HOW would Jehovah punish those who rebel against him?
The whole idea of God having to struggle with insignificant life forms is ludicrous.
What is God? Apparently a dysfunctional parent in our mind. We project the idea outward into the sky and call it__other. We make it real.
But, this "God" is really impotent. It is all roar and bark. There are only old legends that He can be a mean, punishing bastard if you cross Him.
We tell each other scary stories about what the monster in the sky is going to do to us and, like fretful children, we hide under the covers and tremble.
HELL is certainly a strange notion. Here we have the God of Justice who punishes a few short years on Earth with an eternity of torment. How much balance to that? It makes God sound more like a woman scorned than an omnipotent and benign goodness.
But, humans are good at inflicting pain and some even enjoy it tremendously; especially if they connect the infliction of injury with a "greater good". We fight wars and the innocent die. This is "collateral damage". No big deal. We have inquisitions and torture faithful believers who just don't agree with us. We flay them and burn them and all in the name of righteousness. No, it sounds suspiciously like this God of ours is very much like us.
It is most coincidental that all the pagan "false religions" came up with the idea of a burning hell as punishment long before the Hebrews ever thought of it. You'd think having the only true God as their leader, He'd have mentioned it to them.
I'd rather focus on the human capacity to believe ridiculous, illogical and damaging things that have no connection to reality. Not just Hell. My theory, for what it is worth, is that it begins when our parents start telling us these grotesque lies as part of their "faith" instruction.
A child's mind absorbs without caution. A child's mind is eager for information and doesn't distinguish fantasy from reality. A child's mind is vulnerable to concepts that become rooted and don't go away. Parent's embed these fantasies and we spend our adult lives dealing with them. And, perversely, we continue the process by teaching our own children the same self-defeating nonsense.
We have gods, devils, punishments, guilts, superstition and mystical non-explanations where there ought to be objective facts about how the world REALLY works.
But, mixing facts with superstition is a poor broth on which to feed our intellect. It goes down poorly. Most of us live with that constant stomach ache of weird belief disguised as knowledge.
T.