I left the Church of Christ and Christianity in 2006. The following is a letter I wrote to a member of the congregation that I was a member of shortly after I left--I never received a reply:
by Kenneth Hawthorne
I have some things I would like for you to consider based on our talk at Panera Bread in Sept. Plus some thoughts and questions on the eternal hell taught in the Bible. I have had most of this letter ready for some time, but have just now decided to send it. I have presented some of this information about an eternal hell to you before--with no reply. You have asked me, "Kenneth, how could you?" (i.e., leave Christianity). Well, contained in this letter are some of the reasons how I could and why I did. You obviously think I made a bad decision to leave Christianity; then I would appreciate it if you would tell me why you disagree with the information in this letter. I will be more than happy to listen to what you have to say.
First, you said that you were not going to let me destroy your faith. Please consider that if a faith is based on lack of information and/or false information then that faith needs to be altered or maybe even destroyed. Truth has nothing to fear, only error. One should never be afraid of looking at new information. That is how we grow--that is how a valid faith becomes even stronger. If your current faith won't hold up under new information, then your faith wasn't a valid faith to begin with.
Second, here is the quote from the April 8, 2007, Faith Builder, "The message of the Bible is such that any rational person will want to believe it. And, wanting to believe it, he will look for reasons to believe rather than reasons to disbelieve." It is the second sentence in this quote that is so extremely illogical. You said that you agree with this quote. I hope you will rethink this. Bob is saying that one should only look for reasons to believe the message of the Bible. That thinking is not a rational way to find truth. One shouldn't only look for reasons to believe or disbelieve anything. In any rational attempt to arrive at the truth on a subject one must honestly look at all of the relevant facts, not just the facts that you happen to like, i.e., facts that tend to support the message that you want or don't want to believe.
Third, the God of the Bible (Yahweh) is supposed to be just, Isaiah 45:21; he's supposed to be fair and not punish a child for wrongs that its parents have committed, Deut. 24:16; and he is alleged to be abundant in mercy and full of compassion, Psalms 86:15. But Yahweh commanded King Saul to "utterly destroy" the Amalekites in I Samuel 15:2-3 for something their ancestors did 450 years earlier! "...kill[ing] both man and woman, infant and nursing child..." We talked about this briefly. But I would like to hear, in more detail, just how you are able to accept this action of Yahweh and still consider him to be a just and fair God, who is abundant in mercy and full of compassion.
Third, the God of the Bible (Yahweh) is supposed to be just, Isaiah 45:21; he's supposed to be fair and not punish a child for wrongs that its parents have committed, Deut. 24:16; and he is alleged to be abundant in mercy and full of compassion, Psalms 86:15. But Yahweh commanded King Saul to "utterly destroy" the Amalekites in I Samuel 15:2-3 for something their ancestors did 450 years earlier! "...kill[ing] both man and woman, infant and nursing child..." We talked about this briefly. But I would like to hear, in more detail, just how you are able to accept this action of Yahweh and still consider him to be a just and fair God, who is abundant in mercy and full of compassion.
Finally, I would like for you to consider the following. The Bible subject of an eternal hell created by an all-knowing, all-loving, all-compassionate, all-powerful, all-wise, complete and perfect God to which he will send the majority of mankind is an obviously contradictory concept. Let me guide you through my thought process concerning the God of the Bible and his eternal hell. Five questions follow at the end:
You are familiar with Matt 7:13-14. That verse basically teaches that many people will go to hell and few people will go to heaven. You can get an idea of just how many people we are talking about by just looking around. If what the Church of Christ teaches is true, then one has to be a member of the Church of Christ to be saved. And you know that's not very many.
The World_Population stands now at about 7.5 billion. Of this number about 73% are above the age of 14. That's about 5.5 billion who are above the age of 14; we'll use that as a liberal approximate "age of accountability". Church of Christ membership in the world is estimated at about 2 million (that includes the whole spectrum--liberals and conservatives). So that means that there are about 4.998 billion people above the age of 14 living right now who are not even nominal members of the Church of Christ, much less "faithful" members (The author of the book of Matthew even has Jesus saying that not all who are in the kingdom [i.e., the church] will be saved Matt 13:41-43). And this number is just the present number. What about all the people in the past who weren't "saved" and all the people in the future who won't be among the "saved"?
