{"id":214,"date":"2011-04-03T22:47:00","date_gmt":"2011-04-03T22:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2011\/04\/a-stark-choice-between-universalism-and-hellism\/"},"modified":"2011-04-03T22:47:00","modified_gmt":"2011-04-03T22:47:00","slug":"a-stark-choice-between-universalism-and-hellism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2011\/04\/a-stark-choice-between-universalism-and-hellism.html","title":{"rendered":"A Stark Choice Between Universalism and Hellism?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I think this picture, which Arni Zachariassen shared<\/a>, is supposed to illustrate the difficulty of choosing between universalism and the sort of particularism that believes that anyone who is not a Christian (however that is defined) goes to hell.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

I wonder whether the unattractiveness of both options ought not to provide encouragement to explore other options, such as annihilationism. Surely ceasing to exist would be better than either spending eternity with Hitler, or eternity knowing that people like Gandhi are in hell. <\/p>\n

But it is hard to embrace our own mortality\u00a0\u2013 apparently so much so that it drives some people to Intelligent Design<\/a>! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think this picture, which Arni Zachariassen shared, is supposed to illustrate the difficulty of choosing between universalism and the sort of particularism that believes that anyone who is not a Christian (however that is defined) goes to hell. I wonder whether the unattractiveness of both options ought not to provide encouragement to explore other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nA Stark Choice Between Universalism and Hellism?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I think this picture, which Arni Zachariassen shared, is supposed to illustrate the difficulty of choosing between universalism and the sort of\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2011\/04\/a-stark-choice-between-universalism-and-hellism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Stark Choice Between Universalism and Hellism?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I think this picture, which Arni Zachariassen shared, is supposed to illustrate the difficulty of choosing between universalism and the sort of\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2011\/04\/a-stark-choice-between-universalism-and-hellism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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