Should you be afraid of Hell?

[thecrazyscot]

Try as I might, I can't make head nor tail of this. I understand the individual words but they don't add up to anything that I can grasp intellectually.

I think it's due to my inability to clearly explain it, so I apologize for that. Re-reading it I'm rather embarrassed at the mess it is

Again, it's not at all evident to me why this should be so. It's not evident that it isn't so, either, btw. Who knows really? Certainly I don't.

I'm coming to this conclusion based on this verse:

For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. 1 Corinthians 15:16-19

This makes no sense to me. In the sense of: I see no reason why it should be so.

Well, if you accept that one must be perfectly righteous to stand before God, then it follows that if someone were able to replace your righteousness with theirs, it would only work if their righteousness were perfect. Otherwise, you still wouldn't be able to stand before God.

Which is why it would only work with Christ, as He is the only perfectly righteous person to have ever lived.

Er...did that clarify it at all?

Strangely enough, this does make some sense!

Well, fine. But I must say your way of thinking about things must be remarkably different from mine.

Most certainly. But I wouldn't have it any other way, otherwise the world would be a terribly boring place.

It reminds me of nothing I've ever seen in world. Remember my murderous brother? No worldly judge would ever accept my taking his punishment on myself.

That's where the courtroom metaphor breaks down, as a worldly judge answers to a higher power or standard.

God doesn't...so...what He says goes, I guess.

Copout? Maybe...ok - yeah...

But thanks for trying to explain it anyway.

Thanks for reading.

Don't ask me to explain Revelations. I don't have a clue what's going on there.

 

[Borachio]

Lol. Yeah. Revelations doesn't make any sense. Except to those with only a tenuous link with reality.

Um...

Christianity actually makes a lot of sense to me (in the sense that it seem internally coherent). Although only in the distilled core of it, as it were. Centred on the Beatitudes, maybe?

But when people start building vast doctrinal edifices (about the redemptive power of the crucifixion, for example) on that core (which they did immediately with the Acts of the Apostles, and Paul seems to have virtually hijacked Christianity for his own ends), they lose me completely: I don't know why, or how, all their "explanations" can be thought to hold any water at all. (Which isn't to say they're incorrect - I wouldn't know - just that I don't understand them.)

I've been reading Tolstoy's "The Kingdom of God is within You" lately, and he seems to be talking along these lines.

There's also a four volume work of his musings on this sort of thing, beginning with "A Confession", but I haven't got round to that yet. I may never do.

 

[Lohrenswald]

Let's assume, that we can prove the existence of hell, although we aren't able to look into it, for the sake of argument. Should we still be afraid?

If so we have basically proven that one religion actually is true. The consequences of this are so enormous that whether or not we should fear hell becomes a tunnel sight issue.

But he'll does not exist, so the discussion is double meaningless.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

No. It's not real.

 

[Borachio]

How do you know it's not real?

 

[El_Machinae]

How does Jesus being killed undo the harms I do when I sin against my brother?

 

[Borachio]

Let me see if I can get this right.

It doesn't undo the harm, but it satisfies God so she forgives the debt ( = the sin) you owe. Provided, I think, you're suitably repentant and accept Jesus as the only road to salvation.

Is that right?

 

[Lohrenswald]

How do you know it's not real?

The idea is absurd and not based upon anything in the material world.

 

[thecrazyscot]

How does Jesus being killed undo the harms I do when I sin against my brother?

Let me see if I can get this right.

It doesn't undo the harm, but it satisfies God so she forgives the debt ( = the sin) you owe. Provided, I think, you're suitably repentant and accept Jesus as the only road to salvation.

Is that right?

Well, essentially

The idea is absurd and not based upon anything in the material world.

No offense, but if you find the discussion "doubly meaningless", why participate?

 

[Borachio]

The idea is absurd and not based upon anything in the material world.

But it is. It's based on volcanoes. Fire and brimstone. Volcanoes.

Heaven (the sky) above. Hell, (under the earth) below.

 

[Lohrenswald]

No offense, but if you find the discussion "doubly meaningless", why participate?

I want you to see things like me, more or less.
Why would anyone participate at all? To learn or convince, more or less. And I want to convince you that the flawed premise renders the entire issue meaningless.

Also, I was on the train while I wrote that.

Edit: Borachio: The afterlife, another "plane of existence", gods intentions and so on

 

[Hygro]

Maybe there is something like promotion in Hell, and those destined for hell may one day torture new denizens of hell!

An allegory for a marxian analysis of post-agriculture humanity?

 

[Borachio]

Why do you want him to see things your way?

Supposing you convince him, would that make you more "right"?

 

[Lohrenswald]

Why do you want him to see things your way?

Supposing you convince him, would that make you more "right"?

No. I'm already right, I want him (and you) to join the the right-team [insert friendly smiley]

 

[Borachio]

I'm not sure you're right. What makes you so sure?

Maybe you missed this:

The idea is absurd and not based upon anything in the material world.

But it is. It's based on volcanoes. Fire and brimstone. Volcanoes.

Heaven (the sky) above. Hell, (under the earth) below.

 

[Lohrenswald]

You're being pedantic. The concept of hell is a lot more than a volcano. When you're dead your consciousness doesn't end up in a volcano.

 

[Borachio]

No. Well, maybe not. We don't know anything about what happens to your consciousness when you die.

But I'm saying volcanoes are the origin of the myth of hell. Which may be a psychological reality. We just don't know.

People have probably always wondered what happens ultimately. And that's what they've come up with, after wandering the countryside and encountering the occasional volcano.

In the end, visions of hell have a basis in reality (which you claimed they haven't). And that basis is volcanoes.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Why would I be afraid of hell? I've been married. Twice.

 

[Borachio]

Once is a misfortune. But twice is the triumph of hope over experience.

 

[Lohrenswald]

When we die, the consciousness ceases to be.

Also, I'm very certain volcanoes are infact not the origin of the hell myth.

And whatever psychological problems people suffer, that's clearly not the proposed hell.