I was asked to comment on what hell is. before i do that though, i would like to get a number of perspectives on what others here take the biblical meaning of hell to be?

any answers / thoughts?

oh tribo, I'd like to reply, but I find that discussing religion with some people honestly wears me out. I need to take a break from posting in a religious forum. The lack of respect for others and their beliefs by some upsets me to the point that I sign off the computer and am still troubled by it all. If I can't leave it, I don't need to be involved in it.

well that's fair enough, no problem. i don't want anyone here not to do something they dont want to do. relax and enjoy yourself, have a glass of ice tea and watch the sunset, if you cange your mind come back.

btw, that was not directed to you, the comment about lack of respect, it was more about those who try to jam their beliefs down another's throat...even if it gags the life out of them!

Do we really have to go south of the hard pan to get to Hell?


I believe one can experience Hell on Earth. Ask any recovering Drug Addict or Alcoholic.

not a problem did not take you to mean that.

Who asked you to comment on what hell is?

thanks T27, i know that is what you go through as to your statement, hell on earth. do you believe this is hell?

i was really trying to get a more biblical look on the subject. i know even within the diff, sects it is not agreed upon, so just wanted some diff. takes so to say.

a freind on here who post regularly, he asked what my thoughts on hell were, and i thought i'd get a view of what other's thought on this. he's a christian - i'm not.

I believe I've experienced hell on earth by having such a negative outlook on life. I was so blinded by my own negativity once, that all I could see was a negative perspective. However it did take it's toll and got to the point where I hated my own life. Couldn't stand to look in the mirror. I thought the world was against me, like everyone was just out to get me!

After some Spiritual people (not religious) reached out to me and taught me a different way to look at things, it was then I started to see the beauty around me. Not just in nature, but people and even in my self.

I've read the Biblical description of Hell, and I believe that was what I experienced more less, and I've read the Biblical description of Heaven and believe that that can be experienced on Earth as well.

I believe some read to much into, like there is something in between the lines of the Bible and others just believe what they hear, never taking the time to draw their own conclusion.

Hell, even Jesus talk in simple terms where people could understand things. Build your house on the rock, not the sand. Who can't understand that! Leave it to some religious radical and they will have you believe there is this big complex answer that doesn't really add up!

Be true to yourself and treat others how you want to be treated and life goes pretty damn good! Look down on people and take the negative approach and life is miserable..

thanks for that T, so your saying that any biblical claim to a feiry hell of perpetual infinite torture of burning is not something you agree with as an actual picture or representation of hell as many others do then correct? if so what about the the terms jesus used in the NT to describe what would happen to those who lived a sinful life and did not accept his gift of salvation? or for that matter gods words in the OT??

I personally believe that some wise sages realized that as we make choices throughout life our choices can lead to great results, or very poor and undesirable results. They equated the great results with 'heaven' and the poor results with 'hell'. These concepts were ultimately taken into various folklore and mythologies and become ideas associated with the wants and desires of the Gods.

The other thing that has become apparent to me is the idea of the "Law of Attraction" (or simply the idea that we create our own reality by how we think and behave in life) was probably a very popular idea among philosophers. Clearly there is much truth to it in a pragmatic sense. Many of the choices we make and ways that we behave will indeed have a positive or negative influence on how our lives unfold. We can create 'heaven' or 'hell' right here on earth via our choices (at least to some extent).

However, there are clearly limitations on the extent of control that we have over our lives. Try telling people who are loving and peaceful and have done everything in their power to live a positive and productive life but who were ravaged by brutal forces (such as the Crusaders or the Holocaust), or even hit by a plague of disease or other natural disaster.

Clearly the are rudely awakened to the fact that they do not have control over their reality. No matter how many positive thoughts or desire to be positive they might have, they cannot change certain aspects of reality. Therefore, rather than giving up any hope whatsoever, they turn to the idea of being rewarded in an afterlife. It's the only hope that's left for a victim of something like the Holocaust or having watched their families slaughter by Holy Crusaders.

They're only hope remains in justice in the afterlife.

Where there you go! If the good people are hoping to be rewarded in the afterlife, then it only follows that the bad people should be punished in the afterlife. And thus the ideas of an eternal Heaven and Hell are born. All because people have come to realize that the "Law of Attraction" simply can't be true!

Jeanniebean is going to kill me for this one!

