Subject: Re: Questions about Hell

From: Rick Reinckens <Rick@GodOnThe.Net>

Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2010 01:42:10 -0500
To: Walt

Walt wrote:

I have really enjoyed your website. I have been studying for God's truth for more than 40 years. One
subject I still have problems understanding is the teachings about eternal torment in hell fire for the
unsaved. I know most churches teach this, but to me it seems this fire has to be symbolic, because God
teaches us to love our enemies. To believe that God would torture his enemies seems to be contrary to his
teaching us to love our enemies.

I feel based on your background that you might be able to help me understand this subject, so I would
appreciate any help or advice you could give me.

Thanks,

Walt

Walt,

The Bible says that man is made "in the image of God". That means God is a lot like us. A major difference is
that his emotions/feelings are much stronger than ours. Although his love is much stronger than we can
understand, so is his anger. "'Vengance is mine,' says the Lord."

One reason God tells us to love our enemies but he (at least apparently) doesn't follow the same rules is that
we don't know "the big picture" but He does. God gives each person more than enough time to decide
whether to accept Him or not. You will often hear preachers say that they met someone who was young and
full of health and they told the person about Jesus and the person listened (whether they wanted to or not)
and didn't accept Jesus--and an hour later the person was dead. That was God giving that person one last
chance. On the other hand, many people who rejected God or Jesus in particular and had horrible attitudes
remembered years later that some Christian didn't react bad to them like everyone else did. And eventually
that undeserved kindness led the person to investigate and eventually accept Christianity.

Also, it is important to understand the nature of evil and the effect of sin. If God created everything and said
it was good (as Genesis 1 says), where did evil come from? St. Augustine realized that good and evil are like
heat. You make something hot by adding energy to it. You don't make something cold by adding cold, you
take away energy. You don't make something evil by adding evil, you remove "good". Evil is what remains
when you remove compassion, remove love, remove kindness, remove mercy, remove empathy, remove
honesty, remove faithfulness, remove shame, remove remorse, etc.

Sin is a spiritual infection that, like cancer, continues to grow until there is nothing good left. Consider this:

The Bible says that God kicked Satan out of heaven because Satan wanted angels to worship him. Hey,
plenty of people would like to be worshiped by some others.

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Referring to Satan, Jesus said, "The thief does not come ... except to steal, kill and destroy."

It's a pretty big leap from "I'd like to have people worship me" to "My only goal is to steal, kill and destroy."
That is the progressive nature of sin.

The Bible says that (for the past 2,000 years) the Holy Spirit has been acting as a restrainer on humankind.
He has been preventing most of humankind from doing all the evil we would do without that restraint.
Consider what that means! ... Hitler and the Nazis were restrained. Stalin was restrained. The Mexican drug
cartels are restrained. But after the Rapture, the Holy Spirit will be withdrawn and people will be permitted
to commit the full extent of evil in their hearts. As Pastor John Hagee says, "The Antichrist will make Adolf
Hitler look like a choir boy by comparison!"

In current times, the vast majority of Christian evangelism is carried out by Protestants, particularly
Evangelicals. Although the Catholic Church does do evangelism, you don't see major rallies, etc., and it
follows much more antiquated, low-key, and less effective techniques not aimed at a "mass market" (no pun
intended ...). I was raised Catholic and spent about 22 years in the church from 1950-1970 and then around
early 1994 to early 1996. In that time I don't remember ever seeing any large Catholic evangelism outreach
single program, revival, etc. On the other hand, Protestants aim at a "mass market" and because there is no
central Protestant authority, different groups are free to use different techniques. Often they have adopted
secular techniques. One that has proved particularly useful is marketing. The basic goals of marketing are to
reach a target audience with information about a "product" (a general term than can apply to anything), to
make them aware of the existence of the "product", the qualities of the "product", why they should be
interested in the "product", the benefits of the "product", the costs of the "product", and possibly the
disadvantages of the "product".

Salespeople will tell you that when you are trying to sell a "product" (i.e., convince someone in the target
audience to accept the "product", whether money is involved or not), you want to emphasize the benefits and
either don't talk about or minimize the negatives. You don't see colleges advertising, "Spend four years at our
college and run up $100,000 in student loans."

