Why people reject the reality of Hell

Trivalee · Jul 29, 2022

MMXX said:
Well what you see as Jesus using scare tactics, I see as him telling us not to be afraid of earthly enemies and tribulations.

The issue is not about earthly enemies but what awaits the unsaved after death.

Lazarus Short · Jul 29, 2022

Years ago, in the early 1990's, I saw in a magazine a depiction of the Tibetan Buddhist Hell, much like the one you can see below. It was all there: flames, heat, suffering, the damned, demons...and endless punishing. I saw that the main difference between it and Christian images of Hell was artistic style. The question gelled in my mind then and there: Where did our ideas of hell come from? Years went by before I could pursue the question seriously, but when I did, I concluded that Hell is a 404. Do you really think God, "who loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life," would send anyone to such a place? I have found dozens and dozens of verses in the KJV which indicate otherwise.

Lazarus Short · Jul 29, 2022

Following up on the theme of "Where DID our ideas of "hell" come from?", let's take a look at the creation [?] of "hell." There simply is no such place, for we see in Genesis 1:1 that "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Let me rephrase it...
In the beginning...[time]
God...[Spirit]
created...[energy]
the heavens...[space]
and the earth...[matter]
There it is in one simple statement - all the elements of cosmology, and "hell" is not mentioned. It is not mentioned in any other Bible passage about the creation of the cosmos. I have read in the Bible many mentions of "heaven and earth," but NEVER "hell and earth."
Let that sink in, please.
The non-creation of "hell" should impel you to question the existence of such a place.

Lazarus Short · Jul 29, 2022

Now that we've covered the non-creation of "hell," let's move on to the non-threat of "hell." God told Adam & Eve of the risk of death if they ate the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, but He failed (?) to tell them that they might just go to "hell" as well as die. After they ate, God still remained silent. Why? Was it because He wanted to spring eternal conscious torment on His creatures (SURPRISE!)? Was it due to the non-existence of the place? It really hinges on your concept of the mind, heart and intent of God. Does He want to save His creation, or dump most of it in the Cosmic Incinerator?
The Calvinists tell us that God is able...but not willing to save all. Arminians insist that He really wants to save all...but cannot. Most folks never hear about a third alternative: God both wants to and will save all. I did find that God wants to save all, and that was not too difficult, but able? One day, it came in a flash - God can do ANYTHING, so of course He can save all!
After Adam & Eve, God also failed to mention the risk of "hell" to Cain, the post-flood crowd, assorted OT characters and even Balaam, even though an angel was about to kill him. Our answer lies far ahead, and the first instance of "hell" in the KJV is in Deuteronomy 32:22. That is on page 320 of my KJV, and out of a total of 1291 pages, it is almost a quarter of the way through the OT, so why was it not addressed sooner? I do have an answer, but tomorrow I'll cover the Law God delivered to Moses...and "hell."

Lazarus Short · Jul 29, 2022

Next item on my list of why "hell" does not exist: the silence of the Law. Nowhere does the Law that God gave to Moses speak of any punishment worse than simple death, nor is there any threat of hint of any horrible punishment, retribution or torment beyond the grave. It's just simple, ordinary death. The Hebrew word "sheol" does not imply an afterlife. It refers to the common grave of mankind, the pit, the realm of the dead. Even those in the OT who had the ground open up under them, so that they went alive into the pit...got just simple death. The Law is silent on "hell," and I'll be careful to admit that it alone does not disprove "hell." On the other hand, we keep bumping up against a lack of "hell," and will continue to do so, as our search progresses. The day is late, the journey long and a definite answer is far off...but never far away.

Trivalee · Jul 29, 2022

MMXX said:
Well what you see as Jesus using scare tactics, I see as him telling us not to be afraid of earthly enemies and tribulations.

The issue is not about earthly enemies but what awaits the unsaved after death.

