Do you believe in Hell?

No. I think that its nothing more than a metaphor, and taken literally is nothing more than a silly silly threat.

Well…you are wrong again! If you will take the time to lay aside your Queer times and go out and buy a King james Bible….and you take your time….and read it carefully…then you will (maybe)see that it never portrays Hell as a “metaphor”....or you can go on kidding yourself!

I have one. I’ve read it completely, and probably more thoroughly than most people have. What I found was a significant number of contradictions and altogether a largely allegorical text. (Which isn’t a bad thing, in particular. It just makes people act pretty silly when they take it literally.)

for what’s heaven or hell? what’s earth? All in the mind.

Do I believe in hell? I do believe there is a place where there is a complete absence of God. I’ve not really looked into it much and would like to look more into Christianity beyond what I’ve been taught in Sunday school which is rather limiting. I’ve not thought about it much really. My current personal beliefs are on the weak side to say the least and so I’m only scratching the surface :)

@Vic, it’s in poor taste to ask a question that you presume to know the answer to. If you want opinions, then let them go unmolested. If you are trying to evangelize us, take a hike.

Nope siree Bob.

Okay…you’ve got me there. I should not have posted that reply about the Bible…..but do tell what you honestly think. All religions seem to have some kind of Hellish idea for the immoral…don’t they?

Because a bunch of collectives have the same ideas doesn’t mean that they’re correct. It just means that they’re influenced by similar things.

Such as? What if there was a Hell? Honesty!

we experience heaven and hell in our lives on earth. sometimes you feel ecstatic. sometimes you feel like you like cant take no more pain. hitting a rockbottom is a personal hell.

…just turn on the news in america

If there’s a god who is so absurd as to send someone to hell just for not believing in him, i’ll at least be content that I’m in good company. All the great scientists and philosophers would be there, as well as many of the artists and visionaries. I think limbo would be fascinating. Chilling with millennium of righteous nonbelievers! What could be more interesting!

Vic, you must be a born again. For whatever reason, it always seems born-agains are almost militaristic in their defense of their beliefs. Like a smoker who quits and then scolds all his friends for still smoking.

No, I do not believe in a hell. The idea of a God who would create people and then send them to hell for not taking an active role in praising and giving grace is so unfathomable to me that even if it were real, I’d look the other way. There’s no way I could even fake it.

To quote Robert Ingersoll who wrote an essay titled Why I’m Agnostic in 1896 (before any thought of religious political bias, which is why I like it- he’s not some crazy left-winger):

“All who doubted or denied would be lost. To live a moral and
honest life—to keep your contracts, to take care of wife and
child—to make a happy home—to be a good citizen, a patriot,
a just and thoughtful man, was simply a respectable way of going to
hell.”

@Vicseay
delirium has a very strong point. I also feel it’s a metaphor. And to be fair you can’t really use the King James Bible as proof of much of anything. Do you really think that book is the word of God.

What about all the scribes who translated, and copied it over the years and change passages to suit?

What about how the book contradicts itself?

And tell me this, do you really think this God would be evil enough to condemn people to eternal torment? If the answer you have to that question in Yes, it might be worth having a look at the believe you have in him.

osullivanbr: I’m very happy you mentioned the translation aspect. Its one of the things about literal interpretation that makes me most uncomfortable. I suggest that anyone who doubts the difference in translations go out and start comparing a few. They say very very different things.

Very different things indeed. Very simple example. In the NT, the story about the woman who was brought before Jesus to be stoned for adultery wasn’t even in the earliest manuscripts. It was added in later!!

Two quotes that resonate with me:

An Inuit hunter asked the local missionary priest: “If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?” “No,” said the priest, “not if you did not know.” “Then why,” asked the Inuit earnestly, “did you tell me?”

-Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

and

As a tot I was given the usual terrifying mixed message: a) God is love; and b) If you don’t believe how much he loves you, you will stand in the corner for eternity.

- James Lileks

sndfreQ: I love those quotes. They’re incredibly powerful.

Sometimes, for some people, one could but hope . . .

My personal meter for a false religion:

A religion that ask you to believe in their “rumor” then claims something bad will happen if you don’t.

This kind of emotional blackmail just doesn’t work anymore.

ive was always taught god is a loving god. i dont see it though. if a god is responsible for creating a hell, earthquakes, wars and other human suffering how is that loving. maybe some of the people in the chinese earthquake were evil. most of them are probably decent people. why would god unleash that hell on innocent people. things like that make it hard for me to believe god is loving if god was responsible.

@buster
That is exactly the point I’m was trying to make with the discussion I started earlier.
Why Bad Things Happen

The Bible’s teachings contradict each other, he says that in order to see him you must believe, therefore saying that those who don’t believe can’t actively participate in his religion, but at the same time he says that those who don’t believe must be sent to hell, if his reasoning is to be accepted, then to avoid hell you simply have to not believe it exists.

Hell is a concept created by the Church in order to create fear among its followers and to extort money from those who are dying in order to save their souls.

I think if you actually belive in a hell that you’re taught, it transforms the one life you have into a form of hell.

So yes, it’s possible. Unfortunately, no lakes of fire though.

Vicseay, imagine that you had me, (a Buddhist, but otherwise upstanding member of society) hooked up to a contraption that would deliver me waves of unspeakable pain 24/7 for eternity. Not to get me to do anything, mind you, but just to put me through eternal agony. The switch is in your hand, and you will witness every moment of my writhing and screaming. Could you really do that?

Let me answer for those convinced that God really created a hell for us:

“Why no, Harp, I couldn’t do that; it would be inhuman. But God could, and he has indicated \that he would like to. Hurt Harp: mmmmm!”

delirium u rule

It was the weapon used by Catholics to scare the bejebus out of church goers. So that they would be good little Catholics.

Only one which we create ourselves.

I’ve used this before:

“Religion is what keeps the poor from killing the rich” – Napoleon Bonaparte

Hell is a state of mind to which you condemn yourself by believing there is such a place.

I think I’ve witnessed hell in the lives of some pretty messed up people. Ever observe someone who was so messed up that he or she didn’t realize how bad off they were? And whatever you do to try to help, they refuse you because they think they know better than you, but you’re not all messed up, you can see that there is happiness in a life without the drugs or the abuse or the evil… I’m not talking about someone who has had tough times, I’m talking about totally messed up, the very bottom of misery and self-inflicted suffering. This, in my mind, is what hell is. Totally caged, miserable, and unable to even see how bad off they really are, going on in the misery because they choose it.

Yes I believe in heaven and hell.