If God is all-knowing I John 3:20, he had to have known this before he ever created the first human. So you get the idea of how many God knew would be lost before he ever created the first human; billions upon billions! Certainly, this should cause anyone to pause and take thought. I believe that it is impossible for an all-loving, all-compassionate, all-powerful, all-wise God not to have stepped back and said, NO! I can't let this happen--it is too awful. Surely he would have realized that there was something terribly wrong with this flawed human creation of his. (Note: Even if the number who will be "saved" encompasses a larger group than the Church of Christ, Matt 7:13-14 still stands as a clear teaching from the Bible that "many" will be lost and "few" will be saved; which still amounts to many billions of people.) Any human who sees a tragedy about to happen and has the ability to prevent it should certainly do so. There's a name for it--it's called being responsible. But God was in a position to be able to prevent the tragedy of all tragedies--and what did he do? What does the Bible say he did to prevent it? It says that he did what he also knew would amount to nothing, really. Because he knew that sending Jesus Christ as a sacrifice to save man would not prevent the tragedy. Please tell me how that is being responsible?
So, I thought, why? Why would God go ahead and create man knowing this terrible end to the humans he is supposed to love so much? What could he possibly need that was so important that warranted this horror taking place? Well, as you know, the Bible says that God is perfect and complete Acts 17:25; that he doesn't need anything. The Bible also says that he created man because he wanted children Romans 8:14-17 and he wanted glory Isaiah 43:7. My thinking, as I hope you are beginning to understand, developed into anger. What? You mean he allowed this utter, utter eternal misery to happen to all these billions of people for something he only wanted but didn't need?! Billions in eternal--ETERNAL--misery so this "all-loving" god could get glory?! Even a Hitler or a Stalin would pale in comparison to someone who would allow a travesty of this proportion to happen; and certainly an omni God would not be guilty of such. My anger(and disgust) was not really directed toward God--because Yahweh could not be God--it was directed toward the evil, misguided, deluded men who wrote the Bible and invented this vicious, unjust false god, Yahweh--for their own controlling purposes.
Please answer the following questions, then tell me why you still think Yahweh is the true God and why you think I should come back and serve him.
If God is all-knowing I John 3:20, he had to have known this before he ever created the first human. So you get the idea of how many God knew would be lost before he ever created the first human; billions upon billions! Certainly, this should cause anyone to pause and take thought. I believe that it is impossible for an all-loving, all-compassionate, all-powerful, all-wise God not to have stepped back and said, NO! I can't let this happen--it is too awful. Surely he would have realized that there was something terribly wrong with this flawed human creation of his. (Note: Even if the number who will be "saved" encompasses a larger group than the Church of Christ, Matt 7:13-14 still stands as a clear teaching from the Bible that "many" will be lost and "few" will be saved; which still amounts to many billions of people.) Any human who sees a tragedy about to happen and has the ability to prevent it should certainly do so. There's a name for it--it's called being responsible. But God was in a position to be able to prevent the tragedy of all tragedies--and what did he do? What does the Bible say he did to prevent it? It says that he did what he also knew would amount to nothing, really. Because he knew that sending Jesus Christ as a sacrifice to save man would not prevent the tragedy. Please tell me how that is being responsible?
So, I thought, why? Why would God go ahead and create man knowing this terrible end to the humans he is supposed to love so much? What could he possibly need that was so important that warranted this horror taking place? Well, as you know, the Bible says that God is perfect and complete Acts 17:25; that he doesn't need anything. The Bible also says that he created man because he wanted children Romans 8:14-17 and he wanted glory Isaiah 43:7. My thinking, as I hope you are beginning to understand, developed into anger. What? You mean he allowed this utter, utter eternal misery to happen to all these billions of people for something he only wanted but didn't need?! Billions in eternal--ETERNAL--misery so this "all-loving" god could get glory?! Even a Hitler or a Stalin would pale in comparison to someone who would allow a travesty of this proportion to happen; and certainly an omni God would not be guilty of such. My anger(and disgust) was not really directed toward God--because Yahweh could not be God--it was directed toward the evil, misguided, deluded men who wrote the Bible and invented this vicious, unjust false god, Yahweh--for their own controlling purposes.
