Ethics of Eternal Torment in Hell

[Dan4reason]

The bible describes a place where bad people and unbelievers will be tortured for eternity. So I have a few questions. First, is hell really what most people think it is? Second, is is ethical to torture people forever?

 

[Revoltingest]

To torture forever strikes me as pointless other than for vengeance.
I say it's unethical.

 

[Caladan]

The bible describes a place where bad people and unbelievers will be tortured for eternity.

There is a gap between the vague references to the Hebrew version of Hades in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) to hell in the New Testament, written centuries later during a time in which Second Temple Era Judaism had undergone several theological transformations.

So I have a few questions. First, is hell really what most people think it is?

The concept of hell has gone through great evolution through different periods. So people held various ideas about it in various ANE periods, Hellenistic periods, and Persian influenced periods.

Second, is is ethical to torture people forever?

Well there is this annoying neighbor two floors above that makes a lot of noise during the night, I'm opened for suggestions.

 

[ChristineES]

The Bible actually doesn't really teach eternal torment- it teaches about the grave. The word "fire" is probably a reference to purification. I know at least one story in the OT that used fire as purification.
That's just my view of the whole thing.

 

[Sleeppy]

Hell is a description of the state of humanity as a whole. Hellfire is a description of deterioration - of destructive habits. The self-important send others to "hell" supposing that they themselves are deserving of something different. But, as is testified in every book of the OT and NT, men of Adam die. Men of Adam are considered dead already; in hell already. The gospels make it very clear that we are all sinners, but given over to grace by the Spirit - the Word of God, saying "Father." We are sons of man - of Adam, and sons of God with all of our being. As every prophet went through the desert preaching and fasting, and dying on the way, being raised again into heaven, so also the other prodigal sons.

 

[Sleeppy]

Love your enemies. Bless the poor in spirit. Pardon the ignorant. Vindicate Judas.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Making someone immortal is unethical, regardless of where you put them. Any being that would curse someone to existence without end is twisted beyond measure. If such a being exists, we're pretty much all screwed, one way or the other.

 

[Sleeppy]

Making someone immortal is unethical, regardless of where you put them. Any being that would curse someone to existence without end is twisted beyond measure. If such a being exists, we're pretty much all screwed, one way or the other.

Why is immortality unethical?

 

[Man of Faith]

I don't believe that ethics have been established as an absolute by the OP, so there is no way to answer the question.

 

[Quintessence]

First, what do "most people" think hell is? I think we need to establish that before it is possible to answer the question. Further, if you cannot demonstrate that "most" (> 50%) of the global human population has this conception of hell, I would recommend using a more statistically ambiguous word like "some." Though honestly, regardless of all that, given there is no way of objectively verifying the nature of this "hell" there is no way to establish whether it is like what "most people" think it is or even what "some people" think it is.

Second, I don't for one moment believe that any biological organism in this universe lasts forever, so the question is moot. The conditions cannot occur.

 

[Skwim]

• "And these will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power," (2 Thess. 1:9).

• "Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example, in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire" (Jude 7).

• These men are those who are hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted; 13 wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever," (Jude12-13).

Sounds pretty damning to me, as well as extremely unloving, unkind, unjust, and outright immoral.

 

[Sleeppy]

Skwim,

It's supposed to sound like cause and effect. The natural occurrances of life on Earth. From good acts, good things.. Forever. Vice verse.

 

[ChristineES]

• "And these will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power," (2 Thess. 1:9).

• "Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example, in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire" (Jude 7).

• These men are those who are hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted; 13 wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever," (Jude12-13).

Sounds pretty damning to me, as well as extremely unloving, unkind, unjust, and outright immoral.

It says the fire is unquenchable, not anything thrown into it. And death is eternal.

 

[Skwim]

It says the fire is unquenchable, not anything thrown into it. And death is eternal.

Yup. But so what?

The " . . . penalty of eternal destruction. . . , " ". . . punishment of eternal fire," and the ". . . black darkness . . . reserved forever," certainly doesn't sound like a walk in the park. And no matter how one gets there, according to the cited scripture, in Hell one will undergo eternal destruction and eternal fire, and do so forever.

 

[Straw Dog]

Hello Christine,

The Bible actually doesn't really teach eternal torment- it teaches about the grave. The word "fire" is probably a reference to purification. I know at least one story in the OT that used fire as purification.
That's just my view of the whole thing.

Yeshua also spoke of being baptized by fire in the NT. I believe it is in reference to the dissolution of ego and birth of the Christ within. This occurs after the purification process initiated symbolically by water baptism. In practical life, there's probably a good deal of overlap however.

 

[Straw Dog]

Hell is a metaphor representing the state of mind entangled in egocentrism. It really is a pain in the ***.

 

[Skwim]

Skwim,

It's supposed to sound like cause and effect.

And it does. Cross god in some particular way(s) and you gonna suffer, mate.

The natural occurrances of life on Earth. From good acts, good things.. Forever. Vice verse.

???

 

[Sleeppy]

And it does. Cross god in some particular way(s) and you gonna suffer, mate.

???

Reality and common sense. More common than people's perceptions of certain languages and figures of speech.

 

[ChristineES]

Yup. But so what?

The " . . . penalty of eternal destruction. . . , " ". . . punishment of eternal fire," and the ". . . black darkness . . . reserved forever," certainly doesn't sound like a walk in the park. And no matter how one gets there, according to the cited scripture, in Hell one will undergo eternal destruction and eternal fire, and do so forever.

It's funny how two people can look at the same verses and get something totally different from it.
Questions to be asked: Is eternal death torment? Is there really any eternal death, if we can say that the fire is "purification"? I don't have any answers to those questions- about all any of us can do is interpret it and listen to other's interpretations as well.
I am not always right about things- I only wish I was.