Two known evils

My dear Erin, of course in your mind my experience and understanding of God has to be false. Because you can't entertain the opposite conclusion without validating my experiences and understanding of God at the same time.

That's kind of complicated.

I was thinking more of the traumatic fear you report experiencing there.

That kind of fear is not the result of true Christianity.

Very good answer, but hell and the fear of it wasn't invented by non believers but by christians. Had I not read the bible I wouldn't be able to form my traumatic fear of it. Now you can say that God saves us from hell so there's nothing to fear. But the problem is that you have to fear hell first to accept that God will save you from it.

I hope I don't make you feel sick with my analogies.

No, you don't.

The Bible impressed you enough to traumatize you.

That's a tender heart.

Did someone there tell you that fear of hell was the necessary means of saving faith?

No, not at all. . .

. . .Had I not read the bible I wouldn't be able to form my traumatic fear of it. . .the problem is that you have to fear hell first to accept that God will save you from it.

So you understood the Bible to be trying "to scare the hell out of you" and saving faith into you?

Elin, I don't understand your question.

You understood the Bible's purpose was to cause fear of hell (which it did) so that you would receive God's salvation from hell?

Yeah spot on, so what do you think?

Well, I would like to understand your experience a little better.

Were you exposed to the Bible and Christianity when growing up, or was it introduced to you for the first time as an adult?

Yeah spot on, so what do you think?

Well, like those scary commercials of people who look like cadavers because of cancer from smoking,
which scare me into receiving their warning against smoking, are really doing me a servce in presenting them,

wouldn't the Bible's presentation of hell be just such a warning, doing us a service by presenting it,
as well as the remedy for it?

Yes exactly.

So is the Bible doing you a service in presenting hell?

Not the bible, but God.

God is doing me a service in saving me from a place he created or will create in the first place. Which
I will always be afraid of going there unless I believe in the son of God.

So God's creates the very torture chamber he is saving us from then asks us to freely choose which one we want. Are you really free to choose to want to go to heaven if the alternative is horrifyingly unthinkable.
Or is there a door number 3.

Okay, the Bible is from God, so it is God presenting hell.


So God is doing you a service in informing you of the danger of hell and in providing a remedy from it.


Does God present a door #3 in the Bible?

No he doesnt, he only gives two options. Which one door leads only to punishment and the other door the escape from punishment. It creates a logical dilemma for the believer. How do you choose not to pick door number 2 if you will suffer a penalty for
picking door number 1. A believer cant pick door number 1, so
there was never a choice.

So your issue is "choice" regarding the danger, rather than the danger itself.
Are you sure you are focusing on the most important thing here?

OK, choice. . .do you have a "choice" on this earth regarding gravity?

Do you have a "choice" regarding being born?

Do you have a "choice" regarding eventually dying?

There are some things about which there is no choice, nor was a choice ever promised.
Kicking against them is foolishness.

Do you have a "choice" regarding the law?

Do you have a "choice" regarding those scary cancer commercials?

There are some "choices" which are harmful, which prudence and commons sense
dictate that we not make.
Choosing those things is foolishness.

God's warning us of hell is no different.

We have no choice regarding the existence of hell, as we do not regarding the existence of gravity.
The reborn into eternal life have no choice in rebirth, just as we have no choice in physical birth.
We cannot unbirth ourselves back into non-existence, just as the reborn cannot unbirth themselves back into spiritual death.

Could this focus on "choice" rather than on the danger and its remedy, actually be deception?

Do you think that immutable universal laws are diffrent than conditional choices.

Both apply to and address your different concerns.

So what is your answer to my question?