I feel that people who believe in an eternal, conscious hell don't love God as much as people who don't believe in that concept.
So many people believe the Bible says we all deserve to be tortured forever and only by believing and following in Christ we can "convince" God to have mercy on us and save us from going to hell and remaining there in conscious torture for ever and ever, and they believe this is 100 percent true. I think the biggest reason they love God is because they're afraid of going to hell, which is what they feel they deserve.
Where as people like me who don't really believe that, love God because of the awesome things he has done for us and the intense beauty and complex ness of the world. We love him because of his greatness, not because if we don't we think we'll be tortured endlessly.
I'll put it this way..would you love your partner more if they said they'd kill you if you didn't love and listen to them, or would you love them more if they were amazingly great and helpful to you?
I don't know if I believe in reincarnation, universalism, or annihilation to be honest, but I feel they're way more likely than the ECT belief so many believe in. Obviously it's more than likely one of these 4 scenarios, but we really won't know for sure until we die.
Where as people like me who don't really believe that, love God because of the awesome things he has done for us and the intense beauty and complex ness of the world. We love him because of his greatness, not because if we don't we think we'll be tortured endlessly.
I'll put it this way..would you love your partner more if they said they'd kill you if you didn't love and listen to them, or would you love them more if they were amazingly great and helpful to you?
I don't know if I believe in reincarnation, universalism, or annihilation to be honest, but I feel they're way more likely than the ECT belief so many believe in. Obviously it's more than likely one of these 4 scenarios, but we really won't know for sure until we die.