Showing posts with label hell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hell. Show all posts

Monday, August 1, 2022

No, Mr. J. Warner Wallace: Hell is NOT "reasonable"

This is my reply to J. Warner Wallace's video on hell:


In the comments section I posed this on August 1, 2022----

Barry Jones0 seconds ago

I'm sorry, but there are numerous conclusive justifications for unbelievers to be skeptical of biblical "hell": 

First, Wallace is assuming that something written in a 2,000 year old books"applies to" people today. No historian has ever said the theology in an ancient book "applies to" today, so if Wallace thinks the bible is an exception, he has the burden of proof. And in my 25 years of counterapologetics, I've never seen any Christian apologist or scholar even get near showing that biblical "hell" applies to anybody today. 

Second, it wouldn't matter if biblical hell was intended as a modern-day warning to unbelievers: too many conservative Christians are abandoning the eternal conscious torment model and adopting the Annihilationism model. Why then should skeptics care? They already believe on naturalism that death constitutes permanent extinction of consciousness. 

Third, spiritually alive Christians disagree on whether hell is or isn't permanent extinction of consciousness. Clark Pinnock was one of the signers of the inerrancy-definition created by the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy, but he denied the literal interpretation of hell and favored conditionalism. See Pinnock, “The Conditional View,” in Four Views on Hell (Zondervan Academic, 1997). The debate appears to have no end. See Four Views on Hell (Counterpoints: Bible and Theology; Zondervan Academic; Second edition. March 8, 2016). if spiritually alive people cannot even agree on the nature of biblical hell, they are fools to 'expect' spiritually dead skeptics to discern the matter with any greater accuracy. 

Fourth, in the view cases in the gospels were Jesus deals directly with a Gentile, he never preaches hell at them, and if they do show faith, Jesus apparently prefers to keep his fellowship with them as short as possible. See the racist Jesus who seems to grant a miracle to a "dog" merely to shut her up. Matthew 15:22. 

Fifth, the traditional view of hell says God "must" judge sin either in the sinner or their substitute, but he cannot simply "let it go" because he is too holy. This is absurd: in 2nd Samuel 12:13-15, God "takes away" David's sin in the sense of exempting him from the mandatory Mosaic death penalty for murder. If God is holier than the Canaanite gods, the you might wish to think about it before you construe God's killing of David's baby in the following context as God accepting child sacrifice. Then in Acts 17:31, apostle Paul tells the pagan idolaters that God has "winked at" or "overlooked" their idolatry (The Greek word is hupereidon, and it means "overlook"). 

It doesn't matter what the bible thumper has to say about these texts, we skeptics are going to be reasonable to interpret them as proof that god can get rid of sin with a mere wave of his magic wand. That reasonableness will not disappear merely because a fundamentalist comes along and offers criticism. Christianity's inability to preach a consistent doctrine of hell has persisted too long in history, to justify thinking that some quick clever comment by Wallace is going to overturn it. 

The question is not whether the Christian can be reasonable to view hell the way Wallace does. Maybe they can. The question is whether SKEPTICS and UNBELIEVERS can be reasonable to view biblical hell as little more than an ancient abusive fairy tale. We can. 

And why does Wallace make his videos more dramatic than they need to be? Does he deny god's existence, and does he seriously believe the only plausible way to 'reach' today's unbeliever or Christian is through adoption of modern marketing and presentation methods that appear geared toward people afflicted with attention-deficit-disorder? If the Holy Spirit could bless Paul's ministry without all these bells and whistles, why does Wallace think these necessary?
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I reposted the same comments to Wallace's reply page too, here's a screenshot:


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For obvious reasons, there won't be any Wallace-followers or apologists offering any substantive rebuttal anytime soon.  When I hit back, I hit hard.

Monday, May 16, 2022

my reply to BellatorChristi.com on bible "hell"

This is my reply to an article by Dr. Daniel Merritt, Ph.D., Th.D,  at BellatorChristi entitled

When is the last time you heard a sermon on hell? 

It's been about 25 years. 

Hell is a doctrine that in the majority of Christendom is dismissed today as being an archaic belief that is ripped right out of the pages of mythology.

If it is the "majority of Christendom" that dismisses "hell", then you have a choice: The majority of Christians who dismiss hell are spiritually alive or dead.  If they are spiritually alive, then you are a fool to expect spiritually dead skeptics to have a more accurate understanding of a biblical doctrine than a spiritually alive Christian has.  In that case, spiritual death gives the skeptic all the reasonableness they need to reject the doctrine.  If you don't expect a blind person to see what is in front of them, why would you expect a spiritually dead person to discern biblical "truth"?

If most Christians who reject hell are spiritually dead, then they would obviously disagree with you. If two Christians within the Trinitarian group question each other's salvation, you are a fool to expect a spiritually dead skeptic to figure out who is right and to thus to avoid the Christian who is "wrong" about hell.

But either way, your comment is problematically generalized.  The vast majority of Christians do not dismiss "hell", they dismiss the eternal conscious torment-interpretation of biblical "hell".

So you have set up a false dilemma:  the issue is not whether Christians should believe a biblical doctrine of hell, but whether they can be reasonable to interpret biblical hell as annihilation.  As you are well aware, annihilationism is convincing more and more Christians within the Trinitarian group, it isn't just the 7th day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses.  Clark Pinnock was a signatory to the ICBI statement on bible inerrancy (see here), yet he held:

How can Christians possibly project a deity of such cruelty and vindictiveness whose ways include inflicting everlasting torture upon his creatures, however sinful they may have been? Surely a God who would do such a thing is more nearly like Satan than like God, at least by any ordinary moral standards, and by the Gospel itself"
“The Destruction of the Finally Impenitent”, Criswell Theological Review, Spring, 1990: p. 246-247

Merritt continues: 

To speak of hell today is considered to be an unnecessary figment of over religious minds that seek to scare someone into submitting to an ogre-like God who takes delight in throwing someone who “steps out of line” into an eternal lake of fire.

Deuteronomy 28:63 sums up a list of horrors that only a lunatic would inflict on children, then sums up the list saying that just as god would "delight" to give abundance to those who obey, he will also "delight" the same way to inflict those horrors on children.

 54 "The man who is refined and very delicate among you shall be hostile toward his brother and toward the wife he cherishes and toward the rest of his children who remain,
 55 so that he will not give even one of them any of the flesh of his children which he will eat, since he has nothing else left, during the siege and the distress by which your enemy will oppress you in all your towns.
 56 "The refined and delicate woman among you, who would not enture to set the sole of her foot on the ground for delicateness and refinement, shall be hostile toward the husband she cherishes and toward her son and daughter,
 57 and toward her afterbirth which issues from between her legs and toward her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of anything else, during the siege and the distress by which your enemy will oppress you in your towns. (Deut. 28:54-57 NAU)

 63 "It shall come about that as the LORD delighted over you to prosper you, and multiply you, so the LORD will delight over you to make you perish and destroy you; and you will be torn from the land where you are entering to possess it. (Deut. 28:63 NAU)

Merritt continues: 

After all, it is said, a loving God would never banish anyone to suffer the fate of eternal flames.

Sort of like "a loving father would never rape his adult daughter".

Interestingly, Jesus spoke more on hell than He did heaven.

That is a lie.

http://www.rightreason.org/2010/did-jesus-preach-hell-more-than-heaven/

That being true, teaching about hell must not be dismissed as being antiquated, but is of the utmost importance to understand why there is a hell…and even more so how to avoid such a place.

Naw, Jesus was just another dime-store fanatic.  I've written thousands of pages refuting the resurrection arguments of Habermas, Licona and other apologists.

While discussing hell is a topic one would like to avoid and dismiss, if it is a real place to neglect attention to its existence is at one’s own peril.

Sure, if you can "show" that Jesus' warnings about hell apply to modern-day people.  Good luck attempting mission impossible. 

The bottom line is this, when one understands the holiness of God one understands why there is a hell.

It is beyond dispute that ancient semitic people exaggerated matters in their daily conversations and especially their religious writings.  You would probably resort to that excuse to get rid of the horrors in Deuteronomy 28, supra, thus motivating skeptics to wonder whether Jesus' warnings about hell were also just another case of Semitic exaggeration.

Indeed, you probably don't have the first clue as to how to tell when ancient Semitic theology is employing exaggeration and when it isn't.

And whatever teaching-resource you recommend, how can I stay safe from the threat of hell while I go about procuring and studying that hermeneutical aid? 

What would be the point of such study if I'm supposed to believe/obey first, and only study second?  Doesn't rationality require that I first learn about the issues and form an hypothesis before I just dive in?   But then again, does the urgency of needing to avoid hell make it 'dangerous' for me to delay the day of my salvation?

I mean, if I died in a car accident on the way to the library to check out "1001 Ways to distinguish Semitic reality from Semitic exaggeration", would I be saved because I was searching?  Would I go to hell because I wasn't a Christian at the time I died?  Or would you pull the same desperate excuse Lydia McGrew did, and speculate that there a second chance in the afterlife for those who die while in the effort to check out Christian claims?

