The christian concept of hell is an interesting one. We won't delve into it's origins today; I just want to examine the whole concept and ask a few reasonable questions.
According to christians, Hell is a terrible place, worse than you can even imagine. If you are not "saved by the blood of Christ" you will go to hell for all of eternity when you die; there to be tortured forever in horrible pain and agony. Whew! Not a pleasant concept, is it?
There are currently over six billion (6,000,000,000) people alive on the planet Earth today. The number is incomprehensible to most humans, especially if you're not accustomed to working with such large numbers. I've got a "thought experiment" for you to help visualize how big a few billion are, but we'll get to that in a moment.
Of those six billion, only about two billion (2,000,000,000) consider themselves to be christians. If you are one of those two billion, you might not believe that all of them really are christians; they include catholics, protestants of all types, seventh day adventists, quakers, even mormons. However, for the moment, let's assume that if they say they are christians, then they are. So, two billion christians means that four billion (4,000,000,000) of the humans on earth are not christians. They are jews, muslims, hindu, buddhists, etc. Four Billion people, and, according to christians, every one of those four billion people are going to hell to be tortured forever when they die!
Four billion people alive right now are destined for eternal torment. How much is four billion? Well, if you line them up and then walk down that line counting them one by one at the rate of one per second: 1....2....3....4....5...., and you did this for a solid eight hours per day with no coffee, lunch, or bio-breaks, it would take you a little over 380 years to count them all.
Now, if the christian god is all-knowing (as he is reported to be), then he knew before these four billion people were ever born that they all were destined for the fires of hell.
The christian god knows that 2 out of 3 people on earth (at least) are destined for eternal torture. Two out three. Why? Because, for the most part, they were unlucky enough to be born in a country were christianity is not the dominate religion. Two out Three, Four Billion.
Remember Mr Jones? If you consider him to be a bad person, how can you possibly not consider the christian god to be likewise? So, for you christians out there, the next time you threaten me or especially your children with the fires of hell, I dare you not to think about those four billion people who are alive at this very moment! I dare you not to think about Mr Jones.
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