There are verses that describe hell as eternal fire, such as Matthew 25:41. I can’t remember the exact verses but others do call Hell eternal punishment/torture
If you reeeaaally want to get nitpicky with it, that place in the gospels that Jesus describes as torture and fire, is never actually called hell. It's just assumed that's what he's talking about. I'm pretty sure hell isn't named until Revelation. There's one theory that no one is actually in hell until the final judgement. ...there's also many Christians (myself included) that don't believe in hell at all.
Not only is no one (besides the fallen angels) in Hell but, when Jesus returns and the dead rise, those who are cast into the eternal flames are to be consumed, not exist there forever.
Not only is it a Catholic thing, it is the very thing that resulted in the schisms which resulted in protestantisms. The idea of purgatory evolved to allow for bargaining - particularly that you could, for instance, literally buy your way out of purgatory and into the pikepass track to heaven with a sufficient donation to the church, what were appropriately called indulgences. While there were other important doctrines included in the 95 Theses that Luther nailed to the door of the church, one of the most important, if not THE most important issue was concerning the existence, or lack thereof, of purgatory and therefore the legitimacy of indulgences. It was perhaps one of the most irreconcilable differences and thus carries a lot of the weight for the necessity of schism vs theological legislation.
I'm not really religious anymore, but the one that always made me assume this was the line about Jesus returning to judge the "quick and the dead". To me, that seems to indicate the dead haven't been judged yet, so they must be in some sort of purgatory waiting for the final judgement.
Not even limbo. The Bible describes the soul as a mortal thing that can die. The idea that the soul is alive in some other place until judgement comes is not in the Bible
Iirc in Revelation all dead are essentially in purgatory until Jesus returns. When he does, the dead are risen for final judgement. Those deemed worthy enter Heaven, those not are destroyed.
But another remember is that Revelations was written decades after Jesus died and most likely has nothing to do with the gospel he preached.
I understand it the way that when your body dies your soul kinda gets "time skip" to whatever God decides, like you go to purgatory first for appropriate duration or you just wake up on Judgement Day. In other words, both purgatory and Judgement Day are something outside of time on earth and are happening with no regard to time as we understand it.
"Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarchDavid died and was buried, and his tomb is here with us today... For David did not ascend to heaven..." — Acts 2:29, 34
Dead people are simply asleep and unaware, they'll be brought back and judged and then brought to heaven or cast into the flame to be consumed and cease to exist. This is what a lot of people believe it is usually referred to as annihilationism.
Okay so how do modern interpretations of this belief account for things like decomposition? If they are just asleep and unaware, but their bones have turned to dust, what exactly is going to "wake up?"
Its annihilation vs eternal conscious punishment debate. I lean towards annihilation heavily. You just dont get to rise. If we are being fully honest, I lean towards preterism which is that the second coming was God coming in judgement on the Jewish age during the destruction of the second temple in 70 AD and that the new world is what we have now: everyone has access to God if they want it.
Why are the flames eternal, if they’re going to consume a limited number of people?
Have the flames always been there? What were they for originally? Are they just being temporarily repurposed to consume the unbelievers, then they go back to… whatever it is they were doing?
Essentially, yes. I believe hell is inconsistent with a god of love, but if I understand heaven as the place that God resides, then it exists just as God exists. I really latched onto Gregory of Nyssa's idea that everyone will eventually be with God and that growth in that direction continues even in the afterlife or next life. It's an infinite process for everyone. The real fun part is exploring the idea that God grows, too (I mean, he literally changes multiple times in the Bible).
No one has ever asked me that, so I've never had to formulate a response. There are many Christians who don't believe in hell and what I have stated here is not something I made up on my own, it's what I learned through other Christian theologians. There's also entire denominations of Christianity (like Greek Orthodox) that don't believe that Jesus' death was about salvation. But I can't articulate those theologies very well.
I guess the best answer I can give is that I learned about God through Christianity and Jesus and it's through those teachings that I look to grow closer to God. So jesus, to me is an example of how to live and view God, though if you ask me about his eschatology, I'd struggle to give an answer.
