BootsnAll Travel Community

Originally from Mr. Chris D:
I don't really want to derail this, and it may be a topic for another conversation, but, what do you folks think of the concept of Hell? Being from a strict southern baptist background, it's something that still creeps into my mind, even after being away from it for years and years.

Do you think there is or isn't a hell? If you think there is, who do you think goes there? If not, why not?

Like I said, more curiosity, and if it's taking away from the post, feel free to ignore it.

My dad's mom is convinced he and his family are going to Hell. She agonizes over it and prays for our souls. All this because we don't read the Bible and some of us - my brother and sister and I - are not saved. I feel bad for her. I should say that I do read the Bible, along with the Koran, I Ching, various Buddhist texts, Native American spiritual writings, Sufi texts, etc. All valuable resouces, but not one single source for belief.

Hell. We are connected to the world by opposites: fire and water, day and night, colors and grays, Winter and Summer, Spring and Fall. Why not Heaven and Hell? I have often wondered about the origins of faith and religion. At a certain point in prehistory burials changed from merely getting rid of a corpse to putting flowers in the grave with the deceased to burying possessions for a presumed after life. We humans progressed from simple grief to complex belief. I think our desire to be with our loved ones after death gave us a heaven and, conversly, our desire to punish our enemies gave us hell.

That being said, I believe in heaven, or at the very least an afterlife. For me, hell is a little something we go through here on earth. Our punishment is is to repeat the same mistakes.

Jet

Short answer: No, I think the concept of hell is bogus. Ok, the concept itself isn't bogus; it's understandable the concept exists. But I don't believe the concept.

Do I believe in an afterlife? I like what Jet said. And, like Jet, I'm 'not saved.' And, like Jet, I'm extremely familiar with the Bible. Not so much with other texts, but at the moment I don't have the desire to delve into the other texts. It's just my feeling about the whole religion thing.

Umm...I'm hopeful. Briefly, again, it's difficult for me to comprehend that our awareness will suddenly cease to exist upon death - that all of a sudden, WE won't exist anymore. That our awareness/processing minds would evaporate into nothingness. I can't comprehend it. Thus, I'm hopeful for an afterlife, and to sum up the heaven/hell concepts: I think if there is an afterlife, we will go where we should. Everything will sort itself out, and everything will happen as it should, and as is right. As defined by God/Spirit/Universe/whatever you want to call it -- I have comfort that everything will sort itself out as it cosmically 'should.' Everything will make sense, and click into place. If that makes sense. I'm not worried about it (for once ;-).

I do believe in hell - but its not fire and brimstones.

I think it is a state of mind that people suffer here on earth.

During my short time here I have known many different types of people and I have known some people that are living in hell because they cannot trust others, they are incapable of loving or being loved or sharing or caring, they are constantly scared of their image and will never appreciate the beauty of life.

To me the idea of living like this is hell.

I could easily agree with what you have all said so far. My granddad, who was not one to play tricks, told us about an out of body experience. I was thinking about this the other day; if that's true, and I have little reason to doubt him, then our souls must exist past the need for a physical shell - there must be something after our bodies die. If that's heaven or hell I'm unsure, but this place isn't the end, nor the beginning I believe.

Heaven and Hell I dont think its quite that simple or black and white.

If there is an afterlife and a higher power there must be some sort of commoon way things work. From what i have read and heard by word of mouth reincarnation is the one that makes the most sence to me..... If its just heaven and hell and we only get one chance then why are some people granted an easy path and some an arguous journey full of pain and struggle. Granted we all have our struggles weather we are born blind or in a wheelchair or completely healthy but there is a huge difference.

So if everything happens for a reason and the world is not a mish mash of random occurances then there must be a reason that people are born in different circumstances and have different paths to walk. thats why reincarnation makes sence to me.... we have to keep coming back here until we get it right and evolve to higher level....

More than heaven and hell i think there is many different relms.... and depending on your actions u may have to expereience different levels, or different bodies and walk different paths.

Your going to go to hell if you dont read the bible, that is an ignorant statement.... the old fear tactic.... fear god he is vengfull, we are constantly manipulated by fear to push us in certain directions.... told to all tribes and natives injected with the bible propoganda that they are wrong and will surley go to hell if they dont follow the bible.

We should move because of love and not of fear... for our higher power is love.... I'm not saying everything in the bible is wrong or bad... but its not the be all and end all of the worlds spiritual evolvment...