Many evangelism programs and most pastors, etc., who appear in the media, adopt the marketing/sales
approach: emphasize the love of Jesus and don't mention things like hell, punishment for sin, etc. If you start
saying publicly that the Bible condemns homosexuality, etc., you will be labeled a bigot, homophobe,
intolerant, fundamentalist, fanatic, religious radical, ignorant, prejudiced, etc. If someone speaks biblical truth
about such topics, the media can always find someone with clergy credentials or who teaches in a seminary or
college religion department to come on and present an opposing view. Nowadays the big thing among
"homosexuality is an alternative lifestyle" preachers is, "we preach a gospel of inclusion, not exclusion." The
Bible doesn't mention a "gospel of inclusion".

As a result, people currently alive get a very distorted picture of the God of the Bible unless they study to at
least an "intermediate" level of biblical knowledge, where they are reading publications aimed not at the
general public but at people who want a more accurate picture. The distorted picture talks about God's love
but doesn't mention or glosses over his sense of justice and his anger at sin.

Sites like mine are generically referred to as "fan" sites, regardless of whether they deal with religion, politics,
or other topics. People who have to deal with the public at large as "spokesmen" for their group often have to
restrict what they can say publicly. Any Christian church leader who publicly says, "Islam is a demonically-
influenced false religion" will immediately be ostracized by leaders of all religions, politicians, academics, etc.
"Fan" sites serve an important purpose in that we can go into the details but allow the leaders to publicly
"distance" themselves if confronted: "We don't have control over that person. What they say is their

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business."

If you look at scripture, Malachi 3:6 "I the Lord your God do not change." Hebrews 13:8 "Jesus Christ is the
same yesterday and today and forever."

Genesis 18

GE 18:20 Then the LORD said, "The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so
grievous 21 that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If
not, I will know." [This was pre-Judaism. And God was still listening to the prayers of "the righteous", who
still knew in their hearts that there must be someone greater who understood justice.]

GE 19:3 But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for
them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. 4 Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of
the city of Sodom--both young and old--surrounded the house. 5 They called to Lot, "Where are the men who
came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them."

GE 19:24 Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah--from the LORD out of
the heavens.

Contrary to common belief, they were real places. Archaeologists excavating Ebla have found thousands of
cuneiform clay accounting tablets recording commerce between the cities of Ebla, Sodom and Gomorrah.
Several of the destroyed towns have been found and are being excavated, including one of the two cities.
Archaeologists have found about 55 thousand graves in the city. It must have huge with a long history to have
that many graves.

Exodus 9

EX 9:8 Then the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "Take handfuls of soot from a furnace and have Moses
toss it into the air in the presence of Pharaoh. 9 It will become fine dust over the whole land of Egypt, and
festering boils will break out on men and animals throughout the land."

EX 9:10 So they took soot from a furnace and stood before Pharaoh. Moses tossed it into the air, and
festering boils broke out on men and animals.

Archaeologists and geologists have been able to determine what caused the boils. A volcano erupted 700
miles away and the upper atmosphere winds carried the ash all the way to Egypt, except for the land of
Goshen . There is a fine layer of dust at the appropriate age throughout Egypt and it is now possible to
identify volcanic ash as coming from a specific volcano. Many types of volcanic ash are extremely toxic
because they are essentially ultra fine glass small enough to inhale or to get into the skin. There is no reason to
think the God who can raise a storm (Jonah), cause a flood (Noah), stop a storm (Jesus), destroy a prison with
an earthquake without killing anyone (Paul and Silas) and--on cue--hit only specific parts of city walls with an
earthquake (Jericho) can't control a volcano and related winds. Scientists estimate the universe is 13.7 billion
years old, which is a bit over 432.339 quadrillion seconds. So it's pretty hard to believe an earthquake or a
volcanic eruption or winds bringing and removing toxic ash just happened to hit at the right moment by
random chance. Also, since it is known that volcanic ash is toxic, it's pretty hard to believe there would be a
layer of ash in the right place at the right time and a historical record of the effects but the record is false.

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Exodus 32

EX 32:27 Then he said to them, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: `Each man strap a sword
to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and
friend and neighbor.' [who had been involved in creating and worshiping the golden calf]" 28 The Levites
did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died. 29 Then Moses said, "You
have been set apart to the LORD today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed
you this day."

