JESUS HATES SINNERS HE HAS NOT FORGIVEN
Jesus taught that those who die in sin or without having turned to him for
salvation will suffer in Hell forever. He said he hates sin more than anybody
else can or does. The Church says that Jesus has dealt with sin in the universe
and robbed it of its power. That is a shameless lie for it is obvious that sin
has been with us for centuries and shows no signs of being diminished never mind
destroyed. Where is Jesus' empty hate for sin now?
Matthew 15, Jesus says, 17 “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes
into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of a
person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. 19 For out of the
heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false
testimony, slander. 20 These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed
hands does not defile them.”
This says that actions are not the problem. It is the people being bad as people
that is the problem. Love the sinner and hate the sin is being repudiated here.
Love the sinner and hate the sin denies that we sin because we are sinners or
have a sinful nature. It is not loving if it it denies what we are.
Jesus said that sin is in the heart - it is the person that is the problem not the
action. He said that nothing that goes into you makes you sinful and only your
heart does that. He said that sin defiles the person. There is nothing here
about pretending the person is not the same as the sin. Sin is really another
word for person who sins. Human nature can love and hate the same person at the
same time only because human nature is inconsistent and you can have one feeling
opposing another at the same moment. Jesus was certainly making it right to hate
the person to some degree at least.
The starting point of Christianity is that we are all to hate sin. We are to
hate our own sins and the sins we see others commit. But the problem with hate
is, "I want to hurt you because I think you are offending and hurting and
threatening me". Hate is to imagine that someone or something is the cause of
your pain and sense of danger and one must try to get it forcibly stopped with
condemnation and punishment. But you make your hate. It is you torturing
yourself over somebody else's actions or perceived actions. If you do that, you
blame them for your pain and you only fuel the hate. Imagine then how much Jesus
the perfect hater of sin must hate.
Obviously if you are resurrected to sin forever in a place called Hell forever
and burn in it without being destroyed and if you want to stay there forever
despite the torment then there are several miracles here. God preserves your
life after death and raises your body to suffer forever in a fire and enables
you to want to stay there in that pit when you wouldn’t stay in a semi-hell on
earth - these are the miracles. Miracles demand extraordinary evidence for they
are extraordinary claims. To violate this law in order to believe in Hell shows
that believers are eager to believe it. You wouldn’t convict a killer on weak
evidence and you are asked here to believe in the miracles of Hell for which
there is no evidence so that you can believe that those who hate God will go
there forever. That shows that the doctrine implicitly commands hatred of
sinners and those in Hell. God asks you to believe in Hell so God hates them
too.
The Church will say that though there is no evidence for Hell we have evidence
that the testimony of Christ to its existence is reliable for Christ did
miracles to prove his mission and doctrine. But bearing in mind that we need
very strong evidence the stranger or more unlikely a claim is this is
unacceptable. If Jesus does ten miracles and you can verify them all but the
last then you can’t believe in the last one. You must consider him a liar if he
asks you to believe in it. If a man commits ten murders and you can only prove
he committed nine of them you are not permitted to believe he committed the odd
one out.
The Church admits that it cannot conclusively prove every miracle reported of
Jesus in the Bible or outside of it when you consider every miracle by itself.
To claim a miracle happened is such a serious claim that naturally the evidence
has to be very serious as in strong and good and convincing and every individual
miracle requires it. You can’t say the resurrection of Jesus is provable so the
other miracles of Jesus must have happened as well for Jesus rose to prove his
teachings and claims and miracles to be real. Every miracle is so serious so it
has to be checked out on its own. Christians know that miracles are very serious
for they as good as suspend or change natural law and you need near if not
actual impossible evidence to believe in them. Imagine the evidence you would
need to justify believing in the tooth fairy – a miraculous being. A miracle
that doesn’t have extraordinary evidence backing it up isn’t worth talking
about.
So if Hell exists and God wants us to believe in it as the Church and Jesus say
then we are to hate the damned.
Jesus said love your neighbour and didn’t say love the sinner. To love your
enemy is not the same as to love the person as a sinner for the enemy might have
the best of intentions and see you as a threat.
In the book, The Bible Tells Us So, it is plainly asserted that the Bible never
states that God loves the damned. “Although the Bible tells us that those who
failed to walk in God’s way because they did not know it will be beaten with
fewer stripes than will those who failed to walk in God’s way although they knew
it [Luke 12:47, 48], it nowhere intimates that God loves the damned” (page 62).
Small wonder when Hell serves no good purpose. Hopefully it should be different
with living sinners for they can change unlike the damned but that would require
you to hate them as long as they won’t change and hope they will change. But God
must have done something to the damned to make them stay in Hell therefore it
would be more evil of him to hate the damned and not living sinners. Living
sinners have to be hated far more than the damned.
