Questions for Those Who Think I'm Going to Hell

Will it be hot? How hot? Is it the type of heat which brings on a steady, blanketed headache? I hope not, because those are my least favorites headaches. (I suppose now that I've disclosed this, Hell will most certainly feature heat which brings on a steady, blanketed headache.)

Will everyone in Hell know why I am in Hell? I ask this because--well, I've gathered that in prison, criminals guilty of sex crimes are "celebrated" by inmates and tend to be the focus of unwanted attention. Unwanted for most, I should say. Regardless, it would benefit me greatly to familiarize myself with those rarely-discussed, yet universally-agreed-upon sets of Hell's unwritten rules.

Can you classify the exact shade of red in Hell? Is it burgundy or cardinal or crimson? Fire engine red? Magenta? More of a maroon? Or is it just red. Rose? Ruby? Rust? Scarlet? (Will I still be able to Google "shades of red" in Hell?)

You speak of this place with such fervor and certainty, yet you refuse to include illustrative adjectives when describing it. You need to clarify "eternal damnation." In fact, stop using that term altogether. It's unspecific and a fucking cop out. It's a holy man's euphemism for that which he'd rather not consider when considering a friend. I don't blame him. It's unpleasant to inform someone that he or she will live forever in a really fucking hot, unsafe, red (or burgundy-red) prison cell.

When you talk to your kid - when you lay out the standard-issue "do this or end up there" policy--tell him exactly where he's going to end up if he does "do this" (or "doesn't do this," whatever the case may be.) Because, at the moment, he's inventing the very worst place he can imagine and you are allowing him to believe in this place with his whole heart.

You're terrifying lots of people with this Hell shit. So please, at least be more specific. Consult a thesaurus. Then come look sit down with me. Look me in the eye and let me know precisely what I'm in for.

Then I'll buy you a beer and tell you a joke.

Comments

[StevenKeirstead]

The word "hell" comes from the Norse word "hel." But interestingly the Vikings believed that hel was a cold icy place where you could never get warm. It is interesting that the Norse culture feared the most common extreme weather of their environment and based their concept of hel on that, while the early Christians based their concept of hell on the most extreme weather of the desert environment of the Levant.

Both concepts of hell were part of a "carrot and stick" approach to morality as defined by their religions. It does seem a rather obvious psychological sort of social control, designed to control less educated persons, a method that eschews going into complex philosophical reasons to for people to act in good ways in their lives.

[mercury613]

I think this little Youtube video sums up the concept of hell beautifully.

Hell: An Excessive Punishment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaL7CkQaQpU

"It is not acceptable to have a religion where the alternative to faith is punishment — that's how you train dogs, not develop people."
- Deng Ming-Dao

[OtayPanky]

Actually, it's no way to train a dog either.

[mercury613]

Point taken.

[mercury613]

The concept of hell itself blows the Christian idea of free will out of the water.

Love me and obey me or you will burn for all eternity. Sounds like coercion to me. Free will has nothing to do with it.

[JoeAllenDoty]

Hades and Gehenna continued: Gehenna (literally meaning the Valley of Hinnom) was the trash dump outside of the walls of Jerusalem where fires burned 24/7. Jesus used Gehenna as a metaphor for the "Lake of Fire" which is found in the book of Revelation. In Revelation, after all of the unrepentant souls are removed from Hades to be judged, Hades and death are cast into the lake of Fire.

After the unrepentant souls are judged, they will be cast into the Lake of Fire. So, no one is going to burn in hell forever when what is in the scriptures is correctly understood. I really believe that everyone gets a change to accept the Creator's salvation. I do not believe that God would send anyone to the Lake of Fire just because someone did not tell them about Jesus. The only people who were hypocrites on earth who end up in heaven will only be there because they repented of their hypocrisy before they died. When Jesus forgives a sin, spiritually speaking it becomes like the sin never happened in the first place and there will be no record of it in the Lamb's Book of Life.

[GrainOSand]

You express what I was taught as a Christian and while I do not reject God, I have come to have a measure of discomfort with Christianity as a religion.

People are mostly oppressed and manipulated via the brain, and unfortunately, religion has been a tool of that oppression where men have sought to make God in their own image and thereby confuse and subjugate the masses. I know God is real from personal experience. I have no doubt. Beyond that, I only know what has been revealed thus far. Is there heaven or hell? Yes, it has been revealed to be right here on earth in the minds and hearts off people. Maybe these are but mere reflections of the ultimate locations.

Thanks for writing what you did. It served to trigger good vibes.

God bless you and keep you in this world of heaven and hell manifest.

