Struggling with Hell

[ksw0203]

Hi everyone,

I'm a christian but I'm really struggling with the idea of eternal punishment for unbelievers, it just seems very cruel and unlike the God I think I know. Has anyone else struggled with this or has any parts of scripture that could suggest something other than this? I know that Judaism and some sects of early Christianity viewed hell as a temporary punishment that sort of 'refined' people but don't know how reliable this is?

Thanks!

To me, Hell is separation from God.

Not all Christians believe in eternal punishment.

You can't have an all forgiving god and hell imo

Years ago I read that part of the bible had been mistranslated (I might have made that word up!) and that heaven and hell actually should have been the spiritual world and the physical one. Naive as I am, I thought that might revolutionise religion as we know it, but it seemed to get buried. But it makes sense to me, how about you @ksw0203?

If you let go of all religion, as I have done (raised a Catholic), you will never again have to struggle with the inconsistencies of them. Hint : the inconsistency is because they are made up, depending on the needs of the men in charge at the time.

Read the book Sapiens - it will change your world view. (he has no particular interest in promoting or denigrating religion, he just explains the origins of all of our belief systems, since the earliest empires).

Hell is not eternal fire, torture,and punishment in my opinion. I know that’s what a lot of us were taught in childhood but that was just the interpretation at the time I think.

Anyway as far as I’m concerned, hell means not being with God and missing out on eternal life.

The bit translated as 'hell' actually refers to a pit used to burn rubbish outside the city. There really isn't a lot about hell in the Bible- it sort of grew and grew in church tradition rather than in theology.

In my opinion, it's separation from God (which isn't going to bother you if you don't believe). I also don't believe that it's relevant to/decided upon in the instant you die, or on how you lived your life.

The realm of faith and religion is not a concrete one like ours, set in time and space. Our understanding of it is, IMO, inevitably going to be partial and inconsistent. So I don't get hung up on the detail!

I've rejected the idea of eternal punishment for some time now. I'd been upset over the idea for ages but had rationalised myself into a corner, then I had a bit of an epiphany at the altar rail and realised that it simply wasn't true.

In the same way that the creation story in Genesis is just that - a story, told in terms we can grasp easily - the fabulous imagery in Revelation is a story told within its listeners' frame of reference. The 100 million voices in constant adulation before the throne and the ten-horned beast and Babylon on a sea monster and the pitched foot battle on the plain of Megiddo and the lake of fire are not to be taken literally.

Anyway, it says that Satan and all his angels are also thrown into the lake of fire - so they can't be torturing anyone despite what mediaeval woodcuts might suggest - and that the lake of fire is the second death so it's not an eternal state. Either it extinguishes the souls that wouldn't appreciate heaven or (rather more friendlily) it's the refiner's fire that God is likened to in Malachi 3, along with a bar of soap.

There is a scholarly theory that Revelation is more of a commentary on political events of John's time.

I vaguely remember hearing but don't quote me that the word used to suggest hell in the Gospels (where the afterlife is rarely mentioned) was the name of a rubbish dump outside Jerusalem.

Early Judaism didn't really deal with the afterlife (I think one of the major debates between Pharisees and Sadducees etc was about its nature) - think about how Job's reward is all more goodies in his later life, and the psalmist is continually going on about looking forward to having a better time of it than "the wicked" (who are currently flourishing like the green bay tree, but they'll get theirs, oh yes).

My view of the Incarnation is that God came to discover what it is to be human. Almost as a side-effect of that he also cheated death and laid the path for us to do the same.

I've always liked how Archbishop Rowan Williams talks about hell

‘My concept of hell, I suppose, is being stuck with myself for ever and with no way out. Whether anybody ever gets to that point I have no idea. But that it’s possible to be stuck with my selfish little ego for all eternity, that’s what I would regard as hell’.

I’m not a Christian and this is one of the primary reasons I rejected the belief system of my childhood. Any entity that doles out punishment for non-belief is a dictator who should be overthrown, not worshipped.

Thanks everyone, lots to think about. I don't have any doubts about the existence of God/Jesus, just find this part particularly difficult, especially as I have no Christian family members so it's particularly relevant on a personal level. I think even if it was, as @merryhouse has said, simply a 'second death' I would find that easier to deal with.

I've never understand how anyone who believes in this idea of hell and actually agree with it. It's disgusting.

Have you found yourself in a church that likes to discuss people's testimonies? Lots of realisation of how sinful I am and my relationship with God now I've said sorry?

Not that there's anything wrong with that, per se, but my experience is that they also tend to be very big on the reward for that relationship, which is seen as the escape from the punishment that would otherwise be inevitable.

It's heavy on the application of Paul's statement from Corinthians - if we have hope in Christ for this life alone, then we are most to be pitied - and I can't help thinking that it's often used to make people feel better about The World laughing at persecuting them.

I've been a lot more content with my faith since I've concentrated less on the afterlife and more on the here and now. Christian Aid had a good slogan - "we believe in life before death". I am come that they might have life, and have it to the full - the same passage in which Jesus talks about being the gate and the good shepherd.

