Immortality or Resurrection (Updated) - William West (top ten ebook reader .TXT) 📗

this cruel, but it is justice, not cruelly. God would not be God if
He were not just? If He had no law, which has a penalty for not keeping it, He could not
rule and there would be no sin. There is sin, and its penalty is death.
"In the first place we complain of its relative novelty. It does not appear in the history of doctrine
until the beginning of the third century. Barnabas, Clement of Rome, Hermas, Ignatius, Polycarp,
Justin Martyr, Theophilus of Antioch, Irenaeus, all the first fathers of the church are
Conditionalists. Not one of them taught Universalism. Merely the first slight traces of the doctrine
are contained in the writings of Clement of Alexandria." E. Petavel, D. D., The Extinction Of Evil,
Page 90, 1889.
Note: Many in the Church of God and Congregation of God also teach there will be
"an opportunity for salvation" after the resurrection, but unlike the Universalist, they
believe some will reject it, and for them there will be the second death, not torment in
Hell.
CHAPTER TEN
The Results Of Attributing Evil Pagan Teachings
To God By Religious People
THIS GOD SLANDERING DARK AGE DOCTRINE OF HELL MAKES GOD
EVIL, CRUEL, SADISTIC, AND FIENDISH. By some unknown and twisted
reasoning it is assumed that for God to be just He must forever torment the lost for
His justice demands this; HOW DOES “GOD IS A JUST GOD” DEMAND THAT
THERE IS A HELL OR PROVE THERE IS A HELL? From the first sin, God's
sentence to Adam was not eternal torment but death. Throughout the Bible, the
sentence for sin is always death, not torment. "The wages of sin is death." That His
justice demands that He must forever torment the lost is without any foundation in
His word. To put it pure and simple, it is a doctrine of man and it makes God evil,
cruel, and fiendish for if the punishment exceeds the crime by millions of times, it is
injustice, not justice.
If a man should put a single person that had raped and killed his wife in a dark pit and
torment him day and night for ten years, most would condemn him to the hottest part of
"Hell." Yet, some teach that God made mankind knowing that most of them would be
lost, and many millions would never hear His word; yet He will torment them worse than
anything we can imagine, not for ten years; but time without end. It will be God doing the
tormenting; God will be the one who makes the fire and keeps it burning forever. Satan
or the evil ones will not be tormenting themselves. Many try to justify God for doing
more than any man can do, and being more cruel and sadistic than the most evil man
could ever be by saying we cannot understand the evil of sin. The God of the Bible is a
God of love and justice; not as many make Him: sadistic, fiendish, cruel, evil, and in
character much like Satan. In the Hell that is preached today no one will be corrected by
the torment; therefore, it can only be sadistic?
The Ultimate Evil: “The idea of never-ending conscious agony is so completely revolting
to our instinctive moral and judicial senses that we could fittingly call it the ultimate evil. If we’re
honest about the matter, this is exactly what it is. After all, is it possible to come up with a worse
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notion than perpetual fiery conscious misery – with no merciful respite or end to the suffering?
The mere idea is so disturbing that it makes it a very hard subject to discuss calmly. How can
anyone with an ounce of human compassion contemplate the idea dispassionately when the
view of ceaseless torture is so profoundly disturbing?” Chapter eight, www.hell-know.net/
The Deprived, Revolting Evil: "To torment a child that dies without ever knowing
anything about God or His word forever day and night with a torment worse than any pain we
can have on this earth would not be 'justice,' but sadistic. What kind of a person could love a God
who was tormenting his wife and children with more pain than anyone has ever had in this life?
When we are in Heaven, do you think we will be singing of God's love and mercy while He is
cruelly tormenting most of mankind and many you now love, your wife or husband, your father
and mother, your child, your friend? Is there a greater perversion of Scripture than to attribute
such characteristics to God? Is it reasonable to believe that the righteous in their glorified state
can be indifferent to, and unaffected by, the endless sufferings of countless millions of their
fellow beings; among whom would probably be found parents, children, husbands, wives, etc.? Is
it possible that they will be destitute of deprived of qualities which are considered most lovely
and godlike in this life; viz., piety, sympathy, compassion, commiseration for others' woes, etc.?
Will insensibility to the woes of the wretched ever become a virtue? Will that which is a vice in
this life, become a grace in the glorious future life?" From a web page by "Ron" which is no
longer on the net.
Today, many think that the electric chair or hanging of a person who has killed many
is inhumane though it takes only a few seconds; but these same people see no
inconsistency in believing it is just for God to torment the same person, even if that
person has never heard His word, with a torment which they say is much worse than the
few seconds would be and this torment by God will not last only for a few seconds but
for an endless eternity.
