What's the purpose of Hell?

Question

It doesn't make any sense. If I'm not good enough to get into Heaven, then why not just leave me here? Or compassionately extinguish my existence? What is the purpose of keeping people around so they can be tortured for all eternity? Is this God's idea of fun?

That's not a flippant question. Thomas Aquinas wrote that one of the joys of Heaven is looking down on the sufferings of those in Hell. Is your "God" really that much of a sicko? Will YOU be enjoying my suffering? (Don't tell me there's a way I can get into Heaven-- I DON'T WANT TO GO!)

Answer 1

The word “hell” is found in many Bible translations. In the same verses other translations read “the grave,” “the world of the dead,” and so forth. Other Bibles simply transliterate the original-language words that are sometimes rendered “hell”; that is, they express them with the letters of our alphabet but leave the words untranslated. What are those words? The Hebrew she’ohl′ and its Greek equivalent hai′des, which refer, not to an individual burial place, but to the common grave of dead mankind; also the Greek ge′en·na, which is used as a symbol of eternal destruction.

Does the Bible indicate whether the dead experience pain?

Eccl. 9:5, 10: “The living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all . . . All that your hand finds to do, do with your very power, for there is no work nor devising nor knowledge nor wisdom in Sheol,* the place to which you are going.” (If they are conscious of nothing, they obviously feel no pain.) (*“Sheol,” AS, RS, NE, JB; “the grave,” KJ, Kx; “hell,” Dy; “the world of the dead,” TEV.)

Psalms 146:4: “His spirit goes out, he goes back to his ground; in that day his thoughts* do perish.” (*“Thoughts,” KJ, 145:4 in Dy; “schemes,” JB; “plans,” RS, TEV.)

Does the Bible indicate that the soul survives the death of the body?

Ezekiel 18:4: “The soul* that is sinning—it itself will die.” (*“Soul,” KJ, Dy, RS, NE, Kx; “the man,” JB; “the person,” TEV.)

“The concept of ‘soul,’ meaning a purely spiritual, immaterial reality, separate from the ‘body,’ . . . does not exist in the Bible.”—La Parole de Dieu (Paris, 1960), Georges Auzou, professor of Sacred Scripture, Rouen Seminary, France, p. 128.

“Although the Hebrew word nefesh [in the Hebrew Scriptures] is frequently translated as ‘soul,’ it would be inaccurate to read into it a Greek meaning. Nefesh . . . is never conceived of as operating separately from the body. In the New Testament the Greek word psyche is often translated as ‘soul’ but again should not be readily understood to have the meaning the word had for the Greek philosophers. It usually means ‘life,’ or ‘vitality,’ or, at times, ‘the self.’”—The Encyclopedia Americana (1977), Vol. 25, p. 236.

Why is there confusion as to what the Bible says about hell?

“Much confusion and misunderstanding has been caused through the early translators of the Bible persistently rendering the Hebrew Sheol and the Greek Hades and Gehenna by the word hell. The simple transliteration of these words by the translators of the revised editions of the Bible has not sufficed to appreciably clear up this confusion and misconception.”—The Encyclopedia Americana (1942), Vol. XIV, p. 81.

Translators have allowed their personal beliefs to color their work instead of being consistent in their rendering of the original-language words. For example: (1) The King James Version rendered she’ohl′ as “hell,” “the grave,” and “the pit”; hai′des is therein rendered both “hell” and “grave”; ge′en·na is also translated “hell.” (2) Today’s English Version transliterates hai′des as “Hades” and also renders it as “hell” and “the world of the dead.” But besides rendering “hell” from hai′des it uses that same translation for ge′en·na. (3) The Jerusalem Bible transliterates hai′des six times, but in other passages it translates it as “hell” and as “the underworld.” It also translates ge′en·na as “hell,” as it does hai′des in two instances. Thus the exact meanings of the original-language words have been obscured.

Is there eternal punishment for the wicked?

