Question?

[Crossless2.0]

I suppose it depends on what you mean by "hell". Some Christians maintain that it is a place of eternal torment -- fire and brimstone, the works; others seem to think it is some realm of eternal separation from God but without the lurid Dante-esque details; still others claim that it is a literal extinction of the individual -- death as opposed to eternal life. And I've heard even other speculations about what it might be.

Since you guys can't get your shit together after two millennia and agree on the meaning of a cornerstone of your own faith, you really have no reason to chide others for taking the entire notion rather lightly. And yeah, Yahweh, as depicted, is a dick. But so what? He is a character in a book, and hell is a bogeyman story contained in the same book. Neither have been demonstrated to be any more true than Jack and the Beanstalk. They're just more effective recruiting tools, and there seems to be no end of people who fall for it. Not my problem.

I prefer to go by the meanings of the original Greek words: "aionios kolasin"

http://christianspiritualism.org/article...ionios.htm

Matthew 25:46

Probably The Saddest Mistranslation In History. The unfortunate rendering is: "These shall go away into everlasting punishment"

However, the true rendering should be: "These shall go away into age-long pruning" or "These shall go away into age-lasting chastisement"

Etymologically, the words "aionios" and "aidios" possess a perceptible disparity because they have different roots - roots pertaining to "age": aion1, and "for ever": aei - ever, respectively. They are both used to convey the sense of lengthy periods of time, but the inference of "aionios", because it is derived from "age", is different to that of "aidios" because it is derived from "for ever". Even "aidios" with its sense of literal endlessness has been utilised to emphasise a point i.e. that "sinning in knowledge" has far worse consequences than "sinning in ignorance", as can be seen when this word is employed to describe the result of evolved spiritual beings sinning (Jude 6). "Aidios" can impinge upon the territory of "aionios" to emphasise a point, and in this case aidios is as strong a metaphor as can be devised - it is used rhetorically.

This word kolasin means "cutting back with a view to improvement" or "correctional chastisement", which fully describes what happens to the soul in the hells as the soul is purified through suffering before an initial repentance, and after repentance as the poor soul must progressively climb the steep hill to God from the darkness, depending on the depths to which it has sunk, up through the twilight, and towards the ever-increasing Light.

That's nice, dear. Take it up with the other Christians. They might care.

Still, I appreciate the effort.