If you knew for certain that you were going to Hell

[Peebothuhlu]

At work.

Just some clarifications first.

Just exactly 'How' is one going to this hell?

Are we talking 'Bruce Campbell' as in portals and driving ourselves cars?

Or are we assuming just a different 'Spirit body' and what wakes up there is effectively nekkid?

Secondly. Which hell? Classic Catholic? Norse? Greek? Aztec? Cthonian?

Cheers.

[zwanzig]

Sorry @Peebo-Thuhlu I really don't know how to answer those questions. Is there a Hell you'd like it if you were supposed to go there? Is there a kind of Hell that you would be willing to suffer rather than bow meekly to a deity that said to you "bow or else"? Is there a limit to that? LIke, "I'd go to these five different religion's concept of Hell rather than submit, but I might submit if the Hell were one of these other versions"?

Mormonism doesn't have Hell. It has a "dimly lit earth" which is just below "medium heaven". And apostates(that's me) go to "Outer Darkness". It's unclear what that is except a sensory deprivation chamber for eternity, with lots of agonized wailing and impotent gnashing of teeth. So, my only real understanding of a Christian Hell is from cartoons and movies. Did Tom and Jerry steer me wrong? I'd rather get cooked in a stew by a demonic bulldog than get extorted by a deity to stroke His ego for eternity.

[The Grand Nudger]

I think they might be a package deal.

[Ravenshire]

I'm practical.  I'll give up a finite good to avoid an infinite bad.

There is only infinite bad. No matter how good the initial conditions are, you can only go down from there. No matter how long it takes, sooner or later existence becomes hell. 100 years? 100 million? 100 billion? 100 trillion? Doesn't matter. Once you reach that point the only thing that matters is that you sill have eternity to suffer through.

[Secular Elf]

So, setting aside for the moment that nothing can really be known with 100% certainty, let's say you had it for this: As of right now, based on not believing and following Christ, you're going to Hell when you die.

Would it change your mind? Would it change how you lived? Like, would you try to correct that? Or would you argue with God about the parameters of sending you there? Or would you be like, "Fine. Anywhere except next to you, God, is better." ?

I am in the last group. If I somehow got the cosmic paperwork and saw that I was going to Hell when I died and knew this as the most absolute truth I could ever know, I would be filled with resentment for the being that declared me unfit to be in paradise. You don't get to make me, never instruct me or have a personal relationship with me, and then all of a sudden come in and try to make me feel not good enough for you. Screw that. You don't want me? Pffft! Way ahead of you, bro. Because I want nothing to do with you. 

***prompted by a silly Christian comic someone posted in another thread. Panik? Uh, maybe you don't understand that you're in an abusive relationship and some of us wouldn't stand for that even if your imaginary friend were real.

Looking at it from an Predestination angle, if you or I were from the very beginning fated to go to Hell anyway, then the Blood of Christ serves no purpose whatsoever, other to stroke the ego of a deity who sired himself to sacrifice himself to a moot point. Forseeing that his creation will be fucked up but he makes it anyway only speaks to an incredible magnification of poor planning. Perfect god my ass!

---

There's no doubt in my mind that in following the Christian teachings regarding heaven and hell that I would be on the express train to hell.  I had some wild and crazy years and since the only way to be redeemed would be to go back to The Church and confess, repent...and the one that would trip me up...accept Jesus Christ as my lord and savior...yeah, that last one ain't happnin".

In the meantime, I think I have been a pretty decent person over all and if that's not good enough...oh well.  I lived an unsettled life and left a life of fear behind when I got away from the church and my parents, in that order.

I tend not to freak out about the future.  Especially a fictional one.

I am with you on not freaking out over fictional futures. There is no point to it and it is a waste of time and emotion. I think of myself as a fairly decent person also, there has not been that much drama in my life, I cared for people and loved them, been helpful when I could, only been drunk once, and sometimes have anger issues, so I know I am not perfect. Sounds to me though that heaven is a boring place and hell is an insane man's dream, if said places actually exist. Yet it amazes me that people seem to think one can actually feel either pleasure or pain divorced from one's nervous system.

