What's so bad about hell?

[holyknight75]

I saw a TV programme last night that had a little girl (14) on who was terrified about going to hell.

I felt like i wanted to reassure her that she doesn't have to be so scared.

I found myself thinking of what to say to her and came up with that if you are faced with burning and the gnawing of teeth for all eternity, you would probably get used to the pain.

Before long it would become normality to you.

A bit similar to people who live with painful physical conditions i suppose.

If this is true, then hell wouldn't be so bad would it?

Can anyone tell me what there is to be scared of in going to hell?

 

[Albion]

I saw a TV programme last night that had a little girl (14) on who was terrified about going to hell.

I felt like i wanted to reassure her that she doesn't have to be so scared.

I found myself thinking of what to say to her and came up with that if you are faced with burning and the gnawing of teeth for all eternity, you would probably get used to the pain.

Before long it would become normality to you.

A bit similar to people who live with painful physical conditions i suppose.

If this is true, then hell wouldn't be so bad would it?

Can anyone tell me what there is to be scared of in going to hell?

Eternal torment is not exactly something to get used to IMO, but that aside, those who DO adjust to unending pain or suffering in this life--concentration camp prisoners, for example--are not exactly happy, from what I can tell.

And those who go to hell are like them in knowing what the other way of life they could be living amounts to. Like the parent who has to live the rest of his life after the loss of a child, the person in hell is aware of the great loss that he has experienced--fumbled away, really, unlike the parent in this analogy whose child died but through no fault of the parent--and has to live with that knowledge forever.

 

[0-2Continuum]

The true agony of hell is separation from the Holy One.

 

[holyknight75]

I think you would get used to it myself.

Actually many holocaust survivors talk of how they got used to their experience.

 

[holyknight75]

The true agony of hell is separation from the Holy One.

Why? There are plenty of people who do not believe in God who are extremely happy.

For one thing they do not live in fear of the devil!

 

[pmcleanj]

Actually, I think you are right: Hell is nothing to be scared of. And, like you, I am grieved for all the little ones -- regardless of their age -- who have been so mistaught that they experience fear as an essential, or even normal part of the Christian experience. As evangelists and catechists, we have sinned against every catechumen who is left with that impression.

It's a similar misunderstanding of the faith, to think that the "reward of Heaven when we die" is a reason to embrace Christianity. We are alive in the here-and-now; or, if we are unconscious of our relationship to God then we are half-alive in the here-and-now. Embracing Christ is about having abundant life: being fully alive. It's about having a meaning to life that goes beyond just satisfying your own needs and pandering to your own pleasures, to participating in partnership with God in the great work of the Kingdom. And yes, that abundant life will extend beyond the border of our earthly death, but that's almost irrelevant.

You're right: people who have not experienced intimacy with God can be happy enough. They have nothing to compare their present happiness to. But people who have had experienced God shouldn't live in fear of the devil either, because the devil has no power over them. They shouldn't fear Hell, because God has no desire to lose any one of his creation. We yearn to please God not out of fear of punishment, but as a child yearns to please her mother because that is the nature of child-like love. And as a child trusts her mother implicitly, we can trust God to care for us and bring us home.

 

[holyknight75]

Well said!

Personally i think that in the modern world where we cannot be scared into believing, the notion of hell is moribund.

 

[JasonV]

Biblical exegesis will reveal that hell is temporary, not eternal.

It is not possible for a finite being to do anything that merits an infinite punishment. If god is just, then a punishment cannot exceed a misdeed. Eye for an eye it was said, not a limb for an eye, or a life for a limb.

 

[Sabina60]

I saw a TV programme last night that had a little girl (14) on who was terrified about going to hell.

I felt like i wanted to reassure her that she doesn't have to be so scared.

I found myself thinking of what to say to her and came up with that if you are faced with burning and the gnawing of teeth for all eternity, you would probably get used to the pain.

Before long it would become normality to you.

A bit similar to people who live with painful physical conditions i suppose.

If this is true, then hell wouldn't be so bad would it?

Can anyone tell me what there is to be scared of in going to hell?

The little 14 yo should not be made afraid that she is going to hell. But hell is an eternity without God. That is both sad and something to dread.