And how long does God want me to study Calvinism, before he will expect me to draw conclusions about whether my choices in life contribute anything to my life, or if they are rendered nothing more than reactions to the allegedly infallible divine will?  If you don't know how long God wants me to study Calvinism, don't you forfeit the right to balk if I answer that question for myself in a way you don't like?

And when one understands the holiness of God and sees their own sinfulness in the light of His pure and perfect holiness, one understands that hell is what we all actually deserve.

Your god is not that holy.  The bible attests that he is often corrected by smarter humans.  See Exodus 32:9-14.  The efforts of classical theists to distinguish this from the analogous case of a friend changing their mind after receiving better advice from another human being, are laughable and are guided more by concerns about inerrancy and less by concerns to interpret the story correctly.  But bible inerrancy is a false doctrine, so I can be reasonable to remain open to the possibility that the bible makes contradictory statements about god. 

When one grasps the majestic, perfect holiness of God, like Isaiah (Is. 6), one will realize they are sinfully-unworthy to EVER encounter the presence of One so holy-other.

Didn't the sinful Balaam encounter God in Numbers 22:33, you know, that bible verse that equates God with Satan?

Come, let us reason together.

Then God is a fucking idiot because he in Romans 3:9-18 condemns man's ability to reason correctly. 

Understanding Why There is a Hell and God’s Nature as Holy-Love

Are you even AWARE that many Trinitarian Evangelical Christian scholars have abandoned the eternal conscious torment version of hell for annihilationism?  And yet you talk as if you can wave aside all that Trinitarian scholarship because of god's holiness...as if you think many such scholars, despite having legitimate claims to being both authentically born again and walking in the light of Christ for decades, somehow "missed" that the holiness of god somehow demands that he torture unrepentant sinners forever.  LOL.

The Bible is clear that God is holy and that God is love

The Apocrypha is also clear that the Maccabees were zealous Jews.  Did you have a point? 

…He is holy-love.

He is also stupid, by his own admission.  See Genesis 6:6.  The immediate context indicates the statement about God's dissatisfaction with his prior decision to create man is no less literal than the prior story of the sons of God taking the daughters of men.  It is how the originally intended audience would have interpreted the account, which matters most in interpretation, and such audience, being pre-scientific and mostly illiterate, would not have had the theological sophistication to pretend that they would have trifled that such language is "anthropomorphism".

While Christendom puts great emphasis on God’s love, His love cannot be properly appreciated if one doesn’t understand His holiness.

That is stupid:  you can see the love of a man in assisting a victim of a traffic accident when he calls 911, even if you don't know anything more about him.  Assuming he called 911 out of a general love for humanity is going to be reasonable until specific evidence is given indicating he called 911 for other more selfish reasons. 

Holiness denotes the absolute majesty and splendor of God, that He is distinctly transcendent from any other being or thing He has created. He is holy-other. Holiness describes the essence of God. He is holy; divine holiness of character being who He is in all of His perfect ethical and moral authenticity and truthfulness. Holiness is His self-affirming purity; He cannot be other than holy.

Was Jesus still holy at the time he "became sin" (2nd Cor. 5:21)?

Or did I forget that Jesus has two natures and that it was only his human nature that became sin?

Gee, that's funny, the bible doesn't  put forth much effort to say Jesus had two natures, and the gospels most certainly don't get that specific.  Aren't you as a Christian supposed to be concerned that this sharp distinction between Jesus' human and divine natures was condemned at The Council of Chalcedon?

...One and the Same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten; acknowledged in Two Natures unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the difference of the Natures being in no way removed because of the Union, but rather the properties of each Nature being preserved, and (both) concurring into One Person and One Hypostasis; not as though He was parted or divided into Two Persons, but One and the Self-same Son and Only-begotten God, Word, Lord, Jesus Christ; even as from the beginning the prophets have taught concerning Him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself hath taught us, and as the Symbol of the Fathers hath handed down to us.

If Jesus is a single person, and that person has two natures, then its going to be reasonable to conclude that when "Jesus" became sin (2nd Cor. 5:21), ALL of him became sin, not merely his "human nature". I don't personally care if the apostle Paul would trifle otherwise, just like I wouldn't care if Paul trifled that demon serpents bite the spirits of unbelievers in some after-life. Paul doesn't have the minimal credentials I require in order to justify me in trusting his judgment about horrifically debatable things that not even Trinitarian Christians can agree on.

Merritt continues:

Holiness is God’s perfect righteousness. Habakkuk says, “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity” (Hab. 1:13). Holiness is God’s infinite value and worth as the One who is absolutely unique and morally pure and perfect. God’s holiness pervades His entire being and shapes all His attributes and His actions with humanity. That God is holy means that His very being is completely devoid of even a trace of sin, unrighteousness, or moral deviation.

Semitic exaggeration. 

Understanding Why There is a Hell and the Creation Story
In the Creation Story, it was God’s desire that holiness be the atmosphere which would pervade the Garden of Eden, and man through fellowship with his Creator was to cooperatively conform to the order of His holiness. All of creation was to reflect the nature of a holy God, reflect the holiness of the Creator. God created the world where His holiness was woven into the very fabric of creation. When man willfully sinned, he defied God’s holiness.

But man in sinning conformed perfectly to the hidden will of God, or so the consistent 5 Point Calvinists say.  How long do you recommend an unbeliever research the biblical claims of Calvinists about God's sovereignty?  If you don't have biblical justification for that length of recommended time, isn't your recommendation something less than absolute?  Doesn't that mean that it will be reasonable for the unbeliever to disagree and suggest another length of time to study such a subject? 

The doctrine of Original Sin means that each of us have inherited a sinful nature from disobedient Adam.

A doctrine denied by the Orthodox church and several other denominations such as Church of Christ.  How long do you recommend an unbeliever study their arguments aginst original sin before God will expect them to start drawing conclusions about that doctrine?  

And how can the unbeliever stay safe from the threat of hell while they engage in that research?

Our inherited sinful nature means we are more than children who have gone astray, but we possess a nature that is consciously and actively rebellious against God’s holiness and our rebellion is directed against the holy God who created us and who is the true Source of all spiritual and ethical morality and reality. We are sinners by nature and by choice.

Correction, we only choose to sin because our nature is sinful.  If we didn't have a sin nature, we wouldn't sin any more than Jesus sinned. 

Sin is that which seeks to undermine God’s rightful place in our lives and in mutiny disregards the very holiness of God. Sin in its very nature, is an assault on God’s holiness. When His holiness is violated, nature and man convulse with consequences which repulses holiness and invites holy justice.

But if God is everything you think he is, he knew sin was inevitable, and therefore, God no more "expected" Adam and Eve to consistently obey him than you would expect a cow to jump over the moon.  With good reason the bible warns you against peering into theology too much:  you might discover its fallacies.  Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!

Understanding Why There is a Hell and the Guilt of Sin
For our holy God there can be no compromise with sin.

Then what word would you use to characterize God's "allowing" polygamy in the OT?  Isn't "compromise" the best word?  If the Adam and Eve marriage model is valid, polygamy would have been sin in the OT. 

Sin must be dealt with.

No, Jesus forgave sins plenty including forgiving those who manifested neither repentance nor desire for forgiveness.  Luke 23:34.  God no more needs to "punish" sin than you need to "rob a bank".

You will, of course, trifle that Jesus' granting forgiveness during his earthly ministry was with a view toward his need to die for those sins.  That is also bullshit, even in the OT, God can get rid of sin with nothing more than a wave of his magic wand:

 13 Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD." And Nathan said to David, "The LORD also has taken away your sin; you shall not die. (2 Sam. 12:13 NAU)

See how easy it is for God to lift the death penalty against adultery and murder?

But then your "holy" God decides to torture David's infant son for 7 days for sins the baby obviously wasn't guilty of:

 14 "However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die."
 15 So Nathan went to his house. Then the LORD struck the child that Uriah's widow bore to David, so that he was very sick.
 16 David therefore inquired of God for the child; and David fasted and went and lay all night on the ground.
 17 The elders of his household stood beside him in order to raise him up from the ground, but he was unwilling and would not eat food with them.
 18 Then it happened on the seventh day that the child died.  (2 Sam. 12:14-18 NAU)

Merritt continues:

Judgement is holiness’ reaction to sin.

Unfortunately for you, forgiveness is also Holiness' reaction to sin.  Luke 23:34.  And it's spelled "judgment", not "judgement". 

Hell is where all sin that is not adequately dealt with will be banished; banished to a place of eternal alienation from God because holiness’ reaction to sin is just judgment.

Why can't god simply forgive unrepentant unbelievers the way Jesus did in Luke 23:34?

Why can't God cause a fetus to be filled with the Holy Spirit, at a time in its life when it is incapable of choosing between good and evil (Luke 1:15)?

If God knows of a non-hell non-judgment way to reduce the amount of sin in the world, and he doesn't employ that solution, doesn't that make it reasonable, even if not infallible, to conclude that God likes to take problems and falsely insist they are bigger than they really are?  In other words, your god is a drama-queen?

