Does Hell exist?

SkyWriting said:

I make two thermoses fresh every morning for my day of driving. Aldi's coffee is a awesome value.

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may God protect you and all those around you

SamInNi said:

I'm not keen on using the word "hell", but personally I must acknowledge God's just character and accept that eternal punishment is real.

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It's considered punishment, but it's more a case of being banned from Heaven. If you don't Trust God to forgive all your imperfections, then you exist forever without forgives. That's Hell. Your eternal "punishment" is living with all your intentional sins for eternity. Especially the things you have said.

Matthew 12:36
I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak,

disciple Clint said:

may God protect you and all those around you

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I closed my car door one day and a vehicle passed within inches at about 65 mph with two police chasing him. (Or her. Sexist me)

Petros2015 said:

Burning bottomless lake of fire?
I'm sure that's just a myth.


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Agree. What a terrible thing to accuse God of. Seems blasphemous to me.
Eternal conscious torment with no hope of escape? What sort of monster would devise and maintain such a thing? (The Church)

Vesper_Jaye✝️ said:

This is a VERY crazy and stupid question but… does Hell exist yet?

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This video presents three views.

Hell - Three Christian Views Lecture by Steve Gregg

SkyWriting said:

If you don't Trust God to forgive all your imperfections, then you exist forever without forgives. That's Hell. Your eternal "punishment" is living with all your intentional sins for eternity. Especially the things you have said

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The polar opposite of a believer having eternal life is NOT having eternal life of "existing forever without forgiveness". The polar opposite of the believer having eternal life is being eternally dead, or perishing.

Vesper_Jaye✝️ said:

This is a VERY crazy and stupid question but… does Hell exist yet?
Revelation 20:14-15
And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

Does Hell not exist until the end of the world? These verses seem to imply that people do not go to Hell until the time in Revelation.

Even CRAZIER question:
Could ghosts be damned souls that will one day go to Hell?

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The absence of God is hell. We know those who are in the Body of Christ go to Paradise. Judgment day is the day all will be resurrected some to everlasting life and some to everlasting condemnation.
Blessings

I found, once I bothered to take a real look, that the props of "hell" are paganism, bad translation and fiction.

Paganism - I tracked "hell" to the 1611 KJV, which had both "hell" and "hel." Then, on to "Beowulf," which had "hell," "hel" and "helle." Since "Beowulf" was set mostly in nordic Denmark, I then checked Norse mythology. There, I found the goddess/ogress "Hel," who ruled over her afterlife realm of "Helheim" or "House of Hel." It was thought to be where you spent eternity if you did not rate Valhalla.

Bad translation - "Hell" is translated from "sheol," "hades," "gehenna" and "tartarus," none of which refer to a place of eternal, conscious torment. Two of the terms come from pagan Greek mythology, and one is used exactly once in the Bible, so it's not something to hang theology on, IMHO.

Fiction - Back to Norse mythology on this one, and we can add Dante, Milton, Mary K Baxter and a host of others whose accounts cannot be confirmed, and which often contradict each other...as well as the Bible. What a mess! There are popular culture references too numerous to mention, but they don't count for theology...just like Dante and Milton.

disciple Clint replied [post #9], "Good presentation, I agree with the conclusions."

Well thank you my friend, chances are you did not hear those truth claims proclaimed at your local church. There are 3 basic perspectives on the topic of the nature of Hell :

(1) Traditionalism or Eternal [Conscious] Torment ...."ECT" ...{by far the most widely embraced position held by modern "mainstream Christianity"].

(2) Conditionalism or Conditional Immortality/ Annihilationism/Extinctionism/Terminalism ... [the view that Edward Fudge presented in my prior post, and the position I hold to].

(3) Restorationism or Universal Reconciliation ... "Universalism"

In the below video, Chris Date expounds upon some of the critical points of contention between Traditionalism and Conditionalism.


The question that is often asked to the Traditionalist runs something like this :

"How could God be considered just if He will punish all obstinate rebels eternally for temporal sins committed in a finite lifetime?"

