75 Billion Fire Logs

Is it any wonder that the unbelieving world wants nothing to do with the God Christians proclaim as being full of love and mercy?

Estimates of the number of humans who have inhabited this planet from the beginning until 2024 range from 100 billion to 120 billion. I’ll split the difference and peg the number at 110 billion. Then, according to a 2012 Pew Research report, Christians (2.2 billion) make up 32 percent of the world’s population.

35 Billion Saved

Allowing for numerous assumptions—and being extremely generous—let’s use that 32 percent figure to extrapolate back to the beginning. Let’s say, generously, that 32 percent of the 110 billion from all time were “saved,” to use the common evangelical Christian term. (Note: Obviously, there are many reasons to proclaim that figure as being far too high, but that’s material for a post of its own.) Using those figures, we could say that 35.2 billion of the 110 billion total human beings have or will escape the “eternal flames of hell.”

75 Billion Tortured

So, again assuming our ridiculously high figures for “saved believers” are correct, that means that 74.8 billion lost souls are—or soon will be—crying out for mercy as they endure the most hideous, inescapable torture imaginable. (Again, for the sake of simplicity, I’ll round off the number of those eternally tortured human beings to 75 billion.)

If the above figures are somewhere close to accurate, and if the typical Christian beliefs about punishment and hell are correct, then we also can say that the omnipotent God—the One who sees and knows all—created 110 billion people knowing that 75 billion of them would spend eternity lighting His expansive bedroom fireplace as sentient, perpetual fire logs.

Nero’s Temporal Torches

If Tacitus is to be believed, Rome’s Emperor Nero had Christians wrapped in pitch, dipped in tar, and then set ablaze as human torches. As horrible as that was, at least the victims died after a few minutes of indescribable agony. God’s human fire logs will—if common Christian doctrine is true—feel that indescribable agony for hours, then days, then weeks, then months, then years, then decades, then centuries, then millennia, then….

God’s Eternal Torches

Then? Then no mercy. “You failed to believe in my son’s sacrificial atonement for your sins. No mercy for you.”

“But, God, what’s sacrificial atonement? And who is your son?” the burning man manages to ask between heaving sobs and pain-filled shrieks.

“Never mind. … Why am I speaking to a fire log?”

“But, God, my daughter was nine when she died of cancer. Please tell me she’s not here in this hellish place.”

“Your daughter had nine years to confess her sinful nature and accept my son’s atonement for her sins. She failed to do so, so she’s here somewhere. Listen carefully and you might be able to detect her screams. After all, you were her father for those nine years; you ought to recognize her voice. … By the way, this hellish place, as you called it, is hell. But surely you know that by now. And if you paid any attention during your 57 years on earth, you also should know there’s no escaping hell. Now, be a good little fire log and scoot a little closer; my feet are a bit chilly.”

“But, God, my little Rachel didn’t ask to be born—none of us here did. And she never even heard about needing to confess her sins and accept Jesus as her Savior. Blame me for that—if someone must be blamed, although I knew almost nothing about any of that either—but please release her from this torture.”

“What’s done is done; there’s no turning back. So, quit complaining and accept your fate—and your daughter’s too.”

Repelling the Lost

Like it or not, that’s basically the God most Christians describe to the unbelieving world. Is it any wonder that the unbelieving world wants nothing to do with the God Christians proclaim as being full of love and mercy?