Provide examples, please: Whose hell is the most fearsome?

Question

I'm most familiar with the christian hell, specifically the Irish variation -- being suspended upside down in a barrel containing all the liquor that you wasted in life.

So I'm curious: Who can beat that?

Answer 1

LOL! I love the irish...especially since I'm about half irish myself. That's awesome.

The "biblical" christians here like to mention a lake of fire and lots of gnashing of teeth. What the heck is teeth gnashing? I picture monsters grinding and snapping their teeth...which makes me wonder-why is that so fearsome?

Answer 2

I have heard several variations, one being just the absence of God. One being fire, or ice. Another being something that was already mentioned...the gnashing of teeth and a lake of fire. In Revelation there is the picture of those who are lost being thrown into a lake of fire and burned up. Wherever or whatever hell is, I hope never to find out any more about it than I already know!

Answer 3

I kind of liked the one from Pirates of the Caribbean where Captain Jack was in Hell with abunch of himself---all very pitiful and crazy.

Answer 4

“All hope abandon, ye who enter here.” Such was the inscription placed over the gates of hell in Dante’s Inferno. This 14th-century poem depicts hell as a deep pit divided into nine circles going down to the center of the earth where Satan dwells. Each circle represented a greater degree of suffering and punishment.

That medieval Italian poet made an imaginary word picture ofwhat was then current Catholic dogma and had been ever since earliest times of the Roman Church. The horrible sufferings of hell have also been depicted over the centuries by artists. “Last judgment” paintings are to be seen in many Catholic churches and in museums all over the world. The most famous one likely is Michelangelo’s huge fresco in the Vatican’s Sistine chapel, said to have scared the wits out of Paul III, one of the popes who had commissioned the painting.

Frightening too are the sculptured portals of many Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals in Europe. For example, millions of tourists visiting Paris feel a shudder when they gaze at the terrifying “last judgment” scenes carved into the stonework above the central doorway of Notre Dame Cathedral. There is no gainsaying that what is depicted in these various works of art is excruciating physical torment of a literal kind.

“Oh, yes,” the modern educated Catholic will reply, “but these artistic representations merely show that the hellfire dogma was used in the Middle Ages to scare ‘simple souls’ into serving God. These days, enlightened Catholics know that these ‘last judgment’ scenes symbolize the mental anguish of the damned who are deprived of being in God’s presence.”

many people are wondering about whether even the “cool” version of hell, limiting the suffering to mental anguish at being everlastingly separated from God, is reconcilable with God’s love. Thus French religious writer Henri Fesquet wrote in Le Monde: “Is the God worshiped by Christians a torturer? . . . Is God sadistic, putting the pleasure of being obeyed above the suffering of his wayward creatures?”

L’Express made the following interesting comments: “No more caldrons. But hell continues. It is said to be ‘a state in which man places himself through refusing God.’ Hell is isolation. . . . Even in earthly prisons sensory isolation is considered to be the worst torture.” “Hell, as explained by modern theologians, is just as fearsome as the hell depicted by medieval artists.”

A Catholic Dictionary quotes Catholic “Saint” Augustine as saying that the pain of loss is “so great a punishment that no torments known to us can be compared to it.”

So is it any improvement over the classic “fire-and-brimstone” hell to say that unrepentant sinners will be punished everlastingly by unremitting mental anguish? Many sincere Catholics will readily agree that, morally, it is just as fiendish to torment someone mentally as physically. Both forms of punishment are incompatible with the Scriptural concept of a God of justice and love.

The above-quoted article in L’Express put the question: “‘How could a kind God have his creatures suffer eternally?’ That is a fundamental problem. Theologians reply that paradoxically hell is the ultimate consequence of God’s love for man’s freedom.” Does that sound logical?


Interestingly, in his article “Has Hell Misfired?” published in Le Monde after the Vatican reaffirmed the hell dogma, H. Fesquet also stated: “To believe hell exists and is not empty, many obstacles have to be overcome, obviously the first one being survival after death.” Yes, if there is no immaterial soul that survives man’s death, such “hereafter” doctrines as limbo, purgatory and hell collapse for want of souls to inhabit them.

What says the Bible? Let the answer come from Catholic scholars:

“A distinction between the body and the soul is nowhere clearly stated in the Scriptures.”—Dictionnaire de la Bible, edited by F. Vigouroux.

“The concept of ‘soul,’ meaning a purely spiritual, immaterial reality, separate from the ‘body,’ . . . does not exist in the Bible.”—Georges Auzou, Professor of Sacred Scripture, Rouen Seminary, France.

The Bible clearly states: “The soul that sinneth, the same shall die.” (Ezek. 18:4, 20, Catholic Douay Bible) Not only does this show that the human soul is not inherently immortal, but it also shows that the punishment for unremitting sin is not torment (whether physical or mental), but death. The Bible further says: “The wage paid by sin is death; the present given by God is eternal life.” (Rom. 6:23, Catholic Jerusalem Bible) Everlasting life or everlasting death—such is the choice God sets before his creatures.—John 3:16, 36; Deut. 30:19, 20.

The Hebrew and Greek words mistranslated “hell” in some versions of the Bible mean either the common grave of dead mankind (Heb., sheol; Gr., hádes), from which there will be a resurrection, or everlasting destruction (Gr., ge′enna). A careful reading of the Bible will convince any honest person that the “everlasting fire” prepared for the Devil, his angels and wicked men (Matt. 25:41, 46) is symbolic of destruction, “the second death,” from which there will be no resurrection.—Apoc. or Rev. 20:9, 10; 21:8.

“God is love.” (1 John 4:8) The dogma of eternal torment in hell is a gross misrepresentation of the just and loving God whom true Christians worship.

Answer 5

There are two Hells that I know of. One in Michigan and the other in Norway. Having been to neither I couldn't make any statement about how terrifying they are.

Answer 6

Have you ever been to Bakersfield, CA? Much worse!

Answer 7

Do not mock Hell,it is a real place and no one has been there and came back to tell,but I can say I do not want ot go there.