Hell, the Troubling Doctrine

I’m a Christian, but not cut to the traditional Catholic or Protestant cloth, but part of a much smaller group of people of who differ in some crucial ways from some “traditional” Christian doctrine. In particular, I sympathise with people who are troubled by the the ancient doctrine of hell. Specifically, the doctrine of hell defined as the eternal, conscious punishment of the wicked (refer to Wikipedia article for an overview of Christian hell doctrine). Over the years I’ve heard a number of atheists challenge the goodness of God over the hell doctrine. But, is the problem with the message that we can find in the Bible, or is the problem with the message that has traditionally been given by the churches?

A Subway store manager wanted to invent a great new sub sandwich recipe – one that would make customers sing for joy and become regular patrons.

After considerable thought, he concocted an ingenious invention – a system for discovering a great recipe. Here’s how he did it.

I have worked for several years as an engineer, making gadgets of various sorts. For years I’ve sat in front of my computer, studied diagrams, scribbled notes, attended meetings, and worked with a team of sometimes dozens of people, to produce something that will be useful to people. The end result is usually satisfying, and we know we have worked well to design something good. Someone looking at our work probably would not appreciate everything that we did to make it work. But they would know that humans created it.