No Hell

[dr_mabeuse]

There was an interesting thing on the radio about a fundamentalist hell-and-brimstone preacher who had a sudden revelation: that hell did not exist, and that any god who would threaten people with eternal damnation wasn't the real God. Unfortunately, I missed the show (Ira Glass's "An American Life") and so all I heard was the ad, where the preacher's talking about how we've all been lied to and sold a bill of goods about hell.

Christianity is pretty obsessed with the idea of hell, probably because it's so obsessed with the afterlife, but it made me think of what Christianty would be like without the idea of hell. I think it would be kind of nice.

I didn't get to hear what happened to this preacher, but somehow I have a feeling he lost a good part of his congregation when he renounced hell.

NOTE: Quoting John Jennon's Imagine does not qualify as a reply to this thread.

 

[Guest]

i was talking about this with my mother in law the other day. she brought up the fact that she believes hell is what we are living through now.
interesting.

 

[lucky-E-leven]

Odd. I had a conversation just yesterday with a friend of mine from college. It's a Baptist university and she was raised Baptist and has always identified herself as such. She loves talking to me about religion because I don't put much stock into the traditional trappings and beliefs of hell and damnation that many do.

It was an interesting conversation, but her response was simply that she'd never questioned hell because she'd always grown up being told/taught that hell was the consequence for the decisions we made on earth that went against God's teachings. Anyway, the conversation more or less turned up at the issue of judgment. She was really conflicted about it by the end of our talk. Not in a bad way, but I imagine she'll want to talk about it further the next time we get together.

I'm with the preacher, though. Hell seems nothing but a justification for walking the right line while on earth. I kind of thought the justification should focus more on living right and being accepted to heaven.

 

[NoJo]

There was an interesting thing on the radio about a fundamentalist hell-and-brimstone preacher who had a sudden revelation: that hell did not exist, and that any god who would threaten people with eternal damnation wasn't the real God. Unfortunately, I missed the show (Ira Glass's "An American Life") and so all I heard was the ad, where the preacher's talking about how we've all been lied to and sold a bill of goods about hell.

Christianity is pretty obsessed with the idea of hell, probably because it's so obsessed with the afterlife, but it made me think of what Christianty would be like without the idea of hell. I think it would be kind of nice.

I didn't get to hear what happened to this preacher, but somehow I have a feeling he lost a good part of his congregation when he renounced hell.

NOTE: Quoting John Jennon's Imagine does not qualify as a reply to this thread.

The Victorian author I'm currently researching for a (crime) story trained in the clegry, but for various personal reasons didn' t end up taking orders. He was a devout Christian, but would angrily argue with his reverend friends, as he refused to believe in eternal damnation. Having never considered hell as anything but a way of getting people to do what you tell them, I've yet to understand how the concept of Hell can be so pervasive.

 

[rgraham666]

Hell never made much sense to me. In a Christian sense.

According to Christian theology, God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnimerciful.

So He knows what's going to happen, He could change it if he wanted and would change it if the event is something bad or evil.

I know, free will, but from God's point of view, there is no free will. He knows everything including what will happen.

It always seemed odd to me that God would punish people horribly forever for something He's ultimately responsible for.

And I always loathed the people who regarded God as a celestial bully whom they could sic on people they didn't like. "Yeah, that's it, God! Hit 'em again!"

 

[cloudy]

Hell never made much sense to me. In a Christian sense.

According to Christian theology, God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnimerciful.

So He knows what's going to happen, He could change it if he wanted and would change it if the event is something bad or evil.

I know, free will, but from God's point of view, there is no free will. He knows everything including what will happen.

It always seemed odd to me that God would punish people horribly forever for something He's ultimately responsible for.

And I always loathed the people who regarded God as a celestial bully whom they could sic on people they didn't like. "Yeah, that's it, God! Hit 'em again!"

There's that smiting thing again.

I tend to agree that hell is here and now.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Wanna know what Hell is? Ask any depressed person about the place inside their heads.

 

[NoJo]

Wanna know what Hell is? Ask any depressed person about the place inside their heads.

My mild form of depression is more like being dead than how I imagine Hell. There's a passion to hell.

I've been in exteme pain, and even that wasn't hellish. It was just fucking horrible.

 

[rgraham666]

Wanna know what Hell is? Ask any depressed person about the place inside their heads.