Numbers 16

NU 16:1 Korah son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and certain Reubenites--Dathan and Abiram,
sons of Eliab, and On son of Peleth--became insolent 2 and rose up against Moses. With them were 250
Israelite men, well-known community leaders who had been appointed members of the council. 3 They came
as a group to oppose Moses and Aaron and said to them, "You have gone too far! The whole community is
holy, every one of them, and the LORD is with them. Why then do you set yourselves above the LORD's
assembly?"

NU 16:4 When Moses heard this, he fell facedown. 5 Then he said to Korah and all his followers: "In the
morning the LORD will show who belongs to him and who is holy, and he will have that person come near
him. The man he chooses he will cause to come near him. 6 You, Korah, and all your followers are to do this:
Take censers 7 and tomorrow put fire and incense in them before the LORD. The man the LORD chooses
will be the one who is holy. You Levites have gone too far!"

NU 16:28 Then Moses said, "This is how you will know that the LORD has sent me to do all these things
and that it was not my idea: 29 If these men die a natural death and experience only what usually happens to
men, then the LORD has not sent me. 30 But if the LORD brings about something totally new, and the earth
opens its mouth and swallows them, with everything that belongs to them, and they go down alive into the
grave, then you will know that these men have treated the LORD with contempt."

NU 16:31 As soon as he finished saying all this, the ground under them split apart 32 and the earth
opened its mouth and swallowed them, with their households and all Korah's men and all their possessions.
33 They went down alive into the grave, with everything they owned; the earth closed over them, and they
perished and were gone from the community. 34 At their cries, all the Israelites around them fled, shouting,
"The earth is going to swallow us too!"

NU 16:35 And fire came out from the LORD and consumed the 250 men who were offering the incense.

NU 16:41 The next day the whole Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. "You have
killed the LORD's people," they said.

NU 16:42 But when the assembly gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron and turned toward the Tent
of Meeting, suddenly the cloud covered it and the glory of the LORD appeared. 43 Then Moses and Aaron
went to the front of the Tent of Meeting, 44 and the LORD said to Moses, 45 "Get away from this assembly
so I can put an end to them at once." And they fell facedown.

NU 16:46 Then Moses said to Aaron, "Take your censer and put incense in it, along with fire from the altar,
and hurry to the assembly to make atonement for them. Wrath has come out from the LORD; the plague has
started." ... 48 He stood between the living and the dead, and the plague stopped. 49 But 14,700 people died

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from the plague, in addition to those who had died because of Korah.

Deuteronomy 28

DT 28:15 However, if you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands
and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

DT 28:16 You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.

DT 28:17 Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed.

DT 28:18 The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds
and the lambs of your flocks.

DT 28:19 You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.

DT 28:20 The LORD will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to,
until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him. 21
The LORD will plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to
possess. 22 The LORD will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat
and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish. 23 The sky over your head will
be bronze, the ground beneath you iron. 24 The LORD will turn the rain of your country into dust and
powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed.

DT 28:25 The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will come at them from one
direction but flee from them in seven, and you will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms on earth. 26
Your carcasses will be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to
frighten them away. 27 The LORD will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, festering sores
and the itch, from which you cannot be cured. 28 The LORD will afflict you with madness, blindness and
confusion of mind. 29 At midday you will grope about like a blind man in the dark. You will be unsuccessful
in everything you do; day after day you will be oppressed and robbed, with no one to rescue you.

DT 28:30 You will be pledged to be married to a woman, but another will take her and ravish [rape] her.
You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will not even begin to
enjoy its fruit. 31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will eat none of it. Your donkey will
be forcibly taken from you and will not be returned. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and no one
will rescue them. 32 Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, and you will wear out your eyes
watching for them day after day, powerless to lift a hand. 33 A people that you do not know will eat what
your land and labor produce, and you will have nothing but cruel oppression all your days. 34 The sights you
see will drive you mad. 35 The LORD will afflict your knees and legs with painful boils that cannot be cured,
spreading from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.

DT 28:36 The LORD will drive you and the king you set over you to a nation unknown to you or your
fathers. There you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone. 37 You will become a thing of horror and
an object of scorn and ridicule to all the nations where the LORD will drive you.