Since I am guilty before a holy God, since my sinful and rebellious nature has willfully rebelled against His pure and perfect holiness, unless my sin is dealt with, then holiness will justly deal with sin in judgement.

God could have spared you all that sin-problem by simply filling you with the Holy Spirit before you were born, Luke 1:15.  So if God chose to employ a solution that didn't preempt you from sinning, then God obviously wanted you to sin.  God knew of a way to achieve his will with you without allowing sin, but he chose to forego that solution and employ a solution that involved you becoming a sinner.  The notion that God "doesn't want" you to sin, is utterly stupid, and only dictated by the requirements of your theology, not common sense.  And Exodus 32:9-14 indicates God sometimes lacks common sense.  And Genesis 6:6 indicates God sometimes regrets not mankind's becoming sinful, but regrets his own decision to create mankind in the first place. 

When one sees their sin in the light of God’s perfect and pure holiness, they realize that they are undeserving to ever come into the presence of His majestic holiness and justly deserve judgment.

Then how do you explain other equally authentically born again Trinitarians, whose salvation status you would charitably refuse to question, who say this article of yours teaches a heretical view of hell and god's justice?

Should skeptics be warned that even if they become authentically born again, there is STILL a very good chance they will end up espousing "heresy"?  Then maybe my standards are higher than god's, but I don't see the point of going through the motions to convince myself I am "born again", if this still leaves the doors wide open to the possibility that I'll get a nasty surprise on judgment day (Matthew 7:22-23, Hebrews 6:4-8). 

A holy God owes sin nothing but well-deserved judgment.

According to Luke 23:34, a holy god also believes himself obligated to forgive the type of sinners that not only engage in sin against him, but who manifest not the slightest bit of intent to repent or seek forgiveness. 

God would deny His own holy nature if His holiness did not react to sin in judgement.

Then God must have been denying his own holy nature in 2nd Samuel 12:13, supra, where he exempts David from the death penalty for both murder and adultery.  Apparently, god is capable of relaxing his standards when he really wants to.  He is also capable of punishing David's baby for sins the baby did not commit (v. 15-18), which opens the door wide to the possibility that god sees nothing wrong in torturing babies in hell.  If he doesn't see anything wrong in torturing babies in this current life, what makes you think god would regard it as "unjust" to do the same to a baby in the afterworld? 

Understanding Why There is a Hell and the Offense of Sin
Now remember, God is holy-love. Though God’s love desires to extend forgiveness, the offensiveness of sin and sin’s assault on holiness must first be satisfied and dealt with.

No, see Luke 23:34 

While holiness cannot overlook sin, it must judge it,

False, God got rid of David's sins by merely waving his magic wand.  2nd Samuel 12:13. 

His love provided the means were by His holiness was satisfied and our sins could be forgiven!!

But his love apparently knew of a way to "forgive" people of sin before Jesus was crucified.  Jesus was forgiving unrepentant sinners in Luke 23:34, and the OT is clear that under the animal sacrifice system, the blood of bulls and goats made a person "clean of their sins before the Lord". Leviticus 16:30.

God also apparently sees nothing wrong in causing sinners to be filled with the Holy Spirit before they are born.  Luke 1:15.  One wonders how much sin would be avoided, and how much excuse for divine wrath God would be deprived of, had he done for all humans what he did for John the Baptist in Luke 1:15.

Our holy God in love took upon Himself our flesh, and becoming the representative man, becoming our substitute, He lived that perfect holy life which holiness demands but to which we cannot comply, therefore deserving judgement.

Wrong again, the OT is clear that obeying all of God's commands is NOT too difficult:

10 if you obey the LORD your God to keep His commandments and His statutes which are written in this book of the law, if you turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and soul.
 11 "For this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach.
 12 "It is not in heaven, that you should say, 'Who will go up to heaven for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?'
 13 "Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, 'Who will cross the sea for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?'
 14 "But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe it. (Deut. 30:10-14 NAU)

Merritt continues: 

Christ, as your and my representative perfectly complied with God’s holy demands which we could never do, thus satisfying the demands of holiness.

Jesus could not possibly have "perfectly" complied, because Luke 2:52 says Jesus grew in "favor with God".  IF that is true, then his conformity to god's will in his earlier years cannot have been as perfect as his conformity to God's will in his later years.  Yes, Luke 2:52 is an affront to Jesus' alleged divine "nature", but we are reasonable to assume Luke did not possess the sophistication of Nicaea and later councils.  When he said "Jesus" grew in favor with God, we are reasonable to assume he meant everything that made up Jesus, he did not mean "only his human nature".  Since the question is whether skeptics can be reasonable to view things that way, your predictable recital to God's mysterious ways does not function to impose the least bit of intellectual obligation on the skeptic, nor does not function as "rebuttal", it merely helps you save face. 

Then on the cross, the perfect Son of God took the sin of humanity upon Himself and confessed holiness’ just judgment on sin, which judgement you and I deserved, thus demonstrating love that goes beyond our comprehension.

If "love" goes beyond our comprehension, then so does the manner in which god withholds love, in which case there is a probability that the reason we shy away from saying God sends some babies to hell arises from our inability to understand god's ways.  Torturing babies in hell certainly defies common sense, but in Christian apologetics, "common sense" is routinely tossed out the window when expediency dictates.

Christ lived a life I could not live, then paid a debt I could never pay (Romans 5:8; 2 Cor. 5:21). Now that is LOVE….

And the child molester gave the child food and water during the two months that he held her in his basement after kidnapping her.  Now that is LOVE...but obviously humans are quite capable of manifesting "love" while also manifesting desire to harm.  So it doesn't matter that God shows "love", real-world experience teaches us that the person who does a loving thing, can just as easily harbor desire to harm the entire time. 

and when you and I understand the holiness of God and the just judgment upon sin for violating God’s holiness, then one bows in awe and wonder at such love demonstrated in the Christ event that makes it possible for sinful man to escape our sins deserved fate.

No, God can simply cause people to be filled with the Holy Spirit before they are born (Luke 1:15) and can get rid of our sins by simply waving his magic wand the same way he exempted David from the death penalties for adultery and murder (2nd Samuel 12:13).  God's preferred method is apparently to avoid the solution that suppresses sin as much as possible. 

When one grasps what Christ willingly did for us in His life and death, then the word “grace” takes on a depth of meaning that results in praise forever flowing from our lips.
Conclusion
Yes, there is a hell.

This was a horrifically weak argument.  You avoided all biblical referenes to hell and simply tried to prove something with human sophistry, when Paul,  your faith hero, was telling you for 2,000 years that persuasive words are not the true Christian's priority (1st Cor. 2:4-5).

Hell is a reserved place for divine justice in the face of willful defiance to divine holiness.

But most non-Christians are not "willfully" defying God anymore than authentically born again Trinitarians who are Preterist are "willfully" defying Acts 1:11.  So was it your intention to teach that the vast majority of non-Christians don't go to hell in the afterworld? 

Holiness’ judgement is justified reactional justice on sin’s violation of God’s pure and perfect holy nature.

But human wisdom can successfully persuade god that his intent to judge humans is stupid and should be avoided.   Exodus 32:9-14. 

Yet His divine love, as seen in the Christ of the cross, is offered and available to all who see their sinfulness in the light of his divine holiness and embrace the indescribable provision that is found in Jesus Christ.

No thank you.  The true gospel was preached by Jesus before he died, and for obvious reasons did not require anybody to believe he died for their sins.  You will say the rules changed, or something was "added" somehow when Jesus died on the cross, so, how long does God want unbelievers to study the differences of bible interpretation between dispensationsalists themselves, and between dispensationalists and covenant theologians, before he will expect the unbeliever to start drawing conclusions about who is right and wrong?  If you don't know, you forfeit the right to balk if I answer that question for myself in a way you don't like.

Therefore, if I have studied the matter for several years, I cannot be faulted if my conclusions are "wrong".

What I find stupid about the doctrine of hell and God is that we are supposed to believe that there is terrible danger to unbelievers, and yet it is not god, but a mass of conflicting Christian theologians and apologists, who are the only ones doing the talking.  If the creator of hell doesn't wish to make himself sufficiently clear for even authentically born again Trinitarians, he is a fucking fool to "expect" spiritually dead skeptics to "correctly" interpret biblical "hell".

Wednesday, May 26, 2021

Answering Christian apologist Tim Barnett on the doctrine of Hell

This is my reply to an article about hell by Tim Barnett entitled

When it comes to Hell, there are some debated details. Is the fire literal or metaphorical? Is it torture or torment? Is the punishment physical, or psychological, or both? Is the punishment everlasting or annihilation? We become so focused on debating the details that we lose sight of the big picture.

No, more and more conservative Christian scholars are adopting Annihilationism, which means the "endless torture" model of hell can be reasonably rejected.  Since the only problem with hell is the eternal conscious torment model, once that model becomes reasonable to reject, there is no more problem.  I don't really give a fuck if biblical hell is a "shadowy" existence in the afterworld.  I also don't fear being tortured by space aliens.

One strategy I’ve found helpful in talking to unbelievers about Hell is to focus on its significant worldview implications.

