If God's Loves Is Infinite, Why Are His Punishments Eternal?

If God loves everybody infinitely, why are souls being punished in hell for eternity?

Well, because we have two separate concepts here. God's existence is eternal, having no beginning or end. That's theology. But his quantitative attributes are infinite. That's physics and math. And like Rev. Phelps pointed out, that means God not only has infinite love and kindness. But infinite sadness, and infinite hate.

Now the two are coequal, and really cancel out eat other: ∞ + -∞ = 0. So one must be greater. And... As Homer Simpson, in his infinite wisdom pointed out, upon hearing the touching Debbie Boone ballad "You Light Up My Life", which Marge explained WAS about God in fact:

"Oh, well, he's always happy. No, wait, he's always mad."

-"I Married Marge",
Season 3, Episode 11,
Original air date: December 26, 1991.

So he is filled with infinite hate, but just enough to cancel out his infinite love. "Infinity plus one" as Mike Myers said aptly in 1991. But he feels infinite sorrow, over his infinite hate, and then infinite anger after that, that he let it get to that point.

But the real question, any philosopher would tell you, is can he create a boulder so heavy he couldn't lift it? In other words can he overcome himself, while being lesser than himself, and greater too? I don't know. We'll save that answer for another day.

 

On the LOVE SIDE, we have God's love of cooked flesh...

When Noah disembarked from the ark, he offered burnt offerings which were “a soothing aroma” to the Lord. Similarly, in Leviticus, the worshipper offered burnt offerings as “a soothing aroma” to atone for his sin and placate the wrath of God (Lev 1:9 , 13 , 17 )

Not to mention all the blood lust. Ahh, that Old Testament God. What a GOOD and LOVING God.

 

Oh yeah, even when God commands the slaughter of children. He does it with love, it's a blessing really, when he 'takes' children, in all his horrific ways.

The Don't Kill Children Challenge with DR. William Lane Craig

 

Wha??? You equate physics and math with human emotions. How anthropomorphic of you. Not to mention believing external reality has human feelings.

 

This is toned down and somewhat more dignified than the Akkadian/Babylonian version in the tale of Atrahasis. When he embarks from the Ark and offers sacrifice, the gods are drawn by the fragrance and "like flies over the offering." Gods like MEAT!!! Or at least that's what folks in ancient times once thought they liked. But see Amos 5:22-24:"I will not accept your burnt offerings and grain offerings. I won’t even notice all your choice peace offerings. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!" It appears that God (or our ideas about Him) changes and grows over time!

 

I think that one might be forgiven of the blasphemy of understanding the Christian God's love as like that of an abusive husband; "It's all your fault! If you were more obedient, He wouldn't have to beat you. But He truly loves you, and it breaks His heart to have to beat you, so He's the real victim here; you should be ashamed of yourself! As a matter of fact, He loves you so much that if you ever try to leave Him, He'll kill you, and it'll all be your fault!"

 

Because God is a fairy tale created by error-prone humans who are consistently inconsistent; God typically changes to match the changes in their agenda.

 

