Hell is always made out this fun place where the party never stops, where there is free booze and drop dead gorgeous honeys in skimpy bikinis and mussel bound hunks in tight little speedos and they are all having such a good time laughing and enjoying every moment in they are having in hell ... but is this the reality of what hell is like ... The word of God paints a very different picture ...

CONT.

Where is Hell located?

Eleven times the Bible reads the direction of hell is "down."

". . . let them go down quick into hell. . ."
Psalm 55:15
Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.
Proverbs 5:5

Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.
Proverbs 7:27

Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.
Isaiah 14:15

". . . when I cast him down to hell with them that descend into the pit:. . ."
Ezekiel 31:16

"They also went down into hell. . . "
Ezekiel 31:17

The strong among the mighty shall speak to him out of the midst of hell with them that help him: they are gone down, they lie uncircumcised, slain by the sword.
Ezekiel 32:21

". . . which are gone down to hell. ."
Ezekiel 32:27

And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell. . ."
Matthew 11:23

And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shalt be thrust down to hell.
Luke 10:15

"For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell. . ."


The Bible states that after his death, Jesus descended into Hell. But his soul did not remain there, nor did his body decay. The implication is that Hell is located underground, apparently in a cavern deep under the surface of the earth. Consider:

Matthew 12:40: "For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." 2 [If interpreted literally, this passage does conflict with other verses in the Bible which imply that Jesus was buried on a Friday afternoon, and resurrected very early on Sunday morning, totaling three days but only two nights.]

Acts 2:29-31: "...let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried...Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption."

Romans 10:6-7: " Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.)"

Ephesians 4:7-9: "But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?)"

The Apostles' Creed: "...Jesus Christ...died, and was buried, He descended into Hell. The third day, he rose again from the dead."

The heat of Hell:

In the Christian Scriptures, one of the most common attributes mentioned about Hell is its high temperature:


Matthew 13:42: "And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."

Matt 25:41: "Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." This passage relates to Jesus' judgment of all the world.

Mark 9:43-48: And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched." The reference to fire is repeated three more times in the passage for emphasis.

Luke 16:24: "And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame." This is a plea described as coming from an inhabitant of Hell.

Revelation 20:13-15: "...hell delivered up the dead which were in them...And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire."

Revelation 21:8: "But the fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." Brimstone is sulphur. In order for sulphur to form a lake, it must be molten. Thus, its temperature must be at or below 444.6 °C or 832 °F.

Other torments in Hell:


In spite of the flames, Hell is totally dark:

Matthew 8:12: "But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness..."

Matthew 22:13: "...take him away, and cast him into outer darkness."

Matthew 25:30: "And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness..."

Torturing prisoners with sulphur:

Revelation 14:10: "...and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb." The "Lamb" here refers to Jesus. It is not clear whether Jesus and the angels are present as torturers or merely as observers.

Worms -- apparently flesh-eating:

Mark 9:44-48: "Where their worm dieth not..." The immortal worm is repeated three times in this passage for emphasis. One point of interest is that the author of Mark refers to "their worm" not to "the worms." That seems to imply that each prisoner has his own worm.

Extreme thirst:

Luke 16:23-26: "And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame."

Prisoner's reaction to the torment:

Matthew 8:12: "...there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Matthew 13:42: "... there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."

Matthew 13:50: " there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."

Matthew 25:30: "... there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

The punishment in Hell lasts forever:

The torment is apparently for all eternity; it never ceases:


Matthew 25:46: " And these shall go away into everlasting punishment."

Mark 9:43-48: "...it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched" The unquenched fire is mentioned three times in this passage for emphasis.

Revelation 14:11: " And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night..."

MJ.
The only difference between the religious dogma that you endlessly post.
And assuring mindless gullible idiots that they can be saved from an imaginary hell and superstition.
Is the spelling.

Factor 50 then.

I'm thinking MJ is maybe already in his own little private hell. Does he sound full of the light and love of Christ to anyone else on here?

Now now everyone, didn't your mothers teach you not to laugh at mental illness?

Even if it were all true I think that, given the company you'd be keeping, hell is a much better bet. Take music, for example - Hell: Hendrix, Jim Morrison, just about every rock band you can think of, John Lennon and so on... Heaven would be full of classical composers (no bad thing at all) but would also have Cliff Richard, Athlete, Good Charlotte and probably St Bono of Self-Importantsville ...all things considered I'd rather be in hell.

