What is hell?

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What is hell like?
Who goes there and why?
Is that justice?

Hell is supposed to be the absence of the presence of God how ever you see God.

and fair is where you take a pig to win blue ribbons, friend.

Merle

Hell is place made up by power-seeking religious zealots in an attempt to control their followers.

Nobody goes there because it does not exist.

"Hell is not punishment, it's training."
-Shunryu Suzuki

An imaginary place for imaginary evil people.

Hell is what you invision it to be. It's not a real place, but an imaginary place that people think of to describe where people go, if not to "heaven".

Jean-Paul Satre: "Hell is other people."

I can go with that. If they tailor-make hells, mine is set in a hot, crowded, underground nightclub with flashing lights and dry ice and ear-splitting hard house "music".

In fact, even just thinking about that scenario now... *shudder*

There is a show that takes place in hell/purgatory. It's the 80s "Dungeons and Dragons" animated series, and it's available on DVD.

Hell is not a single concept but is a myriad of alike looking ideas.
The most common one can be described as:

Hell is the place (realm / plane / dimension, take your pick) where you go when you die if you have not lived properly.

- The "living properly" can vary greatly depending on who you ask
- The discriptions of hell vary also greatly, but it is usually put as a place where it would be unpleasant to be
- It is normally the part of a religious doctrine / dogma where "going to hell" is a punishment after being judged upon death (or most likely just after death, because these days you can be survived after being dead for a short time )

According to Danté, it's got nine circles for various different types of sinners and who goes to each one is very well defined. But I don't believe a word of it.

I think that those that are not religious tend to believe that Hell does not exist or is an imaginary place for sinners fabricated by those that are religious. I think those that are religious have a point in that I think Hell (as well as Heaven) does exist. However, what religious and non-religious alike tend to believe is that, whether they believe Hell truly exists or not, you have to die first in order to get there. My own personal belief is that you can have Hell on Earth while you are still alive, a living Hell if you like. I am reading a book by Jodi Picoult at the moment called Mercy, in which a man is asked by his wife to kill her (she is terminally ill and in a lot of pain) and he does this in order to spare her any more pain. He feels now that he is in Hell as he can no longer wake up beside his wife, talk to her etc and is finding life hard without her. However, he also feels he was in Hell before she died as the wife he married was gone and replaced by one who had to endure terrible pain. I think that if you are someone who goes through life and hardly feels happy or feels any pleasure, you are going through your own version of Hell.

gsilver,
The definition of hell depends on your belief system.

If atheist, hell is part of a mythology of religions which believe in it's existence.

If not, hell can be many things, some of which have been already said about.

It depends on what your other beliefs are.

Middle school.

1. A small town in Stjordal, Norway.

2. Anyone who wants their photo taken with that stupid station sign, or who wants to go to the Hell Music Festival.

3. No. Justice is in Illinois.