The Christian explanation about hell is that God does not send people to hell because God created us with free will, and we can either accept or reject his gracious gift of salvation. In other words, according to this explanation, we send ourselves to hell by the use of our God-given free will to reject God.
This explanation is highly problematic in many ways. If you drill down into this substructure of this notion, it’s hard to not notice the following absurdities:
Almighty God created a universe and human species in which it was possible and even inevitable that we would be guilty of a crime that warrants eternal conscious punishment as the consequence.
In response, God offers the only solution in the form of the brutal human sacrifice of his son. And in some mysterious metaphysical way, this allows for the pardon of those members of the human species who hear about it, understand it properly, and accept it.
You have “free will” to accept or reject the offer. However, the choice to reject it is a choice for the punishment of eternal conscious torment. In other words, God says, “Accept my offer, OR ELSE…”
No matter how you parse this out, this cannot be accepted as rational, just, loving, or liberating.
It is not natural or rational to believe the idea that there is a God who will send a person to eternal conscious torment (Hell) as punishment for not believing and following a prescribed set of beliefs or practices. In my view, teaching this to a child is psychological abuse. If that wasn’t damaging enough, it is further explained to the child that Hell is a tribute to God’s love, which is pathological.
The doctrine of Hell as eternal conscious torment is tied to a false separation theology at the heart of traditional Christian beliefs. The idea is that God is a supreme being who created humankind as something separate. If it were possible for you to be separate or separated from God, that would make you God #2 because you would be capable of generating self-existence on your own.
By definition, if there is a “God” there is no separation from God. The psalmist understands this by writing, “Where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.”
Separation from God is not possible ontologically, regardless of how hard religion tries to convince people otherwise. It wouldn’t take more than ten minutes to discredit the doctrine of Hell by using verses from the Bible itself. I do not view all religions as meaningless or without value and benefit. However, the orthodox Christian doctrine of Hell is not only false and indefensible, it catastrophically harms people.
For centuries, the Christian church has propagandized a false story about God, Jesus, and the afterlife. Someone has to say it, so I will.
Whatever “God” is, you are not separate or separated from it.
The orthodox doctrine of hell is false, not even “biblical” and Jesus did not teach it.
A God who would use eternal conscious torment as punishment and decide upon child sacrifice to solve it for a few is psychotic.
Just to clear the whole matter up. There is no hell. The “God” who punishes people with eternal conscious torment is a “God” of man-made (literally) religion – a demon.