And then let's widen the scope a little bit: fair enough in Heaven you'd have some pretty amazing people like Martin Luther King for example, but then you'd also have Ann Widdecombe, Mary Whitehouse, both Georges Bush, Tony '45 minute' Blair, Jerry Falwell, Ted Haggard, Fred Phelps....the thought alone is enough to have you drawing a pentangle!

Carl Waring says: Heaven would be full of classical composers (no bad thing at all) but would also have Cliff Richard, Athlete, Good Charlotte and probably St Bono of Self-Importantsville ...all things considered I'd rather be in hell.

If we're talking about MJ's Heaven none of those guys would get in either. Some of those classical composers were pure c*nts. Cliff likes c*ck (allegedly). Athlete, Good Charlotte and St Bono, for all their many mundane average human faults, wouldn't stand a snowball's... In fact, it'd just be MJ and God, chillin', playing Xbox, hitting that bong and tossing each other off.

If you claim to be honestly intellectual, logical, reasonable and open minded then prove it and be willing to listen to these testimonies.

www.spiritlessons.com

I think some of you guys missed the point to Hell.

Our aim (and His aim) is to covenant with Him, we fail miserably because of Sin. Christ was sent to pay the penalty so we can Covenant. The people who go to Hell are the ones who through free will choose not to covenant with Him. As he is light anyone choosing not to be with him will be in darkness. Did anyone also stop to think that at judgement every word will be accountable so every thing you ever said about anyone is suddenly out in the open. If you have forgiven one another then great, if not and you are in darkness and suddenly realise everything that has been said how will you feel.

Are we talking about total darkness or just gloom?

And do we get a free torch when we get there? I want one of these big mofo Maglites the police have.

Darkness, even pitch blackness, I could handle. Sure, it'd be a bummer at first, but... hey, I'm a grown-up. I'm not afraid of the dark. I thought Hell was supposed to be scary? Darkness? Pfft!

Trying to be serious for a just a couple of minutes, Pinner is alluding to the alternative and perhaps more acceptable version of hell (acceptable to moderate Christians as opposed to the fire and brimstone types) that hell is eternal separation from God. Since, when we die, we will aparently realise that we failed to take the opportunity of "convenanting" as he puts it while we were alive and it's now too late - then we experience an eternity of separation from God forever regretting the missed opportunity.

Put like that, of course, it sound pretty awful. Then reality kicks in and one realises what a load of tosh it is.

No way would Xbox make it into Heaven, it's Microsoft.

Michael have you ever posted about something other than Hell? Or perhaps tried to justify your beliefs on the issue? The bible means nothing to these guys. Quoting doesn't help. If you want to make a difference (and I doubt whether you do, to be honest) you need to understand where they're coming from. Honestly, it just sounds like you're venting again.

I think that the fact that there are no toilets in Hell is going to be bad enough - "damnation without relief...."

Pinner,

The thing that I find incredible that anybody with an ounce of sense doesn't reject outright, is that a life-long "sinner" who has murdered and debauched and fornicated (that's the worst one of course) gaily throughout life, sincerely repents at the end of it and embraces Jesus, is welcomed into Heaven - the prodigal/lost sheep thing. On the other hand, the perfectly ordinary atheist that spends their lives in exemplary fashion doing nothing wrong (well, nothing much wrong - a couple of speeding offences and I didn't inhale, honest), helping the poor and deprived but thinking the whole God business is a load of rubbish, is condemned to eternal torment in Hell.

Put like that, how can anybody take it seriously?

Hi Ian

A few of us have stated that even if this god did exist, would he really be the type of guy you would want to spend eternity with? Can't imagine a more cruel dictator to be around.

On another thread , you made the point about the idea of an intelligent designer not necessarily being the christian god. This is an important point. ID proponents, such as Behe and Dembski, often equate the designer with yahweh, which completely removes all scientific credibility. It's a classic case of forcing a particular religious view into a scientific hypothesis.

Pumpkin,

Exactly. And I have also stated in a number of posts my personal desire that such a god does *not* exist. It really sounds awful - in fact, it sounds exactly like the sort of god that would have been invented by the likes of Mr Davidson and Mr James. And, of course, so it was.....

