why hell?

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One thing that I find interesting concering Heaven and Hell:

surely I’m not the only one who finds eternal peace and happiness (Heaven) as disturbing as eternal pain and suffering (Hell)? It’d drive me insane…and this is from a human who hasn’t known anything other than a fleeting amount of internal happiness in my entire life. Personally, I couldn't choose one over the other; they're both insane and maddening in their extreme views.

I never could understand this when the Priests were speaking of Heaven and Hell in school. I never questioned them due to my inability to speak. Where's the balance?

I'm with Danielismyname...i would get very bored in a Heaven scenario, I feel...

hmm heaven.

where you go work for the big man,
who wants to work doing something for someone else for eternity? not what you want to do mind you, but whats assigned you.
what? have everything you ever wanted? how drool, there would be nothing to strive for.
what? live in heaven only desiring the love and to love and be loved by the one and only god?
do you have any idea how many people are standing in line at his door just for some one on one time? you would be nothing more then a flea in a long line of fleas.
what? roads and city's made of gold and diamonds? hell it would all be worthless there would be so much of it.
what? sit around and do nothing forever? how boring.
perhaps your heaven is swinging from the tree's and eating figs and wearing a big fig leaf chasing the girls or being chased by the boys hoping to get laid, oh wait, sex is a sin and of the flesh and your dead, right? so thats out of the question.

I asked so many ministers and priests what heaven was and what the point of it was and what made it so wonderful to be in and go to and they all said the same thing, just to be next to god and his love, they had no real idea or conception past that them selves, or that it has to be better then hell, blah, if I had to goto hell at least I might be able to have kinky sex forever, give me the challenge of the sciences, its much preferred and more realistic..

Foxman, I'm so sorry you were beaten up for the stupidest of reasons.

I can't remember who did the study, but it was in the newspapers a while back that the most religious people were the most generous.

I am enjoying the discussion, especially the posts from our friend down under.
Myself, after my eldest son became a universalist and sent me all sorts of exegesis and translations, I reluctantly took up the study of hell, my least favorite doctrine, and read multiple books from many perspectives and finally sided with John Stott, a prominent protestant writer, who is a, uh-oh, I just lost the noun and it may take me days to find it again. Exterminationist? doesn't sound right. Someone who believes those who have accepted the salvation Jesus provides and subsequently worked toward God's Kingdom will go to heaven or whatever heaven is a metaphor for, and those who reject God will die and be destroyed.
The boys who beat up Foxman were not working toward the Kingdom of God. If they were, they would have loved, helped, and respected him.

So here's this yhvh dude all alone and unhappy. He decides to do a creation, of angels.

While he is setting up the angelic design parameters he knows, because he is omniscient, thatt they will fail in service. And even though he is obviously capable of doing so by way of his omnipotence (Enzyte I think) he does not alter the design or build specifications.

He makes one angel "the most beautiful" as if that was going to do something useful. Then when that most beautiful one (Callista? A is Flockheart?) thinks he is God's equal, God, being also very kind and reasonable, banishes him and his allies to a place of eternal punishment.

Then yhvh creates again, Once again he designs his works to fail the test. And somehow the beautiful one is let loose in a most imperfect garden (I mean: would you have placed a temptation into your Eden?)

When man fails (it was us babes who done it) yhvh turns him out of the garden, makes him work, makes pregnency painfl, and gives us bo and tooth decay. Oh and we can go to hell to.

And then he determines that due to man's crash, the critters must bite the big one too and so they give up speech in order to eat each other.

Much later he comes to his son with a deal: "Listen up kid, yer agonna go down there and tell em how to live." "Oh goodie dad,and they will be saved!" "No, they will kill you, and still go to hell."

Wha?!

Mz Foxman
Some people look at hell this way: God says to the one who does not want Him, "Your will be done." and since apart from God there is no life, the person has chosen their own destruction.
Frankly, I don't think about hell much at all. Mostly I think about what would God want me to do in this situation I am in. Right now I am having a lot of fun sending books to three Christian schools in Rwanda that are providing free education to farmer's kids. And sending fruit tree seeds to a man who will grow them so I can plant them at the schools when I go next January. You want to come with me?

These are first through third graders. They are learning English, French, Ikinyarwanda, printing letters, math, Bible, and if they are using my books: ecology, environment, animals, astronomy, how things are manufactured, geography, the peoples of the world and their cultures, art, folk tales, careers, volcanoes, how to conduct simple science experiments, horticulture, silvaculture, anatomy, black scientists and explorers and inventors, etc. I try to make sure all the books are totally peopled by blacks or include blacks in a societally equal manner.