Nowhere in the bible is it expressed or implied that Jesus or the apostles found focusing in significant world-view implications helpful in talking to unbelievers about hell.  

Namely, I believe Hell isn’t the problem people think it is. In fact, it’s a solution to two problems.
First, Hell helps answer the philosophical problem of evil.

There is no philosophical problem of evil because evil is completely relative.  Instead, mammals on a damp dustball lost in space we call "earth" compete for limited resources, and when things don't go our way in our inevitable battles with other life-forms, we characterize this as "evil.".  Evil has no real ontological existence.  Its the word we use to express our discontent with some reality about the world (kidnapping, rape, starvation).

The problem of evil is not the problem for Christianity people think it is.

Then it sure is funny how the Holy Spirit did nothing for millions of Christians and allowed them to become bothered by the doctrine of conscious eternal torment. 

It’s a problem for atheism, but not for us. Why? Because our entire story is about the problem of evil. It starts in the third chapter and doesn’t get solved until 66 books later. But it does get solved.

False, the book of Revelation does not express or imply that evil will ever stop existing.  Revelation does not end by saying all the saved people will be in heaven and all the unbelievers will be in hell. It rather ends by giving unbelievers God's specific permission to continue doing wrong, when in fact most Christians don't think hell is a playground for unbelievers, but a place where they regret their wrongful actions forever:

11 "Let the one who does wrong, still do wrong; and the one who is filthy, still be filthy; and let the one who is righteous, still practice righteousness; and the one who is holy, still keep himself holy."
12 "Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done.
13 "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end."
14 Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the city.
15 Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers and the immoral persons and the murderers and the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices lying.  (Rev. 22:11-15 NAU)

"practices" is in the present tense.  Feel free to come up with some new dogshit doctrine saying the people in hell continue to practice "lying", but that's obviously not consistent with the picture of hell in Luke 16 and not consistent with the typical fundie Christian belief that hell will cause the sinners to realize how terrible their sins were and to thus grieve over this for all eternity.  Have fun trying to figure out how God can give people allegedly in hell his specific permission to "continue doing wrong".  These people are not in hell, they are instead outside the holy city.

Christianity has a lot to say in response to evil.

Just like the car salesman has a lot to say about how unreliable your current car is.  Do you know any preachers or apologists who DON'T ask for money? 

We won’t get into all of that here. But one part of our larger response is that, in the end, evil is defeated. All wrongs will be made right. There will be a day of reckoning.

But according to the last chapter of Revelation, those who do wrong are told to continue doing wrong, which is impossible under the popular Christian view of conscious eternal torment in "hell". Indeed, how could sinners in hell do wrong when they exist there in spiritual form, which the tricotomists say is the part of the human that never sins?  Or should I ask God how much time he wants me to devote to Christianity's dichotomist/tricotomist bullshit before he will demand that i start drawing ultimate conclusions? 3 minutes?  8 years.  Indeed, how long DO you think I can justify delaying the day of my repentance?

An eighteenth-century hymn sums it up:

This is my Father’s world:
O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the Ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world:
The battle is not done:
Jesus who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and Heav’n be one.

The OT will not support the notion that God "needs" to exact justice upon sin.  God can get rid of sin with nothing more than a wave of his magic wand.  David had committed two capital offenses (acts calling for the mandatory death penalty), adultery and murder, but God exempted David from the divinely required penalty regardless with the same ease that a child pours sugar on cereal:

 13 Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD." And Nathan said to David, "The LORD also has taken away your sin; you shall not die. (2 Sam. 12:13 NAU)

Tim continues:

Christians shouldn’t be surprised by evil. It’s part of our Story.

That's right.   Genesis 3 is a mere etiology.  And therein, sin is not a degradation like a disease, it is nothing but god's own curse.  So the only way to say God is not responsible for sin is to say God never cursed the world at the Fall. 

And our Story isn’t over yet. There is a day coming when all evil and suffering will finally be defeated.

Not according to the last chapter of Revelation.  See above.  Sinners remain living sinful lives on earth outside the holy city, and that's the end of that bullshit story.  The typical Christian view of judgment day forever allocating people into heaven or hell cannot be reasonably reconciled with Revelation 22. 

So, first, Hell helps answer a philosophical problem—the problem of evil.

There is a no problem of evil.  It is only created by people who are conditioned by their culture to expect a certain degree of ease in life, so when other mammals inevitably come along and make life difficult for us, we use the word 'evil' to describe it.  The notion of evil is relative no less than morality is.  It can only exist due to efforts on the part of confused non-scholars.

Second, Hell satisfies our existential longing for justice.

And atheism satisfies the atheist's existential longing to remain unaccountable to a god.  If "feel good" justifies your argument, you must allow skeptics to benefit from the same epistemological luxury.

Many people have no problem with a God who forgives. The problem is a God who punishes.

Because the NT statements about God's love cannot be reconciled with the OT fact that God is worse than Hitler.  See God "delighting" to cause rape, kidnapping and parental cannibalism in Deuteronomy 28:15-63.  ...unless you're so brainwashed as to think that there was once a time when burning a preteen girl to death for prostitution was the "best" possible solution (Leviticus 21:9)?

I think this might be a secular Western phenomenon, though. Most of us in the Western world live protected lives. We have “rights.” And when those rights are violated, we look to the government for justice. When injustice takes place, we go to the police, or lawyers, or government officials to make things right.

Which is precisely why we characterize the opposite of democratic government as "evil".

It’s easy for us to scoff at divine justice when we’re used to counting on human justice.

Blame it on god for taking responsibility for creating the justice institutions humans use, Romans 13.

The ease of scoffing at any "need" to burn little girls to death is a necessary component of all persons who are not clinically insane.  Unless you stupidly wish to trifle that under the right circumstances, burning preteen girls to death might be "best"?  Gee, if the ancient Hebrews never burned a pre-teen prostitute to death, that nation would surely perish from history, eh?  Oh yeah, burning little girls to death was the "best" that the eternal Jehovah could possibly do. YEAH RIGHT.

But in places where there is no human justice, they don’t scoff at divine justice; they cry out for it.

Not those who recognize the truth of atheism and are consistent about what it implies. But yes, if you are talking about your average fool who thinks god's existence is as obvious as the existence of trees.

But a cry for divine justice is merely the hope of the hopeless, that's all.  Faith that bad guys will be judged by a "god" one day in the future is often the only way a person can maintain sanity in a world that treats them as expendable.

Yale theologian Miroslav Volf—who saw thousands killed and millions displaced in his homeland of Yugoslavia—has us imagine delivering a lecture in a war zone on how God’s retribution is incompatible with His love. He says,
Among your listeners are people whose cities and villages have been first plundered, then burned and leveled to the ground, whose daughters and sisters have been raped, whose fathers and brothers have had their throats slit….

[I]f God were not angry at injustice and deception and did not make the final end to violence, God would not be worthy of our worship.
Strawman, God in Leviticus 21:9 is demanding that preteen girls guilty of premarital fornication in their priest-father's houses be burned to death.  Those girls were not guilty of the atrocities inflicted by Hitler on the Jews, yet God is allegedly demanding those girls suffer a fate worse than what Hitler imposed on the Jews.   How stupid was your god to create a race of ancient Hebrews whose society would collapse unless they acted contrary to NT ethics?  Why couldn't god have given the OT Hebrews the Sermon on the Mount?  If the Hebrews would have disappeared from history because they refused to fight, that could be explained away as God being glorified when they suffered persecution for righteousness' sake.  Living out eternal morals is more important than making up religious excuses to steal land from pagan, right?
In his book Free of Charge, Volf says,
Though I used to complain about the indecency of the idea of God’s wrath, I came to think that I would have to rebel against a God who wasn’t wrathful at the sight of the world’s evil. God isn’t wrathful in spite of being love. God is wrathful because God is love. [Emphasis in original]

Wow, so it is because of god's "love" that he requires preteen girls guilty of pre-martial fornication to be burned to death?  Would most Christians find that absurd because they aren't schooled in ancient Semitic ways of thinking?  Or would they find it absurd because God put his laws on their hearts, and the Holy Spirit is trying to tell them the "divine atrocities" of the bible are not accurate depictions of God? 

There is no incompatibility between love and final justice.

Then there is no incompatibility between a father loving his preteen daughter, and a father burning her to death for pre-marital sex.  may I assume you can tell when you are trapped in a trash compactor and the walls won't stop closing in?

As Volf points out, a god who is indifferent towards injustice would not be good.

That's philosophically false.  If God is the highest moral authority, then his choice to let evil reign without consequence must be "good" solely by definition. The highest moral authority, by definition, cannot be judged, end of discussion.  While that sounds good to theists, the truth is that the entire concept of a "highest moral authority" is stupid and unsupported.  Especially with al those Christian scholars who adopt open-theism and admit God often learns from his mistakes, and therefore, people like Frank Turek are fools to put forth so much effort and sophistry trying to pretend they can reoncile the divine atrocities of the OT with the love of Jesus in the NT.  There was never a prima facie case for the moral consistency of the bible in the first place, so skeptics who perceive contradictions therein cannot possibly be intellectually compelled to trifle with idiots who think "God's ways are mysterious" is a get-out-of-jail-free card.

