Hell

[Matthew]

So, please explain what those good reasons are.

Because bible says so. I would think hell is eternal punishment had I believe in bible.. But of course if you don't believe those passages are the word of god...

The Bible says things like "some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting abhorrence". The Bible doesn't say "some to everlasting conscious joy, others to everlasting conscious torment". Do you see the difference? (Hint: the latter is an interpretation.)

"some to everlasting life, and others to shame and everlasting abhorrence"
"and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
Could you please explain those verses. What could they really meant?!

I'll start with Daniel 12:2. As noted above, the contrast is not between two different modes of living (one in joy, the other in torment) but between life and abhorrence. As it's usage in Isaiah 66:24 demonstrates, 'abhorrence' is the response of God's people to the dead bodies of those who have rebelled against Him. Moreover, by referring to "dust of the earth" and subsequent shame, the text explicitly refers back to Genesis 2-3, where God promises that those who rebel against Him "will surely die". Indeed, in order to experience conscious torment, one must necessarily be alive, making the traditional interpretation contrasting eternal life and with eternal conscious torment absurd. The obvious and natural contrast is between life and death, death of course being an eternal state if there is no hope of future resurrection.

Then Matthew 13:42. This verse is part of Jesus' explanation of the Parable of the Weeds (in the same chapter). In that parable, the fate of the weeds is clear - they will be incinerated and thus destroyed in the fire. The language of the fiery furnace and wailing and gnashing of teeth is in reference to Gehenna (which is the word actually translated as Hell by some modern versions) - Jerusalem's dump outside the city (hence the reference, since the whole point of the parable is the fate of those who are inside and outside the Kingdom) where fire constantly burned and dogs ravaged the corpses of dead animals.

---

I love it when christians do the "when properly interpreted" fandango.

I don't like what this bit implies so lets properly interpret it 'til it means something we like.

Equally the charge could be made that some non-Christians (even atheists in this thread who have come out as ardent supporters of the eternal conscious torment view) interpret Scripture to mean something that they don't like. Is that charge any less baseless than yours?

Also, is annihilation really something that we like? It might be an ever so slightly more pleasant concept than eternal conscious torment, but it's not exactly a comforting thing to think about. If I'm really just interpreting Scripture to mean something I want it to mean, why don't I just go the whole hog and say that everyone will be fine in the end? (Oh, because that's an untenable interpretation...a bit like eternal conscious torment.)