HELL: The Discussion (Part 1)

Recently I posted a question on my Facebook page.  “Do you believe in Hell, if so why?”  The response was fantastic.  Many people have written me messages, posted on my Wall and sent me emails regarding their belief in Hell.  At first, I just thought it would be an interesting discussion, but as the discussion got longer and more in-depth, I realized that it might be fun to post the discussion on CCD. 

A little background – I was raised in the New Church (a religion that is based on the Bible, but offers a metaphoric interpretation of the literal Bible and teachings from a man named Emmanuel Swedenborg.  You can get the watered down, sugar coated take here.

I have since left the church, but many of the debate points that come up are based on New Church ideas. If nothing else, it’s a very interesting point of view. The discussion is a bit disjointed (due to delayed responses), but I think you’ll be able to follow. The participants in the discussion range from Atheist to Fundamentalist Christian, from Agnostic to New Church, from Free-thinker to Buddhist, and many stances in between. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any Muslims post anything, and I would certainly like to get an Islamic perspective.

Check out Part 1, below:
 
DOUG – I do believe in a Hell, though I don’t think it’s a fire and brimstone kind of place. It’s not all Dante’s Inferno-ish. And I don’t think those who inhabit it consider it Hell. I think they still believe they’re in this world and they can’t figure out why nothing works out as they think it should or why nothing is ever good enough, so they spend their days whining about everything. Wow, that’s kind of close to what life can be like here on this blue marble.

HAYDN – I’m not sold on the concept of a hell in any way. I have a hard time making sense of a place you go after you die…and also there is a decider or rules which determine if one, or whatever is left of one’s earthly presence, that you’ll be going “there” (where ever that is). Interesting topic though. 

BEN – Doug & Haydn, thanks for replying. I’m not sold either Haydn. Whether or not those that inhabit Hell KNOW it’s Hell doesn’t seem to make a difference to me, but I’d be willing to hear opposing views, of course. It still IS Hell, and not Heaven. So if God created this whole mess, what is it that lands a person in Hell. And is the eternal nature of said Hell a ‘loving’ action by God? I would tend to say no. But I’m certainly curious to hear other opinions. 

BRAD – Yes, I believe in hell! Why?  Because if there is an afterlife, I can’t imagine spending it with the likes of Osama bin Laden and Adolf Hitler. 

ALEX – Hell is a powerful motivator in convincing people that they should listen to your religion lest they end up there. That’s pretty much it… it’s a necessary construct for a religion if your goal is converting the masses. It’s sole purpose is as an answer to the questions, “why should i the pagan convert to christianity.” Because if you don’t you’re going to hell, and it’s gonna suck bigtime… without hell there is no motivation to accept the christian religon. Other than the historical note that if you chose not to accept christianity you were pretty likely to be killed. 

LAUREN – if heaven is where your dominant love is…someone else’s love can be someone else’s hate…or, someone’s idea of heaven may be another’s idea of hell…follow?  

WYSTAN – I believe in hell. Why else would people refer to situations like war as hellish, if such a place did not exist? Moreover, I believe that there is an afterlife, and that people of like minds congregate together. It’s kind of like what Lauren said… some people choose hell, because that is where they would be happiest. That is where they want to spend eternity, for whatever reason. 

KAI – I’ve seen Keanu Reeves do Shakespeare (Much Ado About Nothing). Yes, I believe in Hell.

RAY – I think Hell is living in the absence of God. I think the main problem is sin, and that God being perfect in heaven is in the absence of sin. What is sin? Sin is the choice to not follow God’s will and walk away and do our own things. He gave us this freedom as a gift and more often then not we do our own will instead of God.

BEN -I certainly don’t want to spend eternity with Hitler, but do you mean to say that you just hope you don’t have to live with them, and that’s why you believe in Hell? Or is there some reason (beyond hoping to have nice neighbors for eternity) that you think there is a Hell? 

BEN -To Lauren, I think I follow, but if that is the case, isn’t that just ‘afterlife’? What is the differentiator between the two (or more) places? If one is preferable, even just in God’s eyes, how can the less preferable one be an act of love, if creation is entirely “his/her/its” doing?

BEN – To Wystan: I think you’re an New Church girl. Have you read AC 828? Check it out. I don’t think anyone’s happy in that situation. And I think the word Hell exists separate from the mythological ‘place’. Don’t you think? It’s entirely possible for war to be “hellish” but for Hell not to exist. Right? 

DOUG – Are you suggesting that an individual’s perception is irrelevant? If you are, then how do you explain really ugly people coupling up with really hot people. The answer is perception.  As for the creation of Hell as a loving act of God–I believe it is. People choose Hell just as they choose Heaven. Their loves become their compasses. Selfish and ego-centric loves lead toward Hell. Charitable and selfless loves lead toward Heaven. I also believe that if a soul is in Hell, it doesn’t have to remain for eternity. I think God is trying to reach them at every second. Sadly, though, I don’t think those souls want to listen. Which is where perception comes in. If they don’t think they’re in Hell, or if they don’t believe what they’re doing is out of divine order, then they’ll never change. It’s not that they can’t change, it’s that they won’t, because they keep thinking that things will turn their way eventually. We see this model of thinking in every avenue of life. 

