Who's Who in Hell?

[vorlon13]

For those alive today, everyone that is not born again will be condemned to Hell; according to Christ.    Doesn't matter if you are Buddhist, Muslim, Catholic or atheist.  Many "Christians" are equally lost within their religion, which is no different than membership in a social club.

Bullshit there is no heaven or hell no one is "condemned" to anyplace heaven or hell because they don't exist.

Still, it's fun imagining Pat Robertson anally birthing all manner of foul and hideous horned abominations for all of eternity because he used the ungodly NIV Bible.

[Redoubtable]

I find the mental gymnastics Christians go through to justify Hell peculiar to say the least. In recent years it has become trendy among some Christians to "rehabilitate" the concept of Hell into something more palatable to the "modern" (I would say empathetic) mind.

Today many Christians, Catholics especially, have a hard time coping with the coexistence of a loving, merciful God and the eternal suffering of Hell. They make peace with this dilemma by rehabilitating Hell in the sense that they re-frame it to be viewed as the natural consequence of our free choice to reject God when we sin, so they say "God doesn't send us to Hell, we send ourselves." This refrain has become so worn out and it doesn't even keep consistency with the imagery or language used to describe Hell and God's judgement in the Bible and other Christian literature which depicts Hell as a punishment imposed by God. As just one example in the NT Jesus tells his followers not to fear those who can only destroy the body, but the one (God) who can destroy both body and soul in Hell. This is stark contrast to the passive God who doesn't inflict the punishment of Hell, but only allows us to make our own choice to reject him and so damn ourselves. 

Needless to say I find both conceptions morally repugnant, but I find the "rehabilitated" case particularly unpleasant because it sacrifices seeds of empathy to preserve this immaculate image of the god whose every act is allegedly praiseworthy but in reality would be considered a moral monster if he was a man.

This is how absurd I find this conception of Hell: 

Imagine this scenario: a man instructs a toddler by a poolside not to enter the pool because if they do they will drown and die. Despite the man's instructions the toddler (irrational, ignorant, and impulsive as toddlers can be) is attracted by the water and walks into the pool. As the toddler is drowning, the man sits back and allows the toddler to drown. After the child has died a fearful and agonizing death, a bystander from far off rushes to the scene and questions the man as to why he didn't save the child. The man replies, "I warned the child not to go into the pool, that they would drown and die if they went in it; but alas the child made their choice and I merely confirmed it by allowing them to accept the consequences of their decision."

This is essentially how Christian apologists view god in this conception of Hell, and what a terrible god this is; one who doesn't even afford the children he allegedly loves full knowledge of the "rules of the game" and its consequences, judges us in a most horrific manner, condemning us to unending agony, and then has the gall to wash his hands of this and tell us it was our choice to suffer eternally. This is the mentality of the worst kind of sociopath.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

[Redoubtable]

A similar incident in your scenario happened last week in Venice, Italy, when a 22 year-old guy from Gambia jumped into a canal.

Sad story, and watching the video, I just don't understand, was it an attempted suicide? I don't understand why he didn't grab the life rings.

Is the real hell being able to do whatever you want to do and then having to suffer the negative consequences?

Well that's one of the things I find so convenient and repugnant about the Christian conception of Hell, it's waved around as this 'mystery punishment', we don't really know what it is or what it feels like. Oh yeah we have imagery of fire and demons and whatever, but many now maintain that that is just symbolic imagery (at least for now, there's real fire at the end of the world) and the true meaning of the real punishment is eternal separation from God for which fire is a metaphor. Well how would anyone know what that means or what that feels like? And if it is indeed so bad, wouldn't any reasonable person reassess their life's choices if they got to experience that pain for even one minute?

Imagine telling someone who had never been burned before or experienced pain from heat that if they did X they would be set on fire. How are they supposed to understand the consequences? How is it fair to say they chose that punishment by doing X if they don't fully understand what it means to burn? This is the injustice of the Christian god.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

The Gambian guy probably was stressed out after his ordeal of living in Gambia for most of his life and then his hard trek to the very strange land of Italy. So he most likely fell into a deep depression and saw no future for him anywhere. The good thing is that he didn't physically harm anyone else and that he didn't make a mess for someone to clean up. I have no idea what they did with his corpse but it was in one piece and not bloody.

It would be interesting to know how many, if any, of the witnesses develop regret within the year for not doing anything to rescue him. That's one of the negative effects of large crowds. The more people there are the less likely anyone will do something positive in such a situation.

Maybe at some point the people will start to feel shame at their inaction and that will become their hell. One thing is for sure and that is that none of them is a good Christian.

On the flip side some people in England have gotten into legal trouble trying to save people in similar situations because they didn't have the "proper training".

[Kitan Etos]

My sister said Buddhist monks are going to hell.  Rotf. Christians, do you agree with her?  Do you think Muslims are going to hell (naturally, she evaded that question because no one fucks with Muslims).

People actually responded to this?