[JoeAllenDoty]

Hell in the Greek Text of the New Testament are the words, Hades, and Gehenna."

Hades was the Greek word equivalent for the Hebrew place of all departed (aka dead) souls. When Jesus made up the parable of "The Rich Man and Lazarus," He used "Hades" as the lower place in Sheol where the bad folks went. That's the only time Jesus used the word "Hades" according to the Gospel writers. At the time of Jesus, in Jewish thought, Sheol had 2 levels, one called called "Abraham's Bosom" where all of the good people went who were looking for the Messiah or a Savior and the other was "Hades" where it was really warm. Jesus did not say that the Rich Man in the parable was in any kind of fire. He just implied that it was hot and dry down there with no water.

[darkpragmatist]

here's my biggest problem with heaven and hell. my parents are staunch christians, and even though i'm not they love me with all their hearts. if they go to heaven, they will have to live for all eternity knowing that i'm in a place of eternal torment. how is heaven going to feel like heaven under those circumstances? i assume the same will be true for almost anyone who goes to heaven. most of them will have friends or family that didn't make it. it would be hell to me to have to sit around in paradise knowing those i love are suffering and that i can't help them. if the answer is that they won't remember their earthly lives, then who's going to heaven? without their memories they aren't who they are. heaven cannot be pure bliss if it contains the knowledge of suffering, nor can eternal life have any meaning without continuity.

[WilliamProc]

Thanks for the post. Too often the fundies run about condemning people to Hell if they disagree with them, but tell them that Hell was an invention of Dante and Zarathustra and their eyes glaze over. They don't even know where the invention came from, but they buy the lie so well.

[OtayPanky]

I'm not a Christian, but I can read for myself...and the idea of hell features prominently in the words of Jesus. In the Bible generally, there are more passages about hell than about heaven.

Just google "Bible verses about Hell" and you'll get all the hot details for yourself.

[Nishnabe]

Hell is an English word and its origins are shared with old Norse as a hidden place of cold. The OT uses Sheol, which is translated as hell, and Jesus used that or Gehenna which was the burning dump outside Jerusalem. Google either one. Hades and Greek concepts about the afterlife had a lot more influence over the Christian concepts of hell than stories that are in the OT and NT. You are doing what is called "backreading" from your 21st century perch into times much different from our own. Ask yourself, would a forgiving god condemn most of humanity to place of eternal torment forever? When Jesus used the term it was mostly as a metaphor for the results of bad decisions in this life, not the next.

[fredamae]

But Wait! Theres More! Don't forget about that "promised Cold Day In Hell" That gives me soothing images of Blue.

I don't know you and I don't know why you are banished to "hell" but I will say this: Hell is the Consequence of Losing Perspective; Hence the Bush Admin.....Perspective is a funny thing.. You have to Use it or Lose it.

[Horus45]

I think I'm already in Hell.
With summer temperatures that top 136 degrees and a majority of the population here Conservative Republicans, I am in a Liberal's Hell already!

[GrainOSand]

Hell is relative.
Hell is more an environment than a location.
Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die.
Hell is the anticipation of death.
Hell is hatred.
Hell is war.
Hell is a government that does not rule by fairness and love for the people, but by deceit and scorn for the people.
Hell is trying to live in America on the minimum wage.
Hell is the need to work three jobs for twenty years.
Hell is not being able to feed your kids.
Hell is being victimized.
Hell is a broken heart.
Hell is a damaged mind.
Hell is a corrupted media.
Hell is a celebrity culture that devalues artistry.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned by a man forlorn.
Hell is for the hopeless.
Hell is hot and cold.
Hell is hot with the flames of doubt, fear, hatred, shame, and bitterness.
Hell is cold with the ice of greed, bloated ego, self-interest, and distorted ambition.
Hell is realized while you live and no one knows what happens when you die.
Hell may or may not be eternal.
Hell is a choice, an outlook, a mindset that informs actions.
Hell is ruled by the devil of the details of individual life lived.
Hell is the alternative to innocence, the many layers that rob individuals of true freedom.
Hell tells those who fall from grace, there is indeed a price to pay for disgrace.
Hell is not a place one must face.

[GrainOSand]

...and then Pat Benatar said...Hell is for children!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Sa0MkWoeTk

[GrainOSand]

Heaven is waking up to know the possibility. Heaven is the light that shines no matter how the flame may flicker and dance with the wind in a storm. Heaven is the promise of now, the feeling that you can achieve, and the will to make it happen. Heaven is the inside come outside to melt hearts and soothe tensions. Heaven is a world without war. Heaven is simple. Heaven is free. Heaven is a mindset. Heaven is a choice. Heaven is how she walked and how she talked, as a reflection, as a voice. Heaven is a world that moves as one to combat disease famine and strife wherever it may live. Heaven is being indifferent but not without concern, but also not with concern, thus indifferent.

