Thana
Lady
Still not hard to understand, vague or any hidden meaning.
It's talking about how we perceive them.
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What in the Hell is Hell?
- Thread starter savethedreams
- Start date
Still not hard to understand, vague or any hidden meaning.
It's talking about how we perceive them.
Levite
Higher and Higher
I wouldn't know. Jews don't believe in Hell.
savethedreams
Active Member
What makes you say Jesus doesn't believe in 'Hell"?
Levite
Higher and Higher
He might have believed in Hell-- his teachings were heretical, after all.
But if I had to guess, he probably didn't believe in Hell: he was probably one of the Pharisaic Jews at the time who believed in Gehinnom, which is a (non-dogmatically required) purgatory, where sinners were said to spend varying amounts of time after death purging themselves of unresolved sins. Historically, most Jews have not chosen to believe in Gehinnom, but there have been times the belief enjoyed popularity, and the Rabbinic Era was one such time. The belief has also been most popular with radical ascetics and those fixated on sin and purity, of which Jesus certainly would seem to qualify.
Tumah
Veteran Member
Is there a qualifier or source that you could base this claim on?
Levite
Higher and Higher
I've seen it in writing, though I can't recall where off the top of my head. But I first heard it in a lecture by Rabbi Moshe Benovitz-- the one from the Schechter Institute, not the one from Yeshivat Rei****.
Tumah
Veteran Member
I haven't heard of either of them. I find it difficult to believe such a statement is to be be found in Rabbinic literature of the past 1,000 years in any sizable number.
JayJayDee
Avid JW Bible Student
My faith has been built on knowledge. I have studied the Bible for over 40 years and during that time I have built my faith on a solid foundation. For the first part of my life, the foundation I had was the one you have. Everything I built on it fell down. When you try to build a picture of God on Christendom's version of events, you end up with someone who a mysterious three headed monster. One part is the gentle Jesus and another part is heartless and cruel. The third part has no name or personality at all. I could not love such a weird God.
When I came into contact with JW's, I quickly realised why I had failed to build faith in God....I didn't know him!
I was told about Jesus and the son was substituted for the Father. This is NOT what Jesus taught. He wanted us to know Jehovah, "Our Father in Heaven".....this is the primary thing that permeates all his teachings. He did not draw attention to himself, but directed all honour and glory and worship to his God and Father. (Luke 4:8) He very much portrayed himself as a servant of his God, not ever as God himself.
If I had remained in Christendom...I would have gravitated toward atheism. My sense of logic and justice was offended by the God of Christendom. I am glad I found the true God all those years ago and have been in his service ever since.
As Jesus said in John 17:3-4......"And this is the way to have eternal life—to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth. I brought glory to you here on earth by completing the work you gave me to do." (NLT)
If we don't know Jehovah, "the only true God" then we can never truly know Jesus, "the one he sent to earth" to teach us about him.
In answer to your question....my faith depends on "knowing" my God......the same God that Jesus knows. This is NOT the God that Christendom serves.
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arthra
Baha'i
My own view is that you may not have a physical body in the next world..the spiritual world... but you do have a Spirit or Soul. Looking back on your life in retrospect was there anything you did that you're not particularly proud of? Maybe something you did that rather "burns" in your conscience? You may wake up some morning and a memory surfaces of an act you committed that was well rather disgusting or maybe cruel... It's something that happened a long time ago but you still recall it and what does that say? ... this is a kind of memory that keeps popping up in your mind...forget the body.
The point is ...all of us have memories and recalling them is something that can weigh on us. To be honest many of us do not have a very high opinion of ourselves
"Hell" in the Baha'i view is being distant from God... We were not near God or following His teachings when we committed these acts.
"Think ye of love and good fellowship as the delights of heaven, think ye of hostility and hatred as the torments of hell."
~ Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, p. 244
There are some things we can do about these memories that still "burn" in our souls..
One is to pray God for forgiveness..
I beseech Thee, O my Lord, by Thy mercy that hath surpassed the entire creation, and Thy generosity that hath embraced all created things, to cause me to turn my face wholly towards Thee, and to seek Thy shelter, and to be steadfast in my love for Thee. Write down, then, for me what Thou didst ordain for them who love Thee. Powerful art Thou to do what Thou pleasest. No God is there beside Thee, the Ever-Forgiving, the All-Bountiful.