With that in mind, I'm kind of a universalist when it comes to religion. Christianity is my lens to view God, but I don't think it's really exclusive to others. I think most religions are really reaching for the same thing, but viewing it from different directions. I liked the (monotheistic) Hindu idea of all the different gods existing as fascets of something to big to understand as one whole.
The Jews were (are) the ones waiting for a messiah. If I were to call myself a Christian it would be because I agree with his teachings about loving people and helping the needy. Choosing Christianity just because you’re scared of being doomed to hell by some prophecy 3,000 years old kinda seems like you’re just doing it out of fear.
Every major religion exists for the sole purpose of placating human fear of death. 'A guaranteed experience beyond this mortal plane in the accompaniment of all those that you have ever loved" sure sounds much better than non-existance.
When you start realizing that every religious doctrine always comes back to and exists in support of the afterlife specifically, you kinda start understanding why so many people are religious.
If your belief is that since hes a god of love and hell would be inconsistent with that, does that extend to other similar examples? Ie the flood, Sodom, passover, canaanites, etc. I believe these are all old testament but theres definitely examples in the new testament albeit at smaller scale from what i remember
Oh definitely, but even before we get to the inconsistency, I have a lot to say about biblical literalism. I don't believe that those stories were ever meant to be taken as historical and that the Bible is a series of writings from people trying to articulate their understanding of God. That's the only way you can make sense of the inconsistencies and shocking things in there. One huge example that i like to point to is that in multiple moments in those early books, God literally shows regret and changes his mind, which implies that the writers didn't think God was all knowing, perfect, or eternally consistent. But that view of God is not the same view that the NT writers have.
If you do not take the biblical stories to be literal and understand that there may be some inconsistencies, why do you believe that a god exists and also that that god is the one from the Christian Bible?
I don't know how to phrase the question, but I'm curious to understand. You sound like a nice person with a viewpoint I haven't heard before.
Aww, thanks! ♥️ You seem nice, too. My belief in God definitely formed out of being raised in a Christian household, but I believe his existence has been confirmed to me outside of the Bible and other people's teachings. I believe I've encountered him, not so much through any extraordinary spiritual happening (though, my brother can). This is where I follow Kierkegaard's Existential Christianity. Belief is not something I can prove to anyone else and everything we understand of God and spiritualism is filtered through our own experiences and limited understanding.
This kinda leads naturally into a more universal approach of who God is--I understand and articulate him through the Christian traditions that I have learned best, but I tend to think that other religions are trying to reach for the same thing and are doing so through their own cultural and philosophical lenses.
As someone who’s grown up being taught that God/Jesus is love and forgiveness, I’ve always struggled with the idea of eternal hell as well. It just didn’t feel like it made complete sense, I understand that being on Earth is sort of a test at this point. But it kinda tells me that these titles are far from truth, especially if humans are birthed in sin to begin with.
I just could never believe that if we reached hell. There wasn’t a possibility of still reaching heaven at some point, or that we all wouldn’t transition there eventually. I mean, would that not be a true victory? For all of us to eventually be in his presence there with no room to doubt? If God is everything, but especially love and forgiveness. Then shouldn’t God be able to reach our hearts and our voices in hell? And if so, shouldn’t he still love us despite everything? And if so, shouldn’t his forgiveness still be just as eternal?
Idk. I haven’t read through the entirety of the Bible, so I’m probably missing things. This was just my upbringing.
I hope you don't mind me plugging this, but if you're really interested in exploring this, the podcast that has really helped me work through a lot of my theological questions is The Bible for Normal People. It is insane how much they have tackled questions that I've always had, but were too afraid to ask and it turns out, a lot of theologians have struggled with the same questions.
This is exactly why so many people become Atheist. Almost none of it makes sense, and the parts that do make sense only reveal much of religion is just a way to scare and control people.
I genuinely mean no offense, but if God is omnipotent, and children are still born with brain cancer, get blown up by Israeli missiles, and are sexually assaulted before they have the capacity to speak, then how is any of that consistent with a god of love?
