The Hell Thread

There is a great article at the following link about Hell and why it's not some kind of "Satan's Torture Barn" The article is rather long, so I'm not going to copy and post it here, though.

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/gr5part2.html

Here's one relitively short excerpt.

"The Bible describes hell primarily in relational terms--it is 'away from' God. Therefore, it involves banishment from his presence, his purposes, and his followers. Like heaven, hell is a freely chosen destination. What we decide to believe and do in this life sets us on a road leading to a final destination in the next...Hell is also a place of shame, sorrow, regret, and anguish. This intense pain is not actively produced by God; he is not a cosmic torturer. Undoubtedly, anguish and torment will exist in hell. And because we will have both body and soul in the resurrected state, the anguish experienced can be both mental and physical. But the pain suffered will be due to the shame and sorrow resulting from the punishment of final, ultimate, unending banishment from God, his kingdom, and the good life for which we were created in the first place. Hell's occupants will deeply and tragically regret all they lost. As Jesus said, 'For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?' (Matt 16:26)"



As for the "What about the people who never heard" argument, there's another good article on the same site about that.

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/hnohear.html

 

I guess feeling regret for eternity is a step up from being physically tortured for eternity. Personally i don't think i could hold a grudge that long, but i'm not god.

 

i had a priest that told me his thought of hell. he said hell would be being alone for eternity. from this, i developed my own idea. i believe everyone will have their own personal heaven or hell. in hell, anything that gave you pleasure would be just out of reach. likewise, in heaven, everything that gave you pleasure is there, in abundant supply. even friends that may have gone to hell.

my theory, and my 666th post.

 

Hell is watching The Ultimate Jar Jar Movie

 

Jar Jar X-Treme®?

 

One of the passages in the bible states that some will be ressurected to "Shame and contempt". This could support the 'miserable hell' theory.

However, the NT seems to support the fire & brimstone hell.

Question is, who's doing all the torturing in hell? Apparentally the demons are tortured too.

I think some of the apocryphal books suggest that angels take 'shifts' and go down and do torture duty.

 

This isn't the hell thread until Steve Corwin, Oprah and Richard Simmons show up. Then it'll be hell.

 

I thought hell was just absence from God. Wich is supposed to be terrible and unbearable. Where did i get this impression?

 

My (Biblically based) impression of Hell is this: quarantine.

Heaven is where God's people, who have been cleaned of their sins, live on a remade perfect earth. The reason the earth is not perfect like heaven now is because of the destructive effects of sin.

Therefore, sin must be kept out of heaven. So the sinners are isolated. Of course, the sinners are not likley to enjoy this confinement away from the joys of salvation, so hell is not a fun place at all.

The torture party ideas of hell were non-existent until authors with too much time on their hands started to write about Hell. Also, no New Testament sermon ever used the idea of hell as a scare tactic.

Still, this is by no means saying that someone shouldn't become a Christian because "hell wont be that bad". Hell will be awful, just not like some Steven King horror flick. I recomend reading the article to which I posted a link earlier.

 

I would hop the murderers and rapists would get at least a more severe punishment, but i guess everyone gets the same loneliness and seperation, since Osama and your average buddhist are basically the same in God's eyes.

 

Here's a couple of things I've picked up in my travels:
Matter is neither created nor destroyed.
Energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can only be transformed from one form to another. The total energy is constant within any system.
The Soul/Spirit is eternal and viewed by many as Energy.
There is no death; there is the Force.
The Universe is our system and our Universe seeks balance.
And anything written can be rewritten.

So when we die our energy is released to the Universe. The concept of Hell with images of fire, torture, brimstone, and isolation is very entertaining but our energy cannot be removed from this system. Your energy will return to the system (reincarnation), unless you transcend your ego and let go of the concept of self and become one with the Force.
In other words reincarnation is what I consider Hell. Escape the cycle.

 

Yeah that is what Buddhists, Gnostic Christians and the pagan Mystery Religions believe

 

I would hop the murderers and rapists would get at least a more severe punishment, but i guess everyone gets the same loneliness and seperation, since Osama and your average buddhist are basically the same in God's eyes.

Nope, there are degrees of suffering in hell. This is pretty clear in the NT.

 

You can provide verses if you wish.

 

BTW if anybody wants to know more about Heaven & Hell, NEWSWEEK has a pretty decent cover article this week.