Hell

[Taahir]

Or maybe the deity created us to learn, by living then reunite with it? Maybe if someone is really bad, they get cleansed or reborn to learn what they failed to learn the first time around?

There's much more than just hell as an option and I'm sure there's loads I haven't thought of... Many more loving and just than throwing someone in scorching fire for eternity.

I agree, there's definitely a lot of options. I just find we try really hard to convince ourselves there is no possibly way an eternal Hell COULD be an option.

 

[illykitty]

I agree, there's definitely a lot of options. I just find we try really hard to convince ourselves there is no possibly way an eternal Hell COULD be an option.

Not saying it can't be, just that it's unlikely and inconsistent with my views of the deity.

Btw, I hope you don't feel attacked, I don't want to come off this way!

 

[Kalidas]

I agree, there's definitely a lot of options. I just find we try really hard to convince ourselves there is no possibly way an eternal Hell COULD be an option.

A good many things are possible. God CAN in fact be a raging sadist that wants to watch countless creations be tortured for eternity, I just sorely doubt it.

 

[Taahir]

Not saying it can't be, just that it's unlikely and inconsistent with my views of the deity.

Btw, I hope you don't feel attacked, I don't want to come off this way!

Oh of course, not at all! I hope I haven't come off in a similar manner either. My apologies if I have!

Just a discussion I wanted to start up based on my own thoughts. Sometimes I question if God would really create an eternal Hell, and then I start to question myself if I'm only thinking that because I'm scared of going to such a place.

 

[Taahir]

A good many things are possible. God CAN in fact be a raging sadist that wants to watch countless creations be tortured for eternity, I just sorely doubt it.

Yeah this is more of what I was getting at. Do we genuinely doubt it, or do we have an extreme deep rooted fear of it that makes us try to convince ourselves it can't exist.

Would it really make God a sadist though? I doubt God would actually get any pleasure or entertainment out of it. God's thinking process and everything would probably be different than ours. To us it may seem like sadistic torture, but to God maybe it would seem like eternal justice for not serving and following your creator.

 

[Kalidas]

Oh of course, not at all! I hope I haven't come off in a similar manner either. My apologies if I have!

Just a discussion I wanted to start up based on my own thoughts. Sometimes I question if God would really create an eternal Hell, and then I start to question myself if I'm only thinking that because I'm scared of going to such a place.

Here let me give you the same advice I give myself. When I was a Christian I lived CONSTANTLY in fear of God. I decided one day I no longer wanted to be afraid of my creator. Hell or no Hell living in constant fear is a 100% sure way to put yourself in Hell here and now

 

[Taahir]

Here let me give you the same advice I give myself. When I was a Christian I lived CONSTANTLY in fear of God. I decided one day I no longer wanted to be afraid of my creator. Hell or no Hell living in constant fear is a 100% sure way to put yourself in Hell here and now

This is very true. Thanks for that brother. It's definitely making me a lot more depressed and worried than I need to be all the time.

 

[Pegg]

So do you think you are conscious in this grave forever, made to contemplate and regret that you did not follow the truth, or are you just dead.

consciousness is the difference between life and death.

Ecclesiastes 9:5*For the living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all,



So to be dead means to be completely unaware, completely unconscious (just as when someone is asleep or knocked unconscious for a time)

 

[james2ko]

For those of us here (especially those who believe in a God/Higher Power/A Source) who do not believe in a physical Hell, do you ever think if this is because you genuinely don't, or because you don't want to, because the thought of going to such a place for a long time or eternity is too frightening and too much to bear?

There are four different words all translated "hell" in most English bibles. One in the OT (sheol) covered by Pegg (sheol) . The other three in the NT (hades, gehenna, tartarus). Hades is equivalent to the OT "sheol" simply meaning a grave. Gehenna was an ever burning, ancient garbage dump just south of Jerusalem where refuse and carcasses of humans and animals were tossed.

Tartarus is a literal but unseen spiritual prison, beneath the earth, reserved only for satan and his demons. Many get the three confused hence the myriad of hell doctrines. Scripture indicates dead humans go to hell --"hades"-the grave. On their judgment day, the physically resurrected wicked will be tossed in a gehenna type fire and simply cease to exist-- not burn for eternity.

 

[Moishe3rd]

All souls go to Heaven....
(Well, nearly all souls.)
This World is a the World of Lies; the Material World; the World where our Soul is in conflict with all the Desires and Passions of our physical Body.
We are here to overcome the flaws that our Soul may have...
When we pass on from This World to The World to Come; The World of Truth; Olam Habah - where we sit will depend on who was in charge - our Soul or our Body.
Those who have accumulated a lifetime of wrong choices firmly rooted in The Material World will have to be separated from their erroneous attachments in order to be able to "live in" Olam Habah.
This could be called "Hell." As one might imagine, this could be a very painful process for the Soul who is totally steeped in the Passions and Desires of This World.
However, according to our Torah, the worst criminals who are most attached to This World would only spend a year in Gehinnom or "Hell," whatever that means...
There is also an idea that there may be souls so utterly degraded and irredeemable that they are destroyed or, to put it in my words - ground up in the Cosmic Incinerator and used for spare parts.

