Hell

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The 10 Circles are from Dante's Inferno, not the Bible.

Still an interesting story, though.

Supposedly, some believe that the fire and brimstone are metaphorical, rather than literal.

Some believe that hell itself is metaphorical, rather than literal.

norway too, we get a music festical there, and postcards showing hell frozen over
"hell" means both luck and ledge, in this case it means "ledge"

"Hell" is norwegian for luck, and "lykke" too, but sadly "Hell" is more formal.

But when it comes to Hell, I think the earth is not so different for some people, for example in africa, Intense heat, you get whipped to do your work faster, go on an empty stomach constantly, have diseases...... If hell existed, the only thing would be f****** mighty pain, nothing else, no responsibility, like in this world. Early in the stone age, I'm sure people felt like worthless animals because they froze themselves to death, got eaten by animals, constantly searched for food, and walked around naked, THAT is what you can define "Hell On Earth".

Why are animals worthless? If you are eaten you have worth. Since dead people are not eaten they have no worth after death.

True, but If a human feels one is an animal, It's BAD.

Hell as a literal place of punishment is a) possibly a useful tool for social control, and b) definitely a goldmine for fiction writers.

Hell as the absence of God would appear to be a logical impossibility if you believe, as did the writer of Psalm 139, that God is everywhere and there's no escaping him. (Although note that Sheol, the actual word translated 'hell' throughout the OT, just means 'the grave' and was seen much like the underworld of the Babylonians: dark and dusty, not a place of fiery torture. As far as I know the Jews didn't develop the idea of Gehinnom, the term Jesus uses in the Gospels, till later, and even then there was argument about how long anyone stayed there for; I don't believe there's any Jewish tradition of it being eternal.)

I agree, we need:

- Hell as the presence of God experienced by those who reject him (the modern Catholic option, so I've been told)

- Hell as the suffering of this world (the Gnostic option)

- Hell as the realm you get reborn into for committing violent acts (ancient Buddhist option)

- Hell as the state of mind dominated by anger (modern Buddhist option)

- Hell as other people (the existentialist option)

- Hell as something that fortunately, my belief system doesn't involve and therefore doesn't require me to come up with a justification of (my preferred option)

- other.

On the contrary, I consider myself an animal and I feel very good about it. I get along very well with my fellow animals sucha as dogs, cats, frogs, hedgehogs, seagulls, ducks, pigeons, sparrows, etc. We converse by various means and are delighted with each other. Although I have some human friends, in general, I prefer the company of other types of animals.

True, true.

Hell was originally depicted as a very cold place and the devil was always depicted as a blue creature. The idea being the distance from god was a lot colder.

That squares with Dante. In -Inferno- the 9th circle of the Inferno was a place where sinners of the worst sort were encased in ice.

ruveyn

Actually Inferno was where the whole "hot" part started. Unless you think empty voids are hot.

One way of looking at it from a Christian perspective is this: yes, we are already in hell. This life, that we're living now, is as near as some of us will ever get to hell, but it's also as near as some of us will ever get to heaven.

Of the two "antithetical" answers in the poll I find myself not able to answer either. The poll should have included an option for the atheists, who would want to say "fictitious", but should also have included an option for non Christian theists, folks who believe in reincarnation, and Christians who believe "other."

Now, I will answer this thread in detail in the next few days, but right now, I'm insomniac at roughly two am, and couldn't do it justice. So let me just say... jibes about fairy tales will be ignored, okay? And see you all when I've had a good night's sleep.

No, hell is neither, but rather God's extreme presence. (messing around, I think this is an Eastern Orthodox position though)

Look, I don't really know what to say.

Strange. Some posters here describe Hell as the total absence of God.

I know, but the rebuttal is that God is sometimes described as everywhere. This can be taken as including hell as well. The reason why this ends up being hell-ish, is because God's pure presence is argued as being painful for the unrepentant.

I just stated this because this kind of question has very little I can say about it.