Question for atheists?

Question

How do you explain the fire analogy used in the bible to describe hell, and the fact that the center of the earth is extremely hot?

No one had any way of knowing that the middle of the earth was hot when the bible was written.

Answer 1

Hell was just the worse possible thing at the time. The middle east is VERY hot, and to them, for it to be worse, it would be even hotter. In norse mythology, their version of hell is cold, Norsemen grew up and lived in cold places. It's just common sense and has nothing to do with the core of the earth. Was that supposed to make me think?

Answer 2

In the bible the word hell is translated or mistranslated from 3 different words. In the old testament it is translated from the Hebrew word Shoel or which means a pit or the grave. It is also often translated as Hades. Many years ago people often said that they put their potatoes and turnips in hades for the winter. This kept them from ruining.

In the new testament it is translated from 2 different words. One is Tartaroo which was the holding place for the devil and fallen angels.

The other is Gehenna a valley south of Jerusalem where garbage and the dead bodies of the poor or those convicted of crimes were thrown. It burned almost constantly. It was used as an analogy of the Lake of Fire mentioned in the Bible where the wicked will be thrown and hence burn up. The bible states that the wicked will be ashes under the feet of the righteous.

I am an Atheist. I give no credit to the bible. I do however know what is in it. How can you be a xtian when you do not have all of the facts?

Answer 3

Uhm, The Bible doesn't refer to the hot centre of the earth, anywhere!
Surely you don't believe those stories told to you to make you act good about the centre of the earth being Hell! That is way more absurd than any fantasy concept I have ever read about, and I read a lot of Fantasy fiction!
Think about it, how many kilometres/miles to the centre of the earth? As if there is a thriving populace there! Our planet would self-implode if it were hollowed out in the middle, enough so that there is a community inhabiting it, considering the force of gravity, etc. And if you really believe that Satan exists, why would his domain be the centre of the earth? Isn't he supposed to be inhabiting the surface? Sorry love, science has got you on that one!

Answer 4

Not an Atheist but the hell fire thing is evident in religions other than Christianity. I imagine they thought fire lay under the Earth because of volcanic activity. They also thought that the sun revolved around the Earth. Doesn't prove the Bible to be right.

Answer 5

There is no fire in the centre of the earth. The fact the bible describes hell as hot, and there's an actual place that is hot is barely even a coincidence.

Answer 6

From an article by Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld y de la Torre, M.A. Ed., web site sited below:

"The Old Testament or Hebrew Bible knows NOTHING of an eternal damnation of sinners in a lake of fire. This notion does however appear in the so-called "inter-testamental era," circa 330 BCE to 100 CE in various Jewish writings called the Pseudepigraphia and Apocrypha. I suspect that Hellenistic Greek notions of an underworld filled with fiery rivers and lakes came to be accepted by some Hellenized Jewish indididuals, or sects, from which a Hellenized Christianity emerged."

"The Greeks who settled settled in Sicily and southern Italy by the 6th century BCE would have seen the "firey rivers" or lava flows at night erupting from the Mount Etna volcano or Mount Vesuivius. These fiery rivers of lava coming from the under the earth, probably caused them to imagine a fiery underworld for the damned."

"...studies have indicated that the Mesopotamians were of a mind to re-interpret and transform older myths into newer religious concepts. It would appear that the Hebrews, Jews and Christians weren't doing anything new in their transformation of the earlier ancient myths..."

Even a brief study of the origins of theology will show that the bible is not the word of god, but a collection of stories gathered from other cultures and myths.

Answer 7

You yourself reffer to it as an analogy, so what relevance would it have if hell isn't literally under the surface of the earth?...

Anyway, while they didn't have any particular beliefs about the CENTER of the earth, they WERE aware of volcanos, hot springs, the heat from deep mines, and other things that indicate things under the earths crust are rather warm.

Answer 8

They could have known that the middle of the earth was hot the same way we know now (AFAIK we STILL haven't made it all the way through the crust to the mantle.) It's very simple: lava, hot lava (cue Jane's Addiction). For the record I'm not exactly an atheist, but I had to point this out.

Answer 9

There is good chance that the depths of hell could have been inspired by volcanoes... The flowing rivers/lakes of fire, a thing that drops to the very depths of where all this comes from...the very center of earth...an underworld...or "hell"...

Volcanoes used to be around more and more active then they are today...you think no one had any way of knowing?


Edit: For more info, see this old question of mine (or the answer rather) that almost no one even dared to touch, interestingly enough... http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AlULUhHqltNyPY0nKfPatMHsy6IX?qid=20061121191723AATUu1t

Answer 10

The Bible was written by men who thought the Earth was FLAT, and that the sky was a DOME covering it. They had no knowledge of the planet's core, let alone its temperature.

Christians BURNED witches and other heretics. It isn't surprising that they'd use fire as a threat in the afterlife, since they were already using it against people who didn't share their beliefs.

Answer 11

Goodness me.. you are so wise... NOT! :-P The bible doesn't say hell is in the centre of the earth, nor that the core of the earth is hot. In parts if the bible it refers to earth as being a disk shape, and flat.