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Thoughts on Hell?
#1
Thoughts on Hell?
Now, I know as atheists you people probably don't believe in Hell.

Funny enough many religious people don't either. Many Christians really don't either.

I used to be among their number. I always thought God loved everybody so much that there is no way he would really send anyone to Hell forever.

I used to think this way but I am not sure I do anymore. I know atheists think its sort of a cop-out when Christians say people "Send themselves" to Hell. Unfortunately I think this is true though.

Why? Because people send themselves to Hell in this life.

Ironically I don't think the atrocities and horror of living on planet earth (the holocaust, hurricane katrina, AIDS epidemic, war etc.) are really good depictions of Hell. Even in the midst of horrors and tragedies often people find it in themselves to love and care for each other and still see the silverzlining in a pitch black cloud.

A better understanding or visualization of Hell (and Hell to come) is just how other sinful people behave n this life, how they relate to other people, and honestly how they relate to themselves. 

There indeed are people in this life who don't give their fellow man, their family, or the world around them so much as a thought. They are ruled by spite and selfishness, and at times enjoy being cruel and hateful to other people. 

We see this attitude in spouses who commit adultery, in children and parents who are mean and hateful to each other just for the sake of it, cutthroat people trying to get ahead, and people who really have no time whatever for generosity, compassion, or a worldview that involves the feelings and lives of others apart from themselves.

I honestly feel that to be without love, unable to give it or receive it is Hell's truest manifestation, and I honestly would be scared to end up there.

I said it earlier, but my idea of God is that he is pure love. Not that he loves sometimes, or loves some people and hates others but he honestly is love to it's deepest core.


I was just talking with one of my fellow nuns, Sister Bellarmine.



She really is having a problem with one of the students in her class, sort of a roguish prankster by the name of Billy Flanagan.



According to sister, Billy causes her no end of trouble. He sometimes is caught spitting spit balls at other children, claims his "dog ate his homework" , sometimes steals chalk and other office supplies, and well..can be a bit "too fresh" with his female classmates. Personally I feel he is a charming, good hearted but irresponsible young man who could use direction in his life. "Charming Billy" is my nickname for him.



Unforuntately Sister Bellarmine is convinced he will go to Hell if he continues on his current road.



We were having tea in her office one Friday evening (we nuns sure know how to party huh  [Image: grin.gif]?!)



We were discussing Hell. The bible doesn't exactly say what Hell is like, and so I asked that question to her.



She smiled, sipped her tea, holding her teacup with her big sausage fingers (she honestly could be a football player if she wasn't a nun!) and told me this account:



Imagine you are a criminal led to a judge, the most beautfiful and kind judge in the world. You are guilty of a plethora of crimes against him. Because of the judge's great virtue your punishment will be great.



Imagine being led by really strong and muscular guards being dragged to what appears to be a very large Oven. You hear cries and moans coming from within and the smell of burning flesh. You panic when you are lead to the oven struggling and screaming for all your might but the guards do not acknowledge your fear. The doors are flung open and the smoke,heat and burning flesh overpowers you.



"Please IM so sorry!" You will shriek when the judge comes to watch your sentence. The judge quietly and sadly shakes his head, as if to tell you you had plenty of time to say your sorry before. Now it is simply too late.



You are flung in with all the other starved dehydrated prisoners and the door is slammed shut. Here there are no amusements, no fun, and no hope and no purpose in life. The other people are so depressed and hopeless that they will likely be mean and nasty to you. Showing you no kindness and perhaps enjoying your suffering.



The heat, the hunger, the thirst and the utter lack of love are overpowering. After a few minutes you will cry in despair and say "when? when will we be let out? How long will this last?" The other wizened human corpes will stare at you with vacant eyes.. eyes brimming with despair and sorrow and say "Never. Forever!" Oh how you will shriek and cry when that happens!



The horrifying thing is though, according to Sister, is that if that event were to happen IRL there would be an end to it. Death and the possibility of heaven. Think of it going on forever though. After awhile you'd likely rip your face off in anguish and agony.


I believe Sister Bellarmine has a good heart and means well. But I find her a bit too grim at times, and her preoccupation with the suffering of the damned..a bit creepy. Billy needs to behave himself, but I doubt telling him a horror story will whip him into shape. She is a good colleague and a holy and pious woman but I do feel I need to broaden my social circle a bit more... [Image: undecided.gif] [Image: undecided.gif] [Image: undecided.gif]
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#2
RE: Thoughts on Hell?
Hell as a metaphoric state in one's life and hell as a place aren't even remotely the same idea.    Yes, we can make our lives miserable...this isn't a reason to believe in hell, nor does it make hell real. 