Heaven is not needing anything. Heaven is acceptance with principles left intact. Heaven is a loss of fear and an accumulation of hope. Heaven is high and low, inside and out, heaven is what there is when you kick hell out. Heaven is a united front, standing on solid rock, to face the day. Heaven is country worthy, country loved, country great. Heaven is every child living a maximized life. Heaven is the end and the beginning and it resides in between, this measurable thing, we call life. Heaven is small and large, it is in the details and it is a plan. Heaven is the yang of Man, and yet there can be no yang without yin.

[liberalsrheros]

i'd like to see those with the power to post blogs distinguish between hateful pretenders and reasonable people who believe in god instead of smearing one with the other and unleashing the rabis religion haters.

[Zanti]

Me, too, but it's not going to happen anyplace soon.

That believers come in all different shapes, sizes, and philosophies is, apparently, too nuanced for many. Makes you wonder what else is too complicated for them. Probably a lot of things.

[NCMan]

It would probably be easier for you if the "reasonable" people who believe in God would rise up and join voices against those "hateful pretenders" who own the national voice of religion as it is presented to the rest of us by the media.

[jcwtts1]

Hey don't talk to us, talk to the press. There are as many fundementalist democratic preachers as there are republican preachers. The media shows one and doesn't show the other. Nothing we can do about it. But perhaps instead of believe the swill provided by the media, and Ann Coulter, go to a church or talk to some religious dems, there are millions of us.

J

[liberalsrheros]

so it's not enough i keep my personal beliefs private, that i don't support haters, that i don't try to force anything on anyone, that i believe in the constitution, i have to publicly demonstrate for you so you will open your mind and not judge entire swaths of the population by the freak show preachers that the media promotes?

now who is it being unreasonable here?

[OtayPanky]

liberalsrheros: i'd like to see those with the power to post blogs distinguish between hateful pretenders and reasonable people who believe in god instead of smearing one with the other and unleashing the rabis religion haters.

===

You might think that the beloved Billy Graham and the Pope - who both believe in and preach a literal hell - are hateful pretenders.

I don't.

I just think they're Christians - of the Protestant and Catholic persuasion respectively.

This isn't a problem of individual personalities - it's a problem of dogma. The dogma is what it is, and says what it says. Some of it is downright embarrassing to progressive people who still get something out of their Christian faith.

But that cognitive dissonance is their problem - not anyone else's - and certainly not the product of a few hate-mongering whack jobs at the fringes of the faithful.

There. Is that nuanced enough for you?

[liberalsrheros]

i certainly agree dogmas can be embarrassing. the assumption you make is that a faithful person's relationship is with dogma or the head of a church instead of the god they believe.

if i believe in god and christ is my flavor, you assign to me all the sins of christianity whether i believe in the dogmas that are hateful or not.

no, not nuanced enough for me. closed minded, filled with generality instead of nuance.

see, i don't have a problem not following dogma i don't believe in, i have no problem separating my beliefs from government and allowing other people to believe in what they want as long as they don't try to force it on me or use the government to do so. i have no problem not supporting a church and still i can believe in god.

but if you look at the threads at huff po that touch on religion you will see overwhelmingly the responses are filled with ha te and insult towards those that believe in god. i will only assign to you what you write, if you want to defend those comments by implying all faithful persons deserve them as you've done here, fine. i'm not gonna beef with you about it if you don't see me as reasonable, i'll wonder why, but i don't understand lots of things people do. ;)

[curiousasheck]

This is Hell.

The garden of earthly delights.

[smithshaw08]

Hell is actually pink & ruled with a tommy gu.n by the Easter Bunny!

[davism97]

Hell is a brilliant mind control technique. It scares the crap out of little vulnerable minds (and I know that from personal experience). I mean seriously what kid is going to choose to go to hell?! It's easier to just follow what your family believes even if you know it's a big load of BS (and anyone who honestly believes in the Bible stories needs to lay off the LSD and come back to Earth).

[onagadori]

Yet again,....religion is poison.....the opiate of the masses.....a boogy story to keep scared children in line...a sick fantasy perpetrated by punitive little men who want "god" to be as sick and cruel as they are.

[Zanti]

Wow. That point of view is rarely represented here. Thanks.