But seriously, it's pretty hard to convince people who want to be good and to good things that it's their own fault that Crusaders or Nazis came into their villages and murdered or raped all their friends and destroyed their dreams. How can we be creating our own realities when clearly other people can come in and so easily burst our bubbles?

Therefore, if we have no control over this life, then surely it must be payback time in the next!

That's the idea behind religions that demand justice in the afterlife.

But clearly, it can't be like the Christians believe today. It can't be that decent honest people who merely don't believe in the Biblical stories will be sent to hell. That not justice. That just a religion gone berserk.

If there is some kind of judgment in an afterlife surely it must be truly fair and just and not dependent on believing in this or that fairytale. This is why other cultures have created the idea of karma. With karma we all get what we deserve based precisely on what we've done. There is no need for any external godhead to judge us. And what we believe is totally unimportant because it has nothing to do with what we believe, it's based solely on what we've done.

I'm not sure what I believe. I don't try to dictate what reality must be. Whatever it is it is.

Jeanniebean is going to kill me for this one!


yep,yep,yep, - i'd say shes making a voodoo doll of you right now!! so if you feel your arm going numb or someone slapping you up the side of the head or worse it's not a ghost or poltergeist, it's guess who? -

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorn!

I believe what goes around comes around.

Big fiery pitts..... No


I believe we have to answer for the misdeeds we do, but I believe in the end, we have to answer to ourselves!

ok so i guess your saying then that the biblical picture of hell as stated by jesus or god or others is not real. but if you were to believe in the biblical hell - what would you believe about it? and what wouldn't you believe.

i see, then to me it also sounds like you don't believe in an afterlife where you would have to be concerned with heaven or hell - am i understanding you correctly or not?

I've been asked about going to hell before. My standard answer is one I stole, but I am not sure from where, it sounds a bit like something Mark Twain would say.

I may be going to hell but I imagine the company is more interesting there.

I dont really have any personal background or perspective from which to draw that would assist me in defining "hell". I was not raised in any particular faith so hell was just not anything that ever came up in discussion. So all I can do is offer the Wiki basic definition. At least this is one kind of standard descriptive narrative as it relates to these big, bad religions. I find it interesting that in the Jewish faith, it is less about physical pain and suffering and more about simply, "not living". I would guess that the conceptualization to make it this horrible, burning pit of flame and sulfur and agony and torment was basically just an invention of men who wanted to use it to control people and keep them in line. Most of us dont want to imagine eternal damnation or that our actions could possibly warrant such a terrible fate. So it was a wonderful tool/weapon in that capacity to keep the masses from revolting.


Hell, according to many religious beliefs, is a location in the afterlife, which may be described as a place of suffering. Hell is usually depicted as underground. Within Christianity and Islam, Hell is traditionally depicted as fiery and painful, inflicting guilt and suffering Some other traditions, however, portray Hell as cold and gloomy. Existence after life is not concrete in Judaism and may be portrayed as a state of neutrality, an eternal nothingness ("sheol", often translated as Hell), simply non-life.

It's impossible for me to believe in the biblical hell Tribo. The reason is simple. It would serve no good purpose.

Would God benefit from sending people to a place of eternal torment? Surely not! Not unless God gets off on sadism! So if hell doesn't benefit God then why bother creating it?

What would be the positive benefit of sending a soul to hell? To teach them a lesson? What would be the purpose in teaching them a lesson unless they could learn from the lesson and use it in a positive way? Clearly for hell to be useful in that respect there would need to be a way to get out of hell (i.e. after lessons have been learned). Otherwise it would just be pure sadistic punishment. But again how would that serve God unless God gets off on being sadistic?

For me, the idea of an eternal damnation can be nothing other than a scare tactic invented by men to try to coerce people into believing in their religions out of pure fear that if they don't they'll spend all of eternity in hell with no second chance of opportunity to ever get out. Either convert now, or forever be damned!

Clearly it's manmade scare tactic that could not serve any decent God.

If a true created wanted to give mankind an ultimatum it would be more than sufficient to simply give them the choice of eternal life for being good, or to simply perish if they choose not to be good.

In fact, a truly all-wise God would not use a scare tactic because that would cause some people to be good based on fear alone when that would be the totally wrong reason for being good!

So it doesn't even make any sense to me at all in terms of an all-wise creator.

In other words, I cannot make sense of the biblical hell. It's a totally absurd idea as far as I'm concerned. It's no less absurd than the idea that God is in competition with a fallen angel for the souls that God creates!

The whole theme of the religion is utterly absurd to me.

Sorry.