 

[emmauk007]

The word “hell” is found in many Bible translations. In the same verses other translations read “the grave,” “the world of the dead,” and so forth. Other Bibles simply transliterate the original-language words that are sometimes rendered “hell”; that is, they express them with the letters of our alphabet but leave the words untranslated. What are those words? The Hebrew she’ohl′ and its Greek equivalent hai′des, which refer, not to an individual burial place, but to the common grave of dead mankind; also the Greek ge′en·na, which is used as a symbol of eternal destruction. However, both in Christendom and in many non-Christian religions it is taught that hell is a place inhabited by demons and where the wicked, after death, are punished (and some believe that this is with torment).

Does the Bible indicate whether the dead experience pain?

Eccl. 9:5, 10: “The living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all . . . All that your hand finds to do, do with your very power, for there is no work nor devising nor knowledge nor wisdom in Sheol,* the place to which you are going.” (If they are conscious of nothing, they obviously feel no pain.)

Ps. 146:4: “His spirit goes out, he goes back to his ground; in that day his thoughts* do perish.” (*“Thoughts,”
Does the Bible indicate that the soul survives the death of the body?

Ezek. 18:4: “The soul* that is sinning—it itself will die.” (*“Soul,” KJ, Dy, RS, NE, Kx; “the man,” JB; “the person,” TEV.)
Does the Bible also say that upright people go to hell?

Job 14:13, Dy: “[Job prayed:] Who will grant me this, that thou mayst protect me in hell,* and hide me till thy wrath pass, and appoint me a time when thou wilt remember me?” (God himself said that Job was “a man blameless and upright, fearing God and turning aside from bad.”—Job 1:8.) (*“The grave,” KJ; “the world of the dead,” TEV; “Sheol,” AS, RS, NE, JB, NW.)

Acts 2:25-27, KJ: “David speaketh concerning him [Jesus Christ], . . . Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell,* neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” (The fact that God did not “leave” Jesus in hell implies that Jesus was in hell, or Hades, at least for a time, does it not?) (*“Hell,” Dy; “death,” NE; “the place of death,” Kx; “the world of the dead,” TEV; “Hades,” AS, RS, JB, NW.)

Does anyone ever get out of the Bible hell?

Rev. 20:13, 14, KJ: “The sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell* delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire.” (So the dead will be delivered from hell. Notice also that hell is not the same as the lake of fire but will be cast into the lake of fire.) (*“Hell,” Dy, Kx; “the world of the dead,” TEV; “Hades,” NE, AS, RS, JB, NW.)

Why is there confusion as to what the Bible says about hell?

“Much confusion and misunderstanding has been caused through the early translators of the Bible persistently rendering the Hebrew Sheol and the Greek Hades and Gehenna by the word hell. The simple transliteration of these words by the translators of the revised editions of the Bible has not sufficed to appreciably clear up this confusion and misconception.”—The Encyclopedia Americana (1942), Vol. XIV, p. 81.

Translators have allowed their personal beliefs to color their work instead of being consistent in their rendering of the original-language words. For example: (1) The King James Version rendered she’ohl′ as “hell,” “the grave,” and “the pit”; hai′des is therein rendered both “hell” and “grave”; ge′en·na is also translated “hell.” (2) Today’s English Version transliterates hai′des as “Hades” and also renders it as “hell” and “the world of the dead.” But besides rendering “hell” from hai′des it uses that same translation for ge′en·na. (3) The Jerusalem Bible transliterates hai′des six times, but in other passages it translates it as “hell” and as “the underworld.” It also translates ge′en·na as “hell,” as it does hai′des in two instances. Thus the exact meanings of the original-language words have been obscured.

 

[wayseer]

If you are scared of going to hell - you probably won't.

If you're not scare of hell you are probably already there.

 

[Catherineanne]

I saw a TV programme last night that had a little girl (14) on who was terrified about going to hell.

I think that teaching children to be afraid of hell equates to child abuse. But that is just me.

Meanwhile, a belief in a literal hellfire is not a mainstream belief within Anglicanism. Anglicans for the most part accept hell as being separation from God, rather than eternal punishment of the literal fire and brimstone kind.