I think trying to apply logical consistency to something that is inherently illogical is silly, but I'm curious on your take here.
That does sound much nicer, but it's not Biblical. Even Jesus spoke about hell and judgement (as a concept) frequently. I'm curious why you believe any of it if you are just picking theology based on what feels right? If you were born somewhere else, what "feels right" would be very different.
Also, I wanted to add, "Heaven" existed first in the scripts with no mention of a "Hell" for centuries. Hell is the outlier here. Not judging anyone's beliefs or trying to say anyone is wrong, but that is the facts. Hell is a fairly new concept, whereas Heaven has existed in biblical literature for as long as the Jews have been liberated from enslavement by the Egyptians. Maybe even longer...
I find that religious beliefs are a lot more homebrewed these days. People are often not following scripture directly and just taking the bits that provide the most comfortable or coherent world view. I see a lot of Americans dunking on rightwing Christians for perceived hypocrisies as an example, but when I've talked to people fitting this profile in person they usually have totally bizarre, largely self constructed relationships with their theology that facilitates their more anti-social attitudes.
The way people want to live and view things often comes first, then the narrative justifications are invented after, if someone's uncomfortable with the idea of a god that employees eternal torment, they will just interpret what they know differently so that to them it doesn't exist. I'd like to mention I don't necessarily see this is a bad or good thing, I actually see a lot of other non-religious people do this just as much or more, so it's probably just a people thing.
It's because it's not really that there are sects that are like nah hell isn't real, it's more lots of people identify as Christian but aren't really what you would consider Christian. Their culture is Christian, they broadly believe in the morals the bible teaches etc but they don't necessarily actually believe even that God is real. Personally I find it a bit weird that they still consider themselves Christian but it's a pretty significant percentage of people who self-identify as Christian, at least in the UK.
This is absolutely not correct. The major denominations in the UK (Anglicans, Presbyterians, Catholics) all hold Hell to be a reality. Maybe you’re confused because it’s definitely less popular nowadays to tackle the subject in religious education and preaching, at least with the Protestant denominations mentioned.
That's, most likely, because it doesn't exist. Hell, if
Jewish people dont believe in it, the implication would be that Jesus brought it with him, which doesn't sound all that Jesusey.
Unfortunately it’s a myth that Jewish people don’t believe in hell.
The concept of an afterlife realm of punishment/torment was well-established by the first century, and appears under the name “Gehinnom” or “Gehenna.” Jesus mentions it a few times.
The theory that I was told is that there's a big theological shift in the common Jewish beliefs between the closing of the OT (or the Torah) and the beginning of Jesus's teachings, which seem to include the idea of hell and Satan as a ln embodiment of evil working against humanity. That doesn't mean Jews today adhere to it, but the way Jesus talks about it, and the story of him meeting Satan seem to imply that it was a common enough belief at the time
It’s never really mentioned in the Bible. Jesus and his apostles were mostly Jews. They believed in the Torah and Jesus mostly taught a more empathic revision of that. The entire concept of Hell, Satan, and the end times comes from Paul. Who never even met Jesus. And even then Paul never mentioned Satan ruling over Hell, in-fact he said Satan was the ruler of earth during the end times.
What most Christians believe about Hell, Satan, demons etc is all fan fiction created centuries later. Mostly in Dante’s Inferno, which is not canon at all. So a lot of it is debated, many believe the Bible as God’s Word. Many Believe fan fiction as God’s Word.
Dante wrote a vivid description of hell but early christian writers were writing about satan and demons and a hell of fire and eternal punishment in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. Demons existed in pre-christian religions so those were probably syncretised right at the start, as soon as people started converting they imported their pre-existing religious ideas.
Thank you! The people attributing the entire concept of Hell to Alighieri are outing themselves as having an incredibly ‘YouTube pop history’’ level of knowledge on the topic.
Exactly. And it still doesn’t make it cannon. Yes a lot of the early church started incorporating pagan/greek/roman teachings into their beliefs but wouldn’t they negate the divinity of God? If man decides what’s true and untrue and god has no choice but to accept, who is the true ruler?
