By contrast, the New Testament suggests (at least, as I understood it; evangelical leader John Stott and Seventh-Day Adventists would disagree) that unbelievers will spend an eternity of conscious torment in hell, an infinitely worse proposition than being stoned to death. I could no longer believe that a god who enjoins us to love our enemies and to turn the other cheek could be capable of subjecting his own enemies to endless punishment with no further offer of mercy or reprieve (Hebrews 9:27). Why not simply annihilate his rebellious subjects and put them out of their misery?