In fact, it is precisely because God is good that he punishes the guilty.

Then God was "good" in demanding that men burn a pre-teen girl to death for pre-marital fornication.  Leviticus 21:9 (the text says she committed unlawful sex in her priest father's house, which implies she isn't married yet, further implying she hasn't reached the marriageable age of 13 yet  since if she was married, she'd be living in her husband's house and having no earthly reason to turn tricks inside her father's own house, when in fact she'd know as a married woman that giving blowjobs in her priest father's house would simply cause her sins to become more likely to be exposed.  The girl in Leviticus 21:9 is not a shockingly retarded married women intent on suicide, but a naïve girl at or below the age of marriage). 

The goodness of God requires final judgment. It is a manifestation of the perfect justice of God.

Except for 2nd Samuel 12:13, where God gets rid of David's adultery and murder sins with a wave of his magic wand.  God should therefore have no problems getting rid of Hitler's sins with a wave of his magic wand.  or maybe the theology in Samuel is complete bullshit, and all we are reading is how stupid religious fanatics in OT days did political favors for each other in the name of their false gods?  What more did Nathan actually do there, except promise not to nark David off to the priests?

Even within the current cultural moment, we long for justice.

we are spoiled children living in a happy bubble called America.  Of course we will perceive injustice if other people make our lives unnecessarily more difficult. 

This is why people say, “No justice; no peace.”   This is the mantra of many who are marching in the streets in response to what they see as injustice. Our hearts cry out for perfect justice, but that’s something no earthly justice system will ever satisfy. Only God can provide that.

But "perfect justice" is an incoherent proposition, as there is no standard of perfection in the first place.

We cry out, “No Justice; no peace.” But if there is no God, there can be no final justice. The truth is, “No final judgment; no ultimate justice.”

Why do you assume our longing for justice implies a god?  We simply don't like it when other mammals make our lives more difficult. 

With this argument, I’m appealing to what Francis Schaeffer called the “mannishness of man.” In the book Tactics, Greg Koukl says, “Because we all live in God’s world and are all made in God’s image, there are things all people know that are embedded deep within their hearts—profound things about our world and about ourselves—even though we deny them or worldviews disqualify them.”

Such as the absolute immorality of burning girls to death, i.e., how obvious it is that God did not inspire Leviticus 21:9 (when there was no prima facie case for such inspiration in the first place, so skeptics are not placed under any intellectual obligation merely because inerrantists can, like lawyers, make up halfway plausible excuses for that verse.  If the bible god directly commanded a man to rape a baby, today's apologists would simply scream their excuse "we cannot judge God!" just a little louder than they normally do, and presto, the problem of the divine atrocities of the bible is solved.  What idiot doesn't know that excuses can be made for anything?  Christian apologists, that's who.

There is something within us that demands that those responsible for injustice stand before a judge and pay for their crimes.

And that something came from being born and raised in a civilization somewhat more democratic than a gang of gorillas.

and we will all give an account for the wrongs we’ve done. The books will be opened containing a complete list of every crime we’ve ever committed. God misses nothing.

No need for skeptics to respond substantively to this, as it is nothing but preaching to the choir.

“Will that be fire? Will that be forever?” That’s not our concern right now.

That's funny, the Christians who choose to get involved in the nature-of-hell debate sure think it is their concern right now.  Which one of you isn't listening to the Holy Spirit?  Or does God have different strokes for different folks?

Whatever the judgment looks like, it’s going to be worse than your worst nightmare, and you do not want to be there. That is the bad news.

Annihilationism isn't much different than the extinction of consciousness the atheist already realizes is inevitable at death.

Here is the good news. There is another book, the Book of Life. In The Story of Reality, Greg Koukl says, “It also contains a record, the names of those who, though guilty, have received mercy, at their request: ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner.’ All those who have accepted their pardon in Christ will be absolved.”

Except that because Paul cursed his own church for apostatizing from him toward another gospel  (Gal. 1:8, making skeptics wonder why today's fundies think Paul's viewpoint is infallible), it would appear that what the true gospel was, wasn't even clear during the lifetime of the apostles, making you a fool to pretend it was made any clearer with the passing of 2,000 years and little more than church splits and endless cries of "heresy!"  Since it can be sinful to pick the wrong religion, apparently it is somewhat safer to just remain an atheist and refuse to take a chance on adding "picked the wrong form of Christianity" to your list of sins.

And your god is rather stupid for demanding radical commitment without giving sinners radically authenticated evidence.  What fool woman radically commits as a wife to a man whose history she only knows by means of third-party hearsay of questionable authenticity?  The historical reliability of the gospels does NOT constitute "radical" authentication.  

And if God can pretend that those who heard the original Christian testimony from the original eyewitnesses can still be sufficiently ignorant as to justify God extending them mercy anyway (1st Timothy 1:13), it follows most reasonably that God would be far less angry toward today's atheist bible critics, who persecute Christians far less, and who have no access to the original eyewitness testimony the way Paul did.  In short, if somebody like Paul could plausibly link God's mercy on him to Paul's "ignorance", then today's atheist bible critics and unbelievers, having far less knowledge of the real gospel, have even greater excuse.

So, in the final judgment, there are two options. Either Jesus pays, or you pay. Perfect mercy or perfect justice.

No, the third option is found in 2nd Samuel 12:13, God can just exempt you from your sins' consequences with a wave of his magic wand.  Of course the theology in that verse is complete bullshit, but YOU the Christian bible-believer do not have that option, you are required to believe the representation of God in that verse is true to actual reality.

In the final analysis, Hell is a solution, not a problem.

Then because hell has been deemed a "problem" but the vast majority of Christian scholars in history, it would appear that becoming a Christian can blind us so much that we end up misconstruing solutions as problems...another reasonable justification for skeptics to fear that becoming a Christian inhibits a person from thinking honestly and clearly.

It helps make sense of something in the world and something in our hearts.

So does atheism.  When somebody hurts us, we shall have justice against them by means of the justice system we have set up.   

First, it helps answer the problem of evil in our world. Second, it satisfies the longing for justice in our hearts by explaining how that longing will be satisfied.

But final justice on the wicked is contradicted in Revelation 22, see above.

Monday, February 3, 2020

Cold Case Christianity: No, The Existence and Nature of Hell Cannot Be Defended

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled


While the Bible clearly describes Hell as a reality,
No, not "clearly", otherwise you wouldn't have 7th day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses and other assorted "Annihiliationists" denying your view of hell as literal eternal conscious torment. 
many of our non-believing friends and family members are unsurprisingly repulsed by the idea. Why would God create such a place, and what would ever provoke Him to send people there?
Those of us who can tell that there is no such place, are not bothered by the stupidity involved in speculating about what an "infinite being" might desire.
As Christians, we know our ultimate authority is God’s Word, so it’s tempting to simply trust what God has revealed without any further philosophical investigation. But we can prepare ourselves for those who reject the authority or teaching of the Bible by examining the evidence from Scripture along with the rational explanations and philosophical foundations supporting the Biblical claims. God has commanded us to be ready to defend the tough truths of the Christian worldview as we share our hope in Jesus:
 1 Peter 3:15-16
…but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence
But Jesus never commanded any such "defense", and you will have an extrarodinarily difficult time pretending that the NT canon is equally as authoritative as Jesus' own words.  That canon testifies to the bumbling stupidity of the disciples, how the fuck would you know whether they understood correctly 30 years later any more than you can assume any Christian understands any biblical thing more correctly after 30 years?