Then the book declares, “Paradoxical as it may be, when the unregenerate
blatantly defy the Most High and brazenly give vent to their hatred of him, the
regenerate are constrained by their very love for God to exclaim, “Do I not hate
them, O God, that hate thee? I hate them with a perfect hatred: I count them
mine enemies’ [Ps 139:21, 22]” (page 124). The curses put by Paul on the wicked
though he claimed to be writing God’s word and blessed worse implies his God is
a God of hate. He never cursed anybody as much as those who disagreed with him.
He singled them out for special abuse.
The imprecations of the saints in Heaven upon the incorrigible unsaved
(Revelation 6:9, 10) support the notion that God hates those who are in Hell.
Their curses were not pronounced so that the unsaved would suffer and repent
through it for the unsaved were in a totally godless and immoral world. The
spells were woven not because of a desire to help but out of malice.
Remember, if the damned are hated and God approves of this and hates them
himself then there is no reason why he cannot torment them vindictively and more
than they deserve. Nothing justifies devaluing a person and if it is right to do
that then tormenting and abusing them is acceptable. God cannot complain if we
wish we could abuse them.
The book observes that God told Paul he hated Esau and loved Jacob and that he
did not say he hated Esau’s acts but Esau himself (page 68, The Bible Tells Us
So). This observation is right for if Paul, who was teaching elementary
Christianity to the Romans when he said that God revealed that to him, had
believed that God did not hate Esau in the literal sense he would have made that
clear.
If God hates the damned and won’t help them to repent then this alone would
prove that he hates them enough to keep them in Hell forever and probably does.
Catholics would try to tell you that God hates the works of the damned but loves
or values them as persons. If that were true then he has a choice between
honouring their personhood and punishing their works. He cannot do both so he
has to do one or the other.
He can make them as happy as possible despite their sins because they are
persons or he can punish them for their sins. Making sinners happy and thereby
rewarding them for sins would be better than punishing them needlessly. And it
is not really rewarding when the alternative is immoral. In practice it is
rewarding but intention wise and motive wise it is not. There is no alternative.
If you act as if you forgive a person because you are forced then in your heart
you have not forgiven them. This works the same way.
Perhaps punishing them is treating them as persons. But what use is useless
suffering? The suffering is useless for if a person is happy but evil inside but
is in a place where they cannot harm others who cares? We need punishment on
earth for the sake of order but it is pure superstition and anthropomorphism to
have a punishing God unless that God is a tyrant. So the suffering is treating
them as impersonal. The punishing does no good for the damned will not or cannot
repent. They might as well be happy. It follows that the punishment of the
damned is a needless evil and that its infliction implies that God hates the
damned and treats them as worthless. His attitude to them is that they have no
value. When God hates the damned he must hate sinners. And so must we.
God may have to punish in this world to restrain sinners but that is only
necessary because of the kind of world it is – it is needed to stop people going
out of control. He could make another world and populate it with people in
force-fields where nobody can harm anybody else. Punishment is certainly an
evil. It is not a nice thing even if it is necessary. It does not change the
evil inside the person unless the person decides to change so it is really only
the person who can change. Punishment may educate and inspire change but these
things can be done without it. Though it is good to try and convert through
punishment on earth - when we have to punish we may as well try to change the
person through it – punishment is adding the evil of suffering to the evil in
somebody’s heart. It doubles the evil. Though it is good to will the punishment
of the evil in the person on paper it is bad in practice. There is some sense in
saying the person should be punished but there is not enough sense in it to
justify punishing. To make sense of this perhaps this parable will be of
assistance: A woman murdered her lover in cold blood. She deserves death because
she killed him. That is pure logic. But it does not mean we should kill her. One
way it does but because you cannot destroy a person for a person is valuable
even after they take a life you cannot do it. This implies that the welfare of
the person is more important than punishing them. The person comes before the
punishment. It implies that God has no business punishing anybody once they
leave this world for as long as they can’t damage anything but their own morals
let them do what they want. We need to be punished on earth to keep us under
some restraint when we are bad. This could not be necessary in the afterlife
where Christianity says we will be disembodied beings but at the resurrection we
will have magical bodies that can pass through walls etc.
If the person is absolutely valuable then it follows that every moment of that
person’s life is as well. Therefore the person deserves only happiness in this
world and in the next no matter what he or she does. Yes she or he does deserve
to suffer but this deserving is blanked out by the treatment she or he deserves
as a person. The doctrine of Hell shows a lack of compassion and moral sense and
those who teach it have no monopoly on determining morality. To say people
should suffer in Hell because they deserve it is plainly vindictive – what would
you think of a person who said that a joyrider deserved to get maimed in a car
crash? It might be true in a sense but it's vindictive.
If God valued the sinners as persons he would fight their sin because he values
them and not cast them into a Hell. Whoever denies this only show their own true
colours.
To say that God loves me unconditionally means that God loves me because I am a
person and not because of what I do. If my personhood were that important then
he wouldn’t let me go to Hell forever but he does. So though my personhood is
important he refuses to acknowledge it and therefore he hates me for that is the
essence of hate.
