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| View Poll Results: How do you view Hell? | |||
| Its quite a hot place really with this horned fella hanging around |
   
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2 | 8.00% |
| It means existing completely and eternally severed from God |
  
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4 | 16.00% |
| I don't believe in Hell |
  
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12 | 48.00% |
| I'm difficult and want to select "Other" |
  
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7 | 28.00% |
| Voters: 25. You may not vote on this poll | |||
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#1
07-18-2006, 06:20 PM
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Hell: Being distanced from God
A current trend I have noticed in certain strands of Christianity (and perhaps in other religions as well though I am not aware of it) is the total replacement of the traditional concept of Hell with a completely new one.
Throughout most of Christianity's history, Hell was believed to be a place of eternal torture; fire and brimstone and the like. There are still many today who hold this belief. There is a wealth of Biblical scripture which supports this view. More recently, people have started to define Hell as simply being distanced from God. The suffering mentioned in the Bible, they say, is in reference to the suffering one would feel at never being close to God. Which view of Hell do you believe? Where did you get your belief regarding Hell? Is it accurate to suggest somebody can suffer by being parted from something they have never truly known?
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#2
07-18-2006, 06:34 PM
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My concept of Hell is summed up in post# 34 here:
Hell and comfort level I don't think it's so much that it's "changed" but rather that people (like within the Catholic Church for example) have the freedom to choose symbolic language to denote a message. Like "fire" being the burning desire to be with God once all doubt has been confirmed. So people from home to home expand on a reality with their own images. Albeit some go to far and some don't go far enough in my opinion.
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"Man can be defined as an animal that makes dogmas. . . . " G.K. Chesterton
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#3
07-18-2006, 06:59 PM
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I've always assumed fire and brimstone was meant literally.
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"Man's creative struggle, his search for wisdom and truth, is a love story.  " - Iris Murdochhttp://www.enchanted-art.com (Avatar by Jessica Galbreth)
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#4
07-19-2006, 02:08 AM
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being distanced from God.
That's like being an atheist? 
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O, I'll be the first with the christmas spirit here, you know! 
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#5
07-19-2006, 02:19 AM
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Fluffy,
I don't believe that your view of the traditional understanding of Hell being a place of eternal torment is actually true at all. I could cite numerous Fathers who did not hold to such a literalist view. St. Isaac the Syrian would be an obvious one. Nor do I believe that Hell is being apart fom God, however, so I chose to be difficult. For us, heven and hell are not places but states. In both states we experience the inescapable love of God (nowhere in creation can be apart from Him). If we hate and oppose God we experience this as torture. If we love Him as bliss. This is not a new teaching but rather a very old one. From our point of view it's the horned demons with pitch forks and flame that is the new teaching. James
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Doamne Iisuse Hristoase, Fiul lui Dumnezeu, miluieşte-mă pe mine, păcătosul.
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#6
07-19-2006, 02:33 AM
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Quote:
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O, I'll be the first with the christmas spirit here, you know!
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#7
07-19-2006, 02:34 AM
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Judaism doesn't believe in the hell of Christianity and neither do I.
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#8
07-19-2006, 08:17 AM
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I voted for, "It means existing completely and eternally severed from God" as closest to my view. However, I don't think anyone could be completely and eternally severed from God.
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"Do not be afraid of falling into emptiness. Falling into emptiness is not so bad.." - Layman P'ang
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#9
07-19-2006, 08:27 AM
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Fluffy, first off great thread. I noticed the same trend also. I think the conception of hell has changed for many that realize that the earth is not hollow as mankind gained knowledge of his envirorment but they need to keep the faith of their "evil one" so many migrated to the idea of hell being seperated from God in the same way that God's use to have shapes and faces lived in the ocean and in the mountains until one day man went into the oceans and the mountains and found God not to be there so God became invisible.
What is the most intresting thing about that notion is the camp that says Hell is not a physical place but instead is being away from God also contend that God is omnipresent which means it would be impossible to be away from God.
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