Personally, I doubt the beauty and goodness of a "judge" who sentences someone to eternal suffering for putting their pecker in the wrong place.  That's petty, prudish, and frankly...evil.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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#3
RE: Thoughts on Hell?
Biblical support for universalism seems very slim to me. However, I would say that annihilationism is still on the table and has some biblical justification. BTW, welcome Sister. I also do not think the notion people sending themselves to Hell is a cop out; although, I do think it is a bad metaphor. To me the basic idea is that people love their sin and cling to it more than they love God and seek him.
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#4
RE: Thoughts on Hell?
(October 11, 2017 at 9:13 am)SisterAgatha Wrote: I used to think this way but I am not sure I do anymore. I know atheists think its sort of a cop-out when Christians say people "Send themselves" to Hell. Unfortunately I think this is true though.

Why? Because people send themselves to Hell in this life.

Well, that sure straightens things out.
[Image: extraordinarywoo-sig.jpg]
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#5
RE: Thoughts on Hell?
POE, needs better game.
I don't have an anger problem, I have an idiot problem.
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#6
RE: Thoughts on Hell?
"Hell" is a human constructed mythology, and the concept of reward/punishment in the afterlife is a motif that existed long before the monotheism of Abraham in Jews/Christians and Muslims.

Polytheists long prior also had their concepts of reward punishment in the afterlife.

If you want a real answer as to why humans made up these things, it is because 200,000 years ago in the early days of our species, long before any written religion, WE DIDN'T KNOW SHIT.

What is the first form of regulation we experience as a species? The first thing we experience after birth is the regulation of our parents. Evolution in our species produces social structures and parents are the first form of regulation we experience. 

Unfortunately we projected our own human qualities on the world around us. If a volcano erupted we would think a human like god was saying something to us. If the storm flooded our area, we thought a human like super natural being was controlling the skies.

Even Hindus and Buddhists have their superstitions of what happens in the afterlife in that of reincarnation. If you do well in this life, you come back in your next life rewarded with a better life. If you do bad in this life, you come back with a worse life as a form of punishment.

Asian religions are also full of this motif. Even in Japan, the spirits of your ancestors are sent above for reward, or put in the underworld as punishment. The ancient Egyptians long before Christianity had the "Judgment of the dead" mythology". 

It is merely a very childish form of humans projecting parental qualities in the form of fiction.

The good thing is there is no such thing as hell, the bad thing is humans still buy that crap.

The real source of or species morality is rooted in our social evolution. Humans try to seek cooperation and will resist anything that upsets that social stability. So mythology was started by humans because we didn't know better, so we made horrible guesses. It did produce social structure, but it still does not make any deity real or superstition required to explain why humans do good or bad.

If you can reject the threats of the mythologies of others, then it should be wise for you to look at your own claims. 

Our species ability to seek cooperation, or use cruelty is not magic, not in old mythology, it is in our genes.
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#7
RE: Thoughts on Hell?
'Father Neil - the Holy Mother Church requires that all good Catholics believe in Hell. But only a fool would actually believe that there is anyone there.' - Father Charles Clement Duddleswell

Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson
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#8
RE: Thoughts on Hell?
Story aside.
If there is a God and that God is an all-powerfull, all-knowing creator of this world, humans can't send themselves to Hell. God would send them to hell. Furthest you could argue is that 'God makes them send themselves to hell', but that is still the same, innit?
"If we go down, we go down together!"
- Your mum, last night, suggesting 69.
[Image: 41bebac06973488da2b0740b6ac37538.jpg]-
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#9
RE: Thoughts on Hell?
Hell is when you get an itch in your plaster cast that you just cant reach.
Or that you just said that your supervisor only got the job because she shagged the boss because she is so incompetent only to find her standing behind you glowering. That happened to me Jackie she was reasonably attractive but had all the managerial acumen of the current president of the US.



You can fix ignorance, you can't fix stupid.

Tinkety Tonk and down with the Nazis.




 








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#10
RE: Thoughts on Hell?
Despite my prior theoretical explorations of how a truly omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent deity with EXTREMELY sensitive feelings might go about infinitely tormenting any and all beings for even the most microscopic affronts, I bet I have barely scratched the surface on just how infinitely awful a hell He could come up with.

Not even Edgar Allan Poe would have a clue . . .
 The granting of a pardon is an imputation of guilt, and the acceptance a confession of it. 




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