Amen! Tell it, sister!

 

[Pure]

Without hell

For a few hundred years there has been a group of Christians, generally called 'universalists' (i.e., universal salvation) who have no hell (or at least no one goes there). Sometime this century they joined with the Unitarians (affirmers of one God, but not the equal Trinity).

It's to be pointed out that many Jews do not have 'hell' or reserve their equivalent place (Gehenna? iirc) for the really nasty characters, not the schoolboys who steal candy at the local minimart.

There is certainly every reason to question 'eternal punishment' as proportionate to most human evils. The Catholic 'take' on the problem is to have an intermediate non-so-good place you can work your way out of-- this insures that only the worst cases go to hell.

 

[NoJo]

The Catholic 'take' on the problem is to have an intermediate non-so-good place you can work your way out of-- this insures that only the worst cases go to hell.

Yes, they're the suburbs.

 

[zeb1094]

If there isn't a hell then what do change the phrase 'Aw hell!' too?

 

[NoJo]

If there isn't a hell then what do change the phrase 'Aw hell!' too?

Tartar sauce?

 

[English Lady]

Funnily enough, I was reading through osme of my old posts last week, and I found one relating to this very thing. I honestly don't remember what it was in relation to, but reading the answer again made me think.


I said that Hell is a place without God, so the only people it would be hellish to are people who are aware of God, many people, from what they say, would rejoice to find themselves in a place without God. I for one would hate to be sent to hell, but your non believer? your atheists? Will they really be THAT bothered?


I don't know if that makes sense, but I'm pretty certain I believe in Hell, what Hell is exactly like, I don't know.

I know God doesn't send people to hell, they choose to go there. I don't think ever person who decares themselves a church going christian will be in Heaven and I'm pretty certain a fair few non Christian folks will be in Heaven.

God Knows, and to me, thats a very comforting statement.

 

[NoJo]

Your description makes it sound like the sense of banishment would be Hell enough.

 

[Guest]

I recall how stunned I was when I read that John Paul II made it clear the RCC rejected the idea of Hell (and Heaven) as real places. I cannot find my primary source but this site captures the gist. Inreresting too that Billy Graham spoke out first. link
-------------------

During his weekly address to the general audience of 8,500 people at the Vatican on July 28, 1999, Pope John Paul II rejected the reality of a physical, literal hell as a place of eternal fire and torment. Rather, the pope said hell is separation, even in this life, from the joyful communion with God. According to an official Vatican transcript of the pope's speech, Pope John Paul II noted that the Scriptural references to hell and the images portrayed by Scripture are only symbolic and figurative of "the complete frustration and emptiness of life without God. " He added, "Rather than a physical place, hell is the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy." He said hell is "a condition resulting from attitudes and actions which people adopt in this life." Concerning the concept of eternal damnation, the pope said, "Damnation consists precisely in definitive separation from God, freely chosen by the human person, and confirmed with death that seals his choice for ever." The pope also added, "The thought of hell and even less the improper use of biblical images must not create anxiety or despair." Rather, he stated, it is a reminder of the freedom found in Christ.

The Religion News Service reported that a Vatican-approved editorial published several weeks ago in the Jesuit journal Civilta Cattolica agrees with the pope's latest pronouncement. The editorial explicitly pronounced, "Hell exists, not as a place but as a state, a way of being of the person who suffers the pain of the deprivation of God" (Los Angeles Times, 7-31-99). The pope said eternal damnation is "not God's work but is actually our own doing." Only a week earlier the pope stated that heaven is neither "an abstraction nor a place in the clouds, but a living, personal relationship of union with the Holy Trinity. "

Such a statement on hell is strikingly similar to that made by Billy Graham several years ago in which he was quoted,
"The only thing I could say for sure is that hell means separation from God. We are separated from his light, from his fellowship. That is going to be hell. When it comes to a literal fire, I don't preach it because I'm not sure about it. When the Scripture uses fire concerning hell, that is possibly an illustration of how terrible it's going to be-not fire but something worse, a thirst for God that cannot be quenched." (Time magazine, 1 1-1 5-93)