Lazarus Short · Jul 29, 2022

During the two plus years I spent getting to the bottom of "hell" the word and "hell" the concept, I had to deal with the four words the KJV translated/mistranslated into "hell." Today it's the turn of the Hebrew word "sheol" which is used through the OT. It basically refers to, like most archaic forms of "hell," that which is covered, hidden and unknown - the realm of the dead.
We see "sheol" 65 times in the OT, about evenly divided between "grave/pit" and "hell." I got curious about why, thinking that a word should be translated consistently, but using my common sense I found that if the verse with "sheol" in it was connected to the present world, it was rendered correctly as "grave" or "pit." However, it the verse made no connection with the here-and-now world, it was usually rendered as "hell." This was a strong bias, but not completely consistent. Whatever, I see it as dishonest and as bad translation. They would have done better if they had simple left the word transliterated.
Digging deeper, I already knew that "hel" appeared in the 1611 KJV, and having a bilingual copy of "Beowulf," I found that it has "hell," "hel" and "helle." The form of "helle" was a lot like other forms of the word in the languages of early north European cultures...also, "Beowulf" was set in Denmark, so it was off to pagan Norse mythology. It was not hard to find - the pagan Norse believed in a goddess/ogress by the name of Hel, and thought she ruled over her afterlife realm of Helheim, or "House of Hel." They thought you went there if you did not rate going to Valhalla. I have yet to find a better candidate for "hell." We'll soon cover "Hades," which is also both an afterlife destination and the name of the "god" who was thought to rule it.

Der Alte · Jul 29, 2022

Gregorikos said:
TLDR, it doesn't matter. What the Jews believed is irrelevant because Because Jesus didn't rehash what the Jews believed.
"You have heard what it was said...... but I say to you...."
The people were astonished at His teaching, because He taught as one who had authority, and not as the scribes. (BSB) Mark 1:22
All the people were amazed and began to ask one another, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! (BSB) Mark 1:27
The Jews believed some things correctly, and some things incorrectly. So their views are not the standard by which we judge, especially when their views contradicts the teachings of Jesus.

I don't know about you but I have found it very helpful to actually read a post before trying to respond to it.
I addressed this objection in my post.

Lazarus Short · Jul 29, 2022

Let's move onto the Greek equivalent word "hades." It was used in the Greek translation of the OT and was supposedly the best Greek word for the Hebrew "sheol." Unfortunately, it brought in a fair amount of pagan baggage with it. The Greek concept of the realm of the dead was far from the Hebrew idea. Instead of the dead being simply dead, the Greeks believed in the immortality of the soul, which became almost dogma within Christianity in the course of time. According to this idea, you are not a soul, but you HAVE a soul. Sound familiar? Dualistic thinking (knowledge of good and evil) has people thinking Heaven & Hell, God & Satan are in a cosmic contest for the souls of humans. Nevermind that God states that all people are His, along with the cattle on a thousand hills and every other thing in His created cosmos. But back to "hades" - did you know that "Hades" is the very name of the Greek "god" who they thought ruled over hades? Yup, and the names of pagan "gods" should not even appear in the Bible...but worry not, for "hades" is replaced ten times in the NT as "hell," and once as "grave." The percentage is up quite a bit from the about half of the time for "sheol" in the OT.
However the mis-translators cut it, I could find no proof of the "hell" of Dante, John Milton or Mary K. Baxter in the OT. Moving into the NT, I still can't find any. You see, the concept of "hell" in the minds of most folks was fixed by Dante, Milton and Baxter...and however epic and beautiful their writings me be, THEY ARE FICTION! Today, all the novels, movies/cartoons and the like, which depict "hell" are no better than the picture I posted of the Tibetan Buddhist "hell" - it's all extra-biblical, even anti-biblical, and it's all fiction.

Lazarus Short · Jul 29, 2022

In our continuing search for an answer to the question of "hell"...does it exist, let's look at the next word rendered as "hell," which is Gehenna. This term started out as the Valley of (the sons of) Hinnom, or "ge-hinnom." It was mentioned most famously in Second Chronicles 28:3, 33:6 and Jeremiah 7:31, 19:2-6. It is also called "tophet" in Isaiah 30:33. It was the place where people would sacrifice their children to pagan "gods" in fire. God stated, in Jeremiah 7:31 "...which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind." Note here that God never even thought or considered doing such a thing - is it just possible that "hell" is here excluded, because to send the lost to "hell," God would need to think about it, would He not? This one verse should be sufficient to end "hell" as a dogma/doctrine.
Later, as the Greeks translated the Hebrew Scriptures, they transliterated "ge-hinnom" into the more familiar "gehenna." Now, we know that the word is rendered as "hell" 12 times out of 12, and we see it most famously in Matthew 10:28 and Mark 9:47-48.
Some see Jesus' parable/discourse as using gehenna as a symbol of "hell," but I have another interpretation to offer. Jesus was simply telling His hearers that it was better to "enter life" (be born) with this or that disability, than to have all your faculties and yet live your life in such a way that you ended up being condemned as a criminal, executed and your body ending up burned in the city dump of gehenna or eaten by worms. In those days, a proper burial was just as important as today, and to be denied it was like being one of the generation of the exodus, denied entry into the Promised Land, and so dying in the dust of the desert.

