Christian belief in eternal torment is indefensible.

We build prisons knowing full well that crime will continue, that people will break the law, so are we to blame when criminals are jailed? No, neither is God to blame for jailing wrongdoers in hell. He again argues that God is not limited like us, therefore, he knew who would do what and has a responsibility not to create those persons so that no one ends up in hell; but who is he to say that God has such respondibility? Where does that responsibility come from? Pro is giving God responsibilities he doesn't have. God does not have to make a world where we don't suffer the consequences of our actions. He makes the point that God should have destroyed the Devil so that he couldn't tempt people to sin and go to hell, but how does he know they would not sin without the Devil to tempt them? Who tempted the Devil to make him sin? No one; he sinned off his own free will. The only way to guarantee that no one would disobey God would be to create us without free will, or not create anyone at all; but if God prefers to have some people serve him, and others who don't in hell, over having no people in a relaitonship with him at all, who is to say God is wrong? My opponent is acting as though he has equal or more say than God in deciding what is right and wrong. He says that only God can stop this tragedy and yet he refuses; my question to him is this, why should God be obligated to help? My point is that he isn't! God doesn't owe us anything. And as for the punishment fitting the crime, how does one determine if the punishment fits the crime? I would love to hear Pro's criteria. But its really his opinion against God's, and since God created and therefore owns us, he has the right to do what he wants. He goes on and on about how cruel hell is; death too is cruel, yet we execute criminals. He claims that since so few will inherit salvation it didn't make sense to create us in the first place. But it doesn't need to make sense to him for God to have the right to create us. In fact, God wants the earth filled with people serving him, and even if only twenty people are left after Jesus destroys the wicked across the earth, and these twenty folks repopulate the earth to the brim and they all become good Christians, its up to God to decide if it was worth it to him; not up to Pro. Weather an action was worth it is a very subjective thing, and only the being who is performing it and is trying to gain something from it can decide if it was worth it. The ones God drowned in the flood of Noah's day might not think it was worth it, looses usually complain, but Noah and his family sure knew it was. Correction, I didn't say God will not punish those who don't know; nor did I refer to Romans 2:12-16. My point was that God is not going to send to hell everyone who doesn't know, just because they don't know. Some are justified for not knowing, and others are not. God will decide which ones to excuse, but contrary to your assumption, that is not the majority and hence does not contradict Matthew 7:13-14. Pro is also incorrect that God's plan has failed. God told Adam and Eve to populate the earth, and subdue it, and have in dominion all the animals, and that time is still coming. The righteous who remain when it all goes down will still fulfill this mandate. God will have a world filled with people truely loving and serving him. Not until the battle is over can Pro say that God has failed. Just because God's plan is taking a long time doesn't mean it has failed. Further, he reasons that the majority of humans who have lived have lived are gone to hell, but what about the many more that will yet serve him when there is no more sin and death? God's refusal to stop suffering doesn't contradict hisdesire that none should perish. God doesn't want to punish us, but when we err, as a loving father, he has to. God would prefer not to send anyone to hell, but if we choose it for ourselves he is not to blame. He argues that only a person who lacks love could send someone to hell. That's like saying only a person who lacks love can approve of the death penalty. Pro thinks the punishment in hell is too severe. Just because he thinks so means that God doesn't have the right? So if your pet dog thought that tying him outside in the cold was too severe a punishment for chasing the neighbor's cat, that would make you wrong? I don't see the logic in a finite being telling an infinite being what is just and what isn't. He says that Christians who are happy about going to heaven while knowing that many others are tormented in hell sound like sociopaths. But who says they don't care? I'm sure even God hurts when he has to put to death the wicked, let alone send them to hell, just as any parent hurts when they have to severely discipline a child. But just because you don't like doing it doesn't mean you're not going to do it. We have been warned about hell, so if we choose to ignore that warning, to bad. "If you have irrefutable proof of God, then why are you here? Why aren't you getting your Nobel Prize? Perhaps your "proof" isn't as powerful as you think it is." William Shakespear's works were not recognized as great in his lifetime; but after he died people began to understand. It's not the amount of people who agree with you, or even if the scientific community agrees with you, that makeks you right. Truth isn't decided by majority vote. I could use a similar argument and say that millions of people beieve in hell, so your arguments are not so convincing either. What if the Christians came up with their own Nobel Prize? What then? The Bible tells us that those who are delivered into Hell will be tormented, and the degree to which they will suffer is described in dramatic, illustrative language. But the scripture never describes Hell as a place where God or His angels are actively "torturing" the souls of the rebellious. "Torture" is the sadistic activity that is often perpetrated for the mere joy of it. "Torment" results from a choice on the part of the person who finds him or herself suffering the consequences. One can be in torment over a decision that he or she made in the past, without being actively tortured by anyone. If someone embezzles $5.00 a week from their employer's cash register, they will have stolen $260.00 over the course of a year. If they're caught at the end of this time, they would still only be guilty of a misdemeanor in the State of California (based on the total amount of loss). Although the crime took a year to commit, the perpetrator wouldn't spend much (if any) time in jail. On the other hand, a murder can take place in the blink of an eye and the resulting punishment will be life in prison (or perhaps the death penalty). The duration of the crime clearly has little or nothing to do with the duration of the penalty. If your sister catches you lying about your income last year, you might lose her respect. If the IRS catches you lying about your income last year, the resulting punishment will be far more painful. What's the difference here? It certainly isn't the crime. Instead, we recognize that the greater the source of the code, rule or law, the greater the punishment for those who violate the code, rule or law. If God is the Highest Authority, we should expect that violations of His "laws" would result in significant punishment(s). It is not the fact that you kicked your dog in 1992. It's not the fact that you had evil thoughts about your teacher in 1983. The crime that earns us a place in Hell is our rejection of the true and living eternal God. This rejection of God's forgiveness is not finite. People who reject Jesus have rejected Him completely. They have rejected him as an ultimate, final mortal decision. God has the right (and obligation) to judge them with an appropriate punishment. To argue that God's punishment does not fit our crime is to underestimate our crime.