text: can love be forced? does god force love? if a king or a dictator forces his people to 'love' him then is this love?  i would say no!  so if god forces us to love him (threatening us to burn in hell forever if we don't), then what is the difference? if you force someone to love you then can that compare to someone loving you with all their body, mind and words? so god is supremely merciful and all loving that he patiently gives and arranges opportunities for us to develope pure love for him. if we make mistakes, or are even averse to him, then like a loving father or mother will correct us and show us that what we are doing is wrong, and one day we will realize how god is supremely merciful upon us. even if we have to go to hell for sometime, like a prisoner doing 'time', it is for the greater good - we will learn from our mistakes and it will bring us closer to our own happiness, and gods happiness which is full of eterity, knowledge and bliss.   god who is very sad and unhappy to see his own near and dear loved ones seperate from himself, struggling with birth and death and so many miseries in this material world, but yet he wont interefere with your own free will, otherwise what would be the difference between us living beings and inert objects?   so actually real love comes from the heart and does not rise out of fear. love arsing out of the fear that, 'after death i will go to hell and not heaven', is weak and enfeebled love - not pure sponateous love arsing from the absorbtion of the object of ones love.   if you are going to live with someone for the rest of eternity dont you want it to be out of love and not the fear that 'if i dont love this person he will send me to hell'?