What is Hell? Who goes there? (moved from WWMC)

[Pats]

I realize these seem like simple questions coming from a fellow Christian. But after spending some time around some more liberal Christians, I realized there are some very different POVs on this.

I'd like to hear some non-fundamental views.

Thnx

 

[Im_A]

I realize these seem like simple questions coming from a fellow Christian. But after spending some time around some more liberal Christians, I realized there are some very different POVs on this.

I'd like to hear some non-fundamental views.

Thnx

hell is the last thing on my mind. the hope i have in the faith, is that hell will be empty because God reconciles creation.

so i figure hell is possibly a few things or maybe all:
1. doesn't exist in the afterlife because if God's Will is to reconcile all and all come to a saving knowledge of Christ, I wonder what kind of "time issues" the next life has. i wonder if we will come to the point in the afterlife that hell has been emptied, or if we will watch it be emptied in the next life.

2. exists only in the sense of an "Eastern Orthodox" view of afterlife, view that heaven and hell is the same place.

3. the paganistic views are right. people burn in a place called Hades, where the river Styx goes through, and all the fiendish views of Dante, and poetic expressions of Revelations are true.

4. hell/eternal damnation is defined as the here and now. heaven/eternal salvation is defined as the here and now and we know nothing about the afterlife. especially since we see it all around us.

where do i personally stand on this issue? probably somewhere along numbers 1, 2, and 4. i see these views as the most possible.

 

[Im_A]

sorry pats, i didn't give my opinion on the 2nd question you have

my opinion is, no one is in the job position to judge themselves, or anyone else's cosmic/eternal placement.

for all we know, God could condemn all of us (even the Christians), God could condemn only a few amounts of people, God could reconcile all, which means no one in hell. so with that in mind, i think we will all have our own personal views. myself, i'm overly optimistic with God, but i feel no reason to judge anyone for some afterlife anymore. i just have very strong optimism that God will get His Will done in the afterlife, and that leads me to focus on this life more.

 

[NyssaTheHobbit]

My views (basically the same as in Orthodoxy) are in the universalism thread.

 

[I <3 Abraham]

I realize these seem like simple questions coming from a fellow Christian. But after spending some time around some more liberal Christians, I realized there are some very different POVs on this.

I'd like to hear some non-fundamental views.

Thnx

This is as simply as I can put it. Hell (damnation, eternal torment, fire and brimstone &C &C) is nothing less than we deserve.

Looking for one moment at the state of the world is enough to convince a rational person that Humanity is the most violent, cruel, dishonest, self aggrandizing and self indulgent creature in all of creation. We alone are truly subject to Sin's power in the world because we alone are rationally aware that violence, cruelty, dishonesty, self aggrandizement and self indulgence are purely destuctive and simply ought not be practiced. In spite of the divine gift of reason, each and every person falls victim to sin throughout their life. Indeed, there is no portion of our lives in which Sin's influence is absent.

What we deserve is God's retribution for our sin, for God to cease to hold back righteous anger and, at the very least, destroy our souls as failed experiments.

At the very least, I know that I deserve nothing less.

Edit to add:
The question of hell ought not be "Who is going to go there" but rather "Why haven't I been put there already"

Edit to add further:
Sorry to the OP, this doesn't seem like much of a liberal's viewpoint but it really is, I promise.

 

[progressivegal]

I believe Hell is a seperation from God. I don't know who "goes there", I don't feel I am able to judge that. I hope that wasn't too vague What I do know is that Christians have spoent way more time and energy worrying and preaching about Hell than we should (this isn't directed at the OP or anyone here at all, but at the Christian Community in general).

 

[Ran2004]

To me I believe Hell is an absence of God. I'm not certain of what this absence means, but for me being cut off from Him would be enough to hurt. I don't know that that reall makes sense.

Hell is sometimes referred to as eternal damnation. Isn't eternal damnation never being with Christ? Never knowing Him? This brings up another thought, can one be saved AFTER they die? If I died and went to Hell because God was unpleased with how I had lived my life, could I be saved in Hell and travel to Heavan? I don't know...

Oh, and I <3 Abraham, I totally agree with you. We all deserve Hell. This is a showing of God's grace. His amazing ability to pay our own debts for us. We should be so lucky...

How amazing is He?

Jon-Michael

 

[Pats]

What all of you are posting are basiclly my thoughts since I started pulling away from fundamentalism.

I don't think we know exactly what "Hell" may be beside seperation from God, and I'm not convinced that it's permanent. I think it's possible that there will be opportunity to come to know Christ after life here, perhaps.

I certainly don't think I can know who will or won't be under this penalty, but I know I deserve it and it is only by the grace of God that I may avoid it.

 

[112657]

What I do know is that Christians have spent way more time and energy worrying and preaching about Hell than we should (this isn't directed at the OP or anyone here at all, but at the Christian Community in general).

This is an excellent point. I have been thinking about this a lot lately, about how too many come to Christ for fear of hell rather than love of Him. And, for my two cents worth, when we do that I think we miss the point. (And likewise, this isn't directed toward the OP, but the Christian Community at large.)

I guess for as liberal as I am, I still kind of buy the traditional heaven/ hell scenerio. I don't know...I want to be more optimistic, but I wonder. IF Christ's death ultimately isn't about sparing those who believe that it happened and He was who He says He was from eternal damnation--then I kind of get lost on what it all means.

