I have always had a hard time believing in a Hell of burning torment. I can remember sitting in Church on Sunday morning listening to the Preacher talk about how everyone who was a sinner was going to burn in Hell for-ever.Then in the same breath the preacher would say God is love. This made no sense to me, and I felt forced out of fear of going to Hell to love God. Then I read a passage out of Jer.7:31, which basically says that the thought of burning someone had never even entered his mind. Isn't God the same God today as he was then? I do not believe in a buring Hell, what I do believe in is separation from God for-ever. I no longer have the fear of burning in Hell and being tormented for all eternity. No wonder so many people turn away from our loving creator. How can Christians really believe that our father would be so cruel as to punish and torment one for-ever? Hasn't the word Hell just been mistranslated? How can Hell be thrown into the lake of fire,if it is already hell
2006-07-26 19:14:59 · 38 answers · asked by GraycieLee 6 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Hi. I sympathize with you. I've been a theologian for 30 years now and still have a hard time with the subject. The way I look at it is this: Do you believe in justice? Will there ever be justice? For all of the horrific things that people have done, many never having been caught or punished for their crime, will they ever face justice? Is God holy? Is He a moral God? If you believe these things then what is the sentence for sin? I take the concepts of hell in the Bible as very figurative. When Jesus spoke of hell he used the word "gehenna". "Gehenna" was the waste dump of Jerusaelem. It was where the people took their trash and burned it. It burned constantly. The smoke rose from Gehenna day and night (interestingly, today it is a park with green grass and sprinklers :o). He also said that in the place of justice "the worm dieth" not. Again a reference to the magots crawling in the dump heap of Gehenna.
Again, I have the same problems you do with the concept of an eternal hell. But, here's another concept- we as human beings, supposedly created in the image of God, believe in justice don't we? We have courts and judges and prisons and executions. We believe in justice. Will there be ultimate justice someday?
The thing that I like to point out is that God offers us an eternal pardon through Jesus Christ. He offers us mercy over justice by believing that Jesus was Who He said He was and did what He said He would do on the cross. Why is it so hard to get people to chose mercy over justice?
Still, the lake of fire talked about in Revelation 20 is a pretty gruesome concept. We have much to learn.
Peace.
2006-07-26 19:42:10 · answer #1 · answered by Hesed 3 · 5⤊ 0⤋
You're right. Hell itself is a place of eternal separation from God's presence. That concept is actually the worst part about Hell. However, Revelation chapters 20 and 21 both mention a final judgment. Rev. 20:14, "And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death." People believe different things when it comes to Revelation's descriptions, whether many things described are literal, or whether John was describing things he was seeing in the best terms he could. For this particular passage, it seems pretty clear that this will occur during God's final judgment. A "lake of fire" doesn't seem to interpret or describe anything but exactly that.
By Hell being cast into the lake of fire, the passage seems to mean those inhabiting Hell. i.e. When we say America declared war on Germany in WWII, we mean the inhabitants of America declared war. (Please forgive that analogy. It's the best I can whip up at the moment.)
2006-07-26 21:37:10 · answer #2 · answered by recordyourlife 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Wow. Tough question, and worthy of careful thought and consideration.
I would address the Hell thing, but it appears that Mr. Mister made his doctoral dissertation on the subject available for our perusal..... To the point: Hell is real, God made it, part of it is only separation, and parts of it are like burning forever. Maybe I'll add my two cents on Hell to this question via an edit in the morning, but who would think I was original after him.....?
At the moment, I would like to thank you for helping me find the obscure Jer 7:31 that I have had a hard time finding lately. This verse that you have stumbled upon is a golden nugget of truth revealing God's nature and holiness. Consider that something didn't even enter his mind, in this case the indescribably horrifically cruel practise of basically frying an infant in a red-hot plate held by an idol. The very thought makes me sick. I think the hot parts of Hell are saved as justice for these heartless people and the like.
It's midnight. It's time for bed. I think I'll edit tomorrow. Until then, I'll try not to have a nightmare.
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NM about those two cents....it seems everyone has a doctoral dissertation. Good luck picking a Best Answer. Sheesh.....
Email me if you ask a question about the Babylonian god Molech and worship of him by sacrificing babies.....
