I believe that God poured out His love for the entire human race on Calvary, even as He was pouring out His wrath on His Son. I believe that, at that moment, and even before Bethlehem, God loved Aussiemama and Vendetta and Atlas and Luke; and that He also loved Osama and Hitler and Ted Bundy and the atheists who sneer at Him. Were it not for that love, none of us would be saved.

Since Calvary, I believe that God does indeed hate sinners, or at least some sinners; His word says so. If you consider the magnitude of what He did at Calvary, it's obvious that He has nothing left to prove, and He owes the people who reject His Son nothing but Hell.

I believe in the "past tense" idea: God so loved the world. But, in John 17, Jesus even refused to pray for the world. I do not believe that God loves the people, in 2008, who reject and revile His Son.

And that's all I'm gonna say at this time. I know this is a subject that troubles Brother Atlas, and I do not care to grieve his spirit, or anyone else's, simply for the sake of expounding my own tiny understanding.

This matter can be, and has been, the source of much contention, and I do not wish to add to it for the umpteenth time.

God loved everybody that we will ever come in contact with. That should be enough to motivate us to take His word to them.