DT 28:38 You will sow much seed in the field but you will harvest little, because locusts will devour it. 39
You will plant vineyards and cultivate them but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because
worms will eat them. 40 You will have olive trees throughout your country but you will not use the oil,
because the olives will drop off. 41 You will have sons and daughters but you will not keep them, because

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they will go into captivity. 42 Swarms of locusts will take over all your trees and the crops of your land.

DT 28:43 The alien who lives among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and
lower. 44 He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head, but you will be the tail.

DT 28:45 All these curses will come upon you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are
destroyed, because you did not obey the LORD your God and observe the commands and decrees he gave
you. 46 They will be a sign and a wonder to you and your descendants forever. 47 Because you did not serve
the LORD your God joyfully and gladly in the time of prosperity, 48 therefore in hunger and thirst, in
nakedness and dire poverty, you will serve the enemies the LORD sends against you. He will put an iron yoke
on your neck until he has destroyed you.

DT 28:49 The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the ends of the earth, like an
eagle swooping down, a nation whose language you will not understand, 50 a fierce-looking nation without
respect for the old or pity for the young. 51 They will devour the young of your livestock and the crops of
your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine or oil, nor any calves of your herds
or lambs of your flocks until you are ruined. 52 They will lay siege to all the cities throughout your land until
the high fortified walls in which you trust fall down. They will besiege all the cities throughout the land the
LORD your God is giving you.

DT 28:53 Because of the suffering that your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the
fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the LORD your God has given you. 54 Even the most
gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his
surviving children, 55 and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It
will be all he has left because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of all your cities.
56 The most gentle and sensitive woman among you--so sensitive and gentle that she would not venture to
touch the ground with the sole of her foot--will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter
57 the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. For she intends to eat them secretly during the
siege and in the distress that your enemy will inflict on you in your cities.

DT 28:58 If you do not carefully follow all the words of this law, which are written in this book, and do not
revere this glorious and awesome name--the LORD your God-- 59 the LORD will send fearful plagues. Just
as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and
destroy you. on you and your descendants, harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and lingering illnesses.
60 He will bring upon you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you. 61 The
LORD will also bring on you every kind of sickness and disaster not recorded in this Book of the Law, until
you are destroyed. 62 You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left but few in number,
because you did not obey the LORD your God. 63 You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to
possess.

DT 28:64 Then the LORD will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other.
There you will worship other gods--gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.
65 Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD
will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart. 66 You will live in constant
suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life. 67 In the morning you will say, "If
only it were evening!" and in the evening, "If only it were morning!"--because of the terror that will fill your
hearts and the sights that your eyes will see. 68 The LORD will send you back in ships to Egypt on a journey I
said you should never make again. There you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and
female slaves, but no one will buy you.

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2 Kings 1 (Attitude adjustment)

2 KI 1:9 Then [Ahaziah, king of Samaria] sent to Elijah a captain with his company of fifty men. The
captain went up to Elijah, who was sitting on the top of a hill, and said to him, "Man of God, the king says,
`Come down!' "

2 KI 1:10 Elijah answered the captain, "If I am a man of God, may fire come down from heaven and
consume you and your fifty men!" Then fire fell from heaven and consumed the captain and his men.

2 KI 1:11 At this the king sent to Elijah another captain with his fifty men. The captain said to him, "Man of
God, this is what the king says, `Come down at once!' "

2KI 1:12 "If I am a man of God," Elijah replied, "may fire come down from heaven and consume you and
your fifty men!" Then the fire of God fell from heaven and consumed him and his fifty men.

2KI 1:13 So the king sent a third captain with his fifty men. This third captain went up and fell on his knees
before Elijah. "Man of God," he begged, "please have respect for my life and the lives of these fifty men,
your servants! 14 See, fire has fallen from heaven and consumed the first two captains and all their men. But
now have respect for my life!"

2 KI 1:15 The angel of the LORD said to Elijah, "Go down with him; do not be afraid of him." So Elijah got
up and went down with him to the king.

Mark 4

MK 4:10 When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. 11 He
told them, "The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is
said in parables 12 so that, " `they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never
understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!' "

This is never preached but I find it particularly interesting--Jesus is saying that if they heard the truth plainly,
some of them might repent, and he is deliberately not speaking plainly to them so they won't repent and be
forgiven! -- sort of like Jonah not wanting to preach to Nineveh so they wouldn't repent.