THOR – I’m hearing a lot of “I think” and “I believe” statements here that seem to be mostly, but not entirely, based on Swedenborg. This puzzles me a bit. Swedenborg makes many very specific claims about the afterlife. I can see believing that Swedenborg DID somehow know all of this and taking his word for it. Or I can see believing (as I do) that Swedenborg didn’t know all of this, and thus not taking his descriptions as fact. But most confusing of all to me is the stance of taking most of what he says, but changing it in some places so it makes more ’sense’ to us. What are the implications there? Is Swedenborg a reliable source? And if so, what other source is being used to select which part of his descriptions to believe, and which to alter or dismiss? 

BRAD – I just refuse to believe that someone who loves to murder or steal could share the same afterlife as one who devotes their life to doing the ‘good stuff’… Your question might as well be, “do you believe in God?”. Can you really believe in God, and not believe in Hell when He says He created it?  If you don’t believe in hell, you don’t believe in Heaven and you don’t believe in God. How can one possible think the Lord is half right? 

GRAY – Do I believe in Hell? Well, I guess the short answer would be no. The reason for this comes straight from my belief that there is a God and that he is all powerful and all knowing and he created me in his own image and likeness. If this is the case, as the bible tells us then why would any of God’s creations be sent to eternal hellfire and damnation. (I realize that the New Church believes that because god gives us independence we are free to decide whether to life a “good” or “bad” life, but I don’t entirely buy that.) On a more logical note (and I think this argument is the best one… depending on who your talking to.) is that there is no feasible reason for a loving god to send someone to ETERNAL hell. I think people should be held responsible for their actions and that may be the case in the afterlife, but that does not call for eternal damnation, because nothing could justify that. So, I would say no I don’t believe in eternal Hell but I think people should be held responsible for their actions in the afterlife (although what I think should happen obviously has no say what actually happens). 

DEREK: Well, I think that when you are having discussions like this, there are always more logical and less logical arguments you can make, but if we’re going to move to a more logical note as Gray said, then there is really no reason at all to believe in hell, heaven, OR god. I think you’ll find that if you ACTUALLY use logic and reason as your ultimate compass, you’ll end up getting there as well.

BISTY – A fire and brimstone hell and burning for eternity is a pretty old testament standpoint. Whether or not I’m a firm believer in the new church or not is still up in the air, but I was raised to believe that hell isn’t eternal suffering. It’s a place where evil/deceitful, useless people choose to be, because they can’t even open there eyes or breathe in the light and goodness of Heaven. I notice you used the word “sent” to hell. If there’s one thing I believe, if there is an afterlife, there is no “sending”, there’s only free will which allows humans to love a life of evil, or good. In death, the good are separated from the evil, and by their own choosing, because their dominant loves are polar opposites. They couldn’t possibly cohabitate. 

BEN – Oh man, I’m so glad people are willing to talk about this stuff in publicly – big step.  Ray – where does this ’sin’ come from, if not from God and how do you propose we KNOW, for sure, what God’s will is?  Doug – I certainly wouldn’t say that perceptions are useless. In fact, they may be all that we have. Our entire universe is unique, because we each have a unique perception/experience of it. But those loves you mentioned, where do they come from? It’s basically the same question I’m asking Ray about sin. What is the origin of these loves? If we are GIVEN DNA, and we are GIVEN a soul, and we are GIVEN life experiences… at what point are WE the origin of these loves/sins? Aren’t these things from God, if he is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent in his creation?  As for Hell being anything like Heaven, the actual dogma doesn’t lie. Take the New Church’s Arcana 828, for instance. “men of this kind (who take a woman’s virginity without intending to marry her) are inwardly murderers, they undergo very severe punishment in the next life. It seems to them as though they are seated on a horse that is frenzied, which tosses them up in the air so that they are thrown from the horse and their life seemingly put in peril, such is the terror struck into them. After that it appears to them as though they are under the belly of the frenzied horse, and then it seems to them as though they pass by way of the horse’s hindquarters into its belly. At this point it suddenly seems to them as if they are inside the belly of a filthy prostitute. The prostitute changes into a large dragon, and there they stay enveloped in torment. This punishment is repeated many times, over hundreds and thousand of years until they are filled with horror for such desires.” Yikes. 

BEN – Brad, I hear you. But what is it that makes you refuse to believe that you could share eternity with Stalin? Why do you refuse this? Why do you choose an unverified version of the afterlife, just because it fits your hopes, instead of saying, “Well, I don’t know.”  And you’re right, my question might as well be “do you believe in God”. But wait, did God say he created a Hell? Or did some versions of God say they created a Hell. Which ‘God’ are you referring to? I don’t think the ‘Lord’ is half right. I don’t even know if ‘he/she/it’ exists. But if there is a God, every description of Hell I’ve ever heard of indicate that said God is NOT a loving God. Because God claims to be loving, and claims to be omnipotent, and yet “He” created a Hell that some of us go to for eternity, I find it much more likely that this ‘God” we’re speaking of is a product of a limited human imaginations and doesn’t really exist. Do I believe God exists? No, currently. Could some God exist? Sure. But I find no reason to THINK any of the Gods that fit the descriptions provided by any of the thousands of religions ACTUALLY DOES exist, especially religions that believe in a loving God and Hell, simultaneously. Those are just my thoughts, and I’m a big proponent of friendly religious debate. I’m really hoping people will get into this. I’m VERY curious as to why people believe in Hell.

That’s Part 1. Parts 2 and 3 will be posted soon. Please feel free to comment.

CCD,

Ben