Was hell a later invention to scare believers?
June 24, 2015 at 5:47 pm
(This post was last modified: June 24, 2015 at 5:49 pm by Coreni.)
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Was hell a later invention to scare believers?
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Don't know when hell was added. If added later it may be that the other afterlife was not enough incentive.
Being told you're delusional does not necessarily mean you're mental.
I rather doubt that the "authentic" letters of paul were written by anyone named "paul." The best one could say about them was that they started out as a collection of letters written by one person and were then subjected to extensive editing.
Whether or not this means that they are still "authentic" is a discussion for another day. 
Jews didn't have the idea of hell. In fact some people say that's one reason Jesus is worse than Yahweh. At least when Yahweh kills you, he's done with you, but christianity introduced this idea of eternal torment.
Yeah, all the cuddly, feel-good stuff about Jesus goes out the window with that eternal damnation thing.
I think the contemporary vision of what Hell is like comes more from Dante's Inferno than anything else.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
Albert Einstein
Some or most of it, I think. Especially ideas like Satan being in charge of hell. Like an evil Hades or something. I'm pretty sure Satan and his demons torturing people isn't canon. They would be tortured prisoners as much as anyone else.
One interesting note is that sometimes Jesus mentions Gehenna. Which is just a valley you could visit where they keep fires burning and throw the dead into. Meaning it's just a place of fire where they dispose of corpses, and there won't be any eternal torturing of souls. 
Still, it's fun to imagine Pat Robertson in hell getting molten gold enemas . . .
Listen to that fraud SCREAM !!! Praise Jeebus !!!!!!!! The granting of a pardon is an imputation of guilt, and the acceptance a confession of it.
 RE: Was hell a later invention to scare believers?
June 25, 2015 at 12:13 am
(This post was last modified: June 25, 2015 at 12:13 am by robvalue.)
As far as I have been able to gather, hell is a concept brought into Christianity by the NT. That means Jesus brought us about the most evil concept imaginable. I know some people have very toned down ideas of what hell is, but an awful lot of people believe it is to do with eternal torture. For those people, what could Jesus have done that was more evil than to create/unleash hell? I'd love to hear of a suggestion from anybody as to a more evil act Jesus could have done.
Let's face it, hell's primary function is scaring people into compliance and discouraging questions. This isn't much of a threat if there isn't at least some form of considerable suffering involved. RE: Was hell a later invention to scare believers?
June 25, 2015 at 12:23 am
(This post was last modified: June 25, 2015 at 12:26 am by The Grand Nudger.)
(June 25, 2015 at 12:13 am)robvalue Wrote: what could Jesus have done that was more evil than to create/unleash hell? I'd love to hear of a suggestion from anybody as to a more evil act Jesus could have done. Well, I suppose he -could have- created a situation in which both the gates of hell and the key to avoiding it involved the status of one's accepting an offer payed for by the blood another. It's difficult to imagine what would have been more disgusting than hell...but that -might- have taken the cake....had he been so inclined.... 
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