It is ethical for God to send people to Hell.

-A. REBUTTALS- "You didn't approach my rebuttal to that argument, thus, it cannot be considered a veritable argument to defend your claim." Con: Your whole argument was based off the claim that I didn't say faithfully. If I wouldn't have said faithfully, it would have allowed your last minute salvation argument. Unfortunately, I did say faithfully which disables it. Repenting during your dying moments doesn't count as "believing faithfully." Furthermore, what about a man killed in a car crash who was an atheist who never got his chance to know God? Car accidents are abrupt and unpredictable so it's not like the victims ever had their last minute chance to repent. You say humans choose to go to Hell but this goes against all my notions. No one would choose eternal damnation and this should be abundantly clear. I doubt any atheist, Buddhist, Deist, Hindu, etc. would want to be sentenced to Hell. This last minute argument cannot be applied and fails. As for the good/bad deed ratio... "The Bible teaches that even your righteous acts are like filthy rags to God. It does not matter how many good deeds that you do, YOU STILL CANNOT GO TO HEAVEN BASED ON YOUR DEEDS. The Bible teaches that your good deeds do not commend you to God in any way. You've ignored him choosing to live life the way YOU see fit," (See RD1, S1). This indicates that your deeds do not matter, it's your faith and devotion to Christ that do. "Consider the story of Faust." Con: Make into an argument and I might. "Ethics have nothing to do with personal opinion, but what is generally regarded as right or wrong in a construct." Con: I guess sending people to suffer for all eternity is okay then. I'm being sarcastic but I'm pretty sure consensus would say that eternal damnation is wrong. "Since the construct that we're referring to is technically God's, you cannot posit an argument about ethics that contradicts God." Con: You're basically saying that since God owns the world, we don't have a say in whether or not his acts are right or wrong. By your logic, that means the slave owners that owned slaves in the U.S. were completely justified in whatever they chose to do to slaves because they had the power. Besides, we know people suffering is (usually) wrong. However, it is my assertion that it is always wrong when it is eternal suffering because there is no good reason to eternally punish someone. They will not be able to learn anything or take anything away from it which makes it a completely unethical punishment. Any criteria which sends one TO Hell doesn't matter at this point because their is no offense that can ETHICALLY send souls to Hell in the first place. This is part of Pro's burden, keep that in mind, voters. Also, God has no adequate reason to send people to Hell. Is he afraid people are going to overthrow him? I mean, an omniscient being would see this coming and since he is omnipotent, he'd also be able to stop it. "Furthermore, sending people to Hell is not a standard of conduct -- it is a personal decision by God within His own domain." Con: This is just a variant of the slave example I gave. Pro says that ethics are right and wrong, not subject to personal opinion, but goes on to say that since it's God's personal decision, ethics don't really matter. Obviously, this debate IS going to center around ethics so quit trying to dodge it. Using Pro's own example, killing someone is (generally) wrong. However, Pro brings up the point of killing a trespasser. First of all, is he comparing humans to trespassers on Earth? Since God supposedly put us here, that doesn't make sense. Second of all, wouldn't warning them be a nicer way rather than killing them? If you shot first without any warning to the unsuspecting trespasser, you could be killing a perfectly good person who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. This relates back to my car accident argument - conditions OUTSIDE of one's control shouldn't factor into salvation. Besides, in Pro's trespassing scenario, the man with the gun is obviously supposed to be God and I hardly consider shooting someone as soon as you see them step foot in your yard as "merciful." Personal decisions can still be judged by ethics. "Especially, given He gives us the opportunity to avoid it." Con: Then I guess you'd support the man with a gun in this following scenario. A man holds another man at gun point and tells him he is going to kill him at the count of three. He says to the unarmed man that if he moves out of the way, he will probably live as the bullet will miss. As the gunman says three, the man can't get out of the way in time and dies from getting shot. I'm not playing with Pro's arguments - I'm simply rewriting them in a more pragmatic way to show voters how they aren't valid. "Nowhere in the Bible does it state that one must faithfully believe." Con: Fair enough, but God, given his omniscient state, will know whether you truly believe and are devoted to him. He will also know if you really feel bad for what you've done. If people could just fake faith, repent and loving God, don't you think getting into Heaven would be way easier? Also, faith and believe come from two very similar Greek root words and English doesn't do the original meanings justice [1]. See my source to understand what I'm implying if you're confused. I understand this delves into semantic territory but even in their current usage, faith and believe are pretty similar and go hand in hand. If you believe in something, you have faith in it. "The ethics of punishment is not predicated on its ability to reform the transgressor. Indeed, some are beyond reform, and others don't want it." Con: I have two refutations for this which are connected. Part of the purpose of punishment is indeed reform [2]. Ethics come into play when weighing the severity of offense on an ethical scale and using this to match it with an appropriate punishment. With that said, I will repeat my key point that eternal damnation is unjust because it offers no chance of reform and the "criminals" pose no threat because God is omnipotent. Pro has tried to sidestep this argument while offering no ethical reasoning within his arguments for Hell. Although the Bible states oppositely, there are far worse things than not believing in God, worshiping another deity or not repenting. One can get life in prison for premeditated murder. A life sentence is just on Earth because according to my purpose of punishment source, part of the punishment is to keep the offender from committing more crime. An omnipotent being wouldn't have to worry about this so Hell is even more unethical. It is completely gratuitous suffering. "That's irrelevant." Con: Actually, Christianity is based off of the resurrection of Christ so my point stands. You can't go to Hell for not believing in Jesus when you ARE Jesus. "Jews for Jesus." Con: Completely irrelevant. My usage of Jew was as an example of someone who worships the same God without devotion to Christ. "I said nothing about *harming* God -- but, He is a jealous God, which means that He feels emotion. Thus, he can conceivably feel *EMOTIONAL PAIN* if He loves us and we reject Him." Con: My point proven. Sending someone to eternally suffer because you are jealous of their devotion to a false deity is blatantly wrong anyhow. "Thus, free will is essentially the ability to sin." Con: See gunman argument about sin. "Analogy." Con: You wouldn't punish a lover for having sex with a person who wasn't really there (essentially masturbation), meaning God has no reason to be mad at people who worship other gods. At the end of RD1, Pro states ethics are subjective but in RD2 states, "Ethics have nothing to do with personal opinion." Can't be both.