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Hell

Green Gaia

Veteran Member
What is Hell? Do you believe in a Hell? Outside of the Bible, what proof do we have that such a place exists?
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
I don't believe in Hell as a place. I think it's a metaphor or symbol for what it is like to live a spiritually devoid or corrupt life.
 

Scott1

Well-Known Member
Outside of the Bible, what proof do we have that such a place exists?
You crack me up Maize....... why add this to your question?

Close your eyes........ now, just using your vision, what proof do you have that the sky is blue?

:D
Scott
 

Jaymes

The cake is a lie
I don't believe in the version of hell I was taught about growing up--that it's a place where those damn non-Christians go when they die to be burned and tortured for all eternity. (I think the soul is pure energy, anyway... how could you burn energy?)

I think it's a propoganda tool used to keep people in line.
 

Green Gaia

Veteran Member
SOGFPP said:
You crack me up Maize....... why add this to your question?

Close your eyes........ now, just using your vision, what proof do you have that the sky is blue?

:D
Scott
:p I don't know... just wondering... actually I should have phrased more like 'outside of Christianity, what other religions teach of such a place?'
 

linwood

Well-Known Member
I don't know... just wondering... actually I should have phrased more like 'outside of Christianity, what other religions teach of such a place?'

Thats a good question other than the Judeo/Christian/Islamic religions who believes in Hell?

I think modern concepts of Hell originated more from Dantes Inferno than the Bible.

The Bible only speaks of a "Lake of Fire" that I know of.
 

Ceridwen018

Well-Known Member
Yes, and brimstone and such.

Hehe, for all of you out there who take the bible literally:

"The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed. Our authority
is Isaiah 30:26, "Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as the light of
the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven
days." Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much radiation as we do from
the Sun, and in addition 7*7 (49) times as much as the Earth does from the
Sun, or 50 times in all. The light we receive from the Moon is one
1/10,000 of the light we receive from the Sun, so we can ignore that ...
The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where the heat
lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation, i.e.,
Heaven loses 50 times as much heat as the Earth by radiation. Using the
Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation, (H/E)
temperature of the earth (-300K), gives H as 798K (525C). The exact
temperature of Hell cannot be computed ... [However] Revelations 21:8 says
"But the fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their part in the lake
which burneth with fire and brimstone." A lake of molten brimstone means
that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point, 444.6C. We
have, then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C."
[From "Applied Optics" vol. 11, A14, 1972]
I'm pretty sure about this, but doesn't Judaism NOT believe in an afterlife?
 

Druidus

Keeper of the Grove
Thats a good question other than the Judeo/Christian/Islamic religions who believes in Hell?

The Vikings believed in a frozen icy wasteland for "hell". They believed that if you didn't die in battle, you would go there. However, if you did die in battle, you would go to "Valhalla", a place of infinite mead, and infinite women. The fact that you needed to die in battle led many people, dying of disease or age to request a battle with their relatives, in which they fought whole-heartedly, and hopefully, died. For us Druids, we have no concept of "hell". Sure there are worse realms, even "hell-like" ones but none of these are eternal, as we die there too, and move up, if we learned enough, into a better realm.
 

linwood

Well-Known Member
Ceridwen018 said:
Yes, and brimstone and such.

Hehe, for all of you out there who take the bible literally:


I'm pretty sure about this, but doesn't Judaism NOT believe in an afterlife?

It would seem that way.

I was reading the Book of Job last night and he kept speaking as if there was no afterlife when he was wishing he was dead.

However a few chapters later he speaks of Hell so...who knows?
 

standing_on_one_foot

Well-Known Member
Ceridwen018 said:
I'm pretty sure about this, but doesn't Judaism NOT believe in an afterlife?
Nah, we're just extremely unclear on what it is. It's not very important to the religion, really, which focuses much more on this life. It's almost more of an, if you'll excuse the pun, afterthought :p
 

Ardhanariswar

I'm back!
ya, i agree. concentrate on doing good in this life before you start on the next.

lol. i shouldnt be talking. ive already made plans to become a world famous bharathanatyam dancer in the 1800s of my next life. just praying that i will be born in the 1800s as a human girl in south india.

hell, i think is mental and spiritual state of conciousness in suffering. the fire and brimstone, i believe are supposedly physical equvalents which we can relate too, though ultimatly, suffering of the spirituality is much more devestating and painful. i think those stories were meant for kids to stay in line, as someone had said earlier. it speaks to the little kids in all of us. when it comes to matter of religion and spirituality, many of us are at the mercy of what our priests and gurus teach us. because many of us are not taught by our parents while we are kids. how do kids know how to discern between right and wrong? it has to grow with us.

eekk. thats how far deep i shall go. my mind cant take any more pressure. i must sit in front of my 50" tv, munch on some cadbury's dairy milk and watch bravo.
 

destined

Member
Okay. For starters...