~ Baha'u'llah, Prayers and Meditations by Baha'u'llah, p. 24
Another is to perform an act of service to compensate perhaps in some way for the acts we've committed..
The friends of God should become the manifestors in this world of this mercy and love. They should not dwell on the shortcomings of others. Ceaselessly should they be thinking how they may benefit others and show service and co-operation. Thus should they regard every stranger, putting aside such prejudices and superstitions as might prevent friendly relations.
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Thana
Lady
I'm so afraid of being blind, Blinded by doctrine, Blinded by the church, Blinded by the flesh. The truth is, If I was, I wouldn't know it. I'd believe I was right.
That scares me because I know so many Christians who are so sure of their beliefs but they can't see how far from God they are.
Since I can't know if I'm on the wrong path, All I can do is trust God. Trust that He won't let me fall away or stumble or believe in the wrong things. It's my faith that saves me.
If you would fall away from God just because hell may exist, Then how faithful are you really? How can you know you're not blinded by your church or your doctrine or your fears?
Katzpur
Not your average Mormon
He didn't say "Jesus doesn't believe in Hell." He said "Jews don't believe in Hell."
Katzpur
Not your average Mormon
I am curious, Levite. What do Jews believe will be the fate of the wicked? I can't imagine that Jews don't speculate on how God is going to deal with Hitler.
JayJayDee
Avid JW Bible Student
Yep...been there, done that.
When I was searching and trying out new "religions" I did not know what I was looking for either. But when the truth was presented to me, I recognised it right away. I didn't want it to be true though, because of who was telling me.
I had heard nothing but bad things about JW's, so I kept it all at arms length until I had checked it out thoroughly. I would only use my old KJV and I was not backward in asking the tough questions. What was met with blank stares and stammers in my old church, was answered straight from God's word with the Witnesses. It took two solid years of study to be convinced that I had at last found the truth. These people didn't just talk the talk...they literally walked the walk. They had the answers I had been searching for all my life.
I couldn't agree more. But like those who made the decision to follow Jesus, they listened to what he had to say, observed the kind of person he was, and decided to find out more about him and what he taught. This is what I did with the Witnesses. You see, you can't "join" Jehovah's Witnesses....you have to become one by choice. Like those first century followers of Christ, who had to leave their former beliefs behind (whether Jew or gentile) and start a new life as disciples of a new teacher. They had to present themselves publicly for baptism, which placed them under obligation to live their lives no longer for themselves, but for the promotion of Jesus teachings. This was despite the opposition that Jesus said would naturally follow....
John 15:18-21.....“If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of the world, so it hates you. Do you remember what I told you? ‘A slave is not greater than the master.’ Since they persecuted me, naturally they will persecute you. And if they had listened to me, they would listen to you. They will do all this to you because of me, for they have rejected the one who sent me." (NLT)
How many people experience what Jesus said there, in the churches?
JW's cop more flack for less offence than anyone I know....most of it is exactly what Jesus and his disciples experienced and for all the same reasons. It takes courage to be among those hated by the world....but we wouldn't be anywhere else.
Well, it isn't like that....you see I never thought that God could possibly be the one promoted by Christendom in the first place...that is why I left. I didn't leave God, I left a corrupt church system and went looking for the God I knew existed, but was not to be found in the confusing and unscriptural doctrines of Christendom. The "weeds" are real and they flourish in satan's world. (1 John 5:19) My faith when I was in the church system was weak and meaningless.....but now it is a wall, strong and impenetrable. I know what I believe and why I believe it and where to find it in God's word.
Getting out of Babylon the great is the best choice I have ever made. (Rev 18:4, 5)
Jesus said we would "know the truth" and that it would "set us free"......I never appreciated what that meant until I experienced it.
I pray you have that experience too.
Levite
Higher and Higher
There are and have been actually quite a number of varying ideas and opinions about this.
Originally, in Biblical times, there was the idea of Sheol. Though it is often mistranslated simply as "the grave," in Biblical times, it would appear that Sheol was thought of as an underworld, probably something vaguely akin to Hades: everybody went there when they died-- good, bad, mediocre, whatever. Though it does not appear to have been a place of torment, it also doesn't appear to have been a place of much joy, either.
