Hell is a Hoax

[Azure24]

No where in the Bible is Hell truly mentioned, there is not such a place and noone is going to go there. Here is proof:

1 Corinthians 15:22 (New International Version)

22For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

1 Timothy 4:10 (New International Version)

10(and for this we labor and strive), that we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe.

* Note i have singled out the most important parts.

 

[noctuary]

Actually you are incorrect. Simply google Hell in the bible. You will find much mentioned in the bible.

 

[path_of_one]

What is commonly translated as hell are actually concepts that are quite different in the original usage. Gehenna is translated as hell in many Bibles, but was an actual place on earth (a local dump) and not the idea most Christians have today. Hades is often translated as hell also, but anyone who knows Greek mythology will realize that Hades is not the same conceptually as the modern Christian "hell."

I agree that hell doesn't actually exist as a physical place, though I put forth it exists as a state of being.

We've had long, complex discussions about this before here in the Christian forum. You may want to reference those older posts through a search.

By the way, we've also had long ones about free will, so you may also want to reference that for your other post.

 

[China Cat Sunflower]

What sort of state of mind is Hell, Path? Can you isolate the sources of that imagery? I mean, where did you get the idea(s)? How did you build up the imagery in your mind? Can you break it back apart and look at each little thing that goes into your conception of this mental hell? That would be a cool exercise to try.

I got my conception of hell in church, but hell never seemed real to me- probably because I assumed I wouldn't be going there! I was always terrified of Jesus, though, come to think of it.

Chris

 

[noctuary]

I am going off a bit here. At some point Hell was thought to be the absence of God. That it was to be away from his view. There was a tale, not sure if it was Jewish or not that God is everywhere. And he needed a place not to be. He called this place Zimzum. Oh found it
Tzimtzum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[noctuary]

Oh to add. What is hell?
It's being in line at the DMV and your number is C4. And the number being called is C5. So you have to wait till they start over.

*almost a true story

 

[path_of_one]

What sort of state of mind is Hell, Path? Can you isolate the sources of that imagery? I mean, where did you get the idea(s)? How did you build up the imagery in your mind? Can you break it back apart and look at each little thing that goes into your conception of this mental hell? That would be a cool exercise to try.

I got my conception of hell in church, but hell never seemed real to me- probably because I assumed I wouldn't be going there! I was always terrified of Jesus, though, come to think of it.

Chris

Of course, this is just my current idea about hell and heaven, based on my own experience...

I think it is a state of being completely alone, without God. God is in all things and beyond them. When one dies and yet refuses to turn toward God, one has lost God in all things (since one is not incarnated at that point, and fails to be with other incarnated beings) and also one has refused to have union with God. So one is thus despairingly, agonizingly alone. There is little worse for a human being than to be utterly alone, so there is little I can think of as worse torment. Indeed, without anyone else, it is questionable if we would feel that we exist at all.

Similarly, heaven is not a place but rather a unity with God and all other beings who have also come to realize their inner Light. I have never felt greater joy than when I had a vision of uniting with God and melting/blending with all other beings. It was pure love and was indescribable how wonderful it felt. So far, I can't imagine (and haven't experienced) anything better. Any physical place can't come close to that feeling.

I think overall, my conceptualization of heaven and hell is fairly simple, with little imagery. It is an outgrowth of emotional spiritual experience, and I acknowledge it is not due to any complex theology. I don't think God sends people to hell; people choose to be there until they choose another state of being. I don't claim to know how it works, that's just the best guess I have with what I intuitively sense. I'm an odd Christian because I believe reincarnation occurs, so perhaps people spend a bit of time in "hell" in this sense until they at least decide to be incarnated again. The specifics of the afterlife aren't really much of a focus of my spirituality, so I'm content to leave the concepts fuzzy. I just can't quite think that everyone experiences the same thing after death, no matter what they prepare themselves for and how they are during their life, and yet I very strongly can't buy into a physical heaven or hell, unless there is some "Summerland" concept of a place folks go to rest up before the next incarnation. Maybe it is in part that mansions and some place flowing with milk and honey never seemed very transcendent to me, and if you let go of a physical heaven, then hell doesn't make much sense either?