God as a concept is the product of human inference in their never-ending quest to make sense of reality and find meaning in their existence. Interestingly, 51% of scientists say they believe in God (33%0 or a Higher Power or Universal Spirit (18%). Scientists and Belief do this for reasons that are similar to their belief in multiple universes, dark matter and energy, and other concepts that are strictly speaking not empirically verifiable or refutable (i.e., scientific), but are persuaded by observations from cosmology, particle physics, quantum mechanics, logic, etc., that there are reasons to believe in such things. In other words, they believe in metaphysics, the philosophical outlook that considers the basic structure of reality on the basis of reasonable but speculative inferences which fall short of empirical proof. Such as:
1. why is there something instead of nothing?
2. Why is reality so amenable to mathematical explanation?
3. How did a material universe emerge? Can something come from nothing?
4.How could life appear from non-living matter. (So far, abiogeneis is only a plausible hypothesis.)
5. What accounts for the integrated complexity of the universe? Why does the universe seem to be finely tuned, in the sense that a slight change in any of 15 constants would prevent the universe we know from existing?
6. Why are the law of the universe so remarkably suited to such variety and diversity, when randomly selected laws would probably lead to Chaos or boring simplicity?
7. Why are we conscious, when our awareness doesn't seem to be necessary from an evolutionary standpoint?
8. How did so many coincidences or lucky accidents happen to make us the winners of the Cosmic Jackpot? e.g., if Pikaia, our primitive chordate ancestor, hadn't survived the Burgess decimation we probably wouldn't be having this discussion.
9. What explains the many coincidences in our lives that convinced thinkers like Jung to believe in synchronicity-- the simultaneous occurrence of events which appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection. What Is Synchronicity and How to Recognize the Signs of It in Your Life - Learning Mind
10. How did moral laws come to be? Are truth, love, liberty, justice, beauty, etc., simply arbitrary and relative, or do they have an objective foundation?
Hard core scientists (41%) would hold out for proof and suspend judgment until that's available. But the 51% majority are willing to take chance.
11. The pragmatic argument (William James): Belief in God functions positively in the believer's life (meaning, comfort, relief from existential anxieties, moral precepts, etc.
12. Irreducible complexity: the (minority) belief (of the ID crowd) that certain biological systems could not have evolved from simpler precursors, since the organism couldn't function if any part were absent.

Of course, human beliefs in supernatural entities have a long history, going back to the Paleolithic. Stone Age philosophers had to go on the basis of the information available to them. They began with animism and gradually developed beliefs in anthropomorphic deities who controlled the forces of nature. Scientists and philosophers of our own time operate in an intellectual climate where belief in the Dude in the Sky described in a Bronze Age book is still prevalent, and many of them learned about Him on their mother's knee. I'm sure this colors their quest. I'm just a social scientist, but my earliest memory of anything was sister Lawrencia's lecture on original sin. She made quite an impression!

 

I think you went around the more important question of how can there be an unconditionally loving god in a dualistic world. Either there are conditions to God's love, or the universe is not dualistic. In other words, if we live in a world of good and evil, and those who are with us versus those who are against us, then we cannot escape there being conditions upon God's love. Otherwise there would be no point in the duality.

Indigenous cosmologies tend to see the world as a multiplicity--and this allows for an unconditionally loving god, because we can induce inclusiveness from a plurality.

 

I might point out that not all theologians are into the omni-this, omni-that concept of God. Process theology takes Occam's razor's approach to the theosophy dilemma. (See Charles Hartshorne's Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes.) Process theology envisions a dynamic God who changes and grows along with the rest of the universe.

I see Hell as a metaphor for what it would be like if everyone rejected God in pursuit of false gods: wealth, status, power, and sensual indulgence. It would be (to use Hobbes' words) a "war of all against all', in which life would be "nasty, brutish, and short." Of course, Hell wasn't understood that way by early Christians, and many modern ones, who took it quite literally. The Christian concept of hell is the most horrific among other religions that have a similar concept. The Hell meme (in Dawkins' original usage: as a unit of cultural evolution) probably accounted for many early conversions to Christianity, which is the goal of cultural evolution. The fact that it has taken a tole on the minds of some of it's hosts isn't a concern of memes, which are preoccupied with their own propagation (metaphorically speaking, of course). But carried to extremes, it can backfire. In an atheist group in which I take fellowship, more than one member got there from a toxic religious upbringing which kept telling them they were going to hell for this or that--to the point it became unbearable.

 

The Christian mindset is based upon one of the strongest emotions, fear. Fear of death, hell, Satan, Gods wrath, God's judgement, the judgement of their friends, and fear of all those "others" they've been taught to fear and hate.

Whether it's immigrants or trans or "liberals", they just can't seem to mind their own business while their leaders do unspeakable acts themselves

So playing with those fears is a means of mind control, very effective too.