> Jesus and his apostles were mostly Jews. They believed in the Torah and Jesus mostly taught a more empathic revision of that. The entire concept of Hell, Satan, and the end times comes from Paul.
Ironically you have it exactly reversed. The classic early Jewish underworld of punishment, Gehinnom, isn’t mentioned at all by Paul. However, it’s mentioned a few times by Jesus in the gospels.
Also in the gospels Jesus talks about Satan and the end times a ton. Have you never read the story where Jesus is literally tempted in the wilderness by Satan?
The entire concept of [...] the end times comes from Paul
Precisely, one of the only things we can say about what the historical Jesus really taught is that he was an apocalypticist jew. Like John the Baptist.
That was very trendy at the time among Jews apparently.
I attended a private Catholic college and had to take a religious course to graduate. I'm not religious, and I took their Catholic philosophy course because I thought it would be more interesting than Bible study. Towards the end of the semester, the professor straight up told us one day that he doesn't believe in hell because it doesn't make sense, then broke down why using all the concepts he taught us that semester. The catholic church does not condone that idea, but plenty of individuals certainly do.
The entire Judeo-Christian-Muslim canon is filled with contradictions and outright cruelty. Lucifer shows up in Genesis, so he must be a main character through the storyline. YHWH has a better marketing team and plays the 1st Commandment to knock out any other competitors. Yet the Jews forget how to say his name. The big guy in the sky knows he’s going to get his son killed and is cool with that. Then years later S/Paul starts trippin’ on women and gays like he thought he could read Jesus’s mind. And more than 300 years after the big guy’s son is murdered, a bunch of guys get together and come up with a creed that blows away other competing theologies around the same guy. They knock off at least 27 other books of the bible and bury the Gnostic gospels.
All this for a fairytale.
It's true that most of the common denominations do preach hell, but universalist Christians (which I might fall under) and many independents have pointed out that hell is inconsistent with a god of love. I was just reading about a Gregory of Nyssa, a Greek Orthodox Church father, who believed that everyone would go to heaven.... Eventually. But that even in the afterlife we will all continue to grow and learn and become closer to God. For him, it was an infinite process.
It's less that many don't believe in Hell (there are some, usually called Universalists, but they diverge on so many points I don't find them Christian anymore), but rather they believe in Annihilationism. So if one is cast to Hell their soul is annihilated and ceases to exist. They have paid the wage of sin, which death by having a final eternal death. There is no eternal conscious torment. Which is the other, more popular view, that Hell is a final place of being for those sent there. And in that place they experience the eternal torment of the complete absence of God, who is all things good.
I'm happy to answer more questions if you want. It's an interesting and difficult topic.
Christianity is far more ideologically fractured than judaism is. You can find some form of christianity that interprets the bible just about any way you want.
Christians who don't believe their own religion. It's like, if you don't want to be a Christian.... Great. Don't be a Christian. But don't claim to be a Christian and disagree with long established Christian doctrine. You think you're the first person to think of that idea in 2,000 years?
There's a handful of denominations and a few influential preachers who don't believe hell exists. It is pretty tough to get around biblically, since Jesus spoke more about hell than anyone else by quite a margin, so the people who think that tend to have unique views of the Bible where the parts they don't like are dismissed (meant symbolically, or not original sayings of Jesus, or mistranslations, etc.).
If you’re Jewish you’ve probably heard of Gehinnom. When most people say that Jews don’t believe in hell, what they actually mean is that people’s stay in the punishment realm of Gehinnom is simply finite, not truly endless.
Early Jews and the earliest Christians frequently believed in a truly eternal Gehinnom, though.
I grew up under fire and brimstone type theology and it never sat right with me. It wasn't until well after college that I learned that there were Christians that rejected the idea of hell and I cannot tell you how much relief and peace I felt knowing that.
Of the bible which itself is a compendium of self serving half remembered and poorly translated stories and superstitions of preliterate people trying to make sense of the world non scientifically. I could be wrong, I am not a biblical scholar or enthusiast.