Please answer the following questions, then tell me why you still think Yahweh is the true God and why you think I should come back and serve him.
1. To what purpose do you think Yahweh created man knowing, before he created the first human, that he would be sending the majority (billions) to suffer eternally in hell?
2. How do you explain that an allegedly perfect and complete God would allow this travesty to happen for a purpose that was not necessary?
3. Do you think this was a responsible decision that Yahweh made?
4. Do you believe that it could be said, with any believability, that Yahweh loved billions of children he allowed to come into the world knowing ahead of time these children would be tortured for eternity?
5. An omni Creator would be greater than the creature. But, since Yahweh allowed this to happen to billions of children, how can it be said, with any believability, that he is better than a human who wouldn't allow even one child to come into the world knowing ahead of time that child would be tortured for eternity?
In the Faith Builder, Bob correctly said that an omni Creator would be greater than the creature. That means, among other things, that this omni God would set the example of what absolute compassion and love are. That humans (the creature) would only have a faint glow of compassion and love compared to such a God's. I asked myself, that if I knew ahead of time that a child I was thinking about conceiving and bringing into the world would wind up in hell--would I go ahead and conceive that child anyway? No! Of course I wouldn't (and neither would you nor any other rationally thinking human). But an omni God would be greater than me; better than me; much more loving and compassionate than me; and this omni God allowed(s) billions upon billions of children to come into the world knowing that they are doomed for an eternal hell? That's impossible! Thus the god of the Bible is impossible. In fact the whole concept of infinite punishment for finite wrongs is unjust and therefore impossible for a perfectly just God to be a part of much less initiate. Surely you agree.
In the first letter I sent to you I made you aware of most of the information that is contained in this letter concerning the eternal hell of the Bible. Yet, you remain a Christian. That must mean that either you have sufficient answers to these problems with the god of the Bible or that you have swept all of this under the rug and not really dealt with it. If it is the former please share with me these answers that I have obviously missed so that I can correct my view of the god of the Bible. You say that you want me to return to Christianity, then why are you keeping these answers to yourself? If it is the latter, then why? Why have you not even considered these problems with the god of the Bible that I thought were so important and so devastating to Christianity that it would cause me to leave it?
2. How do you explain that an allegedly perfect and complete God would allow this travesty to happen for a purpose that was not necessary?
3. Do you think this was a responsible decision that Yahweh made?
4. Do you believe that it could be said, with any believability, that Yahweh loved billions of children he allowed to come into the world knowing ahead of time these children would be tortured for eternity?
5. An omni Creator would be greater than the creature. But, since Yahweh allowed this to happen to billions of children, how can it be said, with any believability, that he is better than a human who wouldn't allow even one child to come into the world knowing ahead of time that child would be tortured for eternity?
In the Faith Builder, Bob correctly said that an omni Creator would be greater than the creature. That means, among other things, that this omni God would set the example of what absolute compassion and love are. That humans (the creature) would only have a faint glow of compassion and love compared to such a God's. I asked myself, that if I knew ahead of time that a child I was thinking about conceiving and bringing into the world would wind up in hell--would I go ahead and conceive that child anyway? No! Of course I wouldn't (and neither would you nor any other rationally thinking human). But an omni God would be greater than me; better than me; much more loving and compassionate than me; and this omni God allowed(s) billions upon billions of children to come into the world knowing that they are doomed for an eternal hell? That's impossible! Thus the god of the Bible is impossible. In fact the whole concept of infinite punishment for finite wrongs is unjust and therefore impossible for a perfectly just God to be a part of much less initiate. Surely you agree.
In the first letter I sent to you I made you aware of most of the information that is contained in this letter concerning the eternal hell of the Bible. Yet, you remain a Christian. That must mean that either you have sufficient answers to these problems with the god of the Bible or that you have swept all of this under the rug and not really dealt with it. If it is the former please share with me these answers that I have obviously missed so that I can correct my view of the god of the Bible. You say that you want me to return to Christianity, then why are you keeping these answers to yourself? If it is the latter, then why? Why have you not even considered these problems with the god of the Bible that I thought were so important and so devastating to Christianity that it would cause me to leave it?
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