Revelation says..."He who does not overcome, his name shall be blotted out of the book of life"

Here the word life (greek = psuke' = soul) is better translated into soul. Thus we actually have the book of souls.

The question I have is this...

If our soul is erased (which is a translation of "blotted out"), then even if there is a place after this life called Hell, how could we experience it if our very existence is erased???

This also seems to tie into what the Bible says when it says that..."the gift of Christ is eternal life" Most Christians say that the opposite of eternal life is eternal damnation... This can't be true... the opposite of eternal life is NO LIFE not eternal damnation.

Jesus also says what would it profit a person if they were to gain the whole world and yet FORFIT their SOUL.

So we have a conundrum here... I'm not saying that I don't believe in Hell... i'm just saying that it is most definatley not what the Catholic Church thought up some couple thousand years ago to scare people into tithing.
 

destined

Member
Also... there are four different words used in the Bible for hell..
Sheol...Gehenna...Hades...and Tartaroo

??? What do they all mean and are there different types of hell???

I agree with the idea that hell is a state of conciousness. The Psalmist David writes..
"Where can I go and you are not there?
If I ascend to the highest heaven, you are there.
If I make my bed in the lowest hell you are there."

So... there are obviously levels of Hell. As described by the Bible.

I will through this out there so that you will have a mental picture of these "levels"

God (regardless of religious backround) could be described and pure light energy... we know that as pure energy slows down in becomes matter or material substance. We might say that the more physical you are or material something is... the further away it is from His/Her presence. This is along the lines of acceleration and deceleration spiritually, and is quite interesting when delved into deeper.
 

HelpMe

·´sociopathic meanderer`·
ps86:13?For great is thy lovingkindness toward me; And thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest Sheol.

de32:22?For a fire is kindled in mine anger, And burneth unto the lowest Sheol, And devoureth the earth with its increase, And setteth on fire the foundations of the mountains.

those?the 'bible' actually teaches of no actual 'hell', it is metaphorical for not living.

'hell' is not a biblical word.

Jeremiah 10:24"O [yhwh], correct me, but in measure: not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing."

Psalms 31:17"Let me not be ashamed, [yhwh]; for I have called upon thee: let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in the grave".

check this link

and this one

Ec12:7"and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to elohim('God') who gave it."

for scriptural discussion on hell
 

Mister Emu

Emu Extraordinaire
Staff member
Premium Member
the 'bible' actually teaches of no actual 'hell',

You are incorrect.

But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

Mattew 5:22

And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Matthew 13:42

Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire

Mattew 18:8

And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched. Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

Mark 9:43-44
 

destined

Member
okay... we all know that when we come into a certain situation we bring with us many assumptions. So I will attempt to define a few things so that everyone's concept of HELL might not be affected by our biases (if that is possible)


So. We see from the quoted scriptures that the duration of hell is "eternity" The problem is that people think of eternity as infinity, when in actuality it is not. Eternity has an end. To be "eternal" is to be in a perpetual state of existance outside of the time-space dimention, however that does not mean that eternity can't or does not represent a certain frame of time.

Think of it like this... If you were to dive into a word study on the word eternity it could best be described as 1 alpha and 1 omega... In a pictoral form eternity is represented by a circle. In a circle it is always the begining(alpha), and always the end(omega). Now imagine cutting that cirlcle and laying it flat on the table. This is what we call our historical time line.
What does this mean???
That the extent of time from the begining to the end of this universe could accuratly be described as one eternity.

Thus, when speaking of hell it could actually be speaking of our earth time.

