How can it be that so many people apparently go to hell, yet not see the devil? Does this not prove that it is not a made up event?
I really want some rational feedback. When I am afraid, I am anything but rational!
Thanks very much in advance!

Satan was the good guy of the story, IMHO. So, if it were real, hell would be nice.

But hell doesn't exist. Neither does Satan. Breathe. You're fine.

(February 2, 2017 at 12:22 am)Mamacita Wrote: Satan was the good guy of the story, IMHO. So, if it were real, hell would be nice.

But hell doesn't exist. Neither does Satan. Breathe. You're fine.

I hope you are right.

Fear is how they pull you into their delusion. You simply have to remember, through reason, that they are bat-shit crazy.

(February 2, 2017 at 12:17 am)arda101 Wrote:

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How can it be that so many people apparently go to hell, yet not see the devil? Does this not prove that it is not a made up event?
I really want some rational feedback. When I am afraid, I am anything but rational!
Thanks very much in advance!

I can't even tell you why so many people apparently go to Darquelle and yet do not see the Keeloh.

Rational feedback regarding seeming logical inconsistencies in make believe stuff .. how?

People only ever believe in hell because it's been programmed into them somehow. Indoctrination, or just being surrounded by people who believe and absorbing their belief over time.

There's no evidence that such a place is real. No more evidence than for tooth fairies, goblins or dragons.

Religion, in my opinion, works entirely on emotional beliefs. That's why logic gets so easily deflected, because the beliefs aren't logical. They feel true, and then people attempt to use logic to rationalise them. Or in your case, you recognise that it's irrational and illogical, but feel it is true anyway. It's a perfectly normal response.

Firstly I'd say that in my experience, with everyone I've talked to, fear of hell does fade over time. Secondly, the entire idea makes no sense at all. We have this supposedly supreme being, and one that is so often touted as being all loving, who has made this place which is obviously the most evil thing ever. That's just a ludicrous scenario. It's so insecure about people loving it, that it has to threaten them with hideous shit? A loving god would simply never make such a place. Thirdly, if the devil is evil, he'd be happy you went to hell! Why would he hurt you once you got there? He wanted you there! He's managed to "tempt you away". It's Yahweh that wants you to suffer. The devil is just a puppet. Yahweh holds all the cards, in the fairy story universe.

But bottom line, there is no evidence. It's not even something we could test since no one can even tell us "where" it is. There's no evidence that anyone even lives on, in any way, after they die. It's all stories. No one knows exactly what happens when we die, but all the evidence suggests a big fat nothing. Heaven and Hell are just woo stories. Carrot and stick. Religion works because people are scared into believing, or enticed into the benefits. Or because they're scared of dying. It's all about emotion.

(February 2, 2017 at 3:56 am)robvalue Wrote: People only ever believe in hell because it's been programmed into them somehow. Indoctrination, or just being surrounded by people who believe and absorbing their belief over time.

There's no evidence that such a place is real. No more evidence than for tooth fairies, goblins or dragons.

Religion, in my opinion, works entirely on emotional beliefs. That's why logic gets so easily deflected, because the beliefs aren't logical. They feel true, and then people attempt to use logic to rationalise them. Or in your case, you recognise that it's irrational and illogical, but feel it is true anyway. It's a perfectly normal response.

Firstly I'd say that in my experience, with everyone I've talked to, fear of hell does fade over time. Secondly, the entire idea makes no sense at all. We have this supposedly supreme being, and one that is so often touted as being all loving, who has made this place which is obviously the most evil thing ever. That's just a ludicrous scenario. It's so insecure about people loving it, that it has to threaten them with hideous shit? A loving god would simply never make such a place. Thirdly, if the devil is evil, he'd be happy you went to hell! Why would he hurt you once you got there? He wanted you there! He's managed to "tempt you away". It's Yahweh that wants you to suffer. The devil is just a puppet. Yahweh holds all the cards, in the fairy story universe.

