HELL

[Catholic_Lady]

It is plain as can be that Hell is either a place or a condition of punishment.  Let us address the condition.

Suppose for the moment that Catholic Lady is correct, ie, everyone has the opportunity to either accept or reject God, thus accepting or rejecting goodness and love.

Suppose a person comes before God and is offered the choice.  This person, however, is an utter moral reprobate.  He spits on infants.  He pulls the wings off of flies.  He tells the most outrageous lies and spreads the most scurrilous rumours for the sole purpose of causing pain.  He thinks love is for dimwits and sops and that goodness is a state that only the slackminded could aspire to.

Clearly, this person is going to reject God and will thereafter exist in the condition called 'Hell'.  But he isn't being punished.  By rejecting God, he is precisely where he wishes to be.  One might go so far as to say that he was always in Hell, since he lived his life rejecting God, but enjoyed doing it (if he didn't enjoy it, he would have changed).

Good people may be treated similarly.  They approve of goodness and love, and so are highly likely to accept God.

So...how is the whole Heaven/Hell system one of rewards or punishments.  If you accept God, you get to go on as before.  If you reject God, you get to go on as before.  It's a mug's game.

Boru

Here's what I think, and what has been explained to me. Since we were made to love and to be loved, existing completely devoid of that is a very miserable existence. Even if you are creating your own misery by refusing to humble yourself before it, you are still miserable. In this life you are able to distract yourself with money, or cars, or drugs, sex, etc... anything to fill the void. But when you don't have those things anymore, you're left alone with nothing but yourself and your feelings of hated. That's a whole other level of miserable, and that's Hell. 

And Boru, you hit the nail on the head. It is not meant to be about reward and punishment. That's why I always say that those Christians who act a certain way simply in order to be rewarded in Heaven, or in order to avoid Hell, are missing the whole point. God loves us and He wants us to be with Him because He loves us, not simply for "rewarding" purposes. We "go to" Hell not as a punishment from God, as the article says, but because we chose to be away from Him.