Surely the question should be 'Will Hell be the drag "Christianity" makes it out to be?'

First I just have to address why I place Christianity in speech marks, it is to acknowledge and address a separate problem when talking about the problems with religious beliefs i.e that 'Christianity' and 'Christian' are labels with no fixed or true definition beyond the personal one you may have.

How many times have we seen someone refute an idea commonly held by a significant number of people following the Bible and calling themselves Christians only for someone else using that same label for themselves respond without any sign of irony "That is not what I believe" as if there is a clear cut, 100% agreed upon premise for Bible interpretation and method of personal revelation? I mention this because requests for sceptics to be more open-minded in their approach from many of these varying Christians is rendered impossible if they have to be open-minded about such contradictory claims coming from something that is at the same time held to be united and objectively true.

So now burdened with making two points at the same time and hoping this makes sense please bear with me as I attempt an example. Here I am going to use M. James' Hell and Paul Davidson's spiritual souls as the main focus since these are stark and basically put. They are by no means the only ones suggesting such things but as stated above cries or thoughts of "That's not what I believe" from anyone but M. James and Paul Davidson are matters to be taken up with those who do believe these things and use the same label for them not those who highlight the inconsistencies of what is and can be believed and labelled 'Christianity'.

Now while opening our minds up to P. Davidson's argument for the spiritual soul based on his idea that the material world is insufficient to explain amongst other things consciousness, he contended a spiritual, immaterial, indescribable, undetectable soul is required to explain and truly is our consciousness. This spiritual soul is our true core and is the eternal essence of us. Others have also encouraged people to look beyond the materialist worldview to such possibilities. So with this idea when we die we will leave this finite, limited, physical, material body behind and be faced with the prospect of eternity in Heaven or Hell according to God's will.

Which brings us to opening our minds to Hell as put forward by M. James backed up by a literal reading of the Bible in which we will experience torturous fire, pain, agony etc. Pretty much all things associated with the scariest and worse pain imaginable with a bit more thrown on top. The only problem with this is that my mind is still open to Paul who argued away the physical and material being present in the next life. Pain and the fear it's possibility brings is mutually linked to the physical and material so it appears all this burning and torture is being wasted on something that no longer has nerve endings. Without an alternative spiritual mechanism to pick up all this burning pain it appears that Hell is an idea very much based on the materialistic foundations that theists often condemn as limited and exclusive of the spiritual we must open our minds to! Equally if M. James has it right and the physical is actually a notion carried forward into the spiritual dimension isn't Paul's separation rendered totally wrong again along with condemnation of materialism being limiting to and biasly exclusive to the spiritual dimension we are supposedly being presented with?
__________

Argument simplified for the benefit of M. James: How does an immaterial spirit burn?

Drew,

If I might play devil's advocate here (possibly quite appropriately!), I think that the idea is that although our spirits leave our bodies at the moment of death, once we have been judged, those that pass enter the spiritual realm of heaven to glorify God forever while those that fail are provided with new physical bodies *specifically for the purpose* of being eternally tortured. God is clearly no mug and he knows perfectly well that a pure spirit couldn't be tortured, so we will get new bodies. Presumably, when the torturing has eaten away most of the new body perhaps after a few years, we'll get another one - so that it can continue for another few years, and so on and so on.

You will have seen that Michael has informed us that Hell is probably located in a vast cavern somewhere underground. The supply of torture-ready bodies may already be there.

Thanks Ian,

That is a neat and logical solution to the problem I don't think I can argue with but interestingly it's not one I have come across from a Christian, it isn't offered up automatically to bridge the rather obvious logic gap. It almost appears as if it's not something that normally occurs to them or the writers of the Bible. Of course if I thought about an answer to it on my own (which I naturally did while writing it) this would be (and was) the first explanation I guessed at which kind of begs the question if I can easily make this up*... can't anyone?

Leaving this aside though, even with this problem corrected my other point was about how such a caveat that re-introduces the physical body and ability to suffer contradicts the notion that the afterlife like other theist claims naturally fails outside or beyond the scope of materialistic detection and investigation. If we entertained such an answer it would give us, for the first time, a falsifiable test and coupled with M. James' location of where it is, we only need to dig.

*If I was God and did really get to make all this up as I went along then when giving out new 'torture body' I'd also put an itch on that bit of your back you just can't reach.