BLIND FAITH, that's how.  Nothing which places skeptics under the least bit of intellectual compulsion.
So let’s take a look at some common objections to the existence and nature of Hell as we defend the truth of the Christian Worldview.
No, as you defend one particular interpretation of the bible, one among many within Christianity.
Objection One
Why Would A Good God Create Hell in the First Place?
The idea anything as vile and repulsive as Hell could come from a good God is a stumbling block for many people. In fact, Christian claims related to Hell are enough for some to reject the Christian God altogether. How could a supposedly good God create such a place?
It really doesn't do a lot of good to affirm god is morally 'good' but then to turn around and insist that what we identify as morally 'good' does not apply to God because of his infinitely mysterious ways.  Christians will blindly answer that the bible assures them God is good, but little girls also think fairy princesses are good. 
Mercy Requires Justice
The answer here is directly connected to the nature of God. The Christian God of the Bible is the perfect balance of mercy and justice.
Not when he threatens to cause men to rape women (Deuteronomy 28:30, Isaiah 13:15-17).  Not when he threatens to cause such rabid hunger as to force people into parental cannibalism (Deut. 28:56-57).  Such a god sounds more like a disgruntled Iron Age barbarian than an infinite creator who can cause everybody to have the same physiology as an elderly person, so that they still have freewill but have far less inclination to commit most of the popular "sins".
The Bible repeatedly describes God with these characteristics:
Why should that matter to a skeptic?  Would you quote the book of Mormon to a Oneness Pentecostal?
The Merciful Nature of God
The Bible describes God’s loving, merciful nature. God is loving (1 John 4:8), gracious (Exodus 33:19, 1 Peter 2:1-3), and merciful (Exodus 34:6, James 5:11)
Which mean precisely nothing once you insist "mercy" be redefined because God's ways are mysterious.  If 'mercy" isn't supposed to mean what it normally means in normal every day discourse, then using that word with people who are not already brainwashed into your cult constitutes deception.  You all use the same words, but the Christians supply then with quite different defintiions...because God's ways are mysterious.
The Just Nature of God
The Bible also describes God’s holy, just nature. God is holy (Psalms 77:130), just (Nehemiah 9:33, 2 Thessalonians 1:6-7), hates sin (Psalms 5:5-6), and punishes sinners (Matthew 25:45-46)
It also says he desires to burn to death underage girls who engage in premarital sex in their father's homes.  Leviticus 21:9.  If they married early back then, then the likely reason she is having illicit sex "in her father's house" is because she isn't old enough to move out or get married yet.  If the daughter of a priest was old enough to be married or otherwise had her own house, there would be little reason for her to conduct illicit sex in her father's house.  So it is certainly reasonable, even if not infallible, to interpret the sinful girl in Leviticus 21:9, who must be burned to death, as prepubescent.
The God of the Bible is described as loving, gracious and merciful. At the same time, however, He is described as holy and just; hating sin and punishing sinners. While we might prefer to focus only on the merciful aspects of God’s nature, doing so would completely ignore God’s just nature.
But we learn to ignore god's need to impose justice from God himself, who is capable of ignoring his own need for justice:

 13 Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD." And Nathan said to David, "The LORD also has taken away your sin; you shall not die.
 14 "However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die." (2 Sam. 12:13-14 NAU)

Gee, can your god seriously "take away" sin (here, the more heinous types like adultery and murder, which require the death penalty) with such a wave of his magic wand as this?  You will screech that God killed David's baby in an act of justice, but that would make God unjust because he previously said David's sin had been "taken away", hence, there was no justifiable "need" to impose a death-penalty on anybody.

And if you insist God killed David's baby to satisfy the divine need for 'justice' against David's sins, then congratulations, you just accused God of accepting child sacrifice as atonement for sin, the very thing you find so detestable among the Canaanites.
Mercy without justice is not mercy.
That's right, I cannot mercifully forgive you for stealing my bike, I'd also have to punch you in the face.
Mercy requires justice to have any meaning, and justice requires mercy to have any power. A loving God (if He is truly loving) would offer love tempered by justice.
And your god's love comes with the condition that he might kill your kids and spare you, if you commit adultery and murder.  No thank you.
A loving God would not allow injustice to go unpunished;
Then apparently a crime scene detective like you thinks there is no such thing as children who are kidnapped, killed and never found.
He would create both a Heaven and a Hell.
Then you could not possibly accuse a human being of being unjust if they imitated such a holy spectacle within the limits of their capabilities.
A loving God offers a path to relationship but the possibility of judgment should we refuse this relationship. One without the other is meaningless:
Nah, Jesus appears to have required next to nothing from his Gentile followers, his interaction with specific Gentile was very short, and Matthew 25:31-46 seems to support the conclusion that even people who have no faith will be saved solely by their good humanitarian deeds.
Objection:
Why Would A Good God Create Hell in the First Place?
I don't object that way.
Response:
A loving God would not be loving if He did not punish evil. Mercy would have no meaning if it was not applied with justice.
Well God isn't punishing most of the evil in world history, so what are you gonna do now, invoke eschatology? Someday god will make everything better?  You sound like one of the people trapped below deck on the sinking Titantic, the hope of the hopeless.
Objection Two
Why Doesn’t a Loving God Make Sure Everyone Goes to Heaven?
The idea everyone is eventually reunited with a loving God in Heaven (regardless of what they believe or how they behave in this life) is called “Universalism”. It is certainly an attractive idea (for obvious reasons), and in a world of increasing relativism, it’s not surprising this kind of objection would be raised. After all, we are living in a culture where people increasingly believe “all paths lead to Heaven”. As Christians, we know this cannot be reconciled with the teaching of the Bible, and there are also good philosophical reasons to reject such an idea:
 A Compulsory Heaven Eliminates Free Will
That's right, and all those Christians called "5-Point Calvinists", such as Steve Hays of Triablogue, heartily agree.
People who want to go to Heaven (in spite of their free will choice to deny the existence of God), are true champions of the concept of free will.
Then count me out, I don't desire to be stuck for eternity with a moral monster.
After all, they want to express their freedom to deny there is any one exclusive truth about the nature of God (and the nature of Heaven). But these same people fail to realize the concept of Universalism actually denies free will altogether. If Heaven is the only destination waiting for us (based on the assumption everyone eventually ends up there) then Heaven is actually compulsory.
Given that I think compulsory heaven is better than "freewill" (sort of like it is better to force an adult out of the way of a speeding drunk than to just stand there and allow him to expereince the results of his "freewill choice"), I don't suffer from your reply.
In this view of Heaven, we have no choice about where we end up. Everyone is reunited with God. A compulsory Heaven actually denies the existence of free will, the very thing they cherish.
That's a weak argument as freewill doesn't exist anyway.
By offering (but not forcing) Heaven to those who freely choose to love Him, God is actually honoring and respecting the free will choices of all of us. He is treating us with the utmost respect and dignity.
Just like if you allow your stubborn child to drink bleach despite her knowing you have forbidden it, you'd be just as loving as god to just stand there doing nothing while the child chugs.  After all, you'd simply be honoring and respecting the child's freewill.  If you think kids don't have freewill, ask yourself why juvenile detention centers exist, and why parents impose punishment on disobedience kids.  Otherwise change the analogy from kids/bleach to "teen holding pistol to her head".  If your teen daughter was that far along in contemplating suicide, would you "respect and honor her freewill choice"? 

Then stop pretending that respecting and honoring another's freewill is a show-stopping argument for God's fairness and love, genius.
A Compulsory Heaven Would Include the “Unsuited”
Most of us would agree a holy place of eternal reward is simply not suited for people with a certain kind of character or for people with certain kinds of desires.
Which is irrelevant since the bible teaches in 1st Corinthians 15 that everybody who is saved shall undergo a major transformation of their "body" hence also their physiology and will thus never choose to sin agian, so if God imposed such resurrection-transformation on even those who don't believe, they too could be saved, and they would remain holy and suitable to heaven forever afterward.
Now we may not all agree on who should or shouldn’t be included in such a place, but most of us would hesitate while pondering the possibility people like Hitler (or lifelong pedophiles with murderous desires) should be rewarded eternally in Heaven. If there is a Heaven, it is surely unsuited for certain kinds of people.
But since God has no trouble literally blinding people with overwhelming experiences despite their concentrated hatred for Christainity (Paul's experience on the road to Damascus), God is quite capable of convincing obstinate truth-deniers to see and act in conformity with Christian doctrine.
A loving God would make Heaven possible for all of us while respecting the free will desire of some of us.
But as shown above, it can be unloving to respect another's freewill.
A loving God would reward those of us who have decided to choose Him while dealing justly with those of us who have decided to choose against Him. This is exactly the kind of God we worship:
But Calvinist Christians deny that "reward" is sensible, since you are not allowed to take credit for any good Christian thing you do.  Hence God is only "rewarding" himself for having caused a puppet like you to do whatever he wants.
Objection:
Why Doesn’t a Loving God Make Sure Everyone Goes to Heaven?
 Response:
A loving God honors our free will and our desire to choose Him, while dealing justly with those who have rejected Him.
No, Calvinists think you are a heretic.
Objection Three
Why Would A Loving God Punish Finite Sin With Infinite Torture?
For many people, the idea our finite, temporal choices here should merit an eternal punishment of infinite torment in Hell ellHellseems rather inequitable. The punishment doesn’t seem to fit the crime. In fact, the punishment seems extraordinarily excessive. Why would God torture eternally those who have sinned temporally? Why would God torture infinitely those who have only sinned finitely?
Did you ever read the Pentateuch? In Mosaic law God's wrath against sin is continually and fully satisfied by less than infinite sacrifice.  Such as the blood of bulls and goats, Leviticus 16.

