re: What do people get out of going to church on Easter once a year?

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No, I dont. I dont believe most people "deserve" Heaven. We do nasty things to each other on the regular. All I said was that nobody deserves eternal hell. Those are wildly different statements.

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Perhaps you don't, but if Heaven is a place free from sin, death, and pain, and Hell is the opposite, then where do you think people deserve to go? Sounds like you think Hitler did his time (or is getting close) and should be free of that torment at some point. OK, where is he going to go? Heaven? Maybe you don't think most people don't deserve one or the other but should go to one or the other.

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I used to go through life viewing the world like this, and Im happy to say life is so much better when you do away with this idea. Christianity forces me to say that good nonbelievers are just as evil as evil as the worst mass murderers in history.

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But that's just not true. I don't believe that every person who is not saved is as bad as they could possibly be. Most people could be a lot worse than they are. The Bible teaches that the law of God is written on the hearts of all men, so we all know a semblance of what is right and wrong, even when we don't act accordingly. With that said, it is more accurate to say that even the "good" nonbelievers are just as guilty of sinning against a holy and eternal God as the most evil of people. In fact, even the "holiest" of Christians are just as guilty. The difference is that a believer will be imputed with the innocence of Christ and will be judged by Christ's obedience rather than according to our disobedience.

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And God is omnipotent, he can do anything he wants including going against his very nature. Anyone who is in hell is in hell because he wants it to be so, not because his hands are tied. Omniscience and infinite power removes this tie on him.

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God's omnipotence is not defined by Him being able to do anything we can think of (including logically fallacious things like moving something immovable, or one of the various absurdities people throw out there), but by God doing anything He desires to do. His character and His holiness are actually limits on what God can do, because God cannot sin.

And I agree that God's hands are not tied when it comes to people going to Hell. I disagree on this point with many Arminians who believe that God is pretty much helpless in this regard because of our free will. Instead, I believe that God, wishing to display His attributes (holiness, mercy, justice, forgiveness, wrath, love, etc.) planned all things according to His will, including the fall of mankind, which we are all affected by.

God knew that when man fell, all humans would continue to sin and be guilty and deserving of punishment. Since we are His creation (like a painting or a sculpture), He can do with us as He pleases. We have no problem raising cattle for slaughter, but for some reason God can't create people just to destroy them? The difference here is that those whom God judges are not innocent. They willingly sin against God and they revel in their rebellion against Him. People want to do what they want to do, not what God wants them to do.

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Christianity desperately wants god to be all powerful, but then when the implications of that power are pointed out you want to place limitations on what he is capable of. You cant have it both ways. Either god is infinitely powerful and can forgive anyone just but choosing to do so, or he isnt infinitely powerful.

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But you are setting up a false dichotomy by presenting these two options as the only ones. I don't believe that God can do anything and everything imaginable because God has set limitations on Himself. But even so, God having the power to save/forgive every single person (He does) does not mean He is obligated to do it. What would come of God's justice? A King or a judge who always forgives the offender does not provide justice. God can show mercy because He shows justice. His mercy would be pointless if He didn't condemn anyone for sinning against Him and His holy character. God would be quite pathetic if He just let everyone spit in His face. In fact, because He is God, He has to uphold His righteousness and condemn sinners, otherwise He would be making an idol of His creation and He would not be God.

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This is something that the ancient greek and roman philosophers realized and its why their gods did not possess omniscience. Many of them wrote about the terror that omniscience presented and why even the gods couldnt possess such a power. They realized, unlike ignorant and illiterate hebrews in the middle east, the implications of omniscience.

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Whether greek and roman philosophers denied the true God and His attributes is of no concern to whether or not God is omniscient. God can be (and is) omniscient without necessitating the need to forgive everyone and not necessitating Him being evil.

Again, all humanity has sinned against God. Whether God knew about it ahead of time or not is beside the point. God, by wanting to show His love for His creation (which is something we aren't owed) chose to save some of us, though we continue to sin against Him.

The argument that God is either powerless or evil is predicated on the belief that humans don't deserve Hell and that God enjoys torturing innocent people. Neither of those are true.