For some reason I have this horrifying image of Satan in a dentist’s outfit with sharp instruments saying “This won’t hurt A BIT”.
Which, as it turns out, would probably be the truth 
From an interview with Jesus, as channeled by George Carlin:
Interviewer: Is there really a Hell?
Jesus: Sure, there’s a Hell. There’s also a Heck. It’s not as severe, but we have Heck and Hell.
WHAMMY!
And Matchka peels himself off the mat, blood trickles out of one nostril. He swipes dizzily at the circling tweeties. The looming form of Susma Rio Sep paces patiently, menacingly, calculating through the thick haze of cigar smoke…or is it the acrid fume of smouldering brimstone? Matchka is vaguely aware of a dull, persistent pain in his…backside.
“Vacillating…vacillating…” he struggles with the word, imploring his frazzled brain to squeeze out the meaning. It seems important just now, somehow. No, it is not important; but then, maybe it is? Hell. Does he believe? How can he? He has been commanded to think! One can not think and believe at the same time, not about the same thing. Thinking is rational, belief is irrational faith in the unknowable. Matchka recalls the Douglas Adams “Babel Fish” proof.
Susma Rio Sep seems to be growing impatient. SRS stops, gaze fixed upon an apparent weakness in Matchka’s being.
Matchka staggers to his feet. He must somehow reconcile thought and belief. Matchka knows Sargon. Sargon claims Iraq as his homeland–Sargon knows it to be a real place, but Matchka has not been there. Is the place real to him? He can allow it to be, if he can allow Sargon to be real. Is Hell, then, real? Matchka has not been to Hell (despite several commands), and he knows nobody who has been there, nor who claims it as a homeland. Matchka admits that he has nothing upon which to base a belief in such a place.
Scornfully, “Hell exists, and it is unlike Iraq! For Iraq can be travelled to (if one carries the appropriate Visa) and returned from. To demand a similar statement of Hell is to attempt to goad Matchka into stating definitively something which can not be proven!”
SRS glazes. Satisfied? or has another conspicuosity of Matchka’s mind been obviated? Matchka continues, “That is My My belief! And No, it bears no resemblance to the child’s belief in Santa Clause, because belief in Santa Clause is perpetuated by evidence (unexplained delivery of toys) of some kind, whether correctly interpreted or otherwise. No such evidence exists of Hell, because it is a region beyond our capabilities as living mortal flesh. Hell is a place as real as the individual allows it to be, but it is attached to a larger mythos which gives it relevance.”
SRS springs, but Matchka dodges, realizing he has not fully committed to belief one way or the other. SRS suffers a minor floor burn to one of 6 noses. Matchka snickers, but remains wary.
“I believe in a hell. It is a place of conscious recognition of the wrongs one has committed, and where one is impotent to make corrections. It is as eternal as the individual, when the individual surrenders consciousness some time after death, then Hell ceases to exist.”
It has been long since Matchka has practiced this religion, but his strength returns as he remembers…SRS appears to him now as…food.
Well, for heaven’s sake, Matchka! Welcome!
Wouldn’t a proper skeptic say that we don’t yet know if it is irrational or not? I know that belief is not a matter of reason, but does that necessarily mean that faith is irrational? Maybe it depends on which definition of irrational is used.
Hell does serve a purpose for me. Telling someone to go there is a little stronger than saying, “Go fly a kite.” But it is less abusive than telling someone to perform a certain anatomically impossible deed involving one’s own body.
“Is it safe?”
In all this talk of Hell, nobody mentioned that Jesus himself made very little mention of it…in the few toimes he talks about condemnation, he is not very descriptive of it. Methinks that most of the imagery of hell (devils, eternal fire, eternal torture) seem to be borrowed from non-Christian traditions.
Anyway, Jesus was very clear on one thing…people who CHOOSE hell do so in clear knowledge of their fate (“I know mine and mine know me”…). Nobody should complain (upon entering this place…they knew full well what they were doing).
“Maybe it depends on which definition of irrational is used.”
Fair. By irrational I mean “not of reason” as opposed to wild-eyed & maniacal.
MARATHON MAN, ;j eeeewww, I still can’t watch that without my trusty bottle of “oil of clove.”
Good point, ralph124c.
Throughout the Gospels, Christ generally makes reference to sinners being “cast into the outer darkness, where there will be a wailing and a gnashing of teeth.” No hellfire. The closest reference I know of is Matthew 13:30, where Jesus tells the parable of the tares and the wheat, which ends with the wheat being gathered into the barn, and the tares bundled together and burned.
Medieval notions of hellfire seem to derive solely from three verses in Revelations (19:20, 20:10, 21:8) that speak of a “lake of fire,” into which the Beast, the Devil, his false prophet, and all idolators, fornicators, sorcerors, liars, et al will be cast.
Too literal a view of this is what led me away from Christianity some years ago. Arguments about our free will does not excuse a supposedly loving AND all-knowing God from the ghastly concept of creating creatures He KNOWS will fail for eternal torture. I used to believe it. No more.
