"You can either choose to serve me and be bound to /my/ standards or suffer eternal punishment without end"?

neale donald walsch said this, and i like it.. the ten commandments.. are not commandments at all, but ten signs your are becoming enlightened.

you simply would not want to do these things.. why? because you would see, clearly, how each hurts you.

God isn't doing anything, WE ARE . God is more akin to an intelligent matrix, that is perfect in every way, but to as it is all there is nothing can be 'experienced' .. there is nothing to 'experience' .. it just is

we live within that entity, that which is all, which is beyond all description.. and are that which was 'dreamt up' as it appears .. by that which is, and we live within a dream, we are a dream of the ONE.

we forget who we are, but never intended to 'stay lost' .. so the game has a self awakening mechanism.. we are always telling ourselves the truth.. we just don't listen

Because to me that sounds like a form of threat, even though God is benevolent and loves everyone.

control, some folks love control and use whatever means they can find

But how could such be reconciled with him being a loving being?

you can't . it is only when you see your hand in all of it, as participant that you find there is no one to blame, and no one to punish

we are all victims/perps of our own creation. each perpetuates the other until one of them stops

the victims are usually the easiest as they have nothing to lose, perpetrators think they have it all and can't see why they should change

f I certainly don't want to go to Hell but am given some pause about Heaven too (I'll talk about Heaven later), why can't I just go to a "third" place instead of burning and suffering for eternity.

appears to me that hell is used as a tool to create fear which is used to control people

I can agree with God on things like being against abortion or another moral issue, and still go to Hell anyway because it's not necessarily being a drunkard or rapist that gets you into Hell - It is mere unbelief that takes you there.

meh, i think you return to source. those that have done horrible things.. i think their hell exists here an now for the lack of love they feel in their lives.

God has no need for punishment. if God did.. why torture you and not just make you not be?

and if God needed you to be a certain way.. why not make you that way to begin with?

no, the 'god' that needs things is a man lying