No one is currently in Hell, everyone is currently in Hades (Sheol) waiting for the end times and to be judged. Whether you believe Hell is a specific place or not, there is certainly a distinction of being with God and being in the Absence of God ultimately.
Hell was "borrowed" from Norse paganism (Hel is one of the nine worlds). It was never mentioned before Revelation because Revelation was written after christians came into contact with Norse paganism.
Funnily enough, Hel is not a place of punishment and suffering in Norse paganism..
Yeah, the OT talked about “Sheol,” “The grave,” and the NT talks about Hades. OT didn’t have much in the way of afterlife at all. Almost all of what churches promote is not proper theology but some weird lore.
The hell that we think of as hell today really has it's roots in Dante's Inferno, so not even. the Bible. He just some dude from the 1300s who wrote about a fever dream.
It also depends on the translation. KJV is one of the most translations and it collapses a lot of different realms into hell. It will pick and choose when sheol, gehenna, hades, and the lake of fire are hell. In the original greek these arent the same thing. Hades and Gehenna are the closest things to hell in scripture. If you read it without context it can feel like those locations are various areas of some singular hell.
This is correct. And it's called "second death" not hell. Before that the bible only talks about the everybody that has died waiting for the finale judgement at the end of time. The righteous in heaven, the wicked in hades. The after the final judgement, hades will be trown in to the pool of eternal fire (second death). And before that judgement after the final battle between the dragon and the lamb, the beast and the false prohet had already been trown in there as the first two humans. After the thousands years of peace and before the final judgement, Satan, the angel in charge of worship that rebellend against God also called Lucifer (the planet Venus use to respresent him, the morning star). is trown in there. After the final judgement, hades is trown in and then everybody who's name is not written in the book of the Lamb who was slain is also thrown in there,
In Isiah it says that man will be recuded to worms before they are trown in to the eternal pool of fire, so apperently they will have some recuded form of low consiousness but still suffer for all eternity. And that pool of fire is located before one of the entrances of the New Jerusalem, it says the saints, Jesus and the angels pass by there so see the smoke come from it and hear the suffering.
Tartarus from Greek Myth is directly mentioned in the Bible (2 Peter 2:4 for one example) Ive assumed this is the place of fire and torture mentioned in the Bible.
Except the bible is neither univocal or inerrant. It's simply a collection of themed writings forced to appear united by denominational dogma and then for those wanting to believe, they they declare it fact because god inspired all of these people to work together according to his plan over time. Until you figure out that it doesn't make sense and question it, then it becomes "belief".
Sheol is named in the psalms and described in Ecclesiastes
It isn't fire and brimstone and there has been an ocean of ink spilled on whether Hell and Sheol are the same thing, but a description of the Jewish conception of the afterlife do appear in the old testament
I think you're supporting what I said, right? There are several places named for the afterlife including the one I will definitely misspell: Gehenna... That's not right. Anyway. There's also the place of torment and gnashing of teeth that Jesus describes without naming, which is super weird because of that one story that shows people in that place are so close to people in paradise that they can literally talk to each other from opposite sides. That's a weird story. Probably not to be taken literally, as most of Jesus stories are highly metaphorical. Hades is thrown in there, which is usually interpreted as just "death" similar to Sheol, but the language and culture changed, and then there's hell and the abyss, which are described differently and with different purposes. Each of these all come from different words in their original (or as close to the original as we can get) texts.
Not believe in hell at all? How’s that work? Basically no human can commit a “crime” bad enough to deserve torture “forever” which forever being an unfathomable concept?
Hmmm. Do you think that there are sins that God cannot forgive? Paul called himself the worst sinner and was actively a part of persecution and genocide before he became the man that wrote half of the NT.