If God is the only thing that can make us happy as Christianity teaches then it
is clear that losing him is punishment enough. The doctrine of the fire of Hell
tells us that Hell is more than losing God and being lonely. There is pain of a
torturing kind there as well like something exterior to you tormenting you. It
could be literal fire and when it can be literal fire it is. There would be no
need for the word fire to be used by Jesus symbolise agonising loneliness. This
additional torment suggests that God hates the damned because he thinks what
they endure in losing him is not bad enough and puts them in fire to make it
worse. When God does that it shows that the damned are not in Hell against the
will of God as some contend. If they burn themselves then why does he give them
the power to do it?
Hell is a dangerous doctrine and its seeming cruelty needs to be explained and
God has no right asking us to believe until it is explained.
The idea of hate the sin but love the sinner says the sinner should be treated
as if they have not committed the sin which is hardly loving either. It is evil
to condone evil and is not really caring about the person for it is really
indifference which is worse than hating the sinner. Also, choosing to be
indifferent is an act of hate. Hate is the act and indifference is the resulting
act. Nobody separates good works from the person which betrays the whole deceit
of it all. Jesus permitted judging fairly and Hell teaches that sin exists so
Hell is a doctrine of hatred and anybody who teaches needs to be firmly told
they should not be doing that. Incidentally, if we cannot love the sinner
without loving the sin it follows that if there is a God then he is a tyrant
then for we are all sinners according to him so how could we love anybody? He
would have made us for sadistic thrills for the growth of love was not the
reason he made us.
Hell makes loving the sinner but not the sin impossible because it supports the
idea that if the law is cruel and people break the law they deserve all it gives
them. This is the logic in many Islamic countries. They think that even if
stoning gays to death is wrong it is right when the gays know what the law is
and break the law for they are asking for stoning and so deserve it. If a sinner
wants to be hated and believes he or she should be what use is the rule about
loving sinners and hating sin?
God must hate the unsaved as he hates the damned for they are like the living
damned.
Suppose the Roman Catholic doctrine of venial sin, sin that doesn’t deserve hell
such as stealing an apple from a shop, is true. Suppose the Roman doctrine that
piles and piles of venial sin cannot add up to a mortal sin though a mortal sin
may do less harm in the world and to people. Then he sends people to Hell and
spares others for doing worse.
Rome says that some good acts are your duty and others are not and the latter
are called acts of superogation. Acts of superorgation are acts above and beyond
the call of duty. If the concept of acts of supererogation makes sense (it
doesn’t) then it means that for Catholics morality is not about doing what is
best. Yet they say that it is best to believe in duties. If it is best to
believe in duties then it is a duty to do what is best. Typical of a lying
religion, it cannot get its ethics straight. So God according to Catholicism,
says works of superorogation are works that you don’t have to do though they are
for the best. Then God is saying that morality is not for the best which is
really an affirmation that morality is anything more than an illusion. The
damned are hated and sent to Hell over a lie made up by God.
It is not God who wants people in Hell. It is the vicious religion founded by
Jesus Christ if he existed and his followers.
Christian experts such as the fathers of the Church
asserted God hates sinners. "There is no one God detests and repudiates
more than the person who bears a grudge, whose heart is filled with anger" St
John Chrysostom Homily 2, Barielle, 3.
It is time Christianity stopped getting praised despite advocating doctrines
that can do grave harm when people figure out their dark implications. It is
still responsible even if it leaves these people to work it out on their own.
CONCLUSION
Jesus was vindictive if he lived. It is only those who don't know him who think
they love him.
BOOKS CONSULTED
Catechism of the Catholic Church, Veritas. Dublin, 1995
Christ and Violence, Ronald J Sider, Herald Press, Scottdale, Ontario, 1979
Miracles in Dispute, Ernst and Marie-Luise Keller, SCM Press Ltd, London, 1969
Moral Philosophy, Joseph Rickaby SJ, Stoneyhurst Philosophy Series, Longmans,
Green and Co, London, 1912
Objections to Christian Belief, DM Mackinnon, HA Williams, AR Vidler and JS
Bezzant, Constable, London, 1963
Putting Away Childish Things, Uta Ranke-Heinemann, HarperCollins, San Francisco,
1994
Reason and Belief, Bland Blanschard, George Allen & Unwin Ltd, London, 1974
Robert Schuller, Satellite Saint or High Flying Heretic, Cecil Andrews, Take
Heed Publications, Belfast
The Hard Sayings of Jesus, FF Bruce Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1983
The Resurrection Factor, Josh McDowell, Alpha Scripture Press Foundation, Bucks,
1993
The Truth of Christianity, WH Turton, Wells Gardner, Darton & Co Ltd, London,
1905
Why I am Not a Christian, Bertrand Russell, Touchstone Books, Simon and
Schuster, New York, undated
The WWW
Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire by Richard Carrier
www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/kooks.html
THIS SITE ARGUES THAT JESUS WAS EVIL AND WAS NOT A GOOD EXAMPLE
www.nobeliefs.com/jesus.htm