The usual response of the Traditionalist runs upon theses lines ... "The magnitude of a crime, and the punishment it warrants, are wholly unrelated to the time it actually takes to commit the crime. The most heinous crimes can be committed in an instant, yet may deserve prolonged punishment."

"But how could any finite act carry with it an infinite measure of guilt?"

Response of the Traditionalist : "Every sin of man is committed against an infinite God, and is therefore infinite in magnitude".

Now of course it is not our place to criticize God, but are we not permitted to think about and call into question what most believe to be the Biblical perspective on any topic? The most important point here involves nothing less than searching out the most correct understanding of the character of God. Whatever hell may prove to be, we can rest assured it will serve the purpose(s) in which a just and benevolent God created it for.

God's character is revealed in all of His acts. As Steve Gregg asserts, "if God finds it tragically necessary to eliminate unrepentant and irredeemable rebels from existence by annihilating them (analogous to putting down a beloved, but rabid, dog), this cannot be regarded as contrary to either compassion or justice. nothing in God's character is impugned...

However, if God has created a hell of torment that serves no constructive end but merely to take endless vengeance on utterly pitiable (though technically "deserving") creatures, then He will tend to be viewed through an entirely different lens...the idea that the Creator loves all His creatures becomes a definitely harder "sell".

The Traditional view of the nature of the nature of hell simply does not cohere well with the character of God disclosed in the gospel."

Bottom line :

If the Traditional doctrine is true, then we must, of course, accept this "God of vengeance" as He is, since there is no other [which is one of, or perhaps the leading reason, put forth by atheists for rejecting the God of Christianity].

However, if God is not like this, and we misrepresent his character to the world, we may be guilty of grievous slander. It is very possible that we could further alienate sinners from the One to whom they might more readily have been drawn, had He been presented to them more accurately.

"Hell", specifically Gehenna, or the Lake of Fire, and not the others, is more of here only eternally and forever, etc... and eternally over and over again forever, etc... and it is eternal conscious torment, but only when those people are conscious again, but sleep in-between, etc, and/or but do not remember at all each time at all ever, etc... and this already has been already, and will always continue to be in the future already, "forever", etc... and they still serve the same purpose that they always have and/or did here, etc... and that is, to cause ones like us to grow and/or change and/or become who we were meant to become, etc, or become qualified, or else purified, for heaven, etc... and that is/was/has been/will always continue to be, "forever", etc... just as it already is or has been from forever, etc...

And that is what the Lake of Fire really is, etc...

Where the worm does not die, and the torture and/or torment, or "weeping and gnashing of teeth", and/or "ups and downs of sorrow and/or anguish and/or wrath or anger and pain", never ends, etc...

For "some" anyway, etc...

Both must grow together until the harvest, etc... Only that some never really ever grow really... Because they were never ever meant to grow and/or change really, etc... Because that is just not what they were ever meant for ever, etc... And that goes all the way to from before forever, etc... And will continue to be that way after, etc, etc, etc...

God Bless!

Vesper_Jaye✝️ said:

This is a VERY crazy and stupid question but… does Hell exist yet?
Revelation 20:14-15
And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
Does Hell not exist until the end of the world? These verses seem to imply that people do not go to Hell until the time in Revelation.
Even CRAZIER question:
Could ghosts be damned souls that will one day go to Hell?

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Did Jesus ever say anything which would indicate that an eternal, fiery place, by whatever name one wishes to call it, exists and that unrighteous people will be consigned there?
¢¢…..Concerning only the existence of a Jewish belief in hell not the validity/invalidity of the historical faith, beliefs, practices etc. of the ancient Jews.
Below are quotes from three credible Jewish sources; the Jewish Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia Judaica and the Talmud. Which to date have not been and I am convinced cannot be refuted.
…..According to these three sources, among the יהודים/Yehudim/ιουδαιων/Youdaion/Jews in Israel, before and during the time of Jesus, there was a significant belief in a place of everlasting torment of the wicked and they called it both sheol and gehinnom, which are translated Hades and Gehenna, respectively, in both the 225 BC LXX and the NT.
…..There were different factions within Judaism; Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes etc. and different beliefs about resurrection, hell etc. These differing beliefs do not disprove anything in this post.
Note: This is according to the ancient Jews, long before the Christian era, NOT any assumed/alleged bias of “modern” Christian translators. DA
.....This refutes the false narrative that when Jesus mentioned “Gehenna” He was supposedly referring to nonexistent continually burning fires in the valley of GeHinnom where trash and bodies were supposedly disposed of.

