Why is Hell so easy to believe?

Question

Have you ever been burned before? The pain during, then after the experience? Imagine being burned for 5 seconds straight. While experiencing excruciating pain, time seems to slow down. 5 seconds is a long time to hold your hand in a fire. Try 10. Try a minute. If 5 seconds was a long time, how long would a whole minute feel? This, my friends, is torture. Torture makes people want to die rather than endure it any longer. It's a device used to get information or punish. Punishment, that's what Hell is all about, right? Can you possibly fathom how bad it would be to suffer incredible pain constantly, for eternity? Even one day would be enough to permanently scar someone for life. Nobody could possibly deserve such a punishment. No matter what they do. The infinite amount of time is going to cancel out their "bad deeds" eventually. But then they're punished more. Tortured, over, and over again. Past what they may deserve. Why is it so easy to believe in Hell?

So you believe people deserve something like this? Eternal suffering because they made certain life decisions? Someone was raised a certain way, so they must deal with unfathomable pain forever? You're acting like it's nothing. Infinite is beyond comprehension. Don't underestimate it and dismiss it as something casual.

Answer 1

Hell is so easy to believe in because we live in hell... here on earth!

Answer 2

I think that most people who find it "easy" to believe in hell probably haven't really thought about what it means. They've just heard all their lives that it's this fiery place where evil people go after they die, and they don't stop to really consider what it means.

However, there are actually quite a few different theories as to what hell is like, and why people might go there. The fire and brimstone imagery used to describe hell is mostly found in Revelation and other apocalyptic literature, which is highly symbolic by nature and usually not meant to be taken literally. I personally believe that it's not a physical fiery place, but a state of complete separation from God. In the here and now, there are signs (small though they may seem at times) of God's presence around us--in nature, in the people around us, etc. I think that in hell, God's presence will be completely removed, and the torture won't be physical burning but life without any remnant of God's presence. I also don't think hell is about "punishment," per se. It's more like the consequence for the choices one has made. We all sin, and we all deserve punishment, but we also all have a choice about whether to turn to God or not. God loves us and wants us to turn to him, but he wants that to be our own decision, made in our own free will, not something that is forced upon us. So, if someone rejects God, God accepts that choice and doesn't force them to choose otherwise. Hell isn't about paying for your deeds--because everybody should go there if that was the case--but about a decision to reject God, and God accepting that decision.

Answer 3

Hell?

Religion and government try to make us believe in hell.

Hell is for stupid people that choose to be manipulated by superstition and ignorant ideas.

There is a limit to pain, you can only feel so much; then its gone or you simply get used to it. Hell aint that bad… there’s always a party down there.

Are people really scared of hell?

May Michael Jackson pray for us all

nahhh i'm just kidding again..... its not true

Answer 4

It's easy to believe in hell because scare tactics work. Tell people convincingly enough to be good or be condemned forever, and they're going to worry. They may not completely believe, but they do enough to be scared into the defined moral code.

Also, when we believe in hell, we get to believe in heaven, a place of infinite joy and rewards. You get the carrot and the stick in one bundle (metaphor in politics: carrot attracts the animal forward to it, stick beats the animal forward away from it)

Answer 5

Look at the world and all the terrible things people are doing to people...Raping children,killing just for fun,robbing banks and stealing from seniors...And the list gos on and on...The world is a living hell...Thats why it's real easy to belive in hell and there is a real hell...

Clowmy

Answer 6

the jews, muslims, buddists, and hindus all do not believe in hell. the only people who do are the christians (and even some christian sects don't believe in it). hell is a means to make gullible people and children study the ways of the bible through fear. it's very much a scare tactic. the odds of there being a plane of existance any worse than this (earth) are slim to none.

Answer 7

It's easy to believe in hell because of all of the bad things going on in the world. Humanity has managed to make much of life a living hell for itself.

Sure you'll have christians tell you to get saved, go to heaven, blah blah. And when you ask them why they believe they'll tell you that their prayers were answered, blah blah. But it is much harder to actually believe in god and heaven since those things are so much more distant from us. It's much easier to look around and see the work of the devil than it is to see the work of god.

Answer 8

I agree with the guy who said that scare tactics work, but also we have been raised to believe in good and evil. So like the yin and the yang, if there is a heaven, shouldn't they're be a hell?

Answer 9

It's not a matter of what you deserve. It's what you choose. Christians are no more deserving than anyone else. We don't think that we will go to heaven because of any kind of superiority on our part. We will go to heaven because we know that we are not deserving. We know that we must submit to Christ. You can do the same. It is your choice. Live with God and his blessings or live apart from them.

Answer 10

Why would God give us free will and then punish us in a burning fire for exercising that right? That's kind of like your employer giving you sick days and then firing you for calling in sick! Whew that's hell!