Both Graham and now the pope completely reject the clear teaching of Scripture regarding the reality of a literal lake of fire that burns throughout all eternity. The author of Hebrews taught that the reality of hell is a vital Bible doctrine (Heb. 6:1, 2). Jude taught that believers are to contend for the faith (doctrine) once delivered unto the saints and that hell is a real, literal place of fire and torment Jude 3, 7). The apostle Paul taught that those who knew not Christ would suffer the vengeance of God which entailed everlasting damnation (2 Thess. 1:8, 9). The apostle John saw that hell was a real place (Rev. 14: 1 0; 20:10-15; 21:8). And, Jesus Christ Himself taught that hell literally exists, that it lasts forever and that those who reject His perfect salvation would spend eternity therein (Matt. 13:41, 42; 18:8, 9; 25:41-46; Luke 16:19-31). Rejection of the Biblical doctrine of hell by the pope and Graham does not nullify the fact that a literal hell truly exists. "Let God be true, but every man a liar" (Rom. 3:3, 4).
------------------

Then we have Sartre who said, "Hell is other people". Well, it's surely some people .

Perdita

 

[rgraham666]

After reading perdita's post my first thought was, "I'm fucked."

My second was defiance. All that stuff makes God sound like the celestial bully I named earlier and I am not going to bend my knee to a bully, no matter how much they 'punish' me.

Prideful? Foolish? Maybe. But that's who I am.

 

[Guest]

After reading perdita's post my first thought was, "I'm fucked."

Why? Really, I don't get it. P.

 

[Guest]

Speaking of Hell, the "reality", try this: Inferno Quiz. I earned:

Second Level of Hell
You have come to a place mute of all light, where the wind bellows as the sea does in a tempest. This is the realm where the lustful spend eternity. Here, sinners are blown around endlessly by the unforgiving winds of unquenchable desire as punishment for their transgressions. The infernal hurricane that never rests hurtles the spirits onward in its rapine, whirling them round, and smiting, it molests them. You have betrayed reason at the behest of your appetite for pleasure, and so here you are doomed to remain. Cleopatra and Helen of Troy are two that share in your fate.

I thought some of the questions were interesting, and amazingly apt; also like being in league with Cleopatra .

Perdita

Edited to add: HTML Hell

 

[Halo_n_horns]

This is a subject I deal with a great deal in one of the stories in the link in my sig line (plug). "There is no Hell except that which we condemn ourselves to." as well as, "Man created Heaven and Hell ... "

Its all a fun concept, but in the end, I really don't care.

 

[rgraham666]

Why? Really, I don't get it. P.

Because P, I don't have the faith. I don't even know if God exists, never mind if I have a personal relationship with Him.

It seems, from what you posted, I'm 'cut off from God', and I'm going to be damned for it.

P.S. I added a little to my post.

Nice to see you again, P.

 

[Guest]

Because P, I don't have the faith. I don't even know if God exists, never mind if I have a personal relationship with Him.

It seems, from what you posted, I'm 'cut off from God', and I'm going to be damned for it.

P.S. I added a little to my post.

Nice to see you again, P.

Ok. But if you don't believe in Gawd (or Dog), you've nothing to fear, eh? I'm ususally in the agnostic bin myself, and Heaven or Hell don't even make the list of stuff that matters in life (or after life, ha ha).

Anyroad, I am sorry to have caused you any anguish, however brief, by my post. I simply thought it'd be interesting for Mab. and others on the thread's subject.

Always nice to see your sweet face, P.

 

[rgraham666]

Ok. But if you don't believe in Gawd (or Dog), you've nothing to fear, eh? I'm ususally in the agnostic bin myself, and Heaven or Hell don't even make the list of stuff that matters in life (or after life, ha ha).

Anyroad, I am sorry to have caused you any anguish, however brief, by my post. I simply thought it'd be interesting for Mab. and others on the thread's subject.

Always nice to see your sweet face, P.

I'm an agnostic myself, P. But there is something in me that reaches for faith.

The problem is I've been betrayed by all the things I believed in so faith is a hard thing for me to attain.

I wasn't hurting, P. It was just what I thought when I read your post. *HUGS*

 

[Pure]

i think 'hell as separation from God' is an old theological gambit.

making it (stubbornly and enduringly) self chosen, of course, is an attempt to make the concept not so reflective of a terrible or vengeful God.

 

[MichelleLovesTo]

I think it's increasingly rare for people to believe in eternal damnation. A lot of groups believe that hell is a cleansing place -- that those who go there cease to exist, rather than suffer forever.