Matthew 24

MT24:38 (Jesus speaking) For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and
giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen
until the flood came and took them all away.

2 Peter 2

2PE 2:4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy
dungeons to be held for judgment; 5 if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its
ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; 6 if he condemned the
cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to
happen to the ungodly; 7 and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of

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lawless men 8 (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul
by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)-- 9 if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from
trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment.

I'm an attorney. The Bible is a constitution. A constitution lays out general principles to be used in governing
a society. (The "precepts" God repeatedly mentions means "basic principles".) For instance, the Bible doesn't
contain speed limits, but societies with motorized vehicles need those. There are some areas of law for which
every society must have specific rules.

Every attorney has to study Criminal Law in law school. The course begins with a discussion of "What is the
purpose of criminal law?" Although there are a range of considerations, they basically come down to "the five
R's": Restraint (prevent crime), Removal (put criminals where they can't commit crime), Retribution
(punishment), Rehabilitation, and Repudiation ("our society rejects such behavior") Too much emphasis on
any one of those results in an ineffective system. ("Why is the government so willing to spend large amounts
of taxpayer money training criminals for good jobs? I never committed a crime and I can't get training.")
("You can't rehabilitate someone until after a crime. What about prevention?") Yes, that does mean that
sometimes the sole purpose of a fine or imprisonment is punishment, not rehabilitation.

There is a saying, "God doesn't have grandchildren." Consider this scenario:

You have hundreds of children. (Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines ....) (And a thousand mothers-
in-law ... I believe the appropriate description is, "Oy, vay!") They have thousands more. You are ruler
(whether king, patriarch, or whatever) over all of them. Everyone in the area is directly related to you by
blood or marriage. You are not only in charge of them but you are responsible for their well-being. As ruler,
you are the judge.

Some of your children or grandchildren are criminals. They beat, rob, rape, etc., your other children,
sons/daughters-in-law and/or grandchildren. You publicly denounce their behavior and punish them. But they
go right back to the same behavior. You try to simply restrain them, but they continue to commit crimes
against their fellow prisoners. And not only that, but they continue to be defiant. It is obvious that they reject
your rules and priorities. It eventually becomes clear that they won't change. Not now, not fifty years from
now. Every time they have the opportunity, they will resume their criminal behavior.

What would you do? Let them keep committing crimes? They are incorrigible, so rehabilitation isn't an option.
Do you let them possibly spread their views to others who are willing to follow rules? (And keep in mind that
the Holy Spirit is restraining them from doing worse than they do! He won't be doing that after death.)

That is the situation God is in. No one is born a drug dealer or a mass murderer. I saw a Tommy Lee Jones
movie where he is teaching military recruits hand-to-hand combat killing techniques. He told them, "Learning
the techniques is the easy part. Turning it off is the hard part." I once saw Rev. Jessie Jackson on a discussion
panel about dealing with drugs. Everyone was talking about poverty, lack of job opportunities, broken homes,
etc. He said, "There is one thing here that no one is mentioning that is far more addictive than any drug that
has been or ever can be invented--the lure of easy money. With someone who can spend 10 minutes selling
drugs or doing a petty theft to buy drugs and they can get $100, even if the person gets sober it's really hard to
get that person to give up crime and go work for $6 an hour at a local fast food joint with no chance of
advancement."

So there you are, the judge, with incorrigible kids who simply are not willing to change. What can you do?

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And all of this does not really address God's sense of justice. Where mercy and forgiveness will be wasted
and pointless, justice needs to be satisfied. Humans feel an inherent desire for justice because we are made in
God's image.

Jesus repeatedly spoke of hell as a place of punishment, suffering, pain, and similar images and terminology.
It won't be "Club Fed", (or I suppose more appropriately, "Club Dead", pun definitely intended ...) where
everything is pretty comfortable but the "residents" ("inmates") have the sorrow of knowing they won't be in
the presence of God.