 

[LyleSmith]

The word “hell” is found in many Bible translations. In the same verses other translations read “the grave,” “the world of the dead,” and so forth. Other Bibles simply transliterate the original-language words that are sometimes rendered “hell”; that is, they express them with the letters of our alphabet but leave the words untranslated. What are those words? The Hebrew she’ohl′ and its Greek equivalent hai′des, which refer, not to an individual burial place, but to the common grave of dead mankind; also the Greek ge′en·na, which is used as a symbol of eternal destruction. However, both in Christendom and in many non-Christian religions it is taught that hell is a place inhabited by demons and where the wicked, after death, are punished (and some believe that this is with torment).

Does the Bible indicate whether the dead experience pain?




Eccl. 9:5, 10: “The living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all . . . All that your hand finds to do, do with your very power, for there is no work nor devising nor knowledge nor wisdom in Sheol,* the place to which you are going.” (If they are conscious of nothing, they obviously feel no pain.)

Ps. 146:4: “His spirit goes out, he goes back to his ground; in that day his thoughts* do perish.” (*“Thoughts,”
Does the Bible indicate that the soul survives the death of the body?

Ezek. 18:4: “The soul* that is sinning—it itself will die.” (*“Soul,” KJ, Dy, RS, NE, Kx; “the man,” JB; “the person,” TEV.)
Does the Bible also say that upright people go to hell?

Job 14:13, Dy: “[Job prayed:] Who will grant me this, that thou mayst protect me in hell,* and hide me till thy wrath pass, and appoint me a time when thou wilt remember me?” (God himself said that Job was “a man blameless and upright, fearing God and turning aside from bad.”—Job 1:8.) (*“The grave,” KJ; “the world of the dead,” TEV; “Sheol,” AS, RS, NE, JB, NW.)

Acts 2:25-27, KJ: “David speaketh concerning him [Jesus Christ], . . . Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell,* neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” (The fact that God did not “leave” Jesus in hell implies that Jesus was in hell, or Hades, at least for a time, does it not?) (*“Hell,” Dy; “death,” NE; “the place of death,” Kx; “the world of the dead,” TEV; “Hades,” AS, RS, JB, NW.)

Does anyone ever get out of the Bible hell?

Rev. 20:13, 14, KJ: “The sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell* delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire.” (So the dead will be delivered from hell. Notice also that hell is not the same as the lake of fire but will be cast into the lake of fire.) (*“Hell,” Dy, Kx; “the world of the dead,” TEV; “Hades,” NE, AS, RS, JB, NW.)

Why is there confusion as to what the Bible says about hell?

“Much confusion and misunderstanding has been caused through the early translators of the Bible persistently rendering the Hebrew Sheol and the Greek Hades and Gehenna by the word hell. The simple transliteration of these words by the translators of the revised editions of the Bible has not sufficed to appreciably clear up this confusion and misconception.”—The Encyclopedia Americana (1942), Vol. XIV, p. 81.

Translators have allowed their personal beliefs to color their work instead of being consistent in their rendering of the original-language words. For example: (1) The King James Version rendered she’ohl′ as “hell,” “the grave,” and “the pit”; hai′des is therein rendered both “hell” and “grave”; ge′en·na is also translated “hell.” (2) Today’s English Version transliterates hai′des as “Hades” and also renders it as “hell” and “the world of the dead.” But besides rendering “hell” from hai′des it uses that same translation for ge′en·na. (3) The Jerusalem Bible transliterates hai′des six times, but in other passages it translates it as “hell” and as “the underworld.” It also translates ge′en·na as “hell,” as it does hai′des in two instances. Thus the exact meanings of the original-language words have been obscured.

An interesting post emmauk. I have seen this argument before by proponents of annihilationism. The argument depends for its strength upon words – their etymology and translation from a 2000 year distance. However, It is not so clear what the original hearers of those words understood them to mean.

Some Christians by analyzing the word ‘Stauros” conclude that the Lord Jesus was not crucified on a cross but rather on a single upright stake( google John Denham Parson’s ebook ‘The Non Christian cross’ ). They must ignore generally what Christians in all times and in all places understood those words to mean to hold on to that belief.

Blessings
lyle

 

[julian the apostate]

Who will say with confidence that sexual abuse is more permanently damaging to children than threatening them with the eternal and unquenchable fires of hell?