In revelation it states that satan will be cast into a lake of brimstone and sulfer but that non believers will be outside of the gates of the kingdom that will be established on earth. Hell according to revelation isn’t a place it’s a lack of access to the kingdom and the community inside of it. Idk what exactly that entails and tbh nobody really does. Though it does say people outside the kingdom will weep and gnash their teeth to get in so there’s that. Can’t be great lol
In theology, isn’t heaven and hell currently empty? Like no one’s actually there right now because Jesus hasn’t come back yet and led everyone to their promised land or whatever? That people who die.. just die? They don’t move on because the rapture hasn’t happened? They just sit in purgatory until that time comes or there’s some timey wimey stuff and after you die, you wake up 10-20-100-1000-10000 years in the future whenever Jesus returns to lead everyone there?
My church I went to in the past had pastors who could read the original Greek text and the church denomination was big on that. It said the Greek described it as a consuming fire.
They also believed everyone is asleep in death until the events of revelation so there wasn’t an eternal hell and the “hellfire” was a consuming fire. So either you ascended with all alive or dead to heaven, or you were just dead dead
Fire imagery is used frequently in the Bible used to describe the presence of god, judgement, the Holy Spirit, etc. Going off that to me the use of eternal fire seems to mean “eternal judgement” or final judgement. I don’t think it’s meant to be taken literally like the damned will literally be thrown into actual fire.
Above that, in the OT and NT, fire is used as a metaphor for cleansing/purification. This is the baseline belief for the Catholic purgatory. All of this theology is based on the difference between Hades and the Elysian Fields. A place to go where your mortal sins are to be shed before you rise to “Heaven”.
Revelations lake of fire was not considered “Hell” until the last few hundred years of modern American Christianity. It’s an American cult fascination to scare children.
I've always thought of "the afterlife" as the final judgement, you can't do anything for yourself anymore so all that is left of you is what people think (or worse: don't think) of you after you are dead.
If you left good impressions, then you are "in heaven." If not, then other alternatives.
Pragmatically, this does mean that sins kept truly secret and taken to your grave don't actually count against you. It also has less than fair/just implications for people who only consider their own bubble/echo chambers.
I mean, for an ancient people, and for a message that needed to span thousands, tens of thousands of years, at least, for the most accessibility across all peoples, languages, etc., between:
[the concept of spiritual suffering, not something that is actively done to you, but simply due to being permanently separated from something you were designed to be a part of/never feeling fulfilled ever again, because you are designed with the imprint/image of Yahweh, and everything about you desires to be with them/do the things they designated as "good" [inherent good, in the system created by the deity, because the whole system reflects their nature], and if you choose to separate yourself from that, then you'll never have what your existence needs]
and
[fire ouchy, you no likey]
which do we think would survive time, and get the most people to understand the stakes? The message is for the everyman, not the scholars. The average person didn't have the time or complexity of mind to be trusted with handling the truth of exactly how it's all going to go down.
I grew up going to church most of my life, and even I wasn't taught [the above truth of the matter]. It doesn't even really matter that you know it or not - what matters is that you seek life, truth, sustainability, and love - the greatest of those being love, of course.
And then the ultimate heresy is the step beyond that. If separation from god is possible, then what if someone was to achieve fulfilment despite being in hell? Would they be their own god at that point?
An impossibility. In the same way that taking a leaf off a tree, and locking it in a safe at the bottom of the ocean, can never lead to the leaf deciding "you know what - I don't want to need sunlight, water, or nutrients anymore - I'm good. I'll just choose to not need those thing anymore, and that'll work out for me".
It will cease to be a leaf. Life had already left it. It can never be a leaf again. The process of decomposing into its base parts had begun the moment it was separated from where it was meant to be. We see it as a fallen, dying leaf, then a dead leaf, then bits and pieces of debris, then molecules, then atoms.
It loses all identity. It stops mattering to the universe.
Catholic here, my parish priest was a Jesuit and gave us a head shrinking lecture on the history of the eternal fire. What u/onioning said is right from a purely theological standpoint. All the quotes in the Gospels and the Acts about eternal fire are referencing gehenna (Gē-Hinnōm,) a ravine to the south of Jerusalem that was basically an eternally burning trash dump. Jesus used it as a symbol of how painful and unpleasant and eternally torturous it would be to be outside God's grace.
his message was closer to "your identity as a being separate from God will eventually be unraveled, just like when we burn trash in the trash pit after its purpose ends",
but basically nobody understood this and so then like two oral transmissions later,
that's how you get "your soul will be burned for all eternity unless you are one with God"
I'm leaning this way, too, but it makes A LOT of Christians (at least in the U.S.) uncomfortable.