Matthew 25:46, KJ: “These shall go away into everlasting punishment [“lopping off,” Int; Greek, ko′la·sin]: but the righteous into life eternal.” (The Emphatic Diaglott reads “cutting-off” instead of “punishment.” A footnote states: “Kolasin . . . is derived from kolazoo, which signifies, 1. To cut off; as lopping off branches of trees, to prune. 2. To restrain, to repress. . . . 3. To chastise, to punish. To cut off an individual from life, or society, or even to restrain, is esteemed as punishment;—hence has arisen this third metaphorical use of the word. The primary signification has been adopted, because it agrees better with the second member of the sentence, thus preserving the force and beauty of the antithesis. The righteous go to life, the wicked to the cutting off from life, or death.")

What does the Bible say the penalty for sin is?

Romans 6:23: “The wages sin pays is death.”

After one’s death, is he still subject to further punishment for his sins?

Romans 6:7: “He who has died has been acquitted from his sin.”

Is Eternal torment of the wicked compatible with God’s personality?

Jeremiah 7:31: “They [apostate Judeans] have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, in order to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, a thing that I had not commanded and that had not come up into my heart.” (If it never came into God’s heart, surely he does not have and use such a thing on a larger scale.)

Illustration: What would you think of a parent who held his child’s hand over a fire to punish the child for wrongdoing? “God is love.” (1 John 4:8) Would he do what no right-minded human parent would do? Certainly not!

What is the origin of the teaching of hellfire?

In ancient Babylonian and Assyrian beliefs the “nether world . . . is pictured as a place full of horrors, and is presided over by gods and demons of great strength and fierceness.” (The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, Boston, 1898, Morris Jastrow, Jr., p. 581) Early evidence of the fiery aspect of Christendom’s hell is found in the religion of ancient Egypt. (The Book of the Dead, New Hyde Park, N.Y., 1960, with introduction by E. A. Wallis Budge, pp. 144, 149, 151, 153, 161) Buddhism, which dates back to the 6th century B.C.E., in time came to feature both hot and cold hells. (The Encyclopedia Americana, 1977, Vol. 14, p. 68) Depictions of hell portrayed in Catholic churches in Italy have been traced to Etruscan roots.—La civiltà etrusca (Milan, 1979), Werner Keller, p. 389.

But the real roots of this God-dishonoring doctrine go much deeper. The fiendish concepts associated with a hell of torment slander God and originate with the chief slanderer of God (the Devil, which name means “Slanderer”), the one whom Jesus Christ called “the father of the lie.”—John 8:44.

If you would like further information or a free home Bible study, please contact Jehovah's Witnesses at the local Kingdom Hall. Or visit http://www.watchtower.org

Answer 2

Don't blame God...He has a bad publicist...LOL!!

But seriously, Thomas Aquinas was most likely only speaking of enjoying the sufferings of others in hell in a hypothetical manner.

To actually enjoy another individual's suffering would make any so-called Christian a hypocrite, because it's not very Christ-like to enjoy people's pain.

Don't ever blame God.

Instead, blame the people who use religion as a form of fear control, and then apply humanly impossible rules which state that unless the indivudal abides by these rules (most of which are all man-made) they will go to hell.

The only rules I obey are the 10 commandments.

And you know what I say to them..."PHHHTTTT!!!"

ONLY GOD determines who goes to heaven...NOT religious leaders, ministers, priests, rabbis, etc

God is more interested in your spirituality...
NOT your religion. If you want to have a personal relationship with God, then seek Him out and have one with Him on your terms...
NOT terms dictated by flawed human beings.

I guarantee you will be much happier and more at peace with yourself, if you stop worrying about religiosity, and focus on your spirituality instead.

Answer 3

According to the Bible we only have two options - heaven or hell. When you say that you don't want to go to heaven, you are obvously choosing the other. God is just giving you what you want. The good news is that you don't have to be "good enough" as you say to go to heaven. What Christ did on the cross was good enough to atone for our sin. Hell was originally created for the devil and his angels. But God's holiness demands justice. Unforgiven sin is always judged. No true Christian will enjoy others suffering. God does not rejoice to send people to hell. It seems that in the long run, people send themselves to hell by willfully rejecting God's love.

