What is your postition concerning the concept of hell??

Question

Tell me your thoughts.

Answer 1

Hell is not a concept, it is a place that was created for Satan and his angels. God doesn't want anyone to go there, but has no choice when they have not chosen to go to Heaven by the Way, the Truth, and the Life, Jesus Christ.

Answer 2

Hell is a place where people experience the Just consequences for the harm they did to others (by their actions or by their inaction). The punishment will fit the crime. The Bible indicates that there are different levels of punishment in hell. And the language used in the Bible is consistent with Hell not being necessarily eternal.

Cordially,
John

Answer 3

I am not really sure. I grew up in a religious and loving household, and I really used to like being really active in it, but Ive never been able to understand the concept of peoples flesh burning. Why would a loving God suddenly and abruptly turn his back on a group of people and choose them to tortured and burned and whatever else. I just cant believe that I may be wrong.

Answer 4

It exists only as a state of mind according to your beliefs. Beliefs are very powerful though and if you believe in something fully, you can experience it, or believe you are experiencing it.

Even Pope John Paul II saw the concept of hell as a state of mind:

In three Wednesday Audiences, Pope John Paul II pointed out that the essential characteristic of heaven, hell or purgatory is that they are states of being of a spirit (angel/demon) or human soul, rather than places, as commonly perceived and represented in human language. This language of place is, according to the Pope, inadequate to describe the realities involved, since it is tied to the temporal order in which this world and we exist. In this he is applying the philosophical categories used by the Church in her theology and saying what St. Thomas Aquinas said long before him.
"Incorporeal things are not in place after a manner known and familiar to us, in which way we say that bodies are properly in place; but they are in place after a manner befitting spiritual substances, a manner that cannot be fully manifest to us." [St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Supplement, Q69, a1, reply 1].

Answer 5

Hell is a very real place. It's where Satan and his followers dwell. I feel that there will unfortunately be a good number of earth's inhabitants that find themselves eternally in hell. It's not a place that God takes delight in sending people to as many are prone to believe, but by rejecting God we ultimately make the decision of where we will be sent.

Answer 6

My position is the same as the Bible's. Here is what the Bible says about Hell (which is referred to as hades and sheol in the original hebrew and greek):

Ps 16:10 "10 For you will not leave my soul in She´ol.
You will not allow your loyal one to see the pit."<<< A person can leave hell and even not "see" it, or go there.

Ps 49:15 "15 However, God himself will redeem my soul from the hand of She´ol,
For he will receive me. Se´lah."<<< God is the one person who can bring us out of Hell.

Ps 89:48 "48 What able-bodied man is there alive who will not see death?
Can he provide escape for his soul from the hand of She´ol? Se´lah."<<< No human can save themselves or anyone else from Hell.

Ecc 9:10 "10 All that your hand finds to do, do with your very power, for there is no work nor devising nor knowledge nor wisdom in She´ol, the place to which you are going."<<< Hell is linked with death and inactivity.

Ps 139:8 " 8 If I should ascend to heaven, there you would be;
And if I should spread out my couch in She´ol, look! you [would be there]."<<< Hell refers to the common grave of mankind.

Gen 37:35 "35 And all his sons and all his daughters kept rising up to comfort him, but he kept refusing to take comfort and saying: “For I shall go down mourning to my son into She´ol!” And his father continued weeping for him."<<< Jacob believed Joseph was dead and in the grave and wanted to die as well.

Job 14:13 "13 O that in She´ol you would conceal me,
That you would keep me secret until your anger turns back,
That you would set a time limit for me and remember me!"<<< Job wanted to die and go to the grave so that his sufferings might end.

Jonah 2:2 "2 and said:

“Out of my distress I called out to Jehovah, and he proceeded to answer me.
Out of the belly of She´ol I cried for help.
You heard my voice."<<< The fish that swallowed Jonah almost became his grave.

Rev 20:13 ". 13 And the sea gave up those dead in it, and death and Ha´des gave up those dead in them, and they were judged individually according to their deeds"<<< Hell will be emptied of all of its dead.


Gehenna, so commonly mistakened for Hell, is really only a real location outside of ancient Jerusalem that was used to burn up old garbage and criminal corpses and later used to show to the extent those who disobey God would be destroyed. They would never be anything left of them to salvage, just like nothing in Gehenna could ever be salvaged. Hell as fiery place of torment is a teaching inspired by the Devil.

Many people use the account of the rich man and Lazarus at Luke 16:22-26 to show that Jesus spoke of Hell as a fiery place, but the language throughout the account is plainly use to tell a story and cannot be construed literally in view of all the preceding texts. Note, however, that “the rich man” of the parable is spoken of as being “buried” in Hades, giving further evidence that Hades means the common grave of mankind.

Answer 7

Luke 16.

Answer 8

I do not believe in a coming final judgment by an angry, perfectionistic, masculine good one in Heaven at war with an evil one cast down to and ruling over Earth. I do not believe in Hell as place of eternal punishment for those who do not conform in life to a standard of conduct that ideological authorities proclaim to be the will of God either.

I think, believe and expect that there is no one to save. I think, believe and expect salvation has always been, is and will always be mine regardless of how I behave during my brief life or how I choose to ornament a model of self and world with myth. I believe everyone is already free in the divine eternal love of the soul spirit of world. Because the divine eternal love of the soul spirit is infinitely abundant there is no way that any transgression one may be guilty of during this brief lifetime could in any way result in a loss of freedom or a diminishment of that love. I believe an infinite divine eternal one gives love and freedom unconditionally to all divine eternal souls. There is only one way. This one way is automatically followed by each divine eternal soul and this one way is described in the English language by a series of words whose initial letters in sequential order form the acronym I.D.E.O.L.O.G.Y. I describe this one way using the following series of words: Infinity, Divinity, Eternally, One, Love, Our, Gods, Your Way: I.D.E.O.L.O.G.Y. Way. I think, believe and expect that an infinity, divinity, eternally one frees us to love our gods in our own ways.

Answer 9

Created to scare people.

Answer 10

Been there.

You don't want to go there.

You don't want your worst enemy to go there.

You don't want Adolf Hitler to go there.

Nasty place.

It's not so bad that it's pitch black and you're all alone. The worst part is that you know it's for eternity, there's no reprieve and that God doesn't hear your prayer.

It's the hopelessness that is the real torment.