Lazarus Short · Jul 29, 2022

Let's tick off the last word in our list of terms "translated" as "hell." It was used just once, in Second Peter 2:4, and it refers to a place where spirits are kept until judgment. Again, close but no banana. The word comes from Greek mythology, which is to say, from paganism, so it's suspect from the get-go, but do you see how a term about a prison for spirits has been morphed into a place of everlasting punishment for lost "souls?" Some accuse me of twisting the Scriptures, but I see a lot of twisting that was done long ago.
To sum up:
sheol, a perfectly good Hebrew word with no implications of eternal conscious torment
hades, a word sort of like "sheol," but from pagan Greek mythology and carrying with it some bad theo-illogical baggage, such as it being the name of a Greek "god"
gehenna, a Greek transliteration of a Hebrew place-name, a place in the real world that you can visit today (it's a park)
tartarus, another word from pagan Greek mythology.
So there you go, half the terms come from pagan Greek mythology, one refers to the city dump of Jerusalem, and the one term (sheol) remaining has no reference to the "hell" of Dante, Milton, Baxter or most folks' beliefs. "Hell" is a 404.

Lazarus Short · Jul 29, 2022

Time to sum up and boil down what I have written in detail in my published-to-only-a-few book, which runs to well over 200 pages.
1. There is no mention of Hell in God’s Creation of the Cosmos - therefore, Hell is apparently uncreated by God or anyone else. See Genesis 1:1, Isaiah 65:17, Jeremiah 7:31, 19:5. John 1:3 explicitly states that God made all, and that no other person or agency made anything. The Bible contains many instances of “heaven and earth” paired together as a term…without “hell.” You will look in vain for “heaven and hell” or “earth and hell.”
2. In the first chapter of Genesis, it is stated seven times that God saw that what He had made was good, excluding Hell as being possible, as the Creation could not have been wholly good had Hell been in existence. See Genesis 1:4,10,12,18,21,25,31.
3. The Creation as described in Genesis is properly understood as a hierarchy, not a dualistic Heaven versus Hell – with the Earth and humans as a contested prize, fought over by God and Satan. See Genesis 1:1, Job 1 & 2, John 1:3, Philippians 2:10, Revelation 5:13.
4. God made both good and evil, for the same Hand that planted the Tree of Life surely also planted the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Therefore, Satan did not make or create evil. See Genesis 2:9, Isaiah 45:7, Lamentations 3:38, Amos 3:6.
5. The Bible makes no connection between Satan and Hell, so Satan is NOT the Prince of Hell. See Job 1:6-7, 2:1-2, Zechariah 3:1-2, Revelation 2:13, 12:9.
6. The prince of Tyre in Ezekiel 28 is not Satan, as it specifically refers to him as a man. See Ezekiel 26 - 28.
7. The Law God gave to Moses warned of death, but did not specify punishment in Hell, or warn of it. Punishments were delivered in the real world, and the most severe was simple, ordinary death. See Genesis 2:17, Exodus through Deuteronomy, Romans 6:23.
8. Nearly all the consequences of human disobedience to God are worked out in the real, here-and-now world – not in Hell. This includes death, destruction, perishing, God’s wrath and His cursings. See Deuteronomy 28:15-68, 30:19, Ezekiel 32:32, Romans 13:4. The only exception is the banishment of the unrighteous to the Lake of Fire – but that is for their ultimate salvation, otherwise Death cannot be defeated and God cannot become All in all...as we see in I Corinthians 15.
9. All people die, but none of them go to Eternal Conscious Torment – only to the grave or pit. See every instance of personal death in the Bible, with “hell” (if present) properly replaced with “sheol” or “hades,” as so often noted in the marginal or center-column reference. Keep in mind that “Hades” is a concept from pagan Greek mythology, just like the name of its ruling “god.”
10. For the Hebrews, “sheol,” hidden, covered and unknown, was the state, condition or place of the dead. It was where the body returned to the dust and the spirit returned to God (Who gave it). See Genesis 3:19, Ecclesiastes 12:7.
11. Eternal Conscious Torment depends on the concept of the Immortality of the Soul, and that comes, not from the Bible, but from Greek philosophy, from Socrates and Plato. It is clearly pagan.
12. Hell, by definition, opposes the Gospel (the Good News) because Hell can only be Bad News for those sent there – and thus, for most of living (and dead) humanity.
13. Hell violates God’s Law, specifically the Law of the Jubilee, which sets all those in servitude free. Those who die are freed from sin, as prophesied by the Law of the Jubilee. See Leviticus 25:8-13, Isaiah 1:18, Romans 6:7,16.