Answer 4

The creation of hell was not for humans. It was created for satan and his angels after they rebelled against God. It was never God's intention for humans to go to hell. However, since man fell into sin we cannot go into God's presence in our sinful state.
He offers us a way to come into His presence through His son Jesus. If we reject His son and in effect reject Him we will suffer the same fate as satan. You do not have to be good enough to go to heaven just accept His love and forgiveness.
Thomas Aquinas does not speak for God. The bible states that it is God's desire that none should go to hell but that all would choose Him. He loves you and wants you to love Him but He will not force you.

Answer 5

Like Satan he tried to turn the angels in heaven and did 1/3 of them against God. God has a place for the good and a place for the bad.

That why we have choice, he don't make us do either one good or bad, he give us the choice.

Answer 6

Try to look at it from God's point of view. Why should God allow someone to continue feel pleasure if that person hates God and wants God to leave him alone? God created pleasure, so for God to allow you to continue to feel good means that God is somehow still interfering with your life, even though you told him that you wanted nothing to do with him anymore. If you were God, and had created a person who came to hate you and was ungrateful for everything that you did, wouldn't life with that person be unbearable? Wouldn't you eventually have to push that person out of your life forever?

If someone didn't like God and his rules, or want to be with him, then wouldn't an eternity of being stuck in Heaven with a god that you hate be just another form of hell? It seems that a person who does not like his creator will eventually be unhappy anywhere God puts him.

Thirdly, why should someone who may have committed grave injustice against other people be allowed to simply disappear into nothingness? How would it serve justice if someone like Hitler was allowed to simply disappear instead of paying God back for all of the suffering that he caused? Of course, none of us thinks that we are all that bad, or that we have ever hurt any one else, but I wonder if other people would agree?

Additionally, do you believe that God with give you eternal happiness in Heaven based on just a few good deeds done over just one lifetime? I noticed that no-one ever complains that the concept of eternal Heaven is unfair.

.................................
Hell is God reluctantly granting non-Christians their wish.

Ultimately, life and every desirable thing comes from the God who created every molecule that we see, feel, enjoy and misuse. Even sin’s fickle pleasure, that elusive shadow of the real thing seized while defying him, is possible only because the Son of God lovingly created his haters with the ability to experience pleasure.

Non-Christians push Jesus aside, yet in his extravagant love Jesus keeps giving and giving. They don’t want him meddling in their lives, but he keeps forcing himself upon them, showering them with gifts of life and pleasure. In hell they finally get their way. To be granted separation from the Source of every good and beautiful thing, however, is a terrifying prospect.

A different view: In the western world the concept of a God of love pops up so often that we forget the source of this notion. The only way of truly knowing that God is love is through the revelation of Jesus and the Bible, both of which lovingly and emphatically warn of hell’s grim reality.

Answer 7

Dude - Hell doesn't exist. Don't worry about it. It's all a bunch of stories. Stories made to encourage people to do good in their life. Unfortunately, some sick twisted Christian Extremist now use it to scare people and force them to give up their life for their false god. So sit back, have a beer, and say "screw it".

Answer 8

Hell was made by God for satan and the fallen angels who followed him. All who reject God will suffer the same fate. God makes the rules... follow God's rules or suffer the concequenses.

Thomas Asquinas did'nt know squat... but concidering he was RC and not of The True Christian Faith any of his"teaching" is questionable

You have two choices... Follow God's rules... or not... your choice

Answer 9

fine if you don't want to go to heaven, but the
only way to heaven is by believing in Jesus, repenting of your sins & living as a Christian
GOD DOES NOT want for anyone to go to hell that's
why he sent Jesus to die on the cross as a payment
for our sins so we can have an eternal life in Heaven ,
but he leaves the chioce up to us as to if we want
to believe in him & the bible OR NOT
the only reason there is HELL is because satin,
a fallen angle, once named Lucifer wanted to controll
the Earth too & God would not have that so satin
got thrown out of Heaven to rule the Earth as he wished &
those who don't have faith in God will end up in hell

for more about this you could check out : WWW.WAYOFTHEMASTER.COM

to each their own & take care

Answer 10

God made a seperate place for the people who like sin very much !

Answer 11

How would you feel if someone raped or hurt your children or somone close to you, when they die you wouldn't want to see them suffer? Just because we live our lives in a cool demeanor doesn't mean we think everyone should be punished. God gives everyone chances to believe in him and if you refuse it's his way of saying I told you so!