2006-07-26 19:49:50 · answer #3 · answered by midnight_190884 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
I think the idea of hell and the idea of a God that will send innocent children who never heard of Jesus to it is disgusting and ludicrous. These are all mistranslations that the old Christian chrurch has forced upon the masses in order to get money and obedience. The Bible is a far more mystical and liberal than many in the church would have you believe. Most holy scriptures get hijacked by kooks to make them confirm whatever the kooks are trying push on to gullible believers. It happens with the Bible, Koran, Hindu scriptures, every other scripture you have ever heard gets twisted around by a small group of people that like to think they are the only ones that "understand" and use it to push their agaenda on others. Stupid people all over the world fall for it without asking themselves why a religion that preaches it's god is love and peace would condone killing or hurting his creations. I guess there's a sucker born every second.
2006-07-26 19:31:01 · answer #4 · answered by JoeThatUKnow 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Depending on the era, visions of hell change dramatically. An afterlife of divine judgement changes from era to era, god to god, religion to religion.
Dante's Inferno is a vision of hell where it is actually cold and people are frozen into a plain of ice. After Dante's "Divine Comedy" was published the entire Christian view of heaven and hell was changed. Dante writing was so vivid, frightening and yet well accepted that it reshaped what we think of the Christian afterlife to this day.
God's love is more powerful than the last 120 years of malicious "fire and brimstone" preachers. I think you're right- it is about being separated from God.
Just read the Bible for yourself and don't let others tell you what it means IMHO. Just getting all those preachers, friends and families voices out of my way when I read the Bible is what I consider my greatest accomplishment in the area of religion.
Best of luck to you!
2006-07-26 19:34:10 · answer #5 · answered by Form 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Hell is the absence of God. Just imagine what it would be like to live in a place where there was no evidence of God's existence. I don't think you fully comprehend what that would be like. Have you ever been to a home where there was no evidence of God, where God was cursed and rejected? Have you ever been where satanists worship? If there is light coming through the window, that would be from God. If there is a smile, that would be from God. Anything good is there only because of God.
So a complete absence of God is a horrific idea.
2006-07-26 19:28:18 · answer #6 · answered by Miss Mary 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Your right God has not changed. Malachi 3:6 says "for I am God, I have not changed". Also Hebrews 6:16 tells us "it is impossible for God to lie". So he would not there in Jeremiah say that it is something he had not commanded and had never come into his heart if he purposed it for disobedient mankind.
You can definitely be separated from God forever if you are judge as wicked and unworthy of the hope he offers all mankind of everlasting life.
Your right to let his inspired words guide your thinking. Keep studying and pray for his help to continue to see the truths, because much of what is taught to people today about our loving heavenly Father is so untrue.
2006-07-26 19:29:33 · answer #7 · answered by SpecialK 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Hell is nothing more than the common grave of mankind. God's word says there is going to be a resurrection of the righteous and the unrighteous. The righteous to life and the unrighteous to judgment. The judgment is for what you will do during Christ's thousand year reign, not what you did before you died. The wages sin pays is death, therefor, when you die your sins are paid for. The Bible says, he who dies is acquitted of his sins. God will not punish sinners in a fiery torment. Those who do not accept Jesus his Son as savior and those who will not change their bad ways will go into oblivion, they will be non-existent.
2006-07-26 19:28:01 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
the fashionable thought of Hell, a place of fire, brimstone, and eternal torture, is in basic terms a synthetic invention with the intention to scare the a lot of folk into faith. this form of place does not exist. The be conscious, Hell, comes from an previous Germanic be conscious, Hoelle, meaning the uncomplicated grave of mankind. in case you study the Bible intently, you will locate that those that have died "be responsive to no longer something in any respect." demise is in basic terms a deep sleep, in that there are no memories, no thoughts, no thought of time. You basically do no longer exist anymore. the only desire the ineffective have is the resurrection at some destiny date. If God recalls them, then they're going to come lower back to existence, with new bodies. Their purely memories would be that 2d suitable in the previous demise, then their awakening in the resurrection, which might sense like a chop up 2d. As for the fire and brimstone thought, there's a passage in Revelations that speaks of God throwing demise and Hades into the Lake of fire. How do you throw demise and Hades away? This passage shows that God is going to permamently do away with demise and the will for graves. The Lake of fire is symbolic for entire destruction. In different words, the tip of demise for each individual at that destiny date. people will stay continuously like they have been meant to be, in the previous Adam and Eve blew it.
2016-10-08 09:05:03 · answer #9 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well, you hit on two of the three descriptions of hell as I understand them from my former membership within the faith and by subsequent studies of the religion from outside.
One: Firey Pit of Eternal Torment
Two: Permanent Separation from God
and Three (likely the less talked about of the lot): The Permanent End of our Consciousness and Existance, in any form.
If you want scriptural passages and all that, or references to other articles on the subject, just let me know.
Good ole' fire and brimstone sermons; man, I miss those days.
2006-07-26 19:21:27 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