[Fireball]

"IF" has to be the most laden word in the English language. As far as hell is concerned, after seeing how the concept has evolved over the Millennia, I have no conviction of its existence, and consider questions like this to simply be religious scaremongering. 

[Silver]

"IF" has to be the most laden word in the English language.

Why do you think we writers are so fond of it?

---

Mormonism doesn't have Hell.

Apparently, Judaism doesn't have a hell either. Or a heaven.

[Secular Elf]

Sorry @Peebo-Thuhlu I really don't know how to answer those questions. Is there a Hell you'd like it if you were supposed to go there? Is there a kind of Hell that you would be willing to suffer rather than bow meekly to a deity that said to you "bow or else"? Is there a limit to that? LIke, "I'd go to these five different religion's concept of Hell rather than submit, but I might submit if the Hell were one of these other versions"?

Mormonism doesn't have Hell. It has a "dimly lit earth" which is just below "medium heaven". And apostates(that's me) go to "Outer Darkness". It's unclear what that is except a sensory deprivation chamber for eternity, with lots of agonized wailing and impotent gnashing of teeth. So, my only real understanding of a Christian Hell is from cartoons and movies. Did Tom and Jerry steer me wrong? I'd rather get cooked in a stew by a demonic bulldog than get extorted by a deity to stroke His ego for eternity.

Indeed, conceptions of places of destinations after one's death vary from culture to culture. Arallu, or Kir, in the ancient Sumerian concept of an afterlife, was thought to be the final destination of everybody, man, woman, king, servant, slave. It was a grey and gloomy place underground where souls went and after some period of time they gradually faded away. Ereshkigal was the goddess who presided over it. Later cultures, the Akkadians, Assyrians, and Babylonians, inherited this concept, calling the place by different names (Ertsetu by the Akkadians, related to Hebrew eretz, "earth"; Irkallu by the Assyrians). The Hebrews called it Sheol, with very similar concept. The Greeks thought of an afterlife where it was an underground destination where all souls went but were separated to different compartmentalized areas of the underworld: Hades for most everyone, Elysian Fields for demigods and heroes, Tartaros, located below Hades, the prison of the Titans, Asphodel Meadows for souls of no great or mediocre distinction or were indifferent and committed no great crimes, and the Mourning Fields (mentioned in the Aeneid) where those who wasted their lives on unrequited love go. The Egyptians called their concept of the underworld Duat. It was where souls (Egyptian soul concept was complicated: ka, ba, and akhet) of the dead go on a dangerous journey to go before Osiris to be judged. One's heart was placed on a scale by the god Anubis, which was measured with the feather of Ma'at, the goddess of order, justice, truth. The soul recited a litany of "I have not lied, I have not stolen, I have not treated others badly, etc., etc". If the heart of the deceased balanced evenly with the feather of Ma'at, then that soul was allowed by Osiris to go to the Field of Reeds, the Egyptian "heaven" where life was exactly like it was like on the Nile, but better; but if the heart was heavier than feather, the soul was guilty of a life without order and truth, and was condemned to be destroyed by being eaten by the demon Ammit, which was a composite entity: the head of a crocodile, the front quarters of a leopard, the hind quarters of a hippo.

So, guess where Christianity got it's concepts of the afterlife?

[Mister Agenda]

I'm not too proud to say I'd change my ways if I was certain the alternative was eternal torture. I've been burned before, I wouldn't like even a little bit of it. Force my hand into a flame and I'll believe anything you like to make it stop. Even regular beatings would change my mind before too long.

The only reason I'm not afraid of hell is that it's clearly just a story intended to frighten those who already accept its existence into obedience; and even then it's not enough of an immediate threat to work very well at modifying behavior.

Justice delayed is justice denied. --William E. Gladstone

[The Grand Nudger]

Which ways? Let's say that it told you to believe that it was your lord and savior or it would continue to burn you. What part of being burnt would help you, or allow you, to believe as much? It seems to me that it would be a significant barrier to the earnest belief required.