And it's not a punishment according to God the Father's perspective or point of view either, but is just the differences in which and/or between, in which, etc, certain things (us) are or were made, etc... and what true goals and/or aims or purposes they were both truly only always meant for really, etc...

And also like I said also, they sleep in-between, and are not aware of it each time really, so...?

God Bless!

See my previous post immediately above.
When Jesus taught e.g.,
[A fate worse than death. DA]
…..These teachings tacitly reaffirmed and sanctioned a then existing significant Jewish view of eternal hell.
In Matt. 18:6, 26:24 and Luk 10:12, see above, Jesus teaches that there is a punishment worse than death or nonexistence.
…..A punishment worse than death without mercy is also mentioned in Hebrews 10:28-31.
…..“how much sorer punishment,””Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord,””It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” these certainly do not sound like everyone will be saved, no matter what.
…..Jesus is quoted as using the word death 17 times in the gospels, if He intended to say eternal death, in Matt 25:46, that is what He would have said but He didn’t, He said “eternal punishment.”
….The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection, see Acts of the Apostles 23:8. They knew that everybody died; rich, poor, young, old, good, bad, men, women, children, infants and knew that it was permanent and often it did not involve punishment.
When Jesus taught, e.g., “eternal punishment,” see e.g. John 3:15-16, the Sadducees would not have understood it as simply death, it very likely would have meant something worse to them.
…..Re: Matt 25:46 concerning “punishment” one early church father wrote,
…..Jesus attended Temple and synagogues for about 25 years +/-. He undoubtedly knew what the Jews believed about the fate of the unrighteous. He opposed the Jewish leaders many times if the Jewish teaching on hell was wrong, why wouldn’t Jesus tell them there was no hell, no eternal punishment etc? Why would Jesus teach “eternal punishment,” etc. to Jews who believed, e.g.

Twice dead and never truly alive to begin with, etc...

Because they never got ahold of the real life... because they were never ever meant to ever really get ahold of it at all ever, etc... just not how they were made, etc...

God Bless!

@Der Alte

I don't know if you are trying to talk to me, or argue with me, but if you are, I would just like to say that we'll just see who's fruit remains, OK...

God Bless!

Vesper_Jaye✝️ said:

This is a VERY crazy and stupid question but… does Hell exist yet?
Revelation 20:14-15
And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

Does Hell not exist until the end of the world? These verses seem to imply that people do not go to Hell until the time in Revelation.

Even CRAZIER question:
Could ghosts be damned souls that will one day go to Hell?

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Lake of fire is probably symbolic for eradication or being completely taken out. You know you can't literally burn death.. because death isn't an object.

Revelation is all symbolic, the whole "what this mean" is something many christians need to stop doing when reading it. I'm one of the minority of catholics who does have doubts if the book should have been canonized or not because the writer probably thought the events of Nero where signals of the end of the world.

Vesper_Jaye✝️ said:

This is a VERY crazy and stupid question but… does Hell exist yet?
Revelation 20:14-15
And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

Does Hell not exist until the end of the world? These verses seem to imply that people do not go to Hell until the time in Revelation.

Even CRAZIER question:
Could ghosts be damned souls that will one day go to Hell?

Click to expand...

Jesus presented hell as existing, and as a place of everlasting punishment.

Saint Steven said:

Agree. What a terrible thing to accuse God of. Seems blasphemous to me.
Eternal conscious torment with no hope of escape? What sort of monster would devise and maintain such a thing? (The Church)

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Is it God doing the "torturing"?
What if the "tortuous" pain is simply the result of rejecting Jesus Christ, thereby being forever separated from God and in the presence of pure terrifying evil?

Who's doing the torturing?

Does the mother whose son is mutilated by violence not suffer torture in her own comfortable home?
Torture does not necessarily mean pain physically applied by another.