14. The idea of damnation of people to Hell is at least absurd, and possibly blasphemous, due to the presence of God’s Spirit of Life in each of us. See Genesis 1:26-27, 2:7,3:19, Ecclesiastes 12:7.
15. Hell, like Babylon, is confusion. Hell is hot, but it’s also cold as…Hell. Hell is bright with fire, but it is dark. Hell is separation from God, but Mary K Baxter depicts Jesus touring Hell, chiding the damned. To go to Hell, you must be dead, but to be in Eternal Conscious Torment, you must be alive, but you’re dead, and on and on… Fictional descriptions of Hell, especially as seen in the works of Dante, Milton and Baxter, are clearly fictional and un-Biblical.
16. God’s plan for the wicked is to destroy their wickedness, not to destroy them or send them to Hell. See Psalm 1:6, 7:9, Isaiah 1:18, Jeremiah 3:12, Habakkuk 1:12, Philippians 3:21, Hebrews 10:26-27.
17. God speaks of ransoming/redeeming ALL from death and the grave – without exception. See Psalm 49:15, Ezekiel 16:55, Romans 6:23, Ephesians 1:10.
18. God is both willing AND able to save all. Given that He is omnipotent, we can ALL look forward with confidence to our eventual salvation. See Psalm 49:15, 86:13, 103:8-14, 136, Isaiah 1:18, 6:7, 25:7-8, 26:19, 33:24, 43:25, 44:22, 45:8, 55:8-9, 57:16, 64:6-9, Jeremiah 3:12. Lamentations 3:26-32, Ezekiel 11:19, 16:55, Hosea 13:14, Micah 4:5, 7:18-19, Ephesians 1:10, Philipians 3:21, Colossians 1:19-20, I Thessalonians 1:10, I Timothy 1:15, 2:4-6, 4:10, 6:13, II Peter 3:9.
19. God compares Himself to a cleansing or refining agent – usually as Fire, but sometimes as Soap. Therefore, all instances of supernatural fire should be interpreted as being for refining and/or purification, not damnation. Fire in the Bible is never “Hellfire,” but natural fire or God’s Fire. See Malachi 3:2-3, Matthew 3:10-12, I Corinthians 3:15.
20. If God’s Fire is for baptism and refining, then that which is burned must be our carnal, sinful nature. It is symbolized by unfruitful trees, tares, chaff, wood, hay and stubble – by anything unable to endure the Fire. See Matthew 3:10-12, I Corinthians 3:11-15.
21. “Hell” is used in the King James Version (and others) to replace four other words: “Sheol,” “Hades,” “Gehenna” and “Tartarus.” None of these refer to a place of damnation or Eternal Conscious Torment. See any decent dictionary, especially the Oxford English Dictionary.
22. When we dig out mistranslations and peel away misinterpretations, we find that Hell is an imposition, an insertion into the text. With Hell so deconstructed, the Bible and God are both silent on Hell. See Numbers 23:19, John 14:2. With that out of the way, we can see clear to the salvation of all.
23. Christians should not follow the Hell of the ancient, pagan religions, such as the “Hel” we find in Norse mythology, but follow the truth of God’s Word, which does not contain either the concept of Hell or even the word “hell,” except in imperfect translations.

Der Alte · Jul 29, 2022

Lazarus Short said:
Let's move onto the Greek equivalent word "hades." It was used in the Greek translation of the OT and was supposedly the best Greek word for the Hebrew "sheol." Unfortunately, it brought in a fair amount of pagan baggage with it. The Greek concept of the realm of the dead was far from the Hebrew idea. Instead of the dead being simply dead, the Greeks believed in the immortality of the soul, which became almost dogma within Christianity in the course of time. According to this idea, you are not a soul, but you HAVE a soul. Sound familiar? Dualistic thinking (knowledge of good and evil) has people thinking Heaven & Hell, God & Satan are in a cosmic contest for the souls of humans. Nevermind that God states that all people are His, along with the cattle on a thousand hills and every other thing in His created cosmos. But back to "hades" - did you know that "Hades" is the very name of the Greek "god" who they thought ruled over hades? Yup, and the names of pagan "gods" should not even appear in the Bible...but worry not, for "hades" is replaced ten times in the NT as "hell," and once as "grave." The percentage is up quite a bit from the about half of the time for "sheol" in the OT.
However the mis-translators cut it, I could find no proof of the "hell" of Dante, John Milton or Mary K. Baxter in the OT. Moving into the NT, I still can't find any. You see, the concept of "hell" in the minds of most folks was fixed by Dante, Milton and Baxter...and however epic and beautiful their writings me be, THEY ARE FICTION! Today, all the novels, movies/cartoons and the like, which depict "hell" are no better than the picture I posted of the Tibetan Buddhist "hell" - it's all extra-biblical, even anti-biblical, and it's all fiction.

