How Hell work?
- Thread starter Blindswordmaster
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The way I understand it, what the whole "lake of fire" business refers to is destruction, not eternal torment. At the end of the big Armageddon party, everyone who still won't throw in with the winning team is cast down and is no more. That's a little easier to wrap one's head around than the "loving God sends you to infinite torture" doublethink, but still seems a bit dickish to me, especially considering multifaith families like my own.
Or No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre, the popular depiction of hell was established by Mr. Alighieri many many centuries after the bible was compiled. The bible did not have an elaborate description of what hell was. That means that Dante's Inferno doesn't have to be the official "hell". Sartre believed that hell doesn't have to consist of physical punishment, the little demons may stick you with the kind people you hate the most. There are an infinite possibilities of hell out there.Akalabeth said:
Disclaimer: I am not a Christian, nor have I read the bible in full, please forgive me if i was mistaken about the bible's depiction of hell.
If we work with the assumption that, as a construct of the Christian Church, that the only people who actually know how hell would work are the Christian Church, we can assume that the Bible, which is where they get their information (we hope), is correct in it's depictions of how hell works.Rednog said:
The bible portrays hell as a horrible place where people are punished for their sins and that the devil is indiscriminately horrible to all who reside there.
This doesn't work with the theory that Satan is proud of our misdeeds and feels like rewarding us for being arses.
If we want to assume that hell exists and that the Christian Church is wrong about it, then we may as well stop this conversation as we're no longer talking about "hell" we're talking about a portion of the afterlife.
So yeah, that's all I have, it's not really well thought out or well written but it boils down to "Why would they tell me something in Sunday School if they're all wrong about it?" If you're talking about a different version of hell that isn't what's taught to children who go to church then we're not having the same conversation.
A place of spiritual anguish, where you sit for eternity knowing there was a God and you could not have faith in that God or you could not follow the rules laid out.
Seconded.Akalabeth said:
If hell exists, I want it to work like that.
The game actually does a better job of giveing you a better idea of how horrible Dante's hell would be though.
Your Logic : If a British Cartoonist and Voice-Actor can't reffer the Devil as "Lucy," no-one can..imnotparanoid said:
YOU ARE THE SMARTEST HUMAN BEING EVER SINCE NATALIE PORTMAN.
Favourite vision of it?
It was used in some comic/story settings, but the best description was from series of stories built around heaven and hell written by polish writer.
The cliche quasi-anarchistic, mob-ruled place. Rocky environment, pools of lava in the warmer parts and freezing cold in other. The demon lords - fallen angels(like Lucifer, Behemoth, Beelzeebub, Lilith, Naimah, Ishtar Innana, etc.), each like a crime lord, fighting for dominance and souls of the mortals. Some are family, some make temporary alliances but in the end their personal agenda is what matters the most. They don't seek to destroy heaven's or world on that matter, it wouldn't be 'profitable' in the long term and they have enough of internal problems to be bothered with that. Of course every now and then they confront the Angels but they are not exact opposite of God's Goodness, more like bunch of rebels.
It was used in some comic/story settings, but the best description was from series of stories built around heaven and hell written by polish writer.
The cliche quasi-anarchistic, mob-ruled place. Rocky environment, pools of lava in the warmer parts and freezing cold in other. The demon lords - fallen angels(like Lucifer, Behemoth, Beelzeebub, Lilith, Naimah, Ishtar Innana, etc.), each like a crime lord, fighting for dominance and souls of the mortals. Some are family, some make temporary alliances but in the end their personal agenda is what matters the most. They don't seek to destroy heaven's or world on that matter, it wouldn't be 'profitable' in the long term and they have enough of internal problems to be bothered with that. Of course every now and then they confront the Angels but they are not exact opposite of God's Goodness, more like bunch of rebels.
Strangely enough, I do believe in Heaven, but not Hell. As a religious man of sorts however, I'm never closed to the idea that there might be a Hell. If there is one, I just don't think it would be like the one described in any book, because I don't believe anybody deserves that kind of suffering. It's an eternity we're talking about here. And a fate in Hell is worse than any other fate. Mathematically speaking, no matter what you do on earth, you cannot possibly deserve an eternity of punishment. You cannot steal enough lives, you cannot rape enough people, you cannot scam enough money, to equal an eternity. Let alone an eternity in the worst possible place in existence.
Given this idea, if there is a Hell, I picture it as a place where a special punishment dependent on what you did on earth would be arranged for you. Empathy, after all, is one of the most effective ways to make people feel bad for other people. If put through the same thing they put other people through, they'd understand what they did was wrong. So they are placed in an area designed to create the right atmosphere, and the same terrible thing they did on earth happens to them on a weekly basis. And any time left over would be spent either working in hard labor, or socializing with demons (who look just like people except with maybe a couple slightly different features, and are not evil) who are more than happy to explain what was wrong about your actions whenever you ask.
Then every week you are examined with mind reading magic to determine if you truly feel remorse for what you did. And if you do feel bad, and it's been long enough for the punishment to fit the crime, then you are finally released from Hell and allowed into Heaven. Because an eternity of punishment is something nobody deserves. On this idea, you could end up spending just one measly week in Hell, or several decades depending on your actions.
Nobody deserves an eternity of punishment. So if there is a Hell, I imagine it probably works something like this.
Given this idea, if there is a Hell, I picture it as a place where a special punishment dependent on what you did on earth would be arranged for you. Empathy, after all, is one of the most effective ways to make people feel bad for other people. If put through the same thing they put other people through, they'd understand what they did was wrong. So they are placed in an area designed to create the right atmosphere, and the same terrible thing they did on earth happens to them on a weekly basis. And any time left over would be spent either working in hard labor, or socializing with demons (who look just like people except with maybe a couple slightly different features, and are not evil) who are more than happy to explain what was wrong about your actions whenever you ask.
Then every week you are examined with mind reading magic to determine if you truly feel remorse for what you did. And if you do feel bad, and it's been long enough for the punishment to fit the crime, then you are finally released from Hell and allowed into Heaven. Because an eternity of punishment is something nobody deserves. On this idea, you could end up spending just one measly week in Hell, or several decades depending on your actions.
Nobody deserves an eternity of punishment. So if there is a Hell, I imagine it probably works something like this.
in hell, the cooks are british, the police are german, the engineers are french, the bankers are italian and your lover is swiss.
You're absolutely right, and therefore we should be wary about taking it at face value, but it was Jesus who gave the parable, and personally I think that if he were going to include Hell in a parable, then he would give it an accurate description.believer258 said:
I am wary about saying I'm a Christian, as the term encompasses such a broad spectrum of beliefs, e.g. The Woodsboro Baptists in America would consider themselves to be Christian, I would be very, very surprised if they truly are. Basically in a few quick paraphrases of the Bible, I believe that all have sinned and fall short of Gods standard, the penalty of that sin is death and Hell afterwards, but God provided a way out through Jesus substituting his life for ours, and we can be saved if we sincerly ask him to take away our sins and are sorry for the times we've disobeyed God.believer258 said:
Oh, and on topic again, Did you know that in the Bible Hell is basically just a waiting room, where souls go and wait until they are judged for their sins, which happens at the end of the world. The real place that they and Satan will spend eternity is called the Lake of Fire, (Revelation chapter 20 verse 14 and 15) And as for what it will be like, well, it sounds pretty self explanitory