Eternal punishment by the god of the Bible is immoral.

Ok, here we go. Before I post my argument for the final round, I just want to say thank you to my opponent for being respectful and a good debater. And to the people in the comments for giving me some food for thought. Ok, so what I am going to do, which is something I should have done from the beginning, is present some definitions. These are all taken from Merriam Webster. Moral : a : of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior : ethical moral judgments b : expressing or teaching a conception of right behavior a moral poem c : conforming to a standard of right behavior took a moral position on the issue though it cost him the nomination d : sanctioned by or operative on one's conscience or ethical judgment a moral obligation e : capable of right and wrong action a moral agent Immoral: not moral; broadly : conflicting with generally or traditionally held moral principles Punishment: a : suffering, pain, or loss that serves as retribution b : a penalty inflicted on an offender through judicial procedure So the definition I am going to call attention to is "Punishment." It is suffering, pain, or loss that serves as retribution. In other words, a consequence or penalty. If you committed a crime, you would be thrown in jail, right? Well, if you sin, you will be punished by God, and that's that. Incarceration isn't immoral when there's a just cause, and neither is condemnation to hell. An important thing the Bible teaches about Hell is that it is the way that God ensures people are treated how they deserve. God forgives sin. Yet God does not clear the guilty. In other words: God is just, rightly punishing wrongdoing. Take a look at Exodus 34:5-7: "The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD". "The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children"s children, to the third and the fourth generation."" In Romans 3:21-26, the apostle Paul explains how it is that God is right to do this, and how it is we can see He is right as He does it: "But now the righteousness of God has been manifested" the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe." The "righteousness of God" simply means the fact that God is right in what He does. God is right because, as Paul goes on to say, every single human being on the planet who has ever lived is wrong: "For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith." The word "justified" means "being made right." And the word "propitiation" means "paying the punishment for wrongs done." Paul is saying is that all the wrongs people do are severe and serious because they"re wrong done to God"s glory. However, even though everyone is in the wrong, we can be made right because Jesus pays the punishment for our wrongs. Why is this? Paul goes on" "This was to show God"s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance He had passed over former sins. It was to show His righteousness at the present time, so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." Think about how serious that means our wrongdoing actually is. To pay the punishment for our sin and wrongdoing, God had to become a man Himself and take the punishment. Somehow, our wrongdoing is so serious: that to pay it off requires something as valuable as the death of God. Think about it another way. God loves every individual in the world infinitely more than you or I possibly ever even could. Every time I wrong or hurt someone else, it is an infinite affront and hurt to God"s infinite love for that person. Perhaps think about it the way Paul talks about it above. Sin is rebellion and falling short of God"s glory. God"s glory is infinitely good and infinitely holy. Or finally, the thing about wrongdoing, sin, and rebellion against God, is that it"s addictive. And when people do wrong things, they tend to dig their heels in and act in a self-defensive way, wrapped up in more and more of a sense that they are right and God is wrong. The Bible hints that people in Hell will be just like this. As well as "weeping" in Hell, there will also be "gnashing of teeth""a sign of defiance. One reason Hell goes on forever is that the people within it simply never humble themselves, say sorry, and admit that God is right and they are wrong. All the above are just some of the reasons why the Bible must talk about Hell, where God meets out justice against wrongdoers, using language like "eternal." To rebel against God and commit wrongdoing is an infinite wrong considered from several angles. That is why Hell is just. It seems as though you are asking this: Why would God punish non-believers with an eternity in Hell for a finite amount of sin? It seems unfair. Shouldn"t their duration in Hell be commensurate with the amount and severity of their sin? People who raise this complaint fail to understand the nature of two things: the nature of the offender and the nature of the offended. The nature of the offender is obvious: Humans are guilty. Not only are they born with a sin nature, they"ve committed crimes against God throughout their lives. That means they deserve to be punished. Every human being on the planet finds himself in this predicament. God, though, offers every guilty person a pardon. Those who accept God"s offer are absolved of their guilt and go free. Those who reject the pardon pay for the crimes themselves because they remain guilty. Like human prison, God sentences the guilty to a spiritual quarantine (the Bible calls this place Hell). Their quarantine in Hell lasts forever because they remain guilty forever. While on earth, they had an opportunity to accept the pardon, but that time has passed. They turned down their chance to be absolved of their guilt. Now, they pay for their crimes by being sentenced to an eternal quarantine. After serving a year of their sentence, they"re still guilty. After serving 1,000 years of their sentence, they"re still guilty. Their guilt never fades. Though the guilt of the offender is relevant, there"s another factor that justifies eternal banishment: The nature of the person offended. God is the person offended in a human act of sin and/or a lifetime of rebellion. We fail to grasp God"s immense goodness, holiness, and value. He is the greatest being in the universe (and outside the universe). Our inability to understand God"s greatness impedes our ability to understand the reasoning behind the eternality of Hell. Put simply, offending an eternal being earns you an eternal punishment. Within our human justice system, we often consider the nature of the victim or the person offended. If you kill a rat, for example, you"re not likely to get prosecuted. Indeed, it"s legal to pay people to kill them. That"s because rats aren"t valuable by nature. Kill your neighbor"s Chihuahua, though, and you can be fined because household pets are valued by their owners. If you shoot a bald eagle, you"ll face fines and imprisonment since they"re federally protected. Murder a human being and you might face the death penalty or a lifetime quarantine in prison. That"s a serious punishment because of the nature of humans " they are extremely valuable. Long story short, I'm out of characters. So to summarize, condemning people to hell is a just consequence for continual defiance and refusal of God's mercy and grace. Thank you for reading. https://www.str.org... https://www.biblword.net...?