As I alluded to before, there is a concept that developed later in Judaism that's much closer to Hell, called Gehinnom. It was a place where those who died with unrepented sins went in the afterlife, wherein they "worked off" their sin in some sort of unpleasant way-- some said merely spending time there, some characterized it with various unpleasant or even painful miseries, some with downright torturous afflictions for the truly evil. But it was not truly a Hell, but a purgatory: everyone was presumed to be there only temporarily. The usual maximum conceived of was a year. Belief in Gehinnom seems to have begun around the turn of the Common Era, but it was never universal, and never dogmatic. It has been a more and less popular belief at different times, but overall, historically, most Jews seem to have chosen (actively or apathetically) not to believe in Gehinnom.
In early Rabbinic times, some people apparently thought that any afterlife at all was only for the good, or at least decent: the wicked simply lost their afterlife privileges. That belief does not appear to have lasted much beyond the first couple centuries of the Common Era, and it is unclear whether it was common or rare. Some people, later on, apparently conceived of the good going directly to Olam ha-Ba ("The World To Come," more or less our analogue of Heaven, though it's not precisely the same thing), but the wicked being forced to wait in sort of an abeyance or limbo until the End of Time before being allowed into Olam ha-Ba.
Others have dispensed entirely with any kind of anthropomorphism, and have characterized the "torment of Gehinnom" or the waiting for "Olam ha-Ba" as the soul of the evildoer after death being objectively able to judge itself, and recognizing its own attenuated connection to God, which is said to be causative of more grief than any torture. Maimonidean rationalists believed that the ability of the soul to sustain any kind of individuality and consciousness after death was entirely dependent upon the person becoming ever more enlightened (through Torah study and study of [neo-]Aristotelian philosophy): the souls of the wicked, being unenlightened by nature, would just sort of exist as mindless energy, or as a few later suggested, return to be re-absorbed into God. There have been various other attempts to conceive of and characterize the afterlife, as well: it's kind of a free-for-all, since Jews are required to believe in the eternality of the soul, but not to believe in any specific doctrine of the nature of the afterlife.
Personally, I go with a modified Kabbalistic option (that is, something drawn from esoteric Jewish mysticism): gilgulei neshamot, which is basically reincarnation. If someone dies with unresolved sins, or insufficient meritorious acts or enlightenment, they get sent back-- again and again-- until they do good deeds equal or greater in merit to the evil deeds they did previously, and until they become enlightened: which is to say, they become compassionate, humble, empathetic, full of lovingkindness, and dedicated to justice and righteousness. Once that happens, they can choose to come back again-- kind of like a bodhisattva type of deal-- or they can move on to Olam ha-Ba.
Thana
Lady
Well, I guess you found the God you wanted then.
I'm okay with not having all the answers though, I'm no teacher and have no desire to be. I'm a student, not a leader. I trust I'll get the answers I'm supposed to have, no more no less.
And I apologize for questioning your faith, That's not for me to judge.
savethedreams
Active Member
Katzpur
Not your average Mormon
Thank you for that very comprehensive, very interesting response!
JayJayDee
Avid JW Bible Student
No, not just the God I wanted....he was the true God and he changed me into what He wanted me to be. That is the difference. Too many people want God to fit their mould, rather than them fitting into his.
If the answers are given and they don't appeal to you...or if you are afraid of change, then you will be where you have placed yourself come the judgment. We are all given "talents" according to our abilities. God never gives us more than we can carry. The slave with the one talent was not expected to achieve the same result as the slave with ten, or even five.....but he did nothing with it and lost what he had.
Our choices now, (what we do with our talents) will determine our eternal future. I hope we can all make those choices with courage, for what use is faith if we have no courage in our convictions?
None of us should answer a question with "I don't know" when it comes to our faith. (1 Pet 3:15)
No offence taken. It was a fair question. Hopefully it was answered in a fair way.
McBell
Resident Sourpuss
Yet you failed to clarify it in your desperate need to attack JWs...
Thana
Lady
I don't know why you think that.
And what I said was a clarification, So I don't know how one clarifys a clarification.