ALL,

Wondering how you feel about hell. It might be one thing for a liberal atheist type to put down hell. It is another for a fundie minister with a huge (7000 strong) congregation to do so.

Christian Beliefs

Does this ever-loving God intend to take the majority of the human race and burn them for all eternity?

Here is some bio on Bell

Ron Bell

Comments welcome.

Glenn,

Is Hell for Real?

I can assure you hell is for real. The Bible uses images to describe it, but God has guaranteed that it is a human reality for the wicked and the unbelievers! Moreover, the extent of this truth was revealed to me in such an astonishing way that I can only say that there is no way it will be revealed here on a public forum. Possibly in another book that I intend to write ~~ after the end of the world as we know it now.

Jesus Himself did not reveal everything to His disciples because they were not prepared to understand it. (John 16:12). Also the Apostle Paul wrote that he was caught up to the 'third heaven' where he 'heard things that cannot be told.' (2 Cor. 12:1-4).

John, the writer of Revelation, also was told to 'seal up those things uttered by the seven thunders'. Revelation 10:4. My commentary, "The Final Unveiling," also states the same thing that there are things that cannot be revealed because they are ineffable.

But I can say is that people cast themselves in 'hell' by the life they lead. That's in the Bible, too. Ask yourself. What is justice if such a place as 'eternal punishment' did not exist? The Bible teaches that in the afterlife there is a place for the righteous and there is a place for the unrighteous, and never the twain shall meet.

But don't worry, Glenn, from all that I know about you, 'hell' is not the place where you are bound.

Sela

From what I've heard/read about hell, it sounds like a concept that was invented by preachers for political reasons (i.e., convincing people to follow their orders). There's certainly no objective reason that I know of to think of it as a physical location or region.

Henry

Sela,

I thought it was interesting that the Easter number of Time would carry on its cover the matter of Rob Bell. For a Unitarian/Universalist to question hell would be a ho hum matter. For the pastor of a Bible Church, it rates front-page billing. Bell from what I gather is a Universalist, which is most unusual for an Evangelical Christian type.

Yet the matter of hell I think deserves a second look at times. As Henry points out, it is a major marketing tool for many religions not just Christianity. If someone thinks they are going to burn for all eternity they will tend to “get right with God” which usually means coming up with some pesos.

Okay, three questions:

Does the Bible teach that we are immortal by nature? (that we have an immortal soul?)
What does the Bible say happens to us when we die?
What happens to the good guys and bad guys?

Are we immortal by nature? The Bible makes that very clear – NO WAY! The whole thing started in Genesis. God says in 2:17 that man will die by eating the forbidden fruit and in 3:4 the devil says “no way.” Jesus says to fear the one who can DESTROY the body and the soul in gehenna (Matt 10:28) (back to that in a moment.) Point is that no way is mankind immortal by nature.

What happens when we die? We go to sleep. Pure and simple. No less than 36 times does the King James Bible say so and so “SLEPT with his fathers.” Paul in the New Testament says in 1 Cor 15:51 that we shall not all SLEEP! What could be more clear?

What happens to the good and bad? Daniel notes that after we die there is a resurrection. Daniel in 12:12 says some will achieve everlasting life and others everlasting contempt. Paul notes in 1 Cor that we can be changed to achieve eternal life. John notes this in John 3:16-17 the matter of life versus lack of life. The Bible is very clear. An opportunity exists for eternal life and the alternative is death. Death is not eternal torment in hell.

To make a long story short, “hell” means the grave or place of the dead or it means “gehenna” the Jerusalem City Dump – the place of destruction.

Rob Bell needs to get his Bible out, blow the dust off it and read it for a change.

You have to define what you mean by Hell first to make any response meaningful. Here's a bit from Wikipedia:

quote:

In many religious traditions, Hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict Hell as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict Hell as an intermediary period between incarnations. Typically these traditions located Hell under the Earth's external surface and often included entrances to Hell from the land of the living. Other afterlife destinations included Heaven, Purgatory, Paradise, Naraka, and Limbo.