Nonsense! Read my post on Sheol, Ge Hinnom, hades and Gehenna. Where OBTW I quoted 3 Jewish sources on their belief in hell, 16 centuries +/- before Dante scribbled one line there was a significant belief in a place of fiery eternal punishment which the Jews called both "sheol" and "Ge Hinnom" written in the 225 BC LXX and the NT as "hades" and "Gehenna." And if you like I can provide archaeological evidence that there never was a constantly burning trash dump in Gehenna. There was such a dump but it was in the next valley over, the Kidron valley.

Trivalee · Jul 29, 2022

Lazarus Short said:
Next item on my list of why "hell" does not exist: the silence of the Law. Nowhere does the Law that God gave to Moses speak of any punishment worse than simple death, nor is there any threat of hint of any horrible punishment, retribution or torment beyond the grave. It's just simple, ordinary death. The Hebrew word "sheol" does not imply an afterlife. It refers to the common grave of mankind, the pit, the realm of the dead. Even those in the OT who had the ground open up under them, so that they went alive into the pit...got just simple death. The Law is silent on "hell," and I'll be careful to admit that it alone does not disprove "hell." On the other hand, we keep bumping up against a lack of "hell," and will continue to do so, as our search progresses. The day is late, the journey long and a definite answer is far off...but never far away.

I hope you won't be offended by these simple questions.

Are you a Christian? Because I'm yet to see a Christian that denies the reality of hell.
Have you read the NT?
If all there is, is physical death, both God and Satan can kill - so what's the difference? Surely God must have an edge over Satan?

