is hell a place of punishment or a place of purification?

Question

what does your religion teach

Answer 1

Hell is the state of complete and final self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed, reserved for those who refuse by their own free choice to believe and be converted from sin, even to the end of their lives

No one really knows what hell is like. It has been described by people who have not been there as everything from flames to a frozen lake (Dante).

With love in Christ.

Answer 2

In Islam, hell is a place of punishment but in this case you may never get a chance to ever repent. Allah will decide on how long he wants the punishment to last and so the angels of hell will not stop until the given deadline. Allah decides the duration of punishment based on the actions of man/woman.on Earth. It is not for purification of any sins. You want to repent and be purified of your regretted sins, then ask Allah directly for he will never turn away the prayer of his believers.

Answer 3

Hell is a place of eternal separation from God. The only purification is when you accept Jesus as your Lord and savior your sins are covered by his blood sacrifice at the cross past present and future then as we are taken up in the air during the rapture are bodies will be changed so all the dead in Christ(having excepted Christ as savior) no matter how they died will be given new bodies as well as the living Christians that are called up during the rapture.
There is no purification by fire for a Christian

Answer 4

Jesus affirmed that the wicked "will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life" (Mat 25:46). Notice that the eternality of the punishment of the wicked equals the eternality of the eternal life of the righteous. One is just as long as the other. This points to the "forever" nature of the punishment of the wicked It never ceases.
The eternal nature of this punishment is emphasized all throughout Scripture. The fire of hell, for example is called an "unquenchable fire" (Mark 9:43); the "smoke of their sinners torment rises for ever and ever" (Rev 14:11).
This is what Bible teaching Christian churches believe.

Answer 5

hell is a place of punishment, each day god gives you is a day of purification. it is appointed unto man once to die then after that the judgement. make the most of your life accept jesus and live your life for him so you never have to worry about hell.

Answer 6

Religion does not teach anything GOD says that it is a place of ToRmEnT, which to me means PuNiShMeNt. GOD expects each of us to be faithful until death. We are to read, study, and follow the New Testament Commands. I hope that this answers your question. Have a great day!
Eds

Answer 7

Hell is a place of punishment. For purification one goes to Purgatory

Answer 8

Well the Bible, that a great deal of people say represents their religions, says that one can be saved from hell. See below.

Pss.16
[10] For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.

Pss.18
[5] The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of death prevented me.
[16] He sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of many waters.
[17] He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them which hated me: for they were too strong for me.

Pss.18
[5] The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of death prevented me.

Prov.15
[24] The way of life is above to the wise, that he may depart from hell beneath.

Pss.139
[8] If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

Rev.1
[18] I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.

These last two statements say that if you make your bed in hell, God is still there. This then says God is also in hell. The last one says that Christ has the keys of hell. If something has keys then one can compare it to a room that has a door that can be open, closed, locked. It doesn't say it is a one-way door. When one finds the keys to hell then one can exit or enter what ever one wants, they have the key. I don't know if I would say it purifies, but it definitely makes one realize they do not want to reside there.

Answer 9

Well, this is what the Bible Teaches, however, there are many that still sucumb to this unscriptural teaching.
This is an article that was published in 1986:
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“MAN will burn, burn, burn!” In the darkened room, the speaker, his shirt aflame, stretches out his arms and takes a few steps toward his astonished listeners. Thankfully, the demonstration lasts only a few seconds. But with the help of his inflammable powder, the preacher has managed to make a big impression on his audience by his convincing evocation of hellfire

Like him, many other religious teachers—especially in Christendom—say that God has this eternal fate in store for the wicked. But is that really what the Bible says?

Good and Wicked in Same Place

“The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.” (Psalm 9:17, King James Version) Here, instead of the word “hell,” more modern translations such as Lamsa and The Jerusalem Bible have preferred to retain the word that appears in the Hebrew text, “Sheol.” But to what exactly does “hell,” or “Sheol,” refer?

The Bible book of Ecclesiastes gives more information about Sheol. It says: “All that your hand finds to do, do it with your very power, for there is no work nor devising nor knowledge nor wisdom in Sheol, the place to which you are going.” (Ecclesiastes 9:10) If those in hell, or Sheol, cannot think or know or act, surely they cannot be suffering.

It is not, then, surprising that even faithful servants of God went to Sheol. Jacob thought he would go there when he died, and Job hoped that God would hide him there and thus bring his sufferings to an end. (Genesis 42:38; Job 14:13) Would these two faithful servants have hoped—or even asked—to go to a burning, fiery hell along with the wicked? Certainly not!

What Is the “Fire”?

But how do we understand Jesus’ words when he said that those who do not do the will of God will go into “the fire that cannot be put out,” or into ‘a fiery furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’?—Mark 9:43-48; Matthew 13:42.

In discussing this place, Jesus did not use the word “Hades,” the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word “Sheol.” Rather, he used the word “Gehenna.” This word referred to a refuse dump close to Jerusalem, called the Valley of Hinnom, where a fire was kept burning to destroy the garbage. It was a fitting term to make Jesus’ listeners think, not of eternal suffering, but of complete destruction, annihilation by fire.

The Revelation given to the apostle John speaks of a “lake that burns with fire and sulphur” into which are thrown all those who practice bad things. (Revelation 21:8) If hell exists, this must be it, since the wicked go there. But this same Bible book tells us that death, inherited from Adam, and Hades will be thrown into this same lake of fire. Can these two abstract things suffer? No. But the fire here can and does represent their disappearance, which will take place once they have ‘given up those dead in them,’ that is, after the resurrection of the dead.—Revelation 20:13, 14.

These last examples show that fire is only a symbol for annihilation, or eternal destruction. So there is no suffering in the lake of fire, or Gehenna, any more than there is in Hades (or, Sheol), where faithful servants of God, as well as wicked people, go. But if we go a little deeper into the subject, we will better understand why we cannot believe both in the Bible and in the existence of a hellfire.

Incompatible With God’s Personality

What would you think of parents who kept their children imprisoned day after day, or even tortured them? If you would be disgusted by such acts, should you not also be disgusted by a god who would cause his children to be tormented forever in fire?

The fact that the true God is not like that is seen from the reproofs he addressed to the Israelites who had ‘burned their sons and their daughters in the fire.’ Jehovah insisted that this was ‘a thing that he had not commanded and that had not come up into his heart.’ (Jeremiah 7:31) Since God had never thought of such things, how could we imagine that he would create a hellfire for his creatures? Yes, if cruelty and torture disgust us, how much more must they disgust God, who is love?—1 John 4:8.

The doctrine of hellfire also goes against justice. In his letter to the Romans, the apostle Paul explains: “The wages sin pays is death.” (Romans 6:23) Moreover, he tells us: “He who has died has been acquitted from his sin.” If death completely removes a person’s indebtedness, why should he then suffer eternally for only a lifetime of sin?—Romans 6:7.

Thus, the Bible shows that hellfire, as it is generally understood, does not exist. And this knowledge allows us to form a relationship with God that is based on love and not on terror. We suggest that you keep on examining the Bible and learn how to please him properly in order to be among those who will see that wonderful day when Hades, or Sheol, the common grave of mankind, will disappear forever.—1 John 4:16-18.

Answer 10

Hell is the grave, 6 feet under.
The dead person lying there knows nothing ...based on Ecclisates 9:10,11.
The soul as well ....dies. Ezekial 18:4
Hell is the grave. No fire. No torture. No nothing.