See also 2nd Samuel 12:13, where God can "just" get rid of somebody's sin by apparently no other means than the wave of a magic wand.  See something similar in Isaiah 6:6-7.  Not sure how stupid it is to think one's crack-induced hallcunation of heaven provides reliable data on doctrine.
Torment Is Not Torture
Part of the problem is the way we are using language here. The Bible says those who are delivered into Hell will be tormented, and the degree to which they suffer is described in illustrative language.
Not worried, those parts of the bible are metaphorical, and regardless a) you aren't going to show them to be the least bit divniely authoritative despite your belief that the NT canon is "inspired", and b) Jesus didn't give the impression that he thought Gentiles needed to be the least bit concerned about him.  His few interactions with specific Gentiles show he wasn't willing for them to tag along the way today's Christians would become his shadow if they could go back in time.
The torment is compared to an unquenchable fire. But the scripture never describes Hell as a place where God or His angels are actively torturing the souls of the rebellious. It is accurate to describe Hell as a place of separation from God where souls will be in ongoing conscious torment, but Hell is never described as a place of active torture at the hands of God or His agents.
 10 he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger; and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. (Rev. 14:10 NAU)

 But your point is moot anyway, since whatever you think you gain by trifling that God doesn't "actively" torment anybody in hell, you lose in Deuteronomy 28:15-63, where God DOES actively torment, for centuries, anybody who dares disobey him.
Instead, Hell is always described as a state of torment coming as the result of a choice on the part of the person who finds himself there. There is a difference between torture and torment. I can be continually tormented over a decision I made in the past, without being actively tortured by anyone.
Only of concern to fools who are worried the bible has the least bit of authority about it.  Not for me.
Duration of the Punishment is Not Based on Duration of the Crime
The torment experienced in Hell is eternal, and for some, this still seems inequitable compared to the finite and limited sins that we might commit here on earth.
It also seems ungodly in light of the OT which shows God continually being FULLY satisfied when a sin was atoned for by some temporal means.  For example the master who rapes a slave girl despite her being previously betrothed to another man, gains complete atonement by nothing more than giving a ram to the priest for sacrifice:

 20 'Now if a man lies carnally with a woman who is a slave acquired for another man, but who has in no way been redeemed nor given her freedom, there shall be punishment; they shall not, however, be put to death, because she was not free.
 21 'He shall bring his guilt offering to the LORD to the doorway of the tent of meeting, a ram for a guilt offering.
 22 'The priest shall also make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering before the LORD for his sin which he has committed, and the sin which he has committed will be forgiven him.
 (Lev. 19:20-22 NAU)

Your trifle that the forgiveness wasn't "total" is total bullshit.  The original recipients of the Law would never have had any reason to suspect that these assurances of divine atonement were less than fully expitatory:

 27 "But the bull of the sin offering and the goat of the sin offering, whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the holy place, shall be taken outside the camp, and they shall burn their hides, their flesh, and their refuse in the fire.
 28 "Then the one who burns them shall wash his clothes and bathe his body with water, then afterward he shall come into the camp.
 29 "This shall be a permanent statute for you: in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall humble your souls and not do any work, whether the native, or the alien who sojourns among you;
 30 for it is on this day that atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you; you will be clean from all your sins before the LORD. (Lev. 16:27-30 NAU)
So let’s address the issue of the duration of the punishment. First, it’s important for us to remember the severity of a crime does not always have anything to do with the amount of time it takes to commit it. If I embezzle five dollars a day from my boss over the course of five years, I might eventually get caught and pay the penalty for embezzling $32,500.00. In the State of California, this violates California Penal Code 503PC and the punishment might be anything from probation to a 5 year state prison sentence. But if I become enraged at a coworker and in the blink of an eye I lose my temper and kill him, the crime is now murder (187PC). This crime took much less than five years to commit. It only took five seconds. Yet the penalty for this crime is far greater. I will be serving at least 25 years to life, and I may even be put to death.
Only because the human authorities aren't able to resurrect the victim.  If they could, then murdering people would be about as criminal as messing up the covers on the bed.  It can be easily fixed.
The penalties for these two crimes are very different, and they have nothing to do with the duration of the actual criminal act. Instead, the severity of the crime is the key to determining its punishment. It’s the same way with God. The duration of the crime has little to do with the duration of the penalty. It’s all about the severity of the crime. “But are you trying to tell me that my disbelief alone is severe enough for me to deserve an eternal hell?” That question will be addressed in the next section. For now, it’s enough to simply point out that the duration of the crime is not what determines the punishment of the crime.
 Punishment is Based on the Source of the Law
In addition to this, it’s important to remember the punishment for any crime is not determined by the criminal, but by the authority who is responsible for upholding the standard. Justice is not determined by the law breaker, but by the law giver. Justice and punishment are established based on the nature of the source of the law, not the nature of the source of the offense. Since God is the source of justice and the law, His nature determines the punishment. Since God is eternal and conscious, all rewards and punishments must also be eternal and conscious.
And since God was willing to overwhelm the freewill of Saul the violent anti-Christian on the road to Damascus, it cannot be denied that, if God really wanted to, he could MAKE an obstinate skeptic become willing to believe and obey Christian doctrine.  Once again, God has no need to inflict justice, he can simply make people do whatever he wants. Ezra 1:1. 
The Crime is Worse Than You Think
Finally, it’s important to remember the nature of the crime eventually leading one into Hell. It is not the fact you kicked your dog in 1992. It’s not the fact you had evil thoughts about your teacher in 1983. The crime earning us a place in Hell is our rejection of the true and living eternal God.
But then it could be argued under Matthew 25:31-46 that when modern day faithless Gentiles do humanitarian works, they are earning their Christian salvation whether they know it or not.
This rejection is not finite. People who reject God have rejected Him completely.
No, we can reject another human being, but not completely, such as not wanting to talk to a spiteful brother, but not willing to see him get killed.
They have rejected Him to their death, to the very end. They have rejected Him as an ultimate and final decision. God then has the right and obligation to judge them with an ultimate punishment. To argue God’s punishment does not fit our crime is to underestimate our crime.
 There are several good reasons to expect an eternal punishment even though our earthly crimes may seem finite. Our approach to this objection may require us to give a robust and cumulative response:
 Objection:
Why Would A Loving God Punish Finite Sin With Infinite Torture?
 Response:
A Loving God simply allows us to suffer the anguish and torment resulting as a consequence of our bad choices. There is a difference between self-inflicted torment and active torture at the hands of another. The duration of the crime has nothing to do with the duration of the punishment (even in this life). The source of the law determines the degree of the punishment, and God is a perfect eternal, conscious being. Don’t be surprised to find we often underestimate the eternal consequence of our own sinful and ultimate choice to reject God.
 The source of the law determines the degree of the punishment, and God is a perfect eternal, conscious being.
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 Objection Four
Why Is the Penalty of Hell the Same, Even Though People Are So Different?
For some skeptics, the inequitable nature of Hell is seen in the way God punishes. Isn’t it unfair to send someone like Gandhi to Hell (simply because he was not a Christian) alongside someone like Hitler (who committed unspeakable atrocities)? A reasonable and just God would not be the source of such inequitable punishment, would He? In one sense, it is true: All sin has the same consequence when measured against God’s perfection.
But many Christians are open-theists, and insist the bible texts that express or imply imperfection in god were intended to be taken as literally as everything else in their respective contexts.  Your presupposition of God as "perfect" is dogshit.
Lying is just as significant as murder when it comes to assessing our imperfection relative to the perfection of God.
That's right.  If I tell a small child the boegy man will get them and they better go home, that lie makes me deserving of eternal torment.  If I don't think my wife is beautiful but I say she is anyway, I deserve to be tormented in the presence of holy angels and the lamb and whatever other fanciful apocalyptic bullshit 1st Enoch says will happen.
Even the slightest sin demonstrates our inadequacy and need for a Savior.
Jesus didn't seem to make too big of a deal of the sins of the Gentiles.  When specific individuals tried to interact with him, we learn how quickly he was willing to forgive them and move on to other people.  This constantly hanging around Jesus like a fanatic is not what Jesus required of future Gentile followers, apparently, though its probably unwise to trust the gospels to the point of drawing confident conclusions and inferences from them, shit who knows how much of that crap is merely the later view of the authors and how much is words Jesus actually mouthed.
But make no mistake about it; some sins are clearly more heinous than others in the eyes of God (John 19:11-12). As a result, the God of the Bible equitably prescribes punishments for wrongdoing on earth and in the next life:
Maybe that explains how easy he finds it to wave his magic wand and get rid of sin.
There Are Degrees of Punishment on Earth
When God gave the Law to Moses, He made one thing very clear: Some sins are more punishable than others. God assigned different penalties to different crimes, based on the offensive or heinous nature of the sin itself. The Mosaic Law is filled with measured responses to sin. God prescribed punishments appropriate to the crimes in question (Exodus 21:23-25). In fact, the Mosaic Law carefully assured that each offender would be punished “according to his guilt” and no more (Deuteronomy 25:2-3). The Mosaic Law is evidence of two things. First, while any sin may separate us from the perfection of God, some sins are unmistakably more offensive than others. Second, God prescribes different punishments for different crimes based on the severity of each crime.
Maybe that explains why he drowned all those kids in that flood. 
There Are Degrees of Punishment in Hell
In a similar way, God applies this principle to the next life, prescribing a variety of punishments in eternity corresponding to the crimes committed in this life (Revelation 20:12-13).
How the fuck would you know whether that was intended literally, and whether or not the book even speaks for God?  How are you going to utilize that book with a skeptic who thinks its pages are not even worthy of use as tissue paper?
This is most apparent in Jesus’ teaching on the “Wicked Servant” (Luke 12:42-48). In a straight forward interpretation of this parable, those who reject the teaching and calling of God will be harshly punished, but those who have less clarity on what can be known about God (“the one who did not know it”) will be punished with less severity. There are degrees of punishment in Hell; God is equitable and fair when it comes to the destiny of those who have rejected Him.
"fair" meaning "according to God", sort of like "fair according to Bill who runs the show and makes his own rules."  I'm less than convinced.
snip Objection Five
Why Would A Loving God Send Good People to Hell?
Some skeptics think it is unfair for God to penalize people who are otherwise good, just because they haven’t heard about Jesus. How many times have your non-believing friends said something like, “Hey, I’m a good person. If there is a Heaven, I know I’ll be there, because I’ve never done anything to deserve Hell”? I hear this all the time. It is almost as if they believe the Christian God simply sends people to Hell because they haven’t heard about Jesus or because they didn’t believe in Jesus. But this is simply not the case.
 There Are No Innocent People
God sends people to Hell because we deserve it. God assigns people to Hell because we are guilty:
 Revelation 20:12
And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
 And what are the “works” of human beings? Remember what Paul quoted and described when outlining the true nature of humans:
 Romans 3:10-18
There is none righteous, not even one; There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God; All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, There is not even one. Their throat is an open grave, With their tongues they keep deceiving, The poison of asps is under their lips; Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; Their feet are swift to shed blood, Destruction and misery are in their paths, And the path of peace have they not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.
 Humans are not actually as “good” as we would like to think we are. We are continually “missing the mark”. We are continually sinning. And this sin is worthy of punishment:
 Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death…
 This is the Biblical description of humanity and the consequence of our supposed “goodness”. The Bible says none of us are good to begin with. But for those of us who might not want to accept the truth of the Bible, let’s look at it from a more philosophical perspective.
Very sad that your doctrine of sin doesn't come from Jesus, probably because you know that Jesus didn't teach that everybody was a "sinner".