Der Alte · Jul 29, 2022

Lazarus Short said:
Time to sum up and boil down what I have written in detail in my published-to-only-a-few book, which runs to well over 200 pages.
1. There is no mention of Hell in God’s Creation of the Cosmos - therefore, Hell is apparently uncreated by God or anyone else. See Genesis 1:1, Isaiah 65:17, Jeremiah 7:31, 19:5. John 1:3 explicitly states that God made all, and that no other person or agency made anything. The Bible contains many instances of “heaven and earth” paired together as a term…without “hell.” You will look in vain for “heaven and hell” or “earth and hell.”
2. In the first chapter of Genesis, it is stated seven times that God saw that what He had made was good, excluding Hell as being possible, as the Creation could not have been wholly good had Hell been in existence. See Genesis 1:4,10,12,18,21,25,31.
3. The Creation as described in Genesis is properly understood as a hierarchy, not a dualistic Heaven versus Hell – with the Earth and humans as a contested prize, fought over by God and Satan. See Genesis 1:1, Job 1 & 2, John 1:3, Philippians 2:10, Revelation 5:13.
4. God made both good and evil, for the same Hand that planted the Tree of Life surely also planted the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Therefore, Satan did not make or create evil. See Genesis 2:9, Isaiah 45:7, Lamentations 3:38, Amos 3:6.
5. The Bible makes no connection between Satan and Hell, so Satan is NOT the Prince of Hell. See Job 1:6-7, 2:1-2, Zechariah 3:1-2, Revelation 2:13, 12:9.
6. The prince of Tyre in Ezekiel 28 is not Satan, as it specifically refers to him as a man. See Ezekiel 26 - 28.
7. The Law God gave to Moses warned of death, but did not specify punishment in Hell, or warn of it. Punishments were delivered in the real world, and the most severe was simple, ordinary death. See Genesis 2:17, Exodus through Deuteronomy, Romans 6:23.
8. Nearly all the consequences of human disobedience to God are worked out in the real, here-and-now world – not in Hell. This includes death, destruction, perishing, God’s wrath and His cursings. See Deuteronomy 28:15-68, 30:19, Ezekiel 32:32, Romans 13:4. The only exception is the banishment of the unrighteous to the Lake of Fire – but that is for their ultimate salvation, otherwise Death cannot be defeated and God cannot become All in all...as we see in I Corinthians 15.
9. All people die, but none of them go to Eternal Conscious Torment – only to the grave or pit. See every instance of personal death in the Bible, with “hell” (if present) properly replaced with “sheol” or “hades,” as so often noted in the marginal or center-column reference. Keep in mind that “Hades” is a concept from pagan Greek mythology, just like the name of its ruling “god.”
10. For the Hebrews, “sheol,” hidden, covered and unknown, was the state, condition or place of the dead. It was where the body returned to the dust and the spirit returned to God (Who gave it). See Genesis 3:19, Ecclesiastes 12:7.
11. Eternal Conscious Torment depends on the concept of the Immortality of the Soul, and that comes, not from the Bible, but from Greek philosophy, from Socrates and Plato. It is clearly pagan.
12. Hell, by definition, opposes the Gospel (the Good News) because Hell can only be Bad News for those sent there – and thus, for most of living (and dead) humanity.
13. Hell violates God’s Law, specifically the Law of the Jubilee, which sets all those in servitude free. Those who die are freed from sin, as prophesied by the Law of the Jubilee. See Leviticus 25:8-13, Isaiah 1:18, Romans 6:7,16.
14. The idea of damnation of people to Hell is at least absurd, and possibly blasphemous, due to the presence of God’s Spirit of Life in each of us. See Genesis 1:26-27, 2:7,3:19, Ecclesiastes 12:7.
15. Hell, like Babylon, is confusion. Hell is hot, but it’s also cold as…Hell. Hell is bright with fire, but it is dark. Hell is separation from God, but Mary K Baxter depicts Jesus touring Hell, chiding the damned. To go to Hell, you must be dead, but to be in Eternal Conscious Torment, you must be alive, but you’re dead, and on and on… Fictional descriptions of Hell, especially as seen in the works of Dante, Milton and Baxter, are clearly fictional and un-Biblical.
16. God’s plan for the wicked is to destroy their wickedness, not to destroy them or send them to Hell. See Psalm 1:6, 7:9, Isaiah 1:18, Jeremiah 3:12, Habakkuk 1:12, Philippians 3:21, Hebrews 10:26-27.
17. God speaks of ransoming/redeeming ALL from death and the grave – without exception. See Psalm 49:15, Ezekiel 16:55, Romans 6:23, Ephesians 1:10.
18. God is both willing AND able to save all. Given that He is omnipotent, we can ALL look forward with confidence to our eventual salvation. See Psalm 49:15, 86:13, 103:8-14, 136, Isaiah 1:18, 6:7, 25:7-8, 26:19, 33:24, 43:25, 44:22, 45:8, 55:8-9, 57:16, 64:6-9, Jeremiah 3:12. Lamentations 3:26-32, Ezekiel 11:19, 16:55, Hosea 13:14, Micah 4:5, 7:18-19, Ephesians 1:10, Philipians 3:21, Colossians 1:19-20, I Thessalonians 1:10, I Timothy 1:15, 2:4-6, 4:10, 6:13, II Peter 3:9.
19. God compares Himself to a cleansing or refining agent – usually as Fire, but sometimes as Soap. Therefore, all instances of supernatural fire should be interpreted as being for refining and/or purification, not damnation. Fire in the Bible is never “Hellfire,” but natural fire or God’s Fire. See Malachi 3:2-3, Matthew 3:10-12, I Corinthians 3:15.
20. If God’s Fire is for baptism and refining, then that which is burned must be our carnal, sinful nature. It is symbolized by unfruitful trees, tares, chaff, wood, hay and stubble – by anything unable to endure the Fire. See Matthew 3:10-12, I Corinthians 3:11-15.
21. “Hell” is used in the King James Version (and others) to replace four other words: “Sheol,” “Hades,” “Gehenna” and “Tartarus.” None of these refer to a place of damnation or Eternal Conscious Torment. See any decent dictionary, especially the Oxford English Dictionary.
22. When we dig out mistranslations and peel away misinterpretations, we find that Hell is an imposition, an insertion into the text. With Hell so deconstructed, the Bible and God are both silent on Hell. See Numbers 23:19, John 14:2. With that out of the way, we can see clear to the salvation of all.
23. Christians should not follow the Hell of the ancient, pagan religions, such as the “Hel” we find in Norse mythology, but follow the truth of God’s Word, which does not contain either the concept of Hell or even the word “hell,” except in imperfect translations.