Otherwise, all souls go to Heaven! :beach:

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Hell is a post-Torah concept evolved to deal with the problem of evil.

 

[Sleeppy]

The interpretations that say there is everlasting torture, and therefore everlasting evil, are dualistic. If people accept one God, and know the capabilities and ignorances assigned mankind by God, they know God's true plan.

 

[Katzpur]

For those of us here (especially those who believe in a God/Higher Power/A Source) who do not believe in a physical Hell, do you ever think if this is because you genuinely don't, or because you don't want to, because the thought of going to such a place for a long time or eternity is too frightening and too much to bear?

I don't believe in a permanent physical Hell where non-believers, etc. will burn or some such thing forever more. I don't believe this for two reasons: (1) It doesn't make sense to me that a loving Father in Heaven would punish anyone this way and (2) My religion doesn't teach it.

A quote I really like (from a late-LDS leader whom I believe borrowed it from someone else) goes like this: To believe in God is to believe that, in the end, everything will be fair and there will be many wonderful surprises.

 

[Sha'irullah]

If God is All Knowing and All Powerful, wouldn't God be able to judge mankind? Or do absolutely anything for that matter?

Just out of curiosity why do you think God would not care. Just trying to get a better grasp of your beliefs.

Many of our actions come from our biological cores of thought...the brain. Many people like psychopaths or emotionally distraught individuals are abused and are made into the monsters they are now.

God cannot judge something that has no free will over many of its own actions which stem from the environment.

On top of this if god gave mankind the ability to sin and judges us for it later and expects the morality to be objective by means of a religion which could not spread properly this would imply that God either loves playing games or he is imperfect and highly weak.

God is omniscience and can see past and present. So for this deity to judge us would be irrelevant as it would have no free will with its own actions and could not possibly care about our actions. Our actions do not affect it whatsoever. The loving empathetic emotions we have are thanks to our brain and we know this as a fact now. God is not a human being and does not think of us as a human does.

 

[captainbryce]

For those of us here (especially those who believe in a God/Higher Power/A Source) who do not believe in a physical Hell, do you ever think if this is because you genuinely don't, or because you don't want to, because the thought of going to such a place for a long time or eternity is too frightening and too much to bear?

I don't believe in it because:

A) it doesn't actually make any sense (and usually when things don't make sense, they aren't true)

B) the existence of hell (as traditionally taught) is contradictory to the nature of God

C) the existence of hell (as traditionally taught) is contradictory to what is written in the bible


So for all of those reasons, I don't believe in hell. I actually find the idea quite silly to be honest.

 

[captainbryce]

There are four different words all translated "hell" in most English bibles. One in the OT (sheol) covered by Pegg (sheol) . The other three in the NT (hades, gehenna, tartarus). Hades is equivalent to the OT "sheol" simply meaning a grave. Gehenna was an ever burning, ancient garbage dump just south of Jerusalem where refuse and carcasses of humans and animals were tossed.

Tartarus is a literal but unseen spiritual prison, beneath the earth, reserved only for satan and his demons. Many get the three confused hence the myriad of hell doctrines. Scripture indicates dead humans go to hell --"hades"-the grave. On their judgment day, the physically resurrected wicked will be tossed in a gehenna type fire and simply cease to exist-- not burn for eternity.

^This! :yes:

:clap:clap:clap

 

[Katzpur]

On their judgment day, the physically resurrected wicked will be tossed in a gehenna type fire and simply cease to exist-- not burn for eternity.

They will "simply cease to exist"? This, to me, makes no sense whatsoever and has no basis in scripture. To begin with, why would God even bother resurrecting them at all if He's going to turn right around and cause them to cease to exist? If He never bothered to resurrect them in the first place, wouldn't the end effect be the same? There has got to be some logical reason why He'd resurrect them and then do away with them.

 

[captainbryce]

They will "simply cease to exist"? This, to me, makes no sense whatsoever and has no basis in scripture. To begin with, why would God even bother resurrecting them at all if He's going to turn right around and cause them to cease to exist? If He never bothered to resurrect them in the first place, wouldn't the end effect be the same? There has got to be some logical reason why He'd resurrect them and then do away with them.

But it does have a basis in scripture. In fact, it's exactly what scripture says will happen. There is a judgment day which lasts through the thousand year reign of Jesus Christ when people will be judged for the deeds they do during that reign, this happens after the resurrection of the righteous and the unrighteous. People will not be judged for the sins they committed before they died because their death paid for those sins, but they will be judged for what they do during the thousand years Jesus rules over the earth. For Christians, the death of Christ paid for all sins (past, present and future) and they are saved from the second death and part of the first Resurrection.