I suggest you get a book titled To Hell and Back by Maurice Rawlings, a cardiologist. You obviously are
aware of the numerous people who write about Near Death Experiences involving "the tunnel and the white
light". Rawlings points out that they uniformly report only pleasant experiences. He says that emergency
medical personnel, on the other hand, see patients with both good and bad experiences. The people who see
Hell are horrified and beg the doctors not to let them die. He says he contacted several "white light" authors
and offered hellish NDE's. Every author he contacted was not interested in reviewing his data. He also says
that the Hell experience is so horrifying that often the person completely changes his ways and
psychologically blots out the memory, so ultimately the person doesn't remember the details and thinks he
must have had a pleasant experience because his life is now much better.

By the way, Rawlings reported that there are three types of NDE's. One is "the light", the second is Hell, and
the third is "the One". People who experience "the One" know that they have lived a sinful life (he gives an
example of a double-murderer) and when they have their NDE they come into the presence of "the One",
who seems warm, accepting and non-judgmental. Their reaction is, "I know I haven't lived a good life, and I
was really surprised that this being didn't seem to care." Often they are somewhat concerned about the fact
that this being didn't seem to care about their lifestyle. The being never identifies itself. Rawlings goes on at
length as to why that being should be assumed to be Lucifer.

Regarding post-death punishment, the question is, "What level of life would one consider 'punishment'?" To
someone living in poverty in Africa today, the life of someone on welfare in the U.S. would look terrific--
public transportation, a private home, regular meals, free school for their children, medical care by skilled,
well-equipped doctors, access to hospitals, no roving militias brutalizing them, police who for the most part
are not corrupt, cell phones, heat, air conditioning, clean running water, toilets, life expectancy into their 70's,
freedom of religion, ability to read, television, furniture, shoes, several changes of clothes, and on and on. To
someone with $5 million annual income, being limited to $5,000 per month income might seem unbearable.
Someone was once talking to New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller about "the poor" and he said, "I know
people who only make $100k-200k a year. I don't know how they survive."

On the one hand there is the argument, "God doesn't owe anyone anything. He made us, so He can do
whatever He wants with us. The clay doesn't get to complain to the potter." But in truth, that rings hollow. If
the potter throws the lifeless clay into a kiln, the clay doesn't start screaming in agony. There was a Star Trek
Voyager episode where a group of aliens wrote a computer program that created holographic humans the
aliens could hunt. But the aliens found it boring so they gave gave the characters feelings. The program
characters could feel pain, fear, etc., and the aliens ran the program over and over. (The aliens made the
mistake of allowing the program to remember previous events and ultimately the program characters started
killing the aliens who were torturing them.) On the other hand, for most people their (God-given) sense of
justice and fairness says that if someday we create life forms capable of feeling fear, pain, anguish, etc., we
could not do whatever we wanted on the theory, "we created the program/life forms/whatever, so we can
treat them however we want." Most people have a sense that there is a "universal law"--certain fundamental
principles that are not created, they simply exist. Some of those are basic fairness.

So, what uniform level of "punishment" would we consider appropriate for all condemned souls? Given our

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limited perspective, no matter what punishment we envision, some people would consider it too harsh for
some people and too lenient for others.

MT 8:29 "What do you want with us, Son of God?" [the demons] shouted. "Have you come here to torture
us before the appointed time?"

Jesus repeatedly described Hell in terms of fire and flames. Although many people consider it a parable, the
story of the beggar Lazarus and the rich man is not a parable. The parable genre that Jesus used was common
among rabbis of that era. The events and cast of characters in parables were stereotypes: a great feast, or a
wedding, a king, etc. But they never gave parable characters names, because everyone understood they were
just fables to make a moral point. The rich man mentioned flames. The people in Rawling's book repeatedly
mention flames, oppressive heat and oppressive darkness with a physical component (sounds like the
darkness God caused in Egypt). The people who claim there are no flames, etc., don't have any evidence or
proof--just wholly unsupported speculation based on selective reading of unrelated verses.

One last thing. Theologians agree that just being an innocent man dying by crucifixion is nowhere near
enough to pay for all the sins of all mankind. Jesus went to Hell and took the punishment of God's wrath in
Hell. After that he came back and appeared to as many as 500 people. If he had been wrong about the details
of Hell, presumably he would have said so, at least to the apostles--"Folks, I told you that Hell is a place of
flames, etc. But now, I have physically been there. The description wasn't quite accurate. What it's really like
in Hell is ...." But he didn't change any of his teaching and testimony.

Rick Reinckens, webmaster

www.GodOnThe.Net

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