More nonsense. Have you ever tried checking ancient Jewish sources?
See my post #97, this thread.
LINK: Why people reject the reality of Hell

Trivalee · Jul 29, 2022

MMXX said:
I know of Catholic priests who don't believe in hell. At least not the eternal torment version.

Hell is real. Eternity in heaven and eternal torment in hell is the cornerstone of the Christian faith -anyone who denies this is not a Christian - period!

Trivalee · Jul 29, 2022

MMXX said:
I know of Catholic priests who don't believe in hell. At least not the eternal torment version.

Hell is real. Eternity in heaven and eternal torment in hell is the cornerstone of the Christian faith -anyone who denies this is not a Christian - period!

Trivalee · Jul 29, 2022

Lazarus Short said:
Years ago, in the early 1990's, I saw in a magazine a depiction of the Tibetan Buddhist Hell, much like the one you can see below. It was all there: flames, heat, suffering, the damned, demons...and endless punishing. I saw that the main difference between it and Christian images of Hell was artistic style. The question gelled in my mind then and there: Where did our ideas of hell come from? Years went by before I could pursue the question seriously, but when I did, I concluded that Hell is a 404. Do you really think God, "who loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life," would send anyone to such a place? I have found dozens and dozens of verses in the KJV which indicate otherwise.

People like you should be banned for promoting this tripe. Seriously! You have no place in a Christian forum.

wendykvw · Jul 29, 2022

Lazarus Short said:
Years ago, in the early 1990's, I saw in a magazine a depiction of the Tibetan Buddhist Hell, much like the one you can see below. It was all there: flames, heat, suffering, the damned, demons...and endless punishing. I saw that the main difference between it and Christian images of Hell was artistic style. The question gelled in my mind then and there: Where did our ideas of hell come from? Years went by before I could pursue the question seriously, but when I did, I concluded that Hell is a 404. Do you really think God, "who loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life," would send anyone to such a place? I have found dozens and dozens of verses in the KJV which indicate otherwise.

I find it interesting that some forms of Buddhism believe a savior emptied hell.

