I just remembered how I came to terms with the concept of the ever-lasting torture of hell.

Like many fundamentalists I had been brought up to believe in its physical reality- I think it was/is meant to scare us into the arms of a 'loving God', which is an oxymoron if I ever heard one.

When I finally came to realize is that IF there is a God who ordains things, he could not be a god that sets up a system of ever-lasting punishment.

One precept I think all humans have in common- and keep unless it has become terribly distorted - is that torture is evil. Therefore, ipso facto, torture could not come from a god.