Also interesting to note:

***In the above verses we see that in hell there is great "weeping and gnashing of teeth" SOUNDS A LOT LIKE EARTH for where else is there weeping and gnashing of teeth, surely not in the "spiritual" afterlife, for there will be no teeth to gnash and no eyes for weeping, this must describe our present condition...

***Also remember that we can't ONLY TAKE FROM THE BIBLE WHAT WE LIKE AND DISCARD WHAT WE DON'T... So the verses from 'HelpMe' have to somehow correlate with the verses that 'Mister Emu' shared with the forum.

*********Also the lake of fire would best be represented by the Milky Way Galaxy which looks (from an objective space view) to be like a big cloud of smoke, (doesn't it say in Rev. 12 that 1/3 of the angels in heaven were cast down to earth (it actually says stars, but 99% of the church would understand that to be angels do multitudes of other verses in the Bible in reference to stars as angels.) So could those angels which were cast down to earth take on human bodies and could those human bodies be described as chains of darkness (from the book of Jude in the Bible) reserved for judgement, and could those bodies also be called "tartaroo" (from 1st Peter in the Bible, translated as hell, but better understood as a human bodie)????

Very interesting??? Why are we here anyway???
 

destined

Member
HelpMe said:
ps86:13?For great is thy lovingkindness toward me; And thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest Sheol.

de32:22?For a fire is kindled in mine anger, And burneth unto the lowest Sheol, And devoureth the earth with its increase, And setteth on fire the foundations of the mountains.

those?the 'bible' actually teaches of no actual 'hell', it is metaphorical for not living.

'hell' is not a biblical word.

Jeremiah 10:24"O [yhwh], correct me, but in measure: not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing."

I think what you mean is that there is hell but not as it is interpreted by the normal christian...

For hell is exactly what your verses say it is... a "correcting place" Jer. 10:24

Also those are good links that you used, I forgot that the word Sheol is translated into the word "pit" and the psalmest is constantly asking the Lord to save him from this "pit" or "this miry clay"

What he is saying is "save me from this sheol" ...."this hell"
 
Very good Destined!!
This is a very controversial subject! To answer that other religions teach a hell like doctrine, the Greeks taught about an after life under the earth where it burned continually! The main dogma of "Hell" was instituted by the Roman Catholic Church to instill FEAR into the laity for many reasons! Protestants have just carried it over! Jewish people know that Sheol is the grave and that a ressurection will take place in the future! The word hell means to hide something out of site etc. Gehenna was a burning dump outside the city of Jerusalem in the time of Jesus/Yashua and the writeings of the apostles. For the record let me say here that "Hell" is not eternal but like some of you can see it is in many degrees like right here on earth and maybe after death in some way a trainning experience to restore one to God and life!! If there is a burning it will be like a purification to relieve us of our carnal natures and bring forth the divine nature in us! But this is not in a physical sense! Our God is a consumeing FIRE!
Correction is the key word again thank you Destined!
 

Mister Emu

Emu Extraordinaire
Staff member
Premium Member
For hell is exactly what your verses say it is... a "correcting place" Jer. 10:24

I have read Jer. 10:24 and saw nothing in reference to hell.

For great is thy lovingkindness toward me; And thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest Sheol.

Sheol can be translated three ways, it is all how you do it, I believe this sheol means pit, as in this lowest pit.

Psalms 31:17"Let me not be ashamed, [yhwh]; for I have called upon thee: let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in the grave".

This verse, and the following ones implies that a spirit can talk after it is dead, the psalmist is praying to God to stop their lies.

de32:22?For a fire is kindled in mine anger, And burneth unto the lowest Sheol, And devoureth the earth with its increase, And setteth on fire the foundations of the mountains.

There will be a fire reaching down to the lowest hell what more can I say.

The main dogma of "Hell" was instituted by the Roman Catholic Church to instill FEAR into the laity for many reasons! Protestants have just carried it over!

To me it shows the mercy of God, as without Jesus taking our sins upon Himself and dieing on the cross I would be condemned to the eternal fires of hell.

definition of eternal at dictionary.com

Being without beginning or end; existing outside of time. See Synonyms at infinite.
Continuing without interruption; perpetual.
Forever true or changeless: eternal truths.
Seemingly endless; interminable. See Synonyms at ageless. See Synonyms at continual.
Of or relating to spiritual communion with God, especially in the afterlife.

emphasis mine.
 
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