Your View of Hell

Hell? Look out the window. Cars, people, stupidity.

http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/el...s_is_hell.html

I believe in reincarnation, but can't imagine what I would come back as...a grasshopper??

....aaaand take two!

Repeating the same mistakes as in the last lifetime.

I don't believe there is a heaven or hell. I believe that your life ends with your heart, but your memory often moves along in other people's minds and hearts.

That said, I do believe that life on Earth consists of a lot of emotional and physical hell. But, not with a devil with horns and pitchfork.

I chose "Not Sure" because I'm agnostic, and it depends on how you define Hell. I know you asked us how we define it, but being agnostic, I don't have just one idea. There's the biblical fire-and-brimstone hell, and then there's living a crappy life, there could be a really depressing place (whatever that might look like), it could be having your worst fears constantly after you, or it could be finding yourself all alone, but alive...no God, no friends, no family, no pets, no nothing. So what I'm saying is, I don't know what Hell is and if it exists. But I do think it's possible. I like to think most of us won't go there, because even if we make mistakes and do some bad or hurtful things, as long as we're still basically good, we'd be accepted. I also like to think murderers, rapists, child molesters and animal abusers have a special place in Hell, where they'll be punished at least as badly as the pain they've caused. And then, if God will forgive them--if there is a God--I can forgive, too...I think.

i grew up christian

but i have this belief that many people who are nonchristian and even any form of christian may take the idea of the biblical hell too literally. its only a belief because i flat out dont actually know.

i have thought about this a lot. a lot. for many years.

having been through a religious upbringing (baptist) and having been through severe mental illness i really strongly believe that we have a soul as human beings. im a little at odds with my religion but i do believe in a God. i want to actually brush up on this because its so interesting but i think the bible says part of going to hell is that our soul doesnt rise and the fire stuff and seperation from god and darkness etc more stuff...

SO right now my interpretive belief of the the biblical hell is maybe that hell is where our soul doesnt leave our body when we die so to speak. that maybe once we die it sticks with body therefore sticking with the thoughts and negative memories of life under the ground. (i have been reading a bit about if the mind and brain are seperate. i honestly believe its seperate. but works together. and perhaps our mind is part of our soul. like the subconscious is maybe our soul? still reading about this). anyway - thats literal darkness. and the fire and all of that could be the soul having to endure the things that happens literally with the earth thats caused by the evil of humanity (nuclear bombs - war - damaging of earth - different catastrophes - etc). perhaps being with God/being in heaven is the soul rising away from the body for good and being able to escape the harshness of what was life and humanity and society. thus being able to live perfectly away from that stuff PLUS the harshness of anything physically wrong with us because we wont have our phsyical bodies anymore. theres no doubt the world is seriously f_cked up. someone could maintain a nice positive life if possible that doesnt stop whats negatively going on with everyone else in the world.

i realize though that it doesnt exactly match up with anything other than burial. but in a way can make sense for things like cremation. BUT see... the bible speaks of burial as being holy and being THE thing to do when someone does. i believe it spoke of cremation as basically wrong and thats one reason why some of the "wrongdoers" or "sinners" (whatever you want to say) in the bible actually died in fires. sorry i cant elaborate but i need a bit of a brush up on it and not sure anyone wants me too anyway. BTW im not saying anything is wrong im just talking about what is portrayed in the bible.

i can only speculate like i said. i wish i could go into more because ive been reading into biblical studies and also history and different religions and did so a little in college. so its so fascinating...

The dead are consious of nothing.I guess I figured out we cant quote from the bible here huh.



I've felt like living is hell on earth too. I've wished I was never born. But at other few times I am grateful. Anyways, I believe that hell is simply the common grave of mankind. Its uncomprehendable to think there could be a place of fiery torment. children were being sacraficed through fire in the old testament. God said it wss abhorrent in his eyes and the thought never could come in his heart. If there is a god and he sent anyone to be punished for eternity he would be a monster far worse than Hitler.

not sure if that first sentence was in response to me.

but on that next one id say - of course not - i notice in society any deep talk widespread about belief of THE God namely christianity or islam or judaism is looked down upon so much. there has to be a specific place or time for it. but theres a specific long history of deep resentment about those religions shared by many many people. but you see not too much cahoot towards religions that are non-monotheistic or whos peoples beliefs are seemingly neutral like agnostics. i notice a lot that its not so much that people feel averted toward religion but religions that claim to have one central God.

its just what ive observed and studied.