I mean, if we are all now saved, or can change our minds once we get to hell and decide it isn't for us, then why believe? Why pray? Why praise? Why even bothering trying to figure it all out?

 

[Jelx]

I've always thought of hell as being a state of mind. Meaning to be distant, or away, from God. The bible seems to point that the devil "owns" earth. I find this interesting because I consider the devil to be a symbolism of the seperation from God. Therefore, earth could, arguably, be hell.

If this is so then the only way to "leave" hell is by making yourself closer with God. If that is true then once we die either one of two things might happen, from my belief, and those are: 1) You are reincarnated until you achieve a state of being that is close to God or 2) If you are distant from God when you die then your soul will simply cease to exist (so, like I said above, you will stay on earth, in a sense, because everything on earth is finite - including the earth itself).

That's not necessarily my view. I'm very open minded. It's just one of my most liberal (by liberal I mean unique) views.

 

[Torah613]

I believe hell is a state we create for ourselves on this earth. Who is there? anyone who purposefully seperates themselves from the strive to advance spiritually.

Historically speaking, our modern concept of hell is a construct of 13th century western Christianity and to that effect is quite foreign to many old time, old country Orthodox Christians that I've met.

Joe Zollars

 

[Pats]

Some of these views are very abstract. That's fine. But, I'd like to look at ways the scriptures can be interprated to support various views aside from the traditional fundy one. Any suggestions on where to look?

 

[RainMaker]

I realize these seem like simple questions coming from a fellow Christian. But after spending some time around some more liberal Christians, I realized there are some very different POVs on this.

I'd like to hear some non-fundamental views.

Thnx

Pats,
You're getting some very interesting answers to your question. Unfortunatly most of them appear to be ungrounded opinions. Hell is the ultimate destination of unbelievers, characterized by unquenchable fire (Mark 9:43), darkness (Math 25:33), and "weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Math 13:42).

 

[Pats]

Pats,
You're getting some very interesting answers to your question. Unfortunatly most of them appear to be ungrounded opinions. Hell is the ultimate destination of unbelievers, characterized by unquenchable fire (Mark 9:43), darkness (Math 25:33), and "weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Math 13:42).

Right. So, are people tortured for eternity there? or do their souls die there? or is just dark, and hot, and the lost souls of humans can hear suffering, without actual eternal torture? From those very verses, it seems there may be more than one way to look at them? or no?

 

[RainMaker]

Some of these views are very abstract. That's fine. But, I'd like to look at ways the scriptures can be interprated to support various views aside from the traditional fundy one. Any suggestions on where to look?

Pat,

Wouldn't it be more prudent to look at the scriptures to determine their view, rather than look for scriptures to support a view (ie. something other than "the traditional fundy view")?

 

[RainMaker]

Right. So, are people tortured for eternity there? or do their souls die there? or is just dark, and hot, and the lost souls of humans can hear suffering, without actual eternal torture? From those very verses, it seems there may be more than one way to look at them? or no?

Pat,
I'm confused. What other way is their to look at the verses I quoted?

TIA

 

[RainMaker]

I believe hell is a state we create for ourselves on this earth.

Joe Zollars

Joe,

Interesting idea. Why do you think that?

-Mark

 

[Torah613]

Joe,

Interesting idea. Why do you think that?

-Mark

because it is the original christian view. Like I said, history prooves that the first person to come up with a concept of an eternal hell was Augustine, who to this day is decried as heretical in the east for this and other views. The concept of an enternal hell didn't become widespread until the thirteenth century when it was used to sell indulgences and increase the church coffers through fear. BTW those verses you refer to, refer to a temporal place of torment, most likely earth, in which we are seperate (either from our own doing or from divine intervention) from God.

Joe Zollars

 

[I <3 Abraham]

Edit to be a totally different post:

Rainmaker- I think that your approach is rubbing some folks the wrong way. This is not because of something that you have said, or even how you have said it, you have been very polite. The reason is that many folks here have come from a background that is strongly rooted in a particular interpretation of the bible and many of them had bad experiences with it: you seem to be driving at an interpretation of Hell that is based on that particular brand of literalism. Specifically, 2 things make me think that: first, when you said it is more prudent to look for the bible's viewpoint (reminiscent of "scripture interprets scripture", a catchphrase liberals often despise), second when you asked what other interpretation of those three verses regarding Hell was possible. This position regarding the meaning of scripture, namely that there is one meaning only of it, also is regarded as anathema by many liberals.

You can read my post on page one of this thread and see that I am not the type of liberal Christian that believes that no-one deserves hell-fire. In fact, I said quite the opposite. You can read Joe's posts in either this thread or other threads regarding the afterlife and see that he doesn't have a "new age" idea of the afterlife (whatever that means) but instead chooses to understand it in terms of Eastern Orthodoxy.

Anyway Rainmaker, that's why your reception is going to be a little cold, at least as far as I can predict my fellow liberals (we/they are a little like the weather, hard to predict, easy to understand after it makes itself know).

 

[Torah613]

cough cough some things are better discussed in liberal theology cough cough

durn allergies. hmm must be allergic to fundamentalism. Who knew?

Joe Zollars