If u believe in reincarnation then everything is a stepping stone, regardless of what religion, philosophy or path u follow....we eventually learn from our mistakes and are moved towards the right exit... Follow your heart and not the fear.

i certainly believe in hell..

jesus once said "the kingdom of heaven is within you." i think, as far as a concept can be, this is very important to understand. we choose heaven or hell, just as everyone thinks, but its much more immediate than usually thought. everything the bible describes is about this conceptual material world, since everything is all concepts, processes of thought anyway.

its odd how some things are correct though, such as the idea that many more people choose hell rather than heaven. although, they are more of the same journey, rather than the same destination.

Jetgirl says:-

"I think our desire to be with our loved ones after death gave us a heaven and, conversly, our desire to punish our enemies gave us hell".

This is the best phrase that I've heard for this I think. It's how we personally perceive it. In my book, hell* is reserved for paedophiles, rapists, killers and those who prey on the unprotected/innocent - the rest of us are reasonably safe.

(*I reserve the right to add to this list of hell as the replies roll in)

elv

I do believe there is a hell, because I believe in heaven. Without evil how can you measure what good is???
This question is one that has me questioning alot of my christian beliefs...on one hand we have an all loving God who loved us so much he sent his son to die, but on the other hand will send us to hell if we do not believe in him. So the "christians" great commision in life is to tell every about him so people don't go to hell. well, what if a child dies and doesn't get to make the choice to believe or someone has a great life and never hits rock bottom to reach out for a higher power are they eternally doomed???
I do believe in God and his love but don't know what to think anymore of people going to hell, just because they didn't believe.

Nick D,
Very funny. Had me giggling.
Jet

I have issues with the concept that god is either just or loving. A perusal through any day's newspaper will refute that in a heartbeat - how does a loving god allow infants to die of hunger? I was raised RC (including 13 years of parochial school)and it took me some time to realise that if god exists, then I want nothing to do with him. He is at worse capricious & at best indifferent. For most of the world's population, hell is now.

I believe in hell. I can't quantify it logically, but I believe it all the same. I've always kind of imagined it as a place where you suffer the worst pain imaginable for a certain amount of time (based on your life on earth) before being allowed into Heaven. Imagine about 1000 paper cuts all at once, that's what you'd feel. But once you've put your time in you're allowed to go to Heaven, for some people it would be longer than others. Eg Hitler-still there, a bank robber-maybe a year or so, then he can reapply to Heaven.

I just read my post again and realized that I've turned hell into a prison for souls........ I'm afraid I'm just not very deep.

Hey Jester,

I'm just imagining the pain of 1000 paper cuts all at once....ouch!

Getting a few papercuts in the space of a day is hell enough!!!

urban:

ot, kinda!

god IS loving, however we are free to make our choices, and experience the consequences for those choices.

i used to hold great contempt for a "god" such as yours, as well. then i realized that ultimately, im not in a position to judge such a perspective (god). i realized it was a form of arrogance (whether i liked it, or not).

i realized that i wasnt really judging the perspective, i was judging my concept of it. i also realized my concept was HEAVILY influenced by mainstream religion (god basically being a guy sitting in a chair watching things). i decided that before i hold such emotions, i should find out first hand, what god is. just as i wouldnt hate someone without meeting them, i wouldnt hate god without knowing him. i despised the "god" that was taught in many religions, but that was good, because it led me to truth.

and actually, you can die from many paper cuts. every time something like that occurs, our body releases quite a few chemicals, and after a while, they really add up! wierd stuff...

quote:

Originally posted by JetGirl:
My dad's mom is convinced he and his family are going to Hell. She agonizes over it and prays for our souls. All this because we don't read the Bible and some of us - my brother and sister and I - are not saved. I feel bad for her. I should say that I do read the Bible, along with the Koran, I Ching, various Buddhist texts, Native American spiritual writings, Sufi texts, etc. All valuable resouces, but not one single source for belief.

Hell. We are connected to the world by opposites: fire and water, day and night, colors and grays, Winter and Summer, Spring and Fall. Why not Heaven and Hell? I have often wondered about the origins of faith and religion. At a certain point in prehistory burials changed from merely getting rid of a corpse to putting flowers in the grave with the deceased to burying possessions for a presumed after life. We humans progressed from simple grief to complex belief. I think our desire to be with our loved ones after death gave us a heaven and, conversly, our desire to punish our enemies gave us hell.

