest of us (which is everyone, I suppose... after the destruction of the Temple, I'm not sure anyone can continue to accurately make Torah based sacrifices) our connection to God and his covenant is through Christ. When we accept Christ and his sacrifice for us, we are accepting God's covenant. If we don't accept him, we have no connection and no promise from God.

Remember, Christ's first commandment is to love God with all your heart. If you don't, theology says that you're out of luck, because no one is saved by their own works ("being good") but through the blessing of God's covenant.

On the other hand, if the Catholics are right, if you're not super evil (or super good,) you'll get a chance to change your tune in purgatory, so those "good" people who didn't know about Christ, or followed some other path, will have an opportunity to accept God's blessing once they're a bit clearer about it. Though I suspect that if you knew about Christ, but flatly rejected his salvation, you might be out of luck.

Originally posted by alicepip
reply to post by orionthehunter

 

But doesn't that still contradict the notion that god is all knowing? If he really was he would know the 'possible outcome' that you would choose. If he doesn't know that, he isn't omniscient.

you will always have contradictions when you are describing god with human logic. there is just no way around it. just like the whole can he create a rock that he can't move, and so forth. perhaps there is some other way.....

See again, its stupid. You go to hell because you do not believe in christ, even if you are good through your life. In that case I might be become a terrorrist and believe in chirst, and I will still go to heaven. That argument is illogical and stupid. How can someone not see through that?

Originally posted by alicepip
reply to post by orionthehunter

 

But doesn't that still contradict the notion that god is all knowing? If he really was he would know the 'possible outcome' that you would choose. If he doesn't know that, he isn't omniscient.

Free will does not contradict omniscience. God knows what path you will take because he transcends time, so, from his perspective, he already knows what you'll do next week, because it's already happened. But, for you, the decision that you'll make that will result in whatever he's seen is still in the future, and you will make it, freely, regardless of whether God knows it or not.

Originally posted by Maddogkull
See again, its stupid. You go to hell because you do not believe in christ, even if you are good through your life. In that case I might be become a terrorrist and believe in chirst, and I will still go to heaven. That argument is illogical and stupid. How can someone not see through that?

If you are a terrorist who believes in Christ, you will not go to heaven, unless you were a terrorist who repented from his sins and stopped acting poorly (in which case, you'd be an ex-terrorist.) Belief in Christ is not a free pass to do whatever you want.

As for those who do not believe in Christ, I'm not saying it's fair, and one would certainly hope that there are ways for God to grant grace for deserving people. But from a theological standpoint, no Christ, no covenant, no salvation.

Originally posted by The Endtime Warrior

Originally posted by alicepip
reply to post by orionthehunter

 

But doesn't that still contradict the notion that god is all knowing? If he really was he would know the 'possible outcome' that you would choose. If he doesn't know that, he isn't omniscient.

you will always have contradictions when you are describing god with human logic. there is just no way around it. just like the whole can he create a rock that he can't move, and so forth. perhaps there is some other way.....

That's the easy way out. If the bible is god's word why wouldn't he write it in a way that makes sense and is logical to humans, the ones he wants to worship him. The bible is filled with inconsistencies, and that is a major reason that many former Christians have become atheists or agnostics.

[edit on 4-7-2010 by alicepip]

Originally posted by alicepip
reply to post by orionthehunter

 

But doesn't that still contradict the notion that god is all knowing? If he really was he would know the 'possible outcome' that you would choose. If he doesn't know that, he isn't omniscient.

That's a very good question. I had a dream relating to this and in my dream God was bored with knowing all possible outcomes forever and ever. He gave us free will to give a variable to reality. In my dream God did not know which path we would travel with 100% certainty. God knew the outcome of whatever choice we would make and knew the probability of us making a choice. However that contradicts God knowing everything or does it? God could see and know all realities. Therefore perhaps God sees multiple realities and that does mean God knows all. The reality we see and experience would be up to us based on our decisions.

The Piso family created all that nonsense to unify all of the superstitious mythical stories at the time into one book for the foolish, uneducated masses. Unfortunately, the foolish uneducated masses still exist today.

Examples like this are just one of the many reasons for which Bible believers are regarded as extremely ignorant. They refuse to research the origins of their Bible which is purely the work of plagiarism. Its characters and stories are all based on much earliers god figures, fable, and myths.

So in reality, theres no reason to worry about a fictional book. The only thing to worry about is these knucklehead folks who spew bible versus and fear at us as if it is all non-fictional.

Folks that are too lazy to research their faith deserve to live in fear over that nonsense. But what angers the rest is when they try to push that fear off onto others. If they would keep it to themselves, they wouldnt have so many folks disgusted by them and their cults.

reply to post by adjensen


See, you believe a book written by man, and changed my empires. You do not know the original message. Eon changed to eternity. Wasn’t hell a fire pit behind Jerusalem or something? We do not know the original message. So to preach such ignorance like you actually know the truth of life is flat out stupid. I am not talking about you by the way, just the majority of people who think they know everything.