 

[mee]

I got my conception of hell in church,

Chris

And there we have it, that speaks volumes .

false religious beliefs and doctrines are rife in the churches that CLAIM to follow bible teachings but do nothing of the sort.



it is nothing but manmade traditions and manmade doctrines. it certainly is a racket and a snare.

there is no litral hellfire teaching in the bible , false religious leaders have already fallen from Gods blessings because of their unfaithfulness and taking on of manmade doctrines


but that is not to say that there is not a FAITHFUL CHANNEL that is dishing out good bible based teachings , because there is.



And that FAITHFUL channel is the one that Jesus is feeding and giving great responsibility and blessings too. matthew 24;45-47



its all happening especially in the times that we live in right now , and there is not any fearful hellfire teaching coming from them because all of their teachings are inline with the PURE words of the bible .


and it is very good news that they are making known.

And this good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations; and then the end will come. matthew 24;14

the end of manmade rulerships and goverments , is Goodnews .


and the even better news that will happen is that eventually DEATH will be swallowed up forever.

and going back to the verse in the opening thread,

For just as in Adam all are dying, so also in the Christ all will be made alive. 1 CORINTHIANS 15;22


We are all of us in a dieing state because of the sin of the first man Adam. As ROMANS 5;12 informs us, all men grow old and die, but it was not Gods original purpose at all.


That is why, just as through one man (Adam)sin entered into the world and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because they had all sinned—. Romans 5;12


but we can get everlasting life back and it is through Jesus Christ.


For to this end we are working hard and exerting ourselves, because we have rested our hope on a living God, who is a Savior of all sorts of men, especially of faithful ones. 1 timothy 4;10



(Romans 5:17) For if by the trespass of the one [man] death ruled as king through that one, much more will those who receive the abundance of the undeserved kindness and of the free gift of righteousness rule as kings in life through the one [person], Jesus Christ.



(Romans 6:23) For the wages sin pays is death, but the gift God gives is everlasting life by Christ Jesus our Lord.



As the last enemy, death is to be brought to nothing ...1 corinthians 15;26

 

[17th Angel]

I, (amazingly) learnt something last night, I was recapping on the case of John Wayne Gacy.... You know, the guy who (as far as we know) killed 33 young males.... Now the main dectective incharge of this investigation... Heeded the words of a psyhcic... (sp) Like how freaking stupid is that? What a waste of time..... Right? He believed in something that was so un freaking believable.... YET it paid off.... Now, this made me ponder... This guy said "What if this woman is right?" What if..... If she was right, that is a terrible tale.. This upright good man, helpful friendly man... Raped and killed 33 (known number) boys.... IF this is right... Then we gotta do something... IF he was wrong, what had he lost? Nothing.......

So, a belife in Hell.... Is it healthy? I think it is. And I can't see any bad from thinking "What if".

 

[mee]

So, a belife in Hell.... Is it healthy? I think it is. And I can't see any bad from thinking "What if".

the problem about hellfire is that it is a lie , and it makes God out to be evil.


and i am after truth not lies.

 

[17th Angel]

the problem about hellfire is that it is a lie , and it makes God out to be evil.


and i am after truth not lies.

Yea, ok.

 

[Bruce Michael]

I am going off a bit here. At some point Hell was thought to be the absence of God. That it was to be away from his view. There was a tale, not sure if it was Jewish or not that God is everywhere. And he needed a place not to be. He called this place Zimzum. Oh found it
Tzimtzum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Greetings Noctuary,
Tzimtzum is not Hell. It is all of the universe.


Valentin Tomberg explains:
"the idea of tsimtsum - the 'withdrawal of God' - of the Lurianic school of Cabala.....the existence of the universe is rendered possible by the act of contraction of God within Himself. God made a 'place' for the world in abandoning a region interior to Himself."
http://www.comparative-religion.com/forum/tsimtsum-7227.html

Consider the etymology of "Hell".


-B.Bruce

 

[noctuary]

Greetings Noctuary,
Tzimtzum is not Hell. It is all of the universe.