That's always a very telling question to ask, though. Find out what someone's response is to "What if hell as you imagine it turns out to not exist?" See if they're open to a discussion or bristle at even considering the thought.
his message was closer to "your identity as a being separate from God will eventually be unraveled, just like when we burn trash in the trash pit after its purpose ends"
Between this and viewing God through the lens of Jesus' parables (prodigal son, the vineyard workers, etc.), I'm warming up to the idea that God's whole point in entering creation as Jesus (if we're willing to consider that) was condescending in the best of ways to say: "I know this life can suck but I am with you, love you, have lived through it, and death is not the end."
but basically nobody understood this and so then like two oral transmissions later ... that's how you get "your soul will be burned for all eternity unless you are one with God"
With some help from various pagan conceptions and Dante's works, I'd wager.
To add to what you said, the interpretation of hell as the absence of God came over time. It was people like St. Augustine and St. Isaac of Nineveh who shaped it, and it was systematized later by theologians like St. Thomas Aquinas. C.S. Lewis popularized it. Every time and every church teaches their interpretation as the never-changing truth.
Early Christians up till St. Augustine's time believed differently.
Right. Metaphorically. There is quite a lot of that.
And the eternal absence from god is made out to be torturous. It's just that that is the full extent of the torture. It is purportedly the worst torture that could exist.
Completely agree. I remember being six years old, in big church with my parents instead of Sunday school, when I first heard eternity described and thought to myself "it's hell either way."
I vaguely remember seeing something on the news many years ago that some scholar tied the original biblical use of the word "hell" with the Hebrew name for a physical location that was used to burn the bodies of criminals or something along those lines. That was used to explain the association of hell and burning.
Yeah! You're thinking of... Crap, I'll say the wrong word. There's actually several words used for what evengelicals lump together as hell, but they may or may not be talking about the same place, which is where Catholicism's idea of pergatory makes sense, because there are literally different words. There's even passages that many evengelicals commonly misremember as hell when it was really not. Like when Jesus talked about the gates of "Hades" not hell. And all of his talk about the place of torment and gnashing of teeth was never named as anything. The word hell is actually restricted to the book of revelation.
In several verses, it's also described as bl
ackest darkness (Matthew 8, 22, 25, 2 Peter 2, Jude 1), likened to the Greek concept of Tartarus, or quiet shadowy underworld (Job 17, 10, Psalm 88).
Biblically, "hell" is one state of existence but is described using 4 distinct terms: Sheol, Hades, Gehenna, and outer darkness. It just represents complete separation from God with fire representing active pain, loss, and destruction while darkness represents, isolation, banishment, and absence of God which is usually represented by light.
Jesus never called it hell at all. Hell was "stolen" from Norse paganism (Hel is one of the nine worlds in Norse paganism, it is where people go that died naturally. It is described as a world of peace and quiet).
Before christianity came into contact with Norse paganism there was no hell, only purgatory. It was added hundreds of years after jesus died.
Nope. "Hell" and "heaven" aren't even Christian concepts, they're Zorastrian. There are, of course, Biblical references that are associated with the concepts, and the concepts have long been adopted as standard doctrine.
But what you interpret as a reference to hell as the place where Satan lives, all unbelievers go, and consisting of eternal fire, is not a Biblical concept, and it wasn't always accepted by Christians.
In fact, a whole lot of our visual associations in this area are influenced by classic (non-holy-text) literature like Dante's Divine Comedy, Milton's Paradise Lost and more. The history of Christianity is actually a very interesting topic.
The reality is that how we interpret the Bible AND which parts we consider significant are shaped by literally thousands of years of history, as well as our own individual experiences (in terms of popular media, which sects we're familiar with, etc.).