But bottom line, there is no evidence. It's not even something we could test since no one can even tell us "where" it is. There's no evidence that anyone even lives on, in any way, after they die. It's all stories. No one knows exactly what happens when we die, but all the evidence suggests a big fat nothing. Heaven and Hell are just woo stories. Carrot and stick. Religion works because people are scared into believing, or enticed into the benefits. Or because they're scared of dying. It's all about emotion.

Very nice response, thank you! That is a very rational way of looking at it. Do you think NDEs of people seeing hell then is likely a result of them potentially fearing hell when they die?

(February 2, 2017 at 12:17 am)arda101 Wrote:

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How can it be that so many people apparently go to hell, yet not see the devil? Does this not prove that it is not a made up event?
I really want some rational feedback. When I am afraid, I am anything but rational!
Thanks very much in advance!

By the point we are talking about going to Hell and coming back, we're so deep in made-up BS terrain that it is difficult to draw any logical conclusions from that. Even if people would report seeing the devil or whatever, that would be pretty meaningless as a proof that the modern concept of theistic Hell exists.
Many of the experiences are probably real in the sense that the ones reporting them didn't consciously make them up. What they mean though and how reliable the story that is told reflects the original experience is a completely different matter.

(February 2, 2017 at 12:17 am)arda101 Wrote:

Moderator Notice
removed link in violation of 30/30 rule

How can it be that so many people apparently go to hell, yet not see the devil? Does this not prove that it is not a made up event?
I really want some rational feedback. When I am afraid, I am anything but rational!
Thanks very much in advance!

If you fear hell, you don't need a rational argument not to fear it.
You need to understand that the Lord FSM will haunt your every waking moment after death and deny you any and all spaghetti.
Imagine the number of people already being denied spaghetti for all eternity! All those FSM unbelievers that have ever existed in the face of this planet...

Bah... The concept of hell is as old as people have been thinking about an afterlife. No one likes to lose a loved one, no one likes to see a wise elder disappear into the dust... But they do... And no one likes the thought that they too will disappear into dust.
This, coupled with singe mental disturbances and/or hallucinogenic plant burning/ingestion, quickly leads to the concept of the spirit world... One we wish to access, but such access seems only available to a select few ( *con-artists*cough*cough).
If there is a spirit world, then we will want bad spirits to be separated from the good ones... You can see the concept of a bad spirit world also popping up...
But they're are various degrees of bad, so people come up with the levels of hell.

But the awesome part is that, if there are no spirits, there is no afterlife and no heaven nor hell.
A person's personality, her memories, her dreams, her wisdom, as far as we can tell, are all brain functions. If the brain stops working, all those functions stop. If certain parts of the brain fail, certain parts of the person's psyche fail, too.
Basically, it's all in your brain.

(February 2, 2017 at 4:00 am)arda101 Wrote: Very nice response, thank you! That is a very rational way of looking at it. Do you think NDEs of people seeing hell then is likely a result of them potentially fearing hell when they die?

You're most welcome, I'm glad

Absolutely, yes. These NDEs are when the brain is under extreme stress (nearly dying) and so it starts to go very wonky. People already have ideas of what hell "is like" in their head from it being programmed into them, and from artwork and other mythology.

I'm not claiming to know with certainty that people don't ever actually experience something real during these things, but there is no evidence that they do. What they experience is easily explainable. It's backed up by the huge correlation between the religion someone has been indoctrinated into, and the kind of NDE they have. It usually just happens to be the same thing. The brain is playing tricks on you; hallucinating. And it's going to draw from your own memory of ideas, because that's all it has. People saying, "But maybe it's a magic trip into another dimension where my story book comes to life and..." is all well and good. You can make such wild speculation about anything, and in my estimation, it's evidence or shut the hell up.

I've even had a dream where I was in hell, and I've never been indoctrinated. But I've been surrounded by the mythology so long that I naturally form ideas in my head about what it would (fictionally) be like.