snip irrelevant arguments.
Objection Six
Why Doesn’t God Reform People Rather Than Punish Them in Hell?
If God is all-loving, why doesn’t He simply “reform” people rather than allow them to continue in their sin and eventually punish them in Hell? Even human prison systems understand the value of reform; isn’t a God who punishes his children in Hell a sadistic and vengeful God? We expect a loving God would care enough about us to offer a chance to change rather than simply punish us vindictively for something we’ve done in the past. As it turns out, God (as he is described in the Bible) understands the difference between discipline and punishment, and He is incredibly patient with us, allowing us an entire lifetime to change our minds and reform our lives. This is easier to understand when we think carefully about the definitions of “discipline” and “punishment”:
 Discipline Looks Forward
All of us understand the occasional necessity of disciplining our children. When we discipline, we are motivated by love rather than vengeance. We hope to change the future behavior of our kids by nudging them in a new direction with a little discomfort. God also loves His children in this way and allows them the opportunity to reform under his discipline.
or maybe we are very naughty kids who will only destroy ourselves if we aren't parented more strictly, like the  case of the stubborn child who refuses to quit playing near the hot stove, sometimes parental love requires that you decrease the probability that the child will hurt themselves.
This takes place during our mortal lifetime; God disciplines those He loves in this life because He is concerned with eternity.
You don't have any evidence "god" does any such thing.  The rain falls on the just and the unjust.

Discipline, by its very definition, is “forward-looking” and must therefore occur in this world with an eye toward our eternal destiny:
No, heaven is also time-bound, there is no biblical justification for the modern view that God lives in an ever-present "now" where past and future subsumed into a single plane of existence.  That's just sophistry run amok.
Hebrews 12:9-11
Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
But you cannot demonstrate this anonymous NT book is inspired by God, so you are about as threatening to skepticism as a KJV Onlyist or Josh McDowell.
Punishment Looks Backward
There are times as a parent, however, when our loving efforts to discipline and reform are unsuccessful; our kids are sometimes rebellious to the point of exhaustion. In these times, our love requires us to deliver on our repeated warnings. Our loving sense of justice requires us to be firm, even when it hurts us to do so. Our other children are watching us as well, and our future acts of mercy will be meaningless if we fail to act justly on wrongdoing. In times like these, we have no alternative but to punish acts occurring in the past. Punishment need not be vindictive or vengeful. It is simply the sad (but deserved) consequence awaiting those who are unwilling to be reformed in this life.
 Hebrews 10:28-29
Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?
 God is patient. He’s given each of us a lifetime to respond to His discipline and change our mind. It cannot be said God failed to give us the opportunity to repent. When we are rebellious to the point of exhaustion, however, God has no choice but to deliver on His warnings:
 Objection:
Why Doesn’t God Reform People Rather Than Punish Them in Hell?
 Response:
A loving God carefully disciplines and reluctantly punishes.
No, god says he will be just as "delighted" to inflict horrific atrocities on disobedient people as he is delighted to give prosperity to those who obey:

 63 "It shall come about that as the LORD delighted over you to prosper you, and multiply you, so the LORD will delight over you to make you perish and destroy you; and you will be torn from the land where you are entering to possess it. (Deut. 28:63 NAU)
God has given us many opportunities to acknowledge His existence and accept His offer of forgiveness. No one has an excuse.
Paul didn't have an excuse either, but he still views his ignorance and unbelief as the basis upon which God showed that blinding mercy to him:

 12 I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, putting me into service,
 13 even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief;
 14 and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus.   (1 Tim. 1:12-14 NAU)
snip
The Grace Offered to Children
It is God’s desire for all to be saved, but clearly some will not choose to be saved.
God thinks overwhelming a person with proof of his existence is capable of causing them to respond in genuine faith and repentance.  Acts 9, 22, 26.
Children however, may not even have the chance to choose. What will God do with young children who have not had the opportunity to be taught about the forgiveness offered through Jesus? Well, the Bible never describes Hell as a place for children.
But it never specifies they are exempt from hell either.  Paul taught that children remain unclean unless the product of a biblically valid marriage:

 14 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband; for otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy. (1 Cor. 7:14 NAU)
You will not find a single description of Hell in which children are present.
You also wont find Jesus telling anybody that they had to believe he died for their sins and rose from the dead, before they can be saved. 
In fact, there may be good Biblical reason to infer God offers a special grace to young children. King David, for example, had a young baby with Uriah’s widow. This child died while still an infant, yet the Scripture affirms the notion the baby’s soul was present with the Lord after his death, in spite of the fact he was far too young to even hear about God at all:
 2 Samuel 12:22-23
And he said, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ‘Who knows, the LORD may be gracious to me, that the child may live.’ But now he has died; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.”
What you omitted was how the child died.  God killed it:

13 Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD." And Nathan said to David, "The LORD also has taken away your sin; you shall not die.
 14 "However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die."
 15 So Nathan went to his house. Then the LORD struck the child that Uriah's widow bore to David, so that he was very sick.
 16 David therefore inquired of God for the child; and David fasted and went and lay all night on the ground.
 17 The elders of his household stood beside him in order to raise him up from the ground, but he was unwilling and would not eat food with them.
 18 Then it happened on the seventh day that the child died. (2 Sam. 12:13-18 NAU)

You don't think this is a proof that god is unloving because you arbitrarily broaden "loving" to encompass just whatever the bible says God does.
We have good reason to believe David’s soul also is present with the Lord today, and David tells us his son preceded him. God appears to offer special grace to children who are not yet able to hear about Him or understand the message of Salvation. This seems consistent with the idea that God shows special mercy to those who are not yet even capable of understanding right from wrong:
 Isaiah 7:14-15
“Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel. “He will eat curds and honey at the time He knows enough to refuse evil and choose good.”
 In this passage, Isaiah affirms there is a point at which young people “know enough to refuse evil and choose good”. Perhaps this is why God demonstrates his mercy with children. Young children simply cannot understand (and do not have the capacity to choose) good over evil. While all of us have a sin nature rebellious toward God, His special revelation has been given to those of us who have the ability to understand it. This also seems consistent with other Biblical passages that depict God’s Law as targeting those who were capable of understanding:
 Nehemiah 8:1-3
And all the people gathered as one man at the square which was in front of the Water Gate, and they asked Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses which the LORD had given to Israel. Then Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly of men, women and all who could listen with understanding, on the first day of the seventh month. He read from it before the square which was in front of the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of men and women, those who could understand; and all the people were attentive to the book of the law.
 All of us are born as sinners. No one is righteous. We are all sinners from birth. But it does appear God shows special mercy toward those who simply do not have the capacity to understand. This may include those who are mentally handicapped and it may also include those children who are too young to understand the truth of God’s offer of Salvation through Jesus Christ.
What would be a more reliable example of God's feelings toward children, the real world, full of pedophiles and kidnapping, or the highly idealistic bible whose unrealistic hopes have tormented Christians for centuries?

Is this the part where the Christian apologist tries to argue that it is wrong to be "realistic"?

As you can see, J. Warner Wallace's blind proof-texting cannot seriously be geared toward "convincing skeptics", he instead intends only Christians to benefit from such preaching to the choir.

Jason Engwer doesn't appreciate the strong justification for skepticism found in John 7:5

Bart Ehrman, like thousands of other skeptics, uses Mark 3:21 and John 7:5 to argue that Jesus' virgin birth (VB) is fiction.  Jason Eng...