Valentin Tomberg explains:
"the idea of tsimtsum - the 'withdrawal of God' - of the Lurianic school of Cabala.....the existence of the universe is rendered possible by the act of contraction of God within Himself. God made a 'place' for the world in abandoning a region interior to Himself."
http://www.comparative-religion.com/forum/tsimtsum-7227.html

Consider the etymology of "Hell".


-B.Bruce

I get that. Just trying to explain that to me I figure hell would be a place away from God. Then again, I don't believe in either and this is a discussion on myth for me. But I do enjoy it. I am always being told I am going to Hell. So I like to keep my travel plans researched and up to date.

 

[China Cat Sunflower]

Of course, this is just my current idea about hell and heaven, based on my own experience...

I think it is a state of being completely alone, without God. God is in all things and beyond them. When one dies and yet refuses to turn toward God, one has lost God in all things (since one is not incarnated at that point, and fails to be with other incarnated beings) and also one has refused to have union with God. So one is thus despairingly, agonizingly alone. There is little worse for a human being than to be utterly alone, so there is little I can think of as worse torment. Indeed, without anyone else, it is questionable if we would feel that we exist at all.

Similarly, heaven is not a place but rather a unity with God and all other beings who have also come to realize their inner Light. I have never felt greater joy than when I had a vision of uniting with God and melting/blending with all other beings. It was pure love and was indescribable how wonderful it felt. So far, I can't imagine (and haven't experienced) anything better. Any physical place can't come close to that feeling.

I think overall, my conceptualization of heaven and hell is fairly simple, with little imagery. It is an outgrowth of emotional spiritual experience, and I acknowledge it is not due to any complex theology. I don't think God sends people to hell; people choose to be there until they choose another state of being. I don't claim to know how it works, that's just the best guess I have with what I intuitively sense. I'm an odd Christian because I believe reincarnation occurs, so perhaps people spend a bit of time in "hell" in this sense until they at least decide to be incarnated again. The specifics of the afterlife aren't really much of a focus of my spirituality, so I'm content to leave the concepts fuzzy. I just can't quite think that everyone experiences the same thing after death, no matter what they prepare themselves for and how they are during their life, and yet I very strongly can't buy into a physical heaven or hell, unless there is some "Summerland" concept of a place folks go to rest up before the next incarnation. Maybe it is in part that mansions and some place flowing with milk and honey never seemed very transcendent to me, and if you let go of a physical heaven, then hell doesn't make much sense either?

Thanks, Path, that's really interesting! I have really primitive, ultra childish images/notions of Heaven, Hell, God, Jesus, Satan... They come directly from pictures in children's books published by the SDA church. Heaven is literally a collage of all the descriptiv elements related to it, so there's the lamb and the lion looking all peaceful with a child leading them, actual gold streets, a disneyland looking castle city, tree of life within picking distance. Jesus is a white dude with long hair and a beard. God is a glowing fire thingy on a mountain. But we were never really exposed to any images of Hell. Maybe it was too catholicy.

I was freaked out by the resurection and judgment. That was depicted with an eye toward extreme graphic effect. People coming up out of graves, others screeching at the rocks to fall on them. But I was never afraid of hell, or the judgment, or being "Lost." What I was terrified of was the persecution that was supposed to happen to us during the Time of Trouble. The Sunday keepers were going to come and force us to confess, then torture and kill most of us. You had to be brave and die for Jesus, or at least be prepared to. And Jesus would know if you betrayed him. He's like Santa- he knows. But He's a freaking scary Santa that comes back and makes you die for him.

I checked out the Wiki page on Hell. There are an amazing array of ideas from different cultures which correlate to some sort of Hell-like place or existence. I was thinking that people sort of aggegate different imagery from various sources to build up a personal collage image of Hell, or Heaven. I wasn't exposed to Dante, Milton, or any of the other myriad commonplace conceptions related to the Hell of western imagination, so I never actually formed a personal construct of it. The same is true of Heaven, really. My vision of that exists in the same file as other unformed concepts from early childhood when I was just confused about something which seemed peculiar at the time. Like when I thought that Pepsi was gasoline because my Dad said something about he'd rather drink gas than Pepsi, or when I thought that cheese came from the inside of a cow's horn because the package said "Longhorn Cheese", and had a picture of a long horned steer on the front.