Romans 3:23
For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.

Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.

Daniel 12:2
Many of those whose bodies lie dead and buried will rise up, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting disgrace.

John 5:28-29
28 Don’t be so surprised! Indeed, the time is coming when all the dead in their graves will hear the voice of God’s Son, 29 and they will rise again. Those who have done good will rise to experience eternal life, and those who have continued in evil (foul practicing) will rise to experience judgment.

Revelation 20:4-6
4 Then I saw thrones, and the people sitting on them had been given the authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony about Jesus and for proclaiming the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his statue, nor accepted his mark on their foreheads or their hands. They all came to life again, and they reigned with Christ for a thousand years. 5 This is the first resurrection. (The rest of the dead did not come back to life until the thousand years had ended.) 6 Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. For them the second death holds no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him a thousand years.

Revelation 20:7-8
7 When the thousand years come to an end, Satan will be let out of his prison. 8 He will go out to deceive the nations—

Revelation 20:10
10 Then the devil, who had deceived them, was thrown into the fiery lake of burning sulfur, joining the beast and the false prophet. There they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

Revelation 20:12-15
12 I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God’s throne. And the books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books. 13 The sea gave up its dead, and death and the grave gave up their dead. And all were judged according to their deeds. 14 Then death and the grave were thrown into the lake of fire. This lake of fire is the second death. 15 And anyone whose name was not found recorded in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire.

It's clear from scripture that there are only two states of existence, LIFE and DEATH. And as such, eternal death is the inverse of eternal life. There is no consciousness in death because your soul (along with your body) is destroyed upon death.

Ezekiel 18:4 (King James Version)
Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.

Matthew 10:28
Don’t be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot touch your soul. Fear only God, who can destroy both soul and body in hell (gehenna).

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

I don't believe in hell because there's nothing but superstition to suggest it exists.

 

[Katzpur]

But it does have a basis in scripture. In fact, it's exactly what scripture says will happen. There is a judgment day which lasts through the thousand year reign of Jesus Christ when people will be judged for the deeds they do during that reign, this happens after the resurrection of the righteous and the unrighteous. People will not be judged for the sins they committed before they died because their death paid for those sins, but they will be judged for what they do during the thousand years Jesus rules over the earth. For Christians, the death of Christ paid for all sins (past, present and future) and they are saved from the second death and part of the first Resurrection.

Romans 3:23
For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.

Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.

Daniel 12:2
Many of those whose bodies lie dead and buried will rise up, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting disgrace.

John 5:28-29
28 Don’t be so surprised! Indeed, the time is coming when all the dead in their graves will hear the voice of God’s Son, 29 and they will rise again. Those who have done good will rise to experience eternal life, and those who have continued in evil (foul practicing) will rise to experience judgment.

Revelation 20:4-6
4 Then I saw thrones, and the people sitting on them had been given the authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony about Jesus and for proclaiming the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his statue, nor accepted his mark on their foreheads or their hands. They all came to life again, and they reigned with Christ for a thousand years. 5 This is the first resurrection. (The rest of the dead did not come back to life until the thousand years had ended.) 6 Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. For them the second death holds no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him a thousand years.

Revelation 20:7-8
7 When the thousand years come to an end, Satan will be let out of his prison. 8 He will go out to deceive the nations—

Revelation 20:10
10 Then the devil, who had deceived them, was thrown into the fiery lake of burning sulfur, joining the beast and the false prophet. There they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

Revelation 20:12-15
12 I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God’s throne. And the books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books. 13 The sea gave up its dead, and death and the grave gave up their dead. And all were judged according to their deeds. 14 Then death and the grave were thrown into the lake of fire. This lake of fire is the second death. 15 And anyone whose name was not found recorded in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire.

It's clear from scripture that there are only two states of existence, LIFE and DEATH. And as such, eternal death is the inverse of eternal life. There is no consciousness in death because your soul (along with your body) is destroyed upon death.

Ezekiel 18:4 (King James Version)
Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.

Matthew 10:28
Don’t be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot touch your soul. Fear only God, who can destroy both soul and body in hell (gehenna).

With the exception of the last passage you mentioned (which can actually be interpreted in more ways than one), I see absolutely no indication that the wicked will simply "cease to exist."

For instance, the passage in Daniel says that some will rise "to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting disgrace." How on earth can "non-existence" be equated to everlasting disgrace?

I agree 100% with all of these passages. I just don't interpret them the same way as the Jehovah's Witnesses do. And trust me, I know Jehovah's Witnesses' doctrine when I see it, even when it's presented by people who don't self-identify as Jehovah's Witnesses.