That being said, I believe in heaven, or at the very least an afterlife. For me, hell is a little something we go through here on earth. Our punishment is is to repeat the same mistakes.

Jet

Well..i believe in Hell and Heaven.
and Hell is a horrible reality. I think hell has never been overstated either in art, poem or in any book i ever read. I believe Hell can never be overstated.

Most Christian and Catholic doctrination of affirmation have claimed that hell is a "endless conscious of suffering"

And it's funny that some christians as well as catholics have made statements that it is impossible for "a loving God to apply such "endless conscious suffering" for a man.
...but in the end, Hell is an echo of Glory of a Holy God.

Suppose Adolf Hitler faced God...Suppose God gave him a verdict, for his unbelief, hatred towards people, violence and misery he brought to many...God sentenced him to falling out of existance of eternal life. To be completely non-exisitance.
I think Adolf Hitler would be celebrating for that is what he probably wanted from the start. It would be like brining down a murder charges down to a misdemeanor.

Jesus have said that hell is an "outer darkness, unquenchable fire, eternal punishment, a place of weeping and grinding of teeth."

Many religion have put fear upon man and have put codes and rules to live by so that they can reach this afterlife place called Heaven.
...but if fear of hell can earn someone a ticket to go to heaven, how awesome would that be....
Fear hell will never get anyone to heaven.
Heaven is a place where people fall in love with God...Never for people who fear hell.


And i wished hell is a place where only the people we state to be evil (sinful) can go, but then we would be playing God which we are not.
...And Evil/ sin as we know it may have a different defination from a Creator's perspective.

quote:

Originally posted by Doobster:
Without evil how can you measure what good is???

Bingo! I think thats why the concept of evil was invented. We had to have it, so we could say this is good and this is bad, finito. I think the truth is there is no black or white solution to good/evil. Its not that simple.

Two thoughts ... the first is borrowed from 'The Usual Suspects' and I think is very fitting ... "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing people that he did not exist." This conversation is proof of that success.

Secondly, Hell is a very simple concept broken down into a simple statement. "Hell is when, after you die, you are completely removed from the presence of God." Whether you believe in Jesus or God right now, He is still a part of your life here on earth. If you leave this earth without every accepting Him, then you will go to a place where He is not and that will cause you more misery than you have ever thought possible ...

I know people like to believe in "do-overs", whether they be in the form of life after life until you get it right or "if God and Jesus really do exist, they'll give me another chance after death," but that is not what the Bible says.

It is not difficult to give your life to God and His son, Jesus, but if you choose not to do so, the consequences are dire. People who ignore them do so at their own peril, as the concept of free will allows them to do.

AaA

quote:

It is not difficult to give your life to God and His son, Jesus, but if you choose not to do so, the consequences are dire. People who ignore them do so at their own peril, as the concept of free will allows them to do.

AaA

I guess the trouble with that if if you chose NOT to then its probably because you dont believe it - in which case thats not really going to be much of a threat....(but I recognize that thats not what this thread is about)

You are right. It probably won't function as a threat or even a warning ... the one irrefutable fact is we all will die ... and at that point many answers will be given to us ... some possibilities are ...

1)We are reborn -- in which case, we won't remember the former life (except maybe in our subconscious) and we will be brought back for how we were in the previous life (an earning system, if you will); so believers in God and non-believers will be in the same boat, depending on how they lived their lives ...

2)Ashes to ashes, dust to dust -- we will know no more and just enter into a state of nothingness (and whatever your belief system on earth, it will have no relevance upon death); again, believers and non in the same boat ...

3)The is a Heaven and a Hell -- and many people who expected they would either have a 2nd chance to accept the truth (if it turned out to be true), believed that God did not exist (or worse, disparaged him consistently while on earth in an egocentric manner) or that if they were good enough, it didn't matter at all what they believed (because planning their next trip was worthy of more of their time than to decide whether or not God was real; well, let's just say many of these folks are going to have a very RUDE awakening ... and sadly, it will be too late ... their free will and "intelligence" will have led to their undoing and no amount of negotiation, pleading or backtracking will do them any good ... they can stand there and disparage the Bible as "man's work" and "a bunch of fables", but it will all be for nought ... and that is quite sad ...

AaA