I've had any number of opportunities to work some sort of conception of Heaven and Hell into my saddle bag of spiritual concepts, but they just aren't tangible in any useful way to me. My personal experience with the use of martyr propaganda as a tool for indoctrinating children and controlling adults by creating fear and xenophobia was a huge motivating factor in my struggle to free myself from the coercion and compulsion of fundamentalist Christian ideology. That was very useful!

Chris

 

[greymare]

Ill be seeing you there i suspect. LOL. ah, well we wont be lonely.

 

[noctuary]

Ill be seeing you there i suspect. LOL. ah, well we wont be lonely.

I have it on good authority I got a good reservation. Lots of brochures, all the fine places to be tortured. I even got coupons for a two for one special dinner.

 

[China Cat Sunflower]

Have I mentioned my condo? Great lakeside view!

Chris

 

[Tao_Equus]

I just checked and Hull, often misspelt "hell", still exists. A few facts about Hull:

Background
Hull is isolated from much of the country by the Humber estuary
Hull was first established by monks looking for a port to export their wool
Hull grew rapidly in the 19th Century through its connections with the fishing industry

Trigger Factors
Fishing agreements have limited the size of catches
The city was heavily bombed during WW2
Over the last five years the local council has wasted £650 million pounds
The world depression of the 1930s led to the closure of the shipyards
Hull's traditional industries have struggled to compete with their foreign rivals

Effects
Drug related crime and heroin addiction is a major problem
There are now 10,000 empty homes in Hull
Hull has some of the cheapest house prices in the UK
Hull has the lowest percentage of students achieving 5 GCSE grades A-C (28.9%)
The city now suffers from high levels of unemployment
The city centre suffers from having many unattractive and cheap building developments
Very few fishing trawlers remain in the docks
Hull has been nominated as the worst settlement in the UK.

Far being a place full of fire and brimstone, as some extremely unreliable institutions would have you believe, Hull is cold, grey, damp and thoroughly miserable. Hull is the place to retire to if one has come down with terminal stupidity, something once endemic across England but which now thanks to the tireless educational efforts of their esteemed neighbours, The Scots, is now on the retreat. Hull however defiantly holds out, being so stupid as to actually build their city not by the river but in it!! So next time any of you funda-mental-ists go condemning people to Hull, think twice please. For surely no-one deserves that!!

Typical daily life in Hull

 

[kf123]

Maybe "hell" is not so much a place, but an event. Rev. 20:9, 14, 15. Malachi 4:1-3 suggests the saints will walk on the ashes of the wicked. Yes, through Jesus it is possible for all to be saved, but we have free will and not everyone chooses to be saved.

 

[path_of_one]

Noctuary, you made me chuckle.

Incidentally, TE- there is a Hell on the Cayman Islands. But it's more like Paradise! You can get postcards saying you visited Hell. The city's sign with it's population was a popular photo opp when I went there.

My experience of the God I worship is such that torturing or punishing people completely flies in the face of everything I have experienced of Him/Her/It, so I conclude that it is more a state we choose until we choose to leave it. And oddly, I don't think you have to be aware you've chosen otherwise consciously to avoid it. Conversely, there is some truth to those passages in the Bible about the people who claim to follow Christ and will later get a surprise when they realize God knows it was a sham, an act.

Anyhoo, I've read Dante and enjoyed it, but then I enjoyed it like I enjoy Edgar Allen Poe or a good horror movie. Little seemed grounded in any sort of Biblical evidence, and even less in my spiritual experience.

And something is hard for me to swallow about being happy with the thought of being a saint walking on the ashes of unenlightened beings. Maybe I have too strong a flavor of Buddhism to my Christianity, but the Christ of Revelation never jived quite right with the Christ I know and love through the Gospels and personal experience. I'm more down with the boddhisattva idea- I'd rather get more enlightened and then come back as many times as needed to help others. Who really grasps the love of God but is happy with the thought of treading on the remains of others who were so obviously lost? It just doesn't sit right with me...