Assuming that Hell is tortuously hot, and you were doomed to spend an eternity there, wouldn’t you just get used to it after a while like being in a tub of really hot water?
First, you must explain why a merciful, or even sane God would send creations of His own, which He knows to be imperfect, to Eternal Dammnation in the first place.
One assumes that, if hell exists as a place of perpetual torment, its designer didn’t slip up and do a half-assed job.
The description in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man certainly doesn’t suggest that one acclimates. Fortunately, as a Jew I’m spared having to worry about this.
No he doesn’t. The question stands as is although it really is more appropriate for IMHO. He stated an assumption and asked the question based on that assumption.
I would imagine that a place of eternal damnation and torture would adjust itself to account for any tolerance that you would have for the place.
Considering the designer in question created said hell for the purpose of torturing his flawed, imperfect human children, I’d say that isn’t too safe an assumption. In fact, if there is a God, I hope he did as shitty a job making Hell as he did making me.
What’s wrong with you people? Is a little blind faith too much to ask?!
What would such acclimation be based on? Acclimation depends on adjustments made by receptors and neurons over time. If one doesn’t have a physical body, there would be nothing to adjust. If one does have a physical body, it would have to be different from our present bodies or else you would die from exposure to continuous severe heat.
There’s a joke told around here about the benefits of going to Panamanian instead of German Hell that has to do with the employees rather than the designer.
Perhaps you are right. Maybe it’s only Heck.
By the way, James Thurber wrote that proofreaders once changed “Hell” to “hell” in one of his pieces. He protested, saying that Hell is a proper noun, because it is the name of a real place.
Well, then, of course, there’s Terry Pratchett’s hell, where the demons and the damned just sit around wasting time (because you can’t physically torture a soul) until management is observing them, whereupon the demons pretend to torture and the damned pretend to be tortured.
No, you’re just thinking of “forever”, which is a very different thing from “eternity”. In eternity, there is no such thing as “after a while”. An eternal being experiences every moment of existance simultaneously.
Merciful, no, but God could just be evil. Demiurge & all that.
Since no factual answer is possible, let’s try this one in Great Debates. Moved.
samclem
As it was explained to me in my mandatory religous education classes in high school (catholic), hell is no longer considered a place of actual physical torment. I was told that hell is the eternal state of being removed from the grace of God. Basically, hell is knowing that there is a god and that you will never be allowed to see or be with it. As such, I don’t think you ever would get used to it… if anything I would think time would only deepen the misery. Not that I believe any of this.
The problem is, to someone who doesn’t like God, that’s not very hellish. Sort of like telling a man that for all of eternity, he’s “condemned to *never be kicked in the testicles again ! ! Mwhahahahahaha ! *”
Sure… I thought that way too at first… but the mind is subtle and peculiar. Think about forever. Think about really being confronted with the actual existence of god, think then about the potential ramifications… add in some self doubt… add in to never ending sameness… and the natural human impulse to want what you cannot have. I think it would be an effective hell. Furthermore, supposedly you also know what you’re missing and it’s supposed to be really wonderful. Even if you doubt that it IS, you also have to wonder. Yep… not pleasant.
sidles up to God
"Hey God, you hellin’??
“There’s no tellin’ how much I’m hellin’.”
“Stop yellin’!”
“Hellin’” indeed.
[Disclaimer: I am NOT being a smartass here, I swear. Trust me, I have more than enough religious issues to keep me busy until I meet my own eternity that I’m honestly seeking a as-good-as-you-can-surmise idea ont this. Please, help a former reformed fundamentalist who might think you’re own to something…]
Or simply asked, could you extrapolate on this/these idea(s)? Thank you regardless.
A renowned philosopher once noted that Hell is other people. However, he failed to note that, to other people, you are the other person …