I was taught that God doesn’t put people in Hell - they choose to be there by not accepting the glory of God. In fact, Hell’s torture is not physical per se, it’s the idea that they have turned their back on God and are out of his light.
Damn better vision than a sadistic God saying, “You don’t believe, well, no Heaven for you.”
“Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.”
– Mark Twain
If a mugger puts a gun to your head and says “Give me your money or I will blow your brains out!”, would you say that, if the end result of this transaction was your death, he killed you? Or would you say that you decided to die?
Also, this business about Hell being our turning our back on God-if, at the end of it all, God said to me that I have to agree to his terms now with no questions or discussion or he would spurn me forever, I would have to assume that he didn’t want my friendship very much. If an all powerful and all knowing being can’t figure out why some people don’t have much faith in him considering the nature of religion throughout history(let alone the barbarous acts attributed to him and his followers in his own official playbook, the Bible), then he is too stupid to have followers.
And this statement that Hell is us turning our backs on God leaves a big hole that needs to be filled in. Let’s say that I die, I refuse to buy this pig-in-a-poke, and walk away.
What then?
Is there another non-holy city I take up residence in? Am I banished to another planet? Am I a ghost foreever? What is the nature of this “Hell” I’ve created by refusing to kowtow? The fact of the matter is, if Hell isn’t a big lake o’ fire, some people might prefer to take the lesser road.
We salute you!
(sorry, i like AC/DC)
Its my opinion that Hell was created for Lucifer and the demons, not people.
when I was more of a Fundy-style Christian (I never really could believe all non-C’tians would go to Hell, but that all who rebelled against God/Christ even to Their face/s at the Last Judgement), I still believed that Hell was people collaping into themselves with their best qualities (being rooted in God) declining & worst qualities becoming ever dominant (I was fortunate enough to have caught CS Lewis early in my Christian life.)
I still pretty much believe that thought I hope that all human souls (& perhaps even all fallen angels) eventually embrace/surrender to God/Jesus, and I firmly believe that if any are allowed to choose eternal exile, it will result in them eventually fading/burning out of existence.
Alternately, it may well be that ALL will be in Heaven with God/Jesus, those who love Them being happy, those who hate Them being in torment. “The Glory of God is the Lake of Fire”. This is close to the Eastern Orthodox concept & is well expressed in the forementioned essay/sermon “The River of Fire”- and HERE is the link!
http://www.orthodoxpress.org/parish/river_of_fire.htm
Re the “eternal punishment/torment” New Testament passages, the Greek word translated “eternal/everlasting” is “aionian” which can imply “ongoing” but literally means “aion-lasting” (Matthew 25:46), and the words “forever and ever” are “aions of aions” (Revelation 14, 20).
No, it isn’t. Strobel’s view (or rather, that of J.P. Moreland, whom he cited) was based on exegesis and literary analysis, based on the use of the word “fire” in the Old and New Testament.
One might disagree with him, but it’s clearly disingenuous to dismiss his proposal as “pure speculation.”
All literary analysis is speculation, unless done by the original author.
Re “God’s Glory=Lake of Fire” Here’s some Bible support-
I’m using NIV but putting in (…) some alternate translations.
Deuteronomy 32:22. For a fire has been kindled by my wrath, one that burns to the realm of death (Sheol) below. It will devour the earth and its harvests and set afire the foundations of the mountains.
Song of Solomon 8: 6. Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave (Sheol). It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame (flame of Yah).
Isaiah 30:33. Topheth has long been prepared; it has been made ready for the king. Its fire pit has been made deep and wide, with an abundance of fire and wood; the breath of the LORD, like a stream of burning sulfur, sets it ablaze.
Daniel 7:9. "As I looked, "thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His clothing was as white as snow; the hair of his head was white like wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze.
10. A river of fire was flowing, coming out from before him. Thousands upon thousands attended him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court was seated, and the books were opened.
11. “Then I continued to watch because of the boastful words the horn was speaking. I kept looking until the beast was slain and its body destroyed and thrown into the blazing fire.”
John 3:19. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.
20. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.
21. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."
2 Thessalonians 1:6. God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you
7. and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels.
8. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
9. They will be punished with everlasting (aionion) destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power.
(and shut out added in the NIV but the actual words are “aionian destruction from the presence…”.)
2 Thess 2:8. And then the lawless one (the Man of Sin, the AntiChrist) will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath (spirit) of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming.
Hebrews 12:29. for our “God is a consuming fire.”
Revelation 14:10. he (who worships the Beast & takes the Mark), too, will drink of the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented (endure the ordeal of the touchstone) with burning (fire and) sulfur (brimstone- Greek “theion”-from “theos”/God- literally “Divine sulfer” incense used in fumigating holy places) in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb.
11. And the smoke of their torment (touchstone ordeal) rises for ever and ever (aions of aions). There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone who receives the mark of his name."
FriarTed: May your false God burn in His own Hell!
And this post does what for the debate?
The GD forum is for, among other things, “witnessing.” If FriarTed can witness, I can witness.