Neogaia777 said:

@Der Alte
I don't know if you are trying to talk to me, or argue with me, but if you are, I would just like to say that we'll just see who's fruit remains, OK...
God Bless!

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Actually what I was doing was addressing the OP but my post was too long so I had to split it. You posted thus my second post was separated from the first part.
You seem to have taken offense to my post. I can't see why I only quoted scripture and historical sources. Here is more toward the OP.
.....There is an internet net rumor which many people accept without question. This "rumor" states that all the references to "Gehenna," in the NT, refer to a supposedly continuously burning dump in the valley of Ge Hinnom where trash, bodies etc. were burned.
…..Note there is no “archaeological nor literary evidence in support of this claim, [that Gehenna was ever used as a garbage dump] in either the earlier intertestamental or the later rabbinic sources” If Gehenna was ever used as a garbage dump there should be broken pottery, tools, utensils, bones, etc. but there is no such evidence.
= = = = =
Miqweh of Second Temple Period. ......Jerusalem City-Dump in the Late Second Temple Period, ZDPV, 119/1 (2003),
The chance discovery of an Early Roman city dump (1st century CE) in Jerusalem has yielded for the first time ever quantitative data on garbage components that introduce us to the mundane daily life Jerusalemites led and the kind of animals that were featured in their diet. Most of the garbage consists of pottery shards, all common tableware, while prestige objects are entirely absent. Other significant garbage components include numerous fragments of cooking ovens, wall plaster, animal bones and plant remains. Of the pottery vessels, cooking pots are the most abundant type.
…..Most of the refuse turns out to be “household garbage” originating in the domestic areas of the city, while large numbers of cooking pots may point to the presence of pilgrims. Significantly, the faunal assemblage, which is dominated by kosher species and the clear absence of pigs, set Jerusalem during its peak historical period apart from all other contemporaneous Roman urban centers.
...
Recently, the contemporaneous city-dump was identified on the eastern slope of the south-eastern hill of Jerusalem in the form of a thick mantle (up to 10 m, 200,000 m3 ) (Reich and Shukron 2003). The dump is located roughly 100 m outside and south-east of the Temple Mount on the eastern slope of the Kidron Valley (fig. 1), and extends at least 400 m and is 50–70 m wide. Large amounts of pottery and coins date the dump to the Early Roman period (the 1st century BCE and the 1st century CE up to the destruction of the city by the Romans in 70 CE). A preliminary study of the garbage (Bouchnik, Bar-Oz and Reich 2004; Bouchnik et al. 2005) showed the presence of animal bones.
https://www.researchgate.net/public...udy_of_the_City-Dump_of_Early_Roman_Jerusalem
Jerusalem’s Garbage

Vesper_Jaye✝️ said:

This is a VERY crazy and stupid question but… does Hell exist yet?
Revelation 20:14-15
And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

Does Hell not exist until the end of the world? These verses seem to imply that people do not go to Hell until the time in Revelation.

Even CRAZIER question:
Could ghosts be damned souls that will one day go to Hell?

Click to expand...

Hell is the grave .... all who die earthly death wait there in a dormant sleep until Jesus returns ... then ... the 1st resurrection from the grave (of the saved) happens (raised and given eternal life/immortality) ..... they experienced only the 1st death (earthly death - dormant sleep in the grave) .... later the 2nd resurrection (of the lost happens) and are raised up mortal and do not receive eternal life .... the New Jerusalem (in heaven that the redeemed are in) descends to earth... the risen wicked along with satan and the fallen angels attack the city ..... but can not harm it because it is protected .... God then destroys the earth and everything in it (all the wicked, satan and the fallen angels) ... by fire (second death) ... that is the lake of fire. He then makes everything new ;o)

"ghosts" (if seen) are demonic activity (satan/fallen angels).

Important to know there is NO communication with the dead ... as demons can appear/disguise themselves as "familiar spirits" ..... deceiving ... if possible the elect.

2 Corinthians 11:14

And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.

Do not be deceived ... God gave us this truth about the dead to protect us from being deceived.

"For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten" (Ecclesiastes 9:5).