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Does hell exist?

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Post new topic   Reply to topic    BookTalk.org Forum Index -> Belief, Religion & Philosophy

Does hell exist?
Yes, definitely.
23%
 23%  [ 5 ]
Maybe.
19%
 19%  [ 4 ]
I seriously doubt.
0%
 0%  [ 0 ]
No, hell is a myth.
57%
 57%  [ 12 ]
Total Votes : 21

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Chris OConnor Chris OConnor has been starred
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 12:40 pm    Post subject: Does hell exist? Reply with quote
Does hell exist?

Do you believe in hell? I'm not asking if you think the city of Hell, Michigan exists. And I'm not asking if you consider life in modern society or on planet Earth to be a form of hell. No word games here.

Explain your answer.
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 1:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
No, hell is a myth. I know you're all shocked and surprised by my answer. LOL There is no heaven and there is no hell. There is no god and there is no devil. I do like Anubis though. [Darn, no undertaker emoticon!]
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 8:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Sure hell exists. What is may consist of may be subject to interpretation, and the requirements for getting there may change from religion to religion or from act to act, but if you have some belief of something "after this life" then there has to be somewhere to go, and since so many religions seem to think they have the "right" way and everybody else is the "wrong" way, one common theme is that "somewhere" exists. A lot of people are living in their own hell now. I disagree that there is no good or bad...if there wasn't then our society would look a lot different. Although I am a catholic, and had the "or you will go to hell" stuff drilled in me forever as a kid, I don't believe in the black-and-white versions many religions seem to profess. But I do believe there is someplace the very evil reside after death. weather they can get parole or something I don't know.
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 11:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
msmith47 wrote:
. . .I do believe there is someplace the very evil reside after death. . .


I believe hell exists now. I also believe in infinitesimals and the vanishing point in pictures.

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PostPosted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 11:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Definitely not. Unless one considers Hell to be the absolute oblivion of a person once they die. That's pretty scary!

As a child, I always found the concept of Hel (Helheim) scarier than Hell. Endless cold and despair seems worse than fire and suffering. Maybe because I was a bit of a pyro as a child..... Laughing
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 11:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Theomanic wrote:
Definitely not. Unless one considers Hell to be the absolute oblivion of a person once they die. That's pretty scary!

As a child, I always found the concept of Hel (Helheim) scarier than Hell. Endless cold and despair seems worse than fire and suffering. Maybe because I was a bit of a pyro as a child.....


Maybe it's because you live in Canada Smile
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 4:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Hell was invented to keep the proles in line.
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 10:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Sure it's there, whether it's physically there or just a reminder in our psyche to stray from evil doings, one will never know. Personally, I believe in the concept of Purgatory and Hell because there are too many bad people to not be served some form of justice for acts they have committed. But like I said, it's hard to say, for we won't know until we get there...and I hope nobody on this forum ends up there!
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 1:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Since, when our bodies die.....we don't take them with us to wherever we go. Hell, doesn't need to be a physical place, since our souls don't take up any physical space.

Therefore, Hell, if it exists, must be a state of mind, not a state of body.

It says somewhere that Hell is a state of the soul being cut off from God...

I wouldn't dwell on this subject......

Does Heaven exist is a better question.....much more positive and productive.

Some one once said that heaven was within us.....

And certainly I have experienced 'joy' as opposed to 'pleasure'...bubbling up from within me for no apparent reason......and I know I'm not alone in this experience.....so I don't think I'm quite mad!!! R.I.P.
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 11:04 pm    Post subject: Maybe... Reply with quote
I think the idea of Hell is an innate hope that all of the wrongdoers in the world will eventually pay for their terrible deeds or thoughts, or whatever it is that would deem one worthy of eternal suffering.

Unfortunately, I have yet to see any empirical evidence that tells me it is anything more than a creation of our forefathers that is meant to keep us conforming to the social mores they thought were most important. Like most religious concepts (not any religion in particular), I find that the most dominating themes are nothing more than tools that were used to keep their followers within the bounds of acceptable behavior. Whether the concept of consequences comes in the form of eternal hell or being reincarnated as a slug, they were all meant to keep us from behaving on animalistic urges and instincts.

I guess I can not really answer that is does not exist any more than I could answer that it does exist. But I find it more probable that Hell is more of an ideal…a mortal thought that we will be held accountable beyond the span of our lives, and that our actions in our life bear some greater consequence in the world.

(This all sounds much more pessimistic than I thought it would)
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 08, 2008 8:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Hell exists, but I have no particular certainty about what the nature of its existence is. It may be a literal place in space in a dimension of spirit, or it may just be a state of mind.

My personal leaning is that we are in hell right now, either again, as a place or state of mind.

I suppose I am supposed to answer why I feel this way though. The short answer would be that I feel there is wisdom in the Bible. Perhaps we won't all agree on religion or even the existence of God, but I think it can be said that there is wisdom to be found there. Given that, the experiences and teachings of many mystics in history, and a certain degree of confirmation in other cultures with their own ideas of an underworld, I feel there is something that was being communicated by the concept of Hell.
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 5:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Most people in the world do not believe the Bible is the inspired word of a deity. They don't believe in the God, heaven or hell of the Bible.

So hell exists in your opinion. And you base it on the Bible. What do you say to the 2/3 of the world that thinks you're wrong?
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 9:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Chris OConnor wrote:
Most people in the world do not believe the Bible is the inspired word of a deity. They don't believe in the God, heaven or hell of the Bible.

So hell exists in your opinion. And you base it on the Bible. What do you say to the 2/3 of the world that thinks you're wrong?


I think you misunderstood my explanation a bit.

Whether the Bible is the inspired word of a deity or not it would seem to me to be a source of wise words. That and the belief in an underworld amongst other religions seems to suggest that there is something that hell/underworld is meant to represent.

Hell is part of an otherwise enriching message of philosophical truth and spiritual enlightenment. I am willing to take the word of ancient sages unless I find that it fails to fit into the understanding of the broader reality that I have.

You mention people not believing in the "hell of the bible", but I noted that hell could represent either a fairly literal place, or a more abstract idea. The Bible is open to interpretation and I am not willing to dismiss any possible interpretation without first considering someone's reasoning.

I only posit that "something" exists that the word "hell" or "underworld" is meant to represent.
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 3:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
In an episode of the tv show Angel, the main character decends an elevator to "hell" and when it reaches the bottom and opens, he steps out into a street in LA. I'm most prone to agree with that interpretation of hell, it seems like there is not much worse that can be done to us that we don't do to each other. I don't believe in hell besides what we inflict on ourselves and others.

Wierdly enough, I do believe in heaven. It's an endless library with really comfy sofas.
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 8:52 pm    Post subject: No Hell is a myth Reply with quote
It's a scare tactic in combination of several legends throughout time and history to scare people into behaving themselves. Seriously-who needs that kind of stress?
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