The bible makes a strong case against eternal torment.

[Universalist Catholic]

Almost as if God wanted to protect the people from learning this awful doctrine. 

The doctrine of Everlasting punishment is nowhere in the Old testament.  However the surrounding pagan nations believed in this hellish torment in fire after death.  Not only does the old testament remain completely silent about a pagan doctrine, but the hebrews are specifically warned to not learn the ways of the pagan nations.  History shows that after the Jews learned the Heathen doctrines, they started believing in Eternal Torment after death.  In the book of Acts, Moses is noted for full knowledge in Egyptian religion.  Yet he did not believe in a place of unending punishment. 

In the whole torah, there are several laws about punishment for sins, but nothing about eternal punishment.  Plus none of the laws allowed for torture as a punishment for sins.  However today, people use the justification "A sin against an infinite being merits infinite punishment".  However the law speaks of justice, about and eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.  It reminds me of the modern idea of paying for someones window if you accidentally break it.  Plus the law specifically says that the consequence is equal to the sin committed, not who was offended.  That pretty much pushes out the whole idea of infinite being = infinite punishment. 

Throughout the Old Testament, God has a strong hate for the act of the pagan acts of torturing childrens to their deities.  In fact, such autrocities of burning children as a sacrifice to God never even entered Gods heart.  Yet it was another pagan doctrine that crept in. 

The prophets speak of judgement, but on several occasions, such phrases were made "The lord will not cast off forever", "His anger and judgments will come to an end."  According to the churches, his anger and judgments dont end.
"His anger last but a moment in time, his mercy is without end" according to church doctrines, once someone gets into heaven, they dont need anymore mercy.  However once a soul is in hell, the wrath of God abides on them forever.  Not according to the scriptures. 
"The lord will not cast off forever".  Unlike the church teachings who believe that the lord will cast off the wicked forever be it annihilation or eternal torment. 

In the new testament, Jesus is very careful about what words he uses.  Throughout the scriptures, when describing the duration of punishment, the bible uses the word aion, which doesnt signify eternity like such words as aleutosis, adion.  And for the description of punishment, its always kolasis, meaning correction, not timora, which is for the sake of revenge.  Even in the bible, Jesus speaks against getting revenge on your enemies.  And I dont think the mosaic law was meant for revenge but compensation.

We are told that we will "Know them by their fruits".  However the psalmist David tells us that we become the god we worship.  Thats been proven hands down.  Plus thats mere psychological common sense.  If you admire your dad, and hes' a woman abuser, the child is going to become a woman abuser.  Thats pretty well proven.  Most of the people who sincerely believe in Eternal Hell have done some of the most disgusting things I have seen.  Augustine, Luther, and other Medieval and Reformation theologians did not care if a single soul would suffer for all eternity.  On the contrary, Tertullian and Thomas Aquintas rejoiced at those who would suffer for all eternity.  In the medieval times, the pope sent out crusades to murder rape and torture muslims, pagans, jews and Eastern Orthodox christians.  Hmm, I wonder why?  They worshipped a god who hated jews, muslims, pagans and EO Christians so passionately that he would burn them for all eternity.  I dont recall Jesus ever saying "Love your enemies with the exception of those in a different religion."  But the Churches began teaching exclusive salvation only through the Catholic church.  Consider all those burning of Heretics.  They worshipped a god who would burn heretics for all eternity, so why not burn the heretics as long as we can.  Then the Spanish inquisition came along, and people were tortured for lack of alliance to the Catholic Church.  Why? They were the same people who believed "outside the church is no salvation".  Then the Protestants did the same exact thing.  Luther was an anti-semitic extremist, Calvin roasted someone over a fire for not agreeing with him.  Plus many of the hellfire fundamentalists are some of the most condescending people I have seen.  They are nasty towards people of other religions.

In the new testament, many warnings are made about horrible heresies to come. 

[WhiteWings]

In the whole torah, there are several laws about punishment for sins, but nothing about eternal punishment.  Plus none of the laws allowed for torture as a punishment for sins.

What about being stoned to death. That's torture to me.

Unlike the church teachings who believe that the lord will cast off the wicked forever be it annihilation or eternal torment.

The result may be the same, but many of them say the wicked doesn't want to come back when God stops casting off.

[jabcat]

This is a good post, UC.   :thumbsup:

[jabcat]

This is a post from Martin in 2008 - From the 5th century B.C. to the 5th century A.D. aion simply meant an age, perhaps as short as a lifetime.  That covers the creation of the Septuignt and of the New Testament.  The Septuignt is the translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek that influenced a lot of things in the 1st century.  It enables us to double-check and verify usage when the Greek starts getting a little layered with the poetry like "ages of ages," "age of ages," "day of the age," etc.  Aion as meaning eternal didn't even start creeping in to some of the lexicons until the 8th century, and even then it wasn't a dogma but just the evolution of the language since the Church was mostly Latinized by then.  It really wasn't until the 15th and 16th centuries that aion dogmatically came into the lexicons to express all durations of time from brief to endless.  Perhaps more evolution of the Greek language, or perhaps the hand of some of the Catholic and Protestant Reformers as the Church was returning to Greek from it's thousand year plunge into the Latin Vulgate translation from 380A.D. that Jerome published.  Today aion means eternal in modern Greek, but the New Testament wasn't written within the previous century.  What a lot of Christians don't get is that it was written 2000 years ago, so what matters is what the Greek of 2000 years ago meant.  They'll rely on lexical Greek and then accuse us of doing that because they don't know what the Greek said way back then.  However, since the Reformation, many many precious volumes have been written that explore the usage and significance of that word alone.

  People just get uncomfortable because of the aionios God in Romans 16, the aionios covenant in Hebrews, and the aionios Gospel in Revelation and either feel the need to be pacified by allowing aionios to mean "eternal," or they're just citing someone like William Barclay without really thinking it through as well as looking at all of the resources available on that particular wording in the Bible.  I personally haven't seen an example where aionios suddenly had to include a meaning not inherent in aion that some other passage of Scripture using entirely different language wouldn't rescue us from any apparent difficulty regarding.  God is also called "immortal" in the Scriptures and Christ's life is called "indestructible" in the Scriptures, but there's nothing about immortal or indestructible punishments or separation from God from cover to cover in that Bible's original languages.

Love is what's eternal and not chastenings.

[rasputinslaw]

Seems to me it also makes a strong case for it, depending on how you interpret scripture

[thinktank]

In the whole torah, there are several laws about punishment for sins, but nothing about eternal punishment.  Plus none of the laws allowed for torture as a punishment for sins.

What about being stoned to death. That's torture to me.

It's not eternal though and if they are good stone throwers, one could kill the "law breakers" in one stone, might not even hurt.
But I imagine a lot of these situations where the accused were violently dealt with.

Unlike the church teachings who believe that the lord will cast off the wicked forever be it annihilation or eternal torment.

The result may be the same, but many of them say the wicked doesn't want to come back when God stops casting off.