Hmmmm, thought I responded to this yesterday. Maybe the devil stole my reply!

I don't believe in the traditional fire and brimstone version of hell. I do believe that the energy that makes up each of us continues on after the body dies. That's basic physics. I also believe that there are lives/worlds beside this one. But some horrible place where we suffer for all of eternity? Nah.

side note- I once told someone that if there is a heaven and hell I'm going to heaven when I die cuz I already did my time in hell here on Earth.

I believe there is a hell. I am a christian. I also believe that evil roams this world ( like demons). Am I afraid of it? No not at all once you get afraid of it it will consume you. God already promised us eternal life if we believe in Him. Sorry for the preach -_- I just had the most awesome church service today!

I honestly don't have a clue. I was also raised in the Catholic tradition but my actual faith was lost a long time ago, not that it doesn't still effect my thinking and a lot of what I do to this day.

It seems like hell is a construct of a time long before "modern" religion. Hel in Norse mythology was a place where you came if you died a boring death, like from old age or illness. It was not a punishment for being immoral. Average people went here.

This somehow has been brought by tradition into modern religion, since there is no hell in say the Bible.

I'm not going to believe in something that has been distorted through time and also I do not believe non heroes go to a more boring afterlife.

Or men?

I believe in a literal hell, made for the fallen angels and satan himself.
Don't worry, God won't send anyone to heaven that doesn't want to go there.

I don't believe in a literal Hell anymore. I do believe there are states people can get into that approximate it though, especially severe discouragement and crippling fear and doubt, those are pretty Hellish.

↑↓←→:O who knows

I make an effort to avoid having beliefs because such thoughts are irrational. However, I think, if there is an afterlife, there is only one, and it is equally bleak for everyone who resides there. I base this on the observation that the universe, or whatever being that controls the universe (if there is one), is not fair. And I'm content with this.

I believe in hell, but I'm not planning on going there.

I think no matter what context I look at it in, the concept of 'hell' can exist within a person. We have freewill for a reason and what we do with it determines how our reality is shaped.
Our life now can be heaven or hell.
This is what I believe.

A comment directed toward Newtus: I know no where in the Christian Bible where cremation is described as wrong. I keep thinking of all the Christian martyrs who were burned at the stake.

To paraphrase Pascal: I think it's better to believe in hell and later find out it doesn't exist, than not to believe and really be in trouble.

Of course, if it were true that we just conk out after we die and there's no afterlife, then we'll never know whether we were right or wrong.....

I do believe in an afterlife, with a heaven and a hell, as I mentioned before. And we do chose where we end up. I am really looking forward to heaven, since, as some of you have said, many of us have had a lot of "hell" in our lives, including me. A hug to all of you who have experienced it:

Sorry this may be wrong to ask this here, but I was going to start a poll earlier today about "what's your view of Heaven: do you belive in an afterlife and if so what will you be doing there." But I couldn't figure out how to set up the poll part. Would anyone else be interested in starting one? I'm really curious as to whether there are christians who could explain what they think they will be spending forever doing? Or anyones take on that. Thanks ahead of time if someone is able to and wants to do this. Hell is an attention grabber but I personally can't understand how anyone would want to exist forever even if there was no pain.

That should be fun I just spent 20 minutes reading and apparently nobody knows but lots of people have opinions
None of them sound interesting.
Aren't there any religions represented here other than the judeo-christian religion?

yea i have heard that. that its better to believe and find out later it doesnt exist. i agree with that.



over everything that scholars debate about and regular people debate about - i wonder if anyone ever thinks about maybe its just too above us to rationalize together? i mean we dont take this physical form with us to wherever we go. the brain. i mean it comes to my mind everyone that thinks they know exactly what is going to happen. people with doctorates or philosophers or scientists and so on. we all agree we dont know. but how many can agree - as powerful as the human brain is - that maybe its another level of "thinking" or "knowing" - maybe something we human beings just cant comprehend.

we dont take the brain with us - we cant take our eyes to see the devil or the great fires - we cant take our ears to hear deathly screams and so on and so on.

