Trooper Dan, on 20 March 2014 - 08:28 PM, said:
As for hell, the ethical problem I have with it is this: how could a finite number of offenses justify an infinite amount of punishment? The people who endorse this (not saying you are one of them) I suspect of not really understanding how immense that punishment is. Even if Hitler, for example, had to suffer as much as all of his victims, in a row, he would be done after a few million years, which is still nothing compared with infinity (or make it a billion years, it is still nothing in comparison).
It is bad theology to view hell as punishment put on someone. It is better to view it as punishment one puts on oneself. Humans always have free will. We choose to reject God or embrace God. Those who choose, with full knowledge, to reject heaven and God enter Hell on their own free will.
It is an extremely pre-enlightenment and ignorant view to think of hell as fire and brimstone and some temporal punishment from God. I'm not even sure Aquinas taught that (or Augustine, to go even further back).
Jerry Fallwell was once asked what he would do if, when he died, he discovered that God doesn't hate people like he does. Jerry Fallwell answered that he wouldn't believe that it was God speaking to him. That is a person actively and freely choosing Hell over Heaven. The same applies to Fred Phelps (and Hitler, to be fair). Adolf Hitler may have chosen forgiveness and God over his own perverted view of the world after seeing God face-to-face.