wendykvw · Jul 29, 2022

Lazarus Short said:
Time to sum up and boil down what I have written in detail in my published-to-only-a-few book, which runs to well over 200 pages.
1. There is no mention of Hell in God’s Creation of the Cosmos - therefore, Hell is apparently uncreated by God or anyone else. See Genesis 1:1, Isaiah 65:17, Jeremiah 7:31, 19:5. John 1:3 explicitly states that God made all, and that no other person or agency made anything. The Bible contains many instances of “heaven and earth” paired together as a term…without “hell.” You will look in vain for “heaven and hell” or “earth and hell.”
2. In the first chapter of Genesis, it is stated seven times that God saw that what He had made was good, excluding Hell as being possible, as the Creation could not have been wholly good had Hell been in existence. See Genesis 1:4,10,12,18,21,25,31.
3. The Creation as described in Genesis is properly understood as a hierarchy, not a dualistic Heaven versus Hell – with the Earth and humans as a contested prize, fought over by God and Satan. See Genesis 1:1, Job 1 & 2, John 1:3, Philippians 2:10, Revelation 5:13.
4. God made both good and evil, for the same Hand that planted the Tree of Life surely also planted the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Therefore, Satan did not make or create evil. See Genesis 2:9, Isaiah 45:7, Lamentations 3:38, Amos 3:6.
5. The Bible makes no connection between Satan and Hell, so Satan is NOT the Prince of Hell. See Job 1:6-7, 2:1-2, Zechariah 3:1-2, Revelation 2:13, 12:9.
6. The prince of Tyre in Ezekiel 28 is not Satan, as it specifically refers to him as a man. See Ezekiel 26 - 28.
7. The Law God gave to Moses warned of death, but did not specify punishment in Hell, or warn of it. Punishments were delivered in the real world, and the most severe was simple, ordinary death. See Genesis 2:17, Exodus through Deuteronomy, Romans 6:23.
8. Nearly all the consequences of human disobedience to God are worked out in the real, here-and-now world – not in Hell. This includes death, destruction, perishing, God’s wrath and His cursings. See Deuteronomy 28:15-68, 30:19, Ezekiel 32:32, Romans 13:4. The only exception is the banishment of the unrighteous to the Lake of Fire – but that is for their ultimate salvation, otherwise Death cannot be defeated and God cannot become All in all...as we see in I Corinthians 15.
9. All people die, but none of them go to Eternal Conscious Torment – only to the grave or pit. See every instance of personal death in the Bible, with “hell” (if present) properly replaced with “sheol” or “hades,” as so often noted in the marginal or center-column reference. Keep in mind that “Hades” is a concept from pagan Greek mythology, just like the name of its ruling “god.”
10. For the Hebrews, “sheol,” hidden, covered and unknown, was the state, condition or place of the dead. It was where the body returned to the dust and the spirit returned to God (Who gave it). See Genesis 3:19, Ecclesiastes 12:7.
11. Eternal Conscious Torment depends on the concept of the Immortality of the Soul, and that comes, not from the Bible, but from Greek philosophy, from Socrates and Plato. It is clearly pagan.
12. Hell, by definition, opposes the Gospel (the Good News) because Hell can only be Bad News for those sent there – and thus, for most of living (and dead) humanity.
13. Hell violates God’s Law, specifically the Law of the Jubilee, which sets all those in servitude free. Those who die are freed from sin, as prophesied by the Law of the Jubilee. See Leviticus 25:8-13, Isaiah 1:18, Romans 6:7,16.
14. The idea of damnation of people to Hell is at least absurd, and possibly blasphemous, due to the presence of God’s Spirit of Life in each of us. See Genesis 1:26-27, 2:7,3:19, Ecclesiastes 12:7.
15. Hell, like Babylon, is confusion. Hell is hot, but it’s also cold as…Hell. Hell is bright with fire, but it is dark. Hell is separation from God, but Mary K Baxter depicts Jesus touring Hell, chiding the damned. To go to Hell, you must be dead, but to be in Eternal Conscious Torment, you must be alive, but you’re dead, and on and on… Fictional descriptions of Hell, especially as seen in the works of Dante, Milton and Baxter, are clearly fictional and un-Biblical.
16. God’s plan for the wicked is to destroy their wickedness, not to destroy them or send them to Hell. See Psalm 1:6, 7:9, Isaiah 1:18, Jeremiah 3:12, Habakkuk 1:12, Philippians 3:21, Hebrews 10:26-27.
17. God speaks of ransoming/redeeming ALL from death and the grave – without exception. See Psalm 49:15, Ezekiel 16:55, Romans 6:23, Ephesians 1:10.
18. God is both willing AND able to save all. Given that He is omnipotent, we can ALL look forward with confidence to our eventual salvation. See Psalm 49:15, 86:13, 103:8-14, 136, Isaiah 1:18, 6:7, 25:7-8, 26:19, 33:24, 43:25, 44:22, 45:8, 55:8-9, 57:16, 64:6-9, Jeremiah 3:12. Lamentations 3:26-32, Ezekiel 11:19, 16:55, Hosea 13:14, Micah 4:5, 7:18-19, Ephesians 1:10, Philipians 3:21, Colossians 1:19-20, I Thessalonians 1:10, I Timothy 1:15, 2:4-6, 4:10, 6:13, II Peter 3:9.
19. God compares Himself to a cleansing or refining agent – usually as Fire, but sometimes as Soap. Therefore, all instances of supernatural fire should be interpreted as being for refining and/or purification, not damnation. Fire in the Bible is never “Hellfire,” but natural fire or God’s Fire. See Malachi 3:2-3, Matthew 3:10-12, I Corinthians 3:15.
20. If God’s Fire is for baptism and refining, then that which is burned must be our carnal, sinful nature. It is symbolized by unfruitful trees, tares, chaff, wood, hay and stubble – by anything unable to endure the Fire. See Matthew 3:10-12, I Corinthians 3:11-15.
21. “Hell” is used in the King James Version (and others) to replace four other words: “Sheol,” “Hades,” “Gehenna” and “Tartarus.” None of these refer to a place of damnation or Eternal Conscious Torment. See any decent dictionary, especially the Oxford English Dictionary.
22. When we dig out mistranslations and peel away misinterpretations, we find that Hell is an imposition, an insertion into the text. With Hell so deconstructed, the Bible and God are both silent on Hell. See Numbers 23:19, John 14:2. With that out of the way, we can see clear to the salvation of all.
23. Christians should not follow the Hell of the ancient, pagan religions, such as the “Hel” we find in Norse mythology, but follow the truth of God’s Word, which does not contain either the concept of Hell or even the word “hell,” except in imperfect translations.

How do you interpret the lake of fire, and the fire prepared for the devil and his angels?

Why people reject the reality of Hell

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This is me about 1 yr. old.

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This is me about 1 yr. old.

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This is me about 1 yr. old.

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Author, and Patristic Universalist Minister

Author, and Patristic Universalist Minister

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