The ages old Christian thinking says and teaches that there is a place called hell. I know that the old time thinkers mention that hell was a place of torment where there is burning flames of fire and wailing and grinding of teeth But in todays teachings a lot of pastors priest and evangelicals are just amply stating that it is a form of separation and darkness. Do you have an 0pinion on The 18th century preacher Johnathan Edwards who preached a sermon called IN The Hands of An Angry God. To New Englanders back then? Where he goes in great detail about Gods anger and hell!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Hell is a sadistic fantasy dreamed up by religious perverts with minds twisted by sexual repression and guilt. In the same fantasy, heaven is a place from where you can happily watch other people being burned alive forever.
Thankfully, none of this has any connection with reality at all. It's not even original. Many religions, including the Greek-Roman myths, have hell stories. I think the fire images are linked to people's experience of fire coming out of the ground through volcanic eruptions.
There mere fact that they can't agree on what "hell" is, PROVES that they are just making shit up like they made up their god.
Do you have any proof of a hell? No, I didn't think so!
I feel like hell for normal people is just life for people who do Cross Fit.
You know Jared this is one issue that is starting to get me to withdraw from the church altogether!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. I can`t reconcile The love and forgiveness that jesus spoke of and then his teaching on hell it just seems so contradictory to me.
DC
Religion is made by humans to control humans. Hell is a made-up place of punishment to scare people, so they stay religious and obey the religious leaders. There is life without religion, and no more fear of Hell and shame of sin.
Yes there is a life out there without religion and I want to experience it, but the reason why I hesitate is because of the emotional factors involved here, I have friends at the church I use to go to we have get together at the local restaurants, I know them for some time, Also when I miss church even for a couple of days I experience depressed emotions. I don`t know how to fill the void brought on recently by my absence from church. Also the Christian holy day of Christmas will be upon the world in 3 weeks what do I do then? Can anyone reading this please help.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well for starters, the feeling you describe matches pretty well with drug withdrawal and toxic relationship emotions. I'd take that as a sign that the church isn't good for you. Secondly, being an agnostic or atheist really isn't hard, not does it require anything from you. All you have to do is say I don't know. I don't have all the answers. The folly religions commit is presuming to know the creator, how and when he or she did things, and what it wants. Ever notice that preachers never tell you that God wants you to do anything the preachers wouldn't also want? Why does God need a tithe? And why does the preacher have so much money?
As for holidays, Christmas is based mostly on pagan traditions. I celebrate Christmas every year, and I don't believe in Jesus. If it's family you're worried about, you could always stay closeted until you're comfortable. Friends are usually understanding as well. If they wouldn't accept you, they're not friends, are they? Most my close friends are Christian, and we've never had issues because of belief.
And the void you mentioned is definitely relatable. I fill that void with love for my friends and family, scientific curiosity, hobbies, music, etc. The sooner you realize that the void isn't an inherent problem you can only fix with God, the sooner you can start to enjoy life with a new sense of freedom and self-worth. It'll be okay.
Devout christian-
I don't know what hell is like nor do I care. But not knowing about this isn't a good reason to turn away from God. If you're having doubts or worries about this then I suggest you pray and talk to God about it. Someone once created a thread here not to long ago and the Q was, what would it take for you to not believe. My answer: a whole lot more than not knowing what hell is like. I hope the answer is the same for you.
I also suggest taking a few days from websites like this one and surround yourself with your friends, ppl you trust and perhaps a preacher who you trust. Go on YouTube and watch some sermons. Then see how you feel.
Oh yes Devout, pray about it like Hello, I mean chica (why change your moniker?). See where that gets you!
If you pray in one hand and shit in the other, what do you end up with? And hand full of shit and nothing else!
Fucking pray doesn't do anything!
This is one of the things I've always found funny about theism... scripture can mean whatever the hell you want it to mean.
Just make up anything you like, it doesn't matter.
How can the word of an omnipotent, omnipresent and all knowing being be interpreted?
You could assume only one of you or the elders were right, will god punish the others for lying?
I mean the bible is clear on lying isn't it?
Doesnt it say something like "thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor” (Exodus 20:16).
What about of your all wrong? And no one has intrrperated right?
It's ridiculous to hang your life around a structure that has no structure but can simply be what you want it to be.
There are even some Christian denominations that carry on the Jewish concept, that Hell isn't a place or condition but rather just a term for complete and total annihilation. AKA, death.
I will admit I have not read it, nor do I need to. The modern concept of hell is simply not in the Bible. The Bible says almost nothing about Hell. When anyone says anything about Hell they can not prove that theyknow anything about it, even if it did exist. There is more religious dogma attributed to the Bible than is actualy in theBible.
@ A Christian teaching is it doctrinal? Yes and No. It depends on what you mean by hell. Christian doctrine varies between the 30,000 different sects. Hell can simply mean death; in the sense of non-continuing. Hell can mean a place of fire and brimstone where the sinners are punished forever and ever.
(Assemblies of God) "It is impossible to describe the glory and splendor of heaven and the terror and torment of hell...."
(Catechism of the Catholic Church) "To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self- exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called "hell."
(Churches of Christ) The statement of Christ in Matthew 25, and elsewhere, are taken at face value. It is believed that after death each man must come before God in judgment and that he will be judged according to the deeds done while he lived (Hebrews 9:27). After judgment is pronounced he will spend eternity either in heaven or hell."
(Church of the Nazarene) "We believe that glorious and everlasting life is assured to all who savingly believe in, and obediently follow, Jesus Christ our Lord; and that the finally impenitent shall suffer eternally in hell."
(Evangelical Free Church of America) "We believe in the bodily resurrection of the dead; of the believer to everlasting blessedness and joy with the Lord; of the unbeliever to judgment and everlasting conscious punishment.
(Unitarianism/universalism) in modern context and gnostic/apokastasis in the ancient have been heretical theological/dogmatic trends that often have a component of denying hell built into them.
http://religible.com/119/christian-hell/
Sometimes it is dogma and sometimes it is not. My office mate believes in some form of luke-warm Christianity were everything is metaphorical and hell simply means non-existence.
Hell as a place is an amalgamation of Bible ambiguity and the ancient Greek ideas of Hades. For the Greeks Hades was a place where after death normal people would continue living a shadow form of existance, wailing about the sadness of not being alive. The great heroes could go to live eternally in glory on the fields of Elysion, where they would train fighting and play the harp etc. The most evil people, and gods that fell on the wrong side of Zeus were cast onto Tartaros, a keep in the center of Hades, a place of eternal torment.
The Jews on the other hand had no coherent idea of an afterlife. For the Jews afterlife was unknown. After the death of Jesus the resurrection was thought to be bodily. Jesus ascended the Heavens in his body, hence the empty grave, and so too would all his followers. This was a major point of contention, early Christians were ridiculed by Greek philosophers because how could the dead and decomposed persons rise bodily? Or what about drowned people that have been eaten by fish? Remember that early Christians were apocalyptic, they were expecting the world to end any minute. When the rapture (rising to heaven) didn't happen, they started to fuse neoplatonic ideas about the duality of mind and body to their dogma. Thus the idea of a soul was born, and the idea of the soul being the thing that ascends into Heaven, or falls to Hade.. I mean Hell.
So in short Christianity is a hellenistic mystery cult, a synchrenistic religion of Greek and Jewish beliefs.
A moral being would not engage in torture. A moral being would not worship a being who engages in torture.