we talk about seeing fires and feeling fires. and hearing people scream. but even IF we did THAT would take a different faculty of some sorts to experience. so HOW would we experience such things if this WERE the case. some believe in energy leaving the body and some like me believe the soul. given those couple of examples how would THOSE experience all that IF that was the case.

ive always read peoples interpretations about the soul because its interesting. ive seen some say its a physical matter we cant yet concieve of. its out of our ability to.

i believe in that the soul inhabits the body all the way past death. but the bible mentions the lake of fire as symbolic of the second death which is the souls seperation from god forever.

also i think somewhere in the bible God or Jesus (one of them) talks about heaven being earth AFTER the antichrist is purged from existence - when god recreates the earth. ive always loved revelations. its a beautiful peice of work in a way besides just looking at it from a religious point of view. the poetryesque kind of writing is amazing. very very vivid.

for awhile i kindve want to goto theology school or get a degree in religious studies. the christian bible alone is such a work of art apart from religion. you can look at it in those two different ways. i look at it in both. sometimes i get confused as to why people are so turned off by it that they dont even want to at least see it as peice of art? i have a really good basis in my beliefs and i still take time to learn about other religions while maintaining my belief. i used to not be able to do that and i dont think many people are who are in ANY religion. feeling stable is of course a personal thing. but it also strengthens my beliefs.

i totally honestly believe in everyone should ACTUALLY read the bible or take a class on general religion. for any reason. ALSO another reason being people misquote or misunderstand the bible SO extremely much that most of what people say against it isnt even close to a good debate because - it kind of ends up like telephone (the game) - people quote others who quote others who quote others etc and have never actually picked the book or read a couple of verses. thats one thing that upsets me sometimes. people can goto churches and theyll give you a FREE bible even if you just give it back. they have then at libraries. they got diff religious books at libraries (the Quran for example too). its on audio tapes/they have websites that divide up by subject/you know i can and on. anyway its not extremely stable but theres a good base there. i think id be more stable if i was to learn more. im not baptist anymore like i grew up but im nondenominational.

and anyone is free to goto any religion. like someone said we have freewill. some christians - you know - they try extremely hard to make people convert. i grew up thinking that too. idk if they bible says anything about how hard you need to try with individuals before you give up etc. my theory on that is pretty parallel with the bible: i believe that if someone actually doesnt know some basis of it or simple understanding that could be a great time to talk to them about it. but if someone really understand the basis of christianity and they chose not to - ive always thought to personally let them go - religiously speaking "let them go". because the bible talks about those who recognize jesus but choose not to accept him.

i guess ill end it there. i would like to respect others in this discussion.

this really is my thoughts and theories scattered so i hope they kinda make sense...

I have a hard time being a Christian (my entire family is Christian) because of the concept of hell. How can a good God sentence people to eternal torture? I don't believe in free will (not at all, not even a little bit), so I don't believe that people are responsible for their actions. The most horrible criminals are victims of their environment and biology. Not even they deserve hell. Let alone all the decent human beings that so many believe are destined for the eternal flames simply because they disagree on a point of theology.

One thing you can do is study history. You will find that there were many religions that predate Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. And you will find elements of these religions that were borrowed by the Jewish and Christian and Muslim religions. You will also find that there were earlier civilizations whose religions had giant turtles and birds as deities. And some civilizations that had no religions at all.

This statement is a bit off topic, but I suspect some of you are wondering about it. The Bible does tell us Christians to go into the world and share the gospel (good news) and encourage people to accept it. However, that said, there is a place where the disciples were told to give up, because the people just weren't interested. I am sad that so many people see Christians as folks who are hateful and pushy. We are told people will know we are Christians by our love. Of course, some Christians seem to forget that.

I would really like to see a poll about heaven. I think it might be in the community forum where instructions are given on how to set a poll up. As far as what we'll be doing when we get there, I know I'll be worshipping at my God's feet, at least at first, and He tells us heaven will be so wonderful that we can't even imagine how great it will be. I will also be going around meeting all the folks who died in my life and meeting special folks I never had a chance to meet. If my mania asserts itself in heaven, then I know I could just talk forever!

I would even accept living forever in this world, if my body held out so I wasn't in so much pain.

Okay, I won't comment any more here. We're supposed to be dealing with hell!