 

[Christopher1020]

Although I respect all of the opinions voiced, I would definantly say that sexual abuse is more damaging than teaching children about the lake of Fire or Gehenna, or the 2nd Resusrection. Christ didn't have any qualms about teaching that thoes who do not believe will be cast away or burned up like chaff or into utter darkness. Its all about the audience. A 14 yr old girl who is afraid of going to hell? At least she believes there is one at her age I was horribly terrified of dying period, I was scared that it just ended, that I would become nothing. So not teaching about hell isnt going to keep kids from being afraid.
If you knew that 2 houses down from you was a someone on the sex offender register wouldn't you warn your child to stay away? In a book I read 90 minutes in Hell, the author puts out a good analogy, If you saw someone filling up a pool full of acid and then saw a bunch of kids fixin to dive in would you really worry about making them afraid? They should be afraid. We all should. Damnation sucks. Denying Christ's offer of salvation will leave God with no alternative. He will not take us kicking and screaming into His Kingdom. I tend to take the outer darkness approach. I believe that thoes who find themselves there will be tormenting each other and the fallen angels as well. Rember the final judgement will come. Our children should be warned. We live in a society that doesn't want concequences for bad decisions, but that's just not reality.
Now I will say this, that we should teach it in a way that puts the emphasis on escaping Geheena not on what it will be like there. It is in light of the fact that we as fallen and corrupted creatures deserve to be cast away that we can learn the value of our redemption. How do we teach that we need to be born of the Spirit and the Water if we dont teach that Sin needs forgivness? I do agree that neither a desire for Heaven nor a fear of Damnation should define our relationship with God, but it is part of the truth. I love my wife, but I also make decisions based on the thought of what my life would be like without her. I fear the loss of the sacred bond, because I have seen people who are divorced and really miserable. This does not define my marriage, but it acts to strenghthen it. If I ever voice this to my wife she tells me " don't worry I'm not goin anywhere." This is what the Church should teach to thoes who fear "Hell". Be not afraid and Lo I am with you always.
I say all this in love and not in a spirit of debate. Many have been wronged by thoes seeking to fill pews and coffers with Fire and brimstone, but there have been alot of peple who came to know Christ love because they first feared God's wrath.

 

[julian the apostate]

In a book I read 90 minutes in Hell, the author puts out a good analogy, If you saw someone filling up a pool full of acid and then saw a bunch of kids fixin to dive in would you really worry about making them afraid? They should be afraid. We all should. Damnation sucks. Denying Christ's offer of salvation will leave God with no alternative. He will not take us kicking and screaming into His Kingdom. I tend to take the outer darkness approach. I believe that thoes who find themselves there will be tormenting each other and the fallen angels as well. Rember the final judgement will come. Our children should be warned. We live in a society that doesn't want concequences for bad decisions, but that's just not reality.




i rest my case

 

[Longacre]

One thing I think we can all agree on about hell, whether it's literal fire and brimstone or a separation from God, or anything in between, it's bad enough that Jesus died so we wouldn't have to go there when we die.

 

[Secundulus]

Although I respect all of the opinions voiced, I would definantly say that sexual abuse is more damaging than teaching children about the lake of Fire or Gehenna, or the 2nd Resusrection.

Abortion is more damaging than any of them because it changes one intact human being into a bunch of different pieces and ends their life before they are given their own freedom of choice.

 

[Iron Sun 254]

If you follow Jesus out of fear of the punishment of hell and not out of true faith does it really count?

 

[Finella]

I think the answer to this question (about whether or not fear of punishment is a real reason to seek salvation) depends on the moral ability of the person in question. Moral development is a gradual process. As a child grows and matures, there is a time when fear of punishment is the sole reason to behave the way she does. But eventually the child comes to a point when she understands that behaving appropriately is a reward of its own, and then the fear of punishment is no longer the motivator.

This obviously relates to spiritual development as well. But I will say that in my upbringing, my parents never taught me the old "fire and brimstone" view of hell, partly because my mother was so traumatized by her own childhood experience of this, growing up in her evangelical family. My concept of hell (if there is one) is much like C.S. Lewis' in The Great Divorce. In this sense, I'm sure that heaven is the ultimate reality, and hell is the ultimate in emptiness, lack of satisfaction, and distance from what is real. The more I think about it, this life on earth can often seem like hell, and often seem like heaven.

I won't teach my daughter to fear hell, though I know she'll develop like all other kids and for a time need fear of punishment to learn how to act appropriately. But I know she will outgrow that, and I will not hold her back from coming to her own understanding of what being with God means.