Other traditions, which did not conceive of the afterlife as a place of punishment or reward, merely described it as an abode of the dead—a neutral place located under the surface of Earth (for example, see sheol and Hades).

Modern understandings of Hell often depict it abstractly, as a state of loss rather than as fiery torture literally underground, but this view of hell can, in fact, be traced back into the ancient and medieval periods as well.[citation needed]

Hell is often portrayed as populated with demons, who torment the damned. Many are ruled by a death god, such as Nergal, Hades, Yama or the Christian/Islamic Devil, called Satan or Lucifer. In Islam however, the Devil does not actually reside in Hell.

And, specifically to Judaism,

quote:

According to Jewish teachings, hell is not entirely physical; rather, it can be compared to a very intense feeling of shame. People are ashamed of their misdeeds and this constitutes suffering which makes up for the bad deeds.

So, do I believe in Hell as a physical place of damnation, torture, and eternal suffering? Of course not. How could anyone who believes in a just and loving God think that's what such a God would do to a sinner? I thought the Christian God was supposed to be loving and forgiving, and that any sinner could be absolved of sins by His grace.

Sela seems to love the idea of sinners being tormented eternally, but then she's had visions/hallucinations direct from Jesus apparently revealing special things because she's such a special person.

As a Jew, I do believe in shame and guilt. If that's what you mean by Hell, OK, I'll go along.

Jeff

Jeff, you said,

quote:

I thought the Christian God was supposed to be loving and forgiving, and that any sinner could be absolved of sins by His grace.

Yet many Christians believe that the majority of the human race will burn endlessly in hell. I pointed out in my previous post that the Bible does not teach that. Yet it is a belief of the majority of Christians. I think there are two reasons.

First is simply that it is good marketing and keeps the nickels and dimes coming into the collection plate.

The other reason is that much of Christianity comes from the various pagan religions that existed when Christianity was getting started. Sunday worship, the keeping of the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox for example. These are not particularly important in my view. Another belief that existed in a lot of the pagan religions was that man is inherently immortal. Hence everyone lives forever. Problem is that only certain good guys go to the good place and what do you do with the others? Send them to hell. So here is good Christian sitting in heaven knowing that his/her son or daughter is down in hell being burned alive for all eternity because they became a something else rather than a Christian.

The good news is that as people are getting smarter and more aware, a lot of these outlandish ideas are being pushed aside. Bell is saying everyone goes to heaven. Well, that means the serial murderers now have all eternity to practice their trade. Would make heaven somewhat dangerous to live in it would seem.

Ultimately heaven and hell revolve around the idea of life after death.

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gehenna

quote:

Eventually the Hebrew term Gehinnom[13] became a figurative name for the place of spiritual purification for the wicked dead in Judaism. According to most Jewish sources, the period of purification or punishment is limited to only 12 months and every shabbath day is excluded from punishment.[14] After this the soul will ascend to Olam Ha-Ba, the world to come, or will be destroyed if it is severely wicked.

I tend to think there is a contemplation between incarnations but if the contemplations/incarnations lead to evil then you get recycled back into a big bang beginning so for me the big bang is hell.

-- John G.

Glenn,

There is actually no support in the Bible that the soul is immortal. There is a "spirit in man" which is mentioned in the Bible, but the 'spirit in man' and the 'soul in man' (i.e. humans) are two separate entities, the likes of which is such a profound subject that only the 'illuminated' would understand it.

The belief in an afterlife is a fundamental tenet of religions, including Hinduism, Sikhism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Islam, Judaism, and the Bahá'í Faith; however, the concept of an immortal soul is not. The "soul" itself has different meanings and is not used in the same way in different religions and different sects of a religion. The only way to fully understand this topic is to find out what the Bible says, or doesn't say, about hell, and the immortal soul. When man became a 'living soul', it means he became a living being created in 'God's image'. This makes man distinct from the animal kingdom. There is no 'salvation' for animals.