Other ubiquitous Christian concepts which are considered contradictory/nonsensical and are ubiquitous because of early Christian history more than pure textual support from the Bible (which...I mean, let's not even get into different translations, lol) include things like the "Holy Trinity" (see the 1st Council of Nicaea), and the whole "new law" bit where Judaism and it's practices are set aside, and so much more.
Even the concept of God as "omnipotent, omnibenevolent and omniprescient" is not explicitly a Biblical concept - it is established through doctrine with some Biblical support.
In short...the "problems" and contradictions we think of most in Christianity today have mostly come about through a couple thousand years of development of the religion in many, many different cultural and historical contexts. (Which does not mean I think it is believable without these doctrinal stances, FYI).
I think because Hell is the worst place imaginable to them by the implication that it is the furthest from God, they created the worst place imaginable based on human concepts of physical pain and torture.
It's kind of like if someone was like "hey, that new pizza place really sucks" and you try to guess why like, "is the pizza undercooked? is the sauce all gross? does the cheese taste like butt?" The general idea is a concept beyond human comprehension, so we naturally use human concepts to try and give it context.
Yeah and there is fairly solid evidence he was describing the dump where trash and refuse was burned outside of Jerusalem (location may be suspect). Point is he was using a physical place to conjure an emotion or a feeling. "Experiencing hell is terrible."
Ah yes this one. He is specifically describing a real place. Gehenna was a valley in Jerusalem meant for burning the dead. It was constantly on fire. Later translations and interpretations changed that into him speaking of hell. Revelations is the only place in the Bible that actually mentions a hell and tbh its a much less trustworthy source.
While the majority view in Christianity is that hell is 'eternal punishment/torture', many Christians (annihilationists) read those verses as 'permanent destruction' and an end to existence
While we are on Matthew 25:41 lets point out the parable of eternal fire was for people on who were judged because they failed to care for the vulnerable—such as the hungry, thirsty, strangers, naked, sick, and imprisoned. Jesus explains that ignoring the needs of the least of these brothers and sisters was the same as ignoring Him. So i am sure we can all take a guess who is more likely to fit in that mold.
For whatever it's worth, the official Catholic possition mentions the fire, but focuses on the separation:
The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, "eternal fire." The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.
I think that upon dying and being presented with incontrovertible evidence that God is real and eternal paradise was an opportunity you passed-up, eternal life in an imperfect realm surrounded by assholes would be torturous.
Being shut off from God's love and eternal glory is itself the torment, as I understand it.
ok but this is only looking at it from one ponit of view the same pont has been used for every war the place over there is bad so the " good guys " must go and beat them and save the people that live there yet the people are fine with their way of life and never ask you to talk shit about them and then invade
Keep in mind that the singular Anglo-Saxon word "hell" is actually used to refer to two different words with different meanings in the Bible.
The place of "fire and brimstone" is referring to "Gehenna" which was an actual physical place used as a municipal trash dump/incinerator outside of Jerusalem. It had been used in ancient times to make child sacrifices to foreign/false gods. The very concept of "hell" here is not necessarily meant to be taken literally, as it was obviously a metaphor
The other place is Sheol which lacks the "fire and brimstone" imagery, and is more of a traditional underworld shared by many other mythologies. It is less a place of punishment for the wicked, and more the ultimate destination of human souls and collective grave for all of humanity.
Jesus talked about hell, but not as a literal place. He talked hell being a separation between God and man. Trinity doctrine, tithing doctrine and hell doctrine were all added to the gospel of Christ by other people. Old preachers and pastors love talking about hellfire for disobedient people, or how much you should be tithing to them because of some passage in the Old Testament. They aren't exactly imitating Christ when they do that.
In that passage in Matthew, there is reference to a consuming fire. The *flame* is eternal, but the burning of individuals is not. There is room for an interpretation of destruction and eternal death rather than any kind of eternal torture.
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u/WalterWhite278 6h ago
There are verses that describe hell as eternal fire, such as Matthew 25:41. I can’t remember the exact verses but others do call Hell eternal punishment/torture