Hint : the inconsistency is because they are made up, depending on the needs of the men in charge at the time.

^This. I find it baffling how people can convince themselves not only that their deity is real and everybody else's isn't, but that the bits they like from their own religion are true and the bits they don't like are just fable or metaphor or can be tweaked into something more palatable. You don't have to believe in hell if you don't want to, OP.

I know that Judaism and some sects of early Christianity viewed hell as a temporary punishment that sort of 'refined' people but don't know how reliable this is?

What do you mean by 'reliable' in this context though?

The idea of hell is not actually a Bible teaching. The word for hell comes from the word "Sheol" which was the name for the area where dead bodies were burned outside of the city, so is another name for the grave.
The teachings of hell and hellfire and limbo were brought into Christianity long after the Bible was written. No loving God would torture his creations in hell, just as no loving parent would do this to a child.
www.jw.org/finder?wtlocale=E&docid=502013345&srcid=share

@hyperbyke I agree, I really dislike the almost gleeful attitude towards hell that some Christians I've encountered have and honestly can't reconcile it with my own 'encounters' with and understanding of God which I hope means that, like other posters have said, the idea of hell has been distorted over time. Thanks again to everyone, I'm glad I'm not the only one and that there's the possibility of understanding 'hell' (whatever it is or isn't) in different ways.

Anyone who thinks that people who don't share their beliefs deserve eternal torture, like @PickledInAJar and @1flagnogbagnog do, deserve to be tortured for all eternity if mentally disturbed and dangerous.

There is no hell. Just unconditional love when we die. That's what I believe anyway.

@lazylinguist I see what you mean, I was an atheist for the majority of my life and understand how ridiculous it can seem even though I'm on the other side of the debate now! By reliable I really meant that I hadn't done any in-depth research so didn't know if those two things were necessarily true or if I'd misunderstood/misremembered.

As pp have stated, hell was the place you cremate the dead, or the grave. Similarly, heaven is everlasting life. So in a nutshell, Christianity was selling immortality to believers.

The popularised version of hell as a place of eternal punishment along with purgatory arose in the early medieval ages. Genocidal crusades were even fought between different Christian faiths as some did not believe in hell and thought purgatory was a corrupt invention to get grieving family to pay extra money to the church to save their dead family members soul. Dante’s work describing purgatory and hell in the high Middle Ages then heavily influenced the modern version of hell.

My belief is that people reject God, but never the other way round.
We love God because He first loved us - and loved us so much, He willingly suffered an agonising death at our hands, when He could so easily have struck the soldiers dead and escaped the cross.
He offers us love, salvation and eternal life. We have only to accept it.
And choosing to refuse it is what condemns us to hell.
Hell is not some mediaeval fantasy of fire and brimstone - it is the absence of love, the loss of eternal life, and the lack of a symbiosis with God. In other words, the atheists’ bleak view of death as the end of everything.
Rather like being invited free to a fabulous party, refusing to turn up, and then complaining that you are missing out!

@ksw0203

Thanks everyone, lots to think about. I don't have any doubts about the existence of God/Jesus, just find this part particularly difficult, especially as I have no Christian family members so it's particularly relevant on a personal level. I think even if it was, as *@merryhouse* has said, simply a 'second death' I would find that easier to deal with.

Re-reading what Jesus has to say about it in the Gospels will shed some light on what God says about hell.

I think hell is for people who pointedly reject God's grace and forgiveness of us consistently f***g up the world he made in all the ways we do.

But if a person rejects God, they can't have believed in hell anyway?

I think all (consciously able) people have to make a decision in their life.... to either reject or to accept Jesus (God) as their Lord.

The two thieves crucified on the cross next to Jesus give an interesting example of this.

One of them recognised that Jesus was completely innocent and sacrificial in his death. He asked him for forgiveness and Jesus said he would see him in heaven.

The other thief mocked Jesus and showed contempt for his purity and sacrifice. He made his decision.

We love God because He first loved us - and loved us so much

Why don't people in non-Christian cultures love him then? Does he love them too? Or does God not love Hindus, Buddhists etc?

@Babdoc

My belief is that people reject God, but never the other way round. We love God because He first loved us - and loved us so much, He willingly suffered an agonising death at our hands, when He could so easily have struck the soldiers dead and escaped the cross. He offers us love, salvation and eternal life. We have only to accept it. And choosing to refuse it is what condemns us to hell. Hell is not some mediaeval fantasy of fire and brimstone - it is the absence of love, the loss of eternal life, and the lack of a symbiosis with God. In other words, the atheists’ bleak view of death as the end of everything. Rather like being invited free to a fabulous party, refusing to turn up, and then complaining that you are missing out!

Just because you find it bleak, doesn't mean everyone does.

I think hell is for people who pointedly reject God's grace and forgiveness of us consistently f*g up the world he made in all the ways we do.

So you think non-believers deserve eternal torture?

I have always felt like the idea of God and the idea of Hell are pretty much mutually exclusive. But I'm not religious, so there may be subtleties that I don't get!