As said, this subject is so profound, it would take many series of posts to explain it. But perhaps there are websites on the Internet that deal with the correct understanding. So many do not, but merely deal with their understanding of the subject, as with most things on the Internet. If I find one that agrees with my biblical understanding, will post it because it will save me the time of composing an 'exegesis'.

Sela

Oh, and please tell Jeff his lies are enough to make Jesus puke; but then he is an atheist who loves the idea of mocking women; especially if they are someone whom Christ has called to carry on His work. You see, patriarchy has done enough damage to the truth of the Bible and is answering for it even as we speak.

quote:

Sela seems to love the idea of sinners being tormented eternally, but then she's had visions/hallucinations direct from Jesus apparently revealing special things because she's such a special person.

quote:

please tell Jeff his lies are enough to make Jesus puke

What did I say that you think was a lie? I truly want to know.

quote:

especially if they are someone whom Christ has called to carry on His work.

So you again claim that you were chosen by Christ to do something or other. Am I lying when I say that? I'm just repeating what you claim.

I do not "mock women"--I simply find the notion that YOU or any person, man or woman, who claims a personal visitation from Jesus is either lying or deluded. To put it very simply, dead people do not visit the living. Dead people are dead. They don't do anything. They're DEAD.

Isn't it obvious?

Jeff

My idea of hell has to do with what God actually does with souls.
If we are all raised incorruptible--before Judgment, that means to me that Judgment determines the next state of the soul. It appears to me that the idea of the Lake of Fire being the repository of those condemned means that Hell is a body unto itself, with formless souls floating around, yet with identity until the treacherous waters end it.

If the Old Earth is destroyed, as could occur with heavenly body collisions, nuclear war, massive volcanic eruptions, etc., the Mediterranean could be that fiery lake. The New Jerusalem becomes the Ellis Island for the New Earth. Etc.

Donald

It occurs to me that there's a simple explanation for why different sects have lots of different descriptions of hell - they're all making it up as they go.

Henry

Henry J

I think individual humans have experienced enough misfortune to wonder what is on the other side. Since God created the circumstances for much of the misesry humankind experiences, eg. winter, tornadoes, volcanoes, disesse, etc., the map came from somewhere. The map for the Big Bang to become this Universe was amazingly intricate, with many options.

Donald

quote:

Originally posted by CompGuy:
To put it very simply, dead people do not visit the living. Dead people are dead. They don't do anything. They're DEAD.

Isn't it obvious?

Jeff, well technically no, it's not obvious. No one has ever done an experiment that tracks the worldlines of conscious brain particles into the vacuum after death. I personally think that until the next incarnation, some very interesting contemplation is done via vacuum connections.

-- John G.

I've no idea what you mean by "map" in this context.

quote:

Originally posted by Henry J:
It occurs to me that there's a simple explanation for why different sects have lots of different descriptions of hell - they're all making it up as they go.

Henry, well there could have been some accurate channeled information about hell a long time ago that got distorted over time in various places. It's kind of the same reason the Bible has doubles of the same stories with the details changed and why there are doubles of Bible stories outside of the Bible.

-- John G.

quote:

Originally posted by Henry J:
I've no idea what you mean by "map" in this context.

Think Feynman paths.

quote:

No one has ever done an experiment that tracks the worldlines of conscious brain particles into the vacuum after death.

You have a habit of throwing words together into sentences that sound like they mean something, but don't.

Worldlines of conscious brain particles? Seriously? That's NONSENSE. A particle of brain matter from a dead organism has no consciousness. It's dead. Dead is dead. And, yes, it IS obvious.

You persist in believing in channeling and similar nonsense. Channeling is NOT REAL. It's a hoax and/or a delusion. And, again, that also is obvious.

Jeff

Jeff

How are you defining dead?

Donald

Donald you asked,

quote:

How are you defining dead?

Well, you are a doctor and that is your domain. I define dead as a state where any form of resustication is impossible. For example, when person or animal dies they stop breathing and the heart stops. But, could a cell still be salvaged and used for cloning? I do not know when cloning is impossible. Perhaps you can enlighten us.

