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This is such a perfect statement of the Christian arrogance that really ticks me off, I had to reply.
So, in YOUR religion, there's a place of "infinite pain" in my future?
And your idea of God is an all-powerful supernatural being who is going to inflict infinite pain on me?
And you're trying to sell me on the idea of becoming a Christian so I can avoid having God torture me? Hmm.
In the Old Testament,Isaiah 66:22-24, gives us a graphic description of this "world down below". (Yes, I noticed that you visualize hell as being a place below our feet. Very traditional view, but why?) Isaiah states:
“For their worm will not die and their fire will not be quenched; and they will be an abhorrence to all mankind”
Lesson #1: This imagery recalls a battlefield where
dead bodies were
left unburied to be consumed by worms (you can quibble, are they worms or maggots? Maybe William Peterson's character on CSI would know, but I don't)
or were burned.
To have one’s body be left unburied or burned was a great disgrace to any ancient culture, as it is to this day. (That's why the Romans left criminals on the cross to rot.)
To say that "the worm will not die and the fire will not be quenched" indicates the unrighteous will also exist in this state forever. The unbeliever’s body will never be extinguished by decay or fire in this hell, and they will forever be disgraced and loathsome to righteous.
Daniel 12:2 Daniel gives us further evidence as to the duration of the state of the wicked. Daniel uses the same Hebrew word (olam) to describe the future of both the righteous and the unrighteous.
“Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting (olam) life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting (olam) contempt.”
This creates a dilemma for many Christians: it means they won't go to heaven as soon as they die. They have to wait for Christ to return. Until then, they will sleep in the dust of the ground, even good Christians who will eventually receive a reward of eternal life.
While the word olam does not always have to mean eternal (Exodus 21:6), when used to describe God it always means eternal, everlasting, forever, etc. Olam is used in Ps. 90:2 to refer to the infinite duration of God, “even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.” (See also Ex. 3:15, Gen 21:33, 1 Kings 10:9, Ps. 104:31, 117:2, 119:142, 89:53, 135:13, Ex. 15:18, Isaiah 51:6, 8, 40:8.)32
In Matthew 25:46, the same word is used to describe the alternate destinies of the believer and unbeliever.
Matthew 25:31 "When the Son of Man comes in His Glory, and all the holy angels with him, then He will sit on the throne of His Glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them...."
OK, can we agree this never happened? That all the nations of the world are gathered before the Son of Man sitting on a throne?
25:41 Then he will say to those on the left, "Depart from me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels..."
25:46 And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
So, that's the threat of Christianity,
Jesus will separate the righteous from the rest, and the rest will go away into everlasting punishment.
If olam refers to the eternality of God’s future being and glory, and olam describes the length of time we will spend with God after the resurrection, then the unbeliever will therefore also be resurrected to an eternal state of disgrace and contempt.
And the reason I think an End of the World cult in 60 Ad got all of these answers exactly right is... ????
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