More Cruel And Sadistic Than Any Heathen God: THE CALVIN GOD, which is
believed in and worshiped by many, is a God many times more evil, more cruel and
sadistic than any heathen god. Before the Calvin God made the world, He rigged the
outcome and chose to make most of mankind to be lost before He made them. He even
made it impossible for them to believe, but will torment them forever for not believing.
The torment by the worshipers of heathen gods soon end with death of the ones being
tormented; but Calvinism teaches God made most men, many millions, just so He could
torment them without end for eternity "for his good pleasure." According to Hell fire
Calvin teachers, this torment will be many times worse than any torment by the
worshipers of heathen gods; and will never end in the death of those being tormented.
How could any person who has an ounce of compassion, love and worship such a God?
Those who believe in the Calvin God say this God chose you to be saved or to be lost
before he made the world. If you are one of the few chosen by this evil God to be saved,
even if you live in the most out of the way place in the world and never know of God or
Christ, when the time comes for you to be saved you will be. You can do nothing about it
and you cannot say no. If you are one of the many he chose to torment forever there is no
use to send preachers to you; there is no use for you to read the Bible or do anything;
there is nothing you or anyone can do. According to Calvin this God made you just
because he wants to torment you forever, and he will. Such a God is like a very rich ruler
who torments a thousand people "for his good pleasure" and enjoyment, and chose you to
make rich and happy. He would not be worthily of your love, but only your contempt. To
destroy the evil, either in this lifetime or at the judgment is one thing; but to make them
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be evil before they were born, and then torment them without end with more pain than
they can know in this lifetime for being what he made them to be is not justice. He would
be an unjust and evil God. He made them evil and gave them no chance not to be, and
then torments them for being what He made them to be. If you put a person who worked
in a store in the electric chair for unknowingly short changing a person one cent, your
injustice would not equal that of a God that made one person just so he could torment that
person forever. Many say He did this with most of mankind. Most are filled with grief
when a loved one or friend has some sickness that makes them suffer even when they
know the suffering will soon end with death. Yet, they worship a God who they believe
will take pleasure in the suffering of billions without end; and not only will he take
pleasure in it but he will be the one that is tormenting them and making them suffer and
he made them just so he could torment and make them suffer. CALVIN DID NOT GET
HIS DOCTRINE FROM THE HEATHENS FOR THE HEATHENS HAD NO
DOCTRINE AS CRUEL, AS FIENDISH, AS BLACK, OR AS UNJUST.
A Scandal Against The Almighty: "For were a woman to commit a crime against her
husband, and he punishes her by holding her hand in the fire until the flesh burned off the
bones, he would be pronounced one of the most cruel beings in the world; and if he were to
escape justice, he would be hunted as a wild beast; and when brought to trial and condemned,
he would be pronounced worthy of thrice the punishment that the law could inflict. And he
would have been tried and condemned by men, most of whom, perhaps, believed that God
would take that same woman, for that same crime that she had committed against her husband,
and put-not only her hand, but her whole self into a Lake of Fire and Brimstone;-not for half an
hour-not for a day-not for a year-nor for ten thousand years only, but for all Eternity. Also, that
this Burning of her in a Blazing Hell would be so agreeable to the determination of the Almighty
that no pity could be excited, no mercy shown; but that there, in that Lake of Fire she should
gnash, and groan, and wail Eternally. Oh! How horrid the picture! And what a terrible crime, even
in the light of their own actions, to charge God with such cruelty!" John Kent, "Eternal Burning, A
SCANDAL AGAINST THE ALMIGHTY" 1879.
A God Of Infinite Horror: "That God would rise the wicked and give them immortality
only to torment them in a devil's hell unendingly is both gross and vulgar, even blasphemous.
Such a God is not the one described in the Bible...If the God of heaven subjects innumerable
billions to unending and indescribable torment, it can only be seen as the one infinite horror."
Leroy Garrett, Restoration Review, November 1990.
A Mockery Of Truth And A Blasphemy Against Deity: "My opponent will make an
effort to try and demonstrate that our loving, compassionate, merciful God will be content with
nothing less than the perpetual, never diminishing, horrific torture of the vast majority of
mankind. Not only is that not what the Scriptures teach, it has the distinct disadvantage of
portraying our God as a Monster the likes of which the human mind cannot even conceive. It is
to proclaim a God foreign to the inspired revelation. Thus, it is a mockery of Truth and a
blasphemy against Deity." Al Maxey, Maxey-Thrasher Debate on the Eternal Destiny of the
Wicked by two ministers of the church of Christ at: http://www.zianet.com/maxey/MxThrshr.htm
- I recommend this debate to all members of the church of Christ of which he is a member, and