By the way, what about fertilized human eggs? I thought they could be frozen and implanted at a later date, but, again you are the doctor and not I. For that matter what about salvaging sperm or eggs from a dead person? How soon after the heart stops and breathing stops do all the sperm die?

How do I define dead? For the purposes of this discussion, it's enough to define a dead person as one whose heart isn't beating, whose blood isn't flowing, who isn't breathing, who is decomposing and putrefacting. Such a person is really, really dead. Fair enough?

For other discussions, we could get into brain death or vegetative state or the very fine line between being a person with a living brain and a possibility of thought and a person kept alive by machines with no brain fucntioning or no higher-order brain functioning. I don't see the need for fine distinctions here.

I'd say, for example, that anyone who lived at the time of Jesus can be considered DEAD today. Including Jesus. So anyone claiming to speak with Jesus, as I keep saying, is either lying or deluded. Seems a pretty simple concept to me...

Jeff

Glenn

Jeff prompted the question.

To your list I might add organs for transplantation, depending on how they are handled.

Anyhow, where there is a question, many doctors use brain death with a flat EEG after clinical diagnosis, if the latter is not sufficient.

Biblically it doesn't make much difference, since all are raised
incorruptible before Judgment.

Others may give more current answers.

Donald

------------------

quote:

Originally posted by CompGuy:
Worldlines of conscious brain particles? Seriously? That's NONSENSE. A particle of brain matter from a dead organism has no consciousness. It's dead. Dead is dead. And, yes, it IS obvious.

You persist in believing in channeling and similar nonsense. Channeling is NOT REAL. It's a hoax and/or a delusion. And, again, that also is obvious.

Jeff, the idea is that brain particles (electrons or quarks) are invovled in consciousness (I'm pretty sure it's not arm or leg particles). Anesthesia can get rid of consciousness but it can come back.

The electrons and quarks still have worldlines whether they are part of a conscious brain or whether they are temporarily unconscious due to anesthesia, or whether they are unconscious due to death. Nobody knows what happens to these electrons/quarks after death.

In an eternal big bang/big crunch model (which I don't favor), these particles would eventually end up in a brain again. In my view in models with strings across the vacuum connecting branes, the same idea holds. I even prefer the probabilities making this occur faster cause of correlated information spaces for one's stack of branes.

You have a habit of talking too much before you understand the situation like with the Brian Greene PBS special that you just apparently decided to pretend was about relativity when in fact it was about wormholes.

If I want to investigate the physics of channeling, I tend to pay attention to a physicist who channels rather than a non-physicist like yourself who doesn't channel.

Channeling happens, Linda does it, she's not creating a hoax, and it's not a delusion since there are actual English words produced. Could be something from the subconscious like a dream maybe.

The channeling physicist's Mom used to channel using objects in the kitchen. He wants to investigate that kind of thing, he should be allowed to. The words from channeling could be useless garbage or interesting information. That's what the investigation is for. For me it's really interesting checking the information even if the information itself could be shown to be wrong.

-- John G.

quote:

Biblically it doesn't make much difference, since all are raised
incorruptible before Judgment.

If they're incorruptible at that point, there would be no need to judge them.

Henry

quote:

The electrons and quarks still have worldlines whether they are part of a conscious brain or whether they are temporarily unconscious due to anesthesia, or whether they are unconscious due to death. Nobody knows what happens to these electrons/quarks after death.

WHAT??!?

As I understand it, an electron is an electron is an electron. Whether it happens to be in a brain or in the ground, it's still the same thing.

There is an interesting quotation from Jesus that covers the Judgement of recognized people:

quote:

Luke 20:17-18
Then He looked at them and said:
"The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone"?
Whoever falls on that stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls it will grind him to powder."

(from Psalm 118)

At Judgment there is forgiveness for those sinful requesting it. For the unrepentant there is loss of recognizeable form.

Happy Easter!
Donald