HELL

[Catholic_Lady]

We can't imagine living without the concept of time, but I believe that will be the case in a whole other dimension.

Well, I do not believe time to be anything more than a human construct.  IMHO, we are simply aware of possibilities.  Once one has perused all the possibilities in heaven (each a thousand times over) then what?  It will still boil down to forever is a long long long long loooooooooooooooog eternity.

A human construct?? Mmm, I don't think so. Perhaps as far as how we keep track of it, yes. But time is definitely something that exists. Regardless of whether we have clocks or calenders or count days, time still goes by. Everything around us gets older the longer it's been in existence, because time goes on.  

We just can't fathom being "outside" of time, if you will.

[KUSA]

I wonder if chickens go to hell. I eat a bunch of them little fuckers and they are sure to seek vengeance on me in hell if they go there.

[abaris]

We "go to" Hell not as a punishment from God, as the article says, but because we chose to be away from Him.

Well, thats only the nicer version of what our resident evangelicals tend to say. You're saying, someone chooses to be away from him, they say, we condemn ourselves to hell. In my opinion both versions shift responsibilities. In a way it's blaming the victim to keep god from being the one, meting out the punishment. It's on the same lines as the medieval slogan of the church not shedding blood. The reality was, they let the secular authorities shed blood for them to wash their hands on the matter.

[Thumpalumpacus]

There are differing conceptions of hell, just as there are differing conceptions of heaven, and god.

I know yours is a benign conception, but quite frankly, that ain't what I've read in the Bible. Yes, I know, you're not sola scriptura but at some point, when do you actually own what the Bible says?

Very nice cherry-picking, it looks like from here. You dodge the parts about a "lake of fire" and so on. I'm unimpressed.

[Thumpalumpacus]

We "go to" Hell not as a punishment from God, as the article says, but because we chose to be away from Him.

Well, thats only the nicer version of what our resident evangelicals tend to say. You're saying, someone chooses to be away from him, they say, we condemn ourselves to hell. In my opinion both versions shift responsibilities. In a way it's blaming the victim to keep god from being the one, meting out the punishment. It's on the same lines as the medieval slogan of the church not shedding blood. The reality was, they let the secular authorities shed blood for them to wash their hands on the matter.

It also ignores the fact that as an omnipotent being, God could certainly find a way to both maintain his own arbitrary rules, and demonstrate perfect mercy.

Of course, that's a much harder passage to navigate using human language, because they are contradictory concepts.

[Catholic_Lady]

Another belief I have that has been speculated by a few theologians but is not mentioned in the article, is that upon dying, every person gets a final chance to "meet" with God, if you will.

Mormons believe this, too.  That's why they do the baptism for the dead stuff.  They've been doing it since the 1840s, so I suspect your theologians are behind the times and Mormonism really is the One True Religion™ after all.

 And from there they make a conscious and informed decision to either reject or accept Him.

Then what's the point of making people to believe on faith alone in this life?

If God gives everyone a last chance when you're standing in front of the pearly gates and this, presumably, doesn't effect one's free will to accept or reject God in that moment, why not move the meeting up to, I don't know, sometime during this life?

I think the type of people we become in this life will determine whether or not we will be the type of people who will humble ourselves before God in the afterlife. I'm not sure what you mean by "faith alone" though. You might be referring to a protestant thing that I can't comment on. 

That second one is the big question. There is a theory I've heard, and that is that God keeps Himself hidden from us in this life because otherwise many people would blame Him for anything that went wrong, and always ask Him for things. I'm just trying to imagine... if God was someone we could see and talk with every day, and we developed a personal relationship with Him in that way like we would with a friend, considering who He is (all powerful and all that), we'd probably demand a lot from Him. We'd probably get down right pissed off at Him every time something very unfortunate happened in our lives. He'd be the scapegoat, and he'd be hated. We'd hate Him. Hating God is not good for our own well being, so it is for our own sake that He does not present Himself openly in our everyday lives.

[Thumpalumpacus]

We "go to" Hell not as a punishment from God, as the article says, but because we chose to be away from Him.

Stockholm Syndrome.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I get all my information about Heaven and Hell from Swedenborg from his book by the same name, Heaven and Hell. Nothing in it contradicts the Catholic position as presented by Lady; however, Swedenborg does provide more detailed descriptions of both from his personal experiences with angels and demons.

[Homeless Nutter]

By their account, hell is best understood as the condition of total alienation from all that is good, hopeful and loving in the world. What's more, this condition is chosen by the damned themselves, the ultimate exercise of free will, not a punishment engineered by God.

Hell ''is not a 'place' but a 'state,' a person's 'state of being,' in which a person suffers from the deprivation of God,'' declared La Civilta Cattolica, an influential Jesuit magazine based in Rome and closely tied to the Vatican, in a long editorial in July. [...]

It's the same thing, as the good old fashioned fiery pit, only with no pyrotechnics and god cleared of any malice. Sure - god doesn't throw you in Hell - you put yourself there, so it's your fault, you dumb-ass sinner... 

Unless this is supposed to mean, that it will be in my power to get myself out of that "state" of Hell if I want to, in which case - sure, I'll do that. If god isn't going to punish me - I'm surely not going to "punish" myself, I'm not stupid. So I can go to heaven (whatever that might be) no matter what. Sweet...

In the meantime - f*** god and the donkey he rode in on...

[rexbeccarox]

Moderator Notice
Moved this thread to the more appropriate Religion subforum.