Here's the thing that always kind of bothered me about the idea of the christian hell. they say you burn for eternity in fiery torment, right? well, eternity is a looooooooong time, and it seems to me that after a certain number of thousands of years, the fire wouldnt really torment you that much anymore.

after being in constant pain for a long enough time, you'll forget what it means to not be in pain, so the pain wont even seem like a bad thing anymore. pain only sucks for us because while we are in pain, we konw that there is a better state to be in: non-pain.

but after eons of neverending pain, pain will be your reality. your neutral state. being on fire will be the norm for you, so you wont really care.

so if you ask me, the idea of hell kind of falls apart over a long enough period of time. those are just my thoughts, i thought i'd share them. tell me what you think.

I agree. But what if after that kind of pain you go to a different one. It's Hell so I'm sure they will find a way to put you in pain forever. But you have a point. If you live with pain that long does it go away? Or maybe it won't let you not feel pain. These questions will never be answered until we get there. Even then I wouldn't want to go to Hell. If there is one.

it just seems to me like after that much pain, i would be like, "alright. bring on some more. i dont care". it would almost become a game. you can even test this yourself. repeated pain becomes nothing over time. like if you pinch yourself in the arm, it'll hurt pretty bad. do it again right after. it'll still hurt. keep doing it for an hour, nonstop. your arm will become kinda raw, but the pinching wont really bother you any more. keep doing it for a whole day. you'll forget you're even doing it.

I'll tell you what gets me about hell . fire is something that burns us because we have a human body . made up of skin bone tissues and most importantly pain receptors nerve endings bla bla bla
however once we die we dont take this physical body with us . so what do we consist of ? what is there to feel pain. Do we think we still have the body once we are dead and psychologically think we are being burnt therefore imagine the pain.

I would think if there was a hell (which i dont personally believe ) it would be more of a mental torture ie all the bad deeds you had done would be shown to you and you would feel all the emotions of those you had wronged . rather than a pysical burn your skin off over bearing pain for all eternity .


Blessings ss79 x x x

Actually here is another thing. How can your soul feel "pain?" It's not like it's a physical thing so how could you feel pain after physical death?



Like in little nicky where they shove a pineapple up Hitler's butt Every time, the pineapple gets bigger



Damn it you posted it before me.......

you make a great point here, and i agree with you. but think about this: don't you think even psychological torture would numb you over time as well? i actually think you would shut yourself off from psychological pain faster than you would physical pain. eventually you would be saying, "yeah, i did a lot of bad things and im sorry, but it was three million years ago, get over it"

Well that just depends maybe our interpretation of what we do here isnt as big as it will be then . maybe and this is just my theory that once we die we experience things in pure form ie LOVE without all the ego attatchments clouding it . so if we feel emotion in its purest form then that would be pretty nasty if for instance i had killed someone and then had to feel the pure emotion of that person whom i had killed and their last minutes every thoguht they had was given to me.every ounce of pain they felt over and over again for eternity . would be hell imo but i understand where your coming from and yes i think theres a possibilty you would become resigned to it over time . but maybe just maybe once you begin to become immune you are given some other nasty thing you did and made to eperience the hell of that and so it goes on who knows .

heck i dont know i dont even believe in hell LOL good post though

blessings SS79 x x x

as i think about it some more, the entire idea of eternity is troublesome to me. You could think about what i have said about hell, and apply that to heaven as well. an eternity of being happy, and never being sad... you wouldnt know what being happy is anymore. you wouldnt feel good. you would feel numb. both heaven and hell would eventually, after a long enough period of time, become basically the same. this is really interesting....

Yes it would have to work both ways so each would become heaven or hell really depending on yor perceptions .

heck so long as we dont get reincarnated im not bothered i just dont wanna come back here to have to be in debt again LOL

Phantom, good post, I like the way you word things

I must admit I never have believed that souls burn for eternity in Hell. Dang sometimes, I have even considered that life here on Earth was Hell

A couple of books I have read in the past brought up the Hell situation. One of the books was written by a psychologist who would regress people into past lives, however in one particular experiment, with the patient's permission he regressed them to the point between one life and another. What he discovered was quite interesting, it was found that when a person dies, their life is shown to them in minute detail and anything they had done wrong to another person was magnified and multiplied something like ten times and transferred to the soul itself. So, for instance, if I caused mental anguish to a person in this life, when I die that particular incident would be multiplied many times and I would feel the pain that that person had felt. The whole thing, when you think about it could be horrendous, especially if I had been a bit of a monster This experiment, I have to make clear was performed on quite a few subjects and they all stated similar experiences in this respect.

The other book I read was one written by an Exorcist, who when Exorcising a victim, asked the invading spirit about why they were in Hell and the very people they did not want relationships with they ended up being with them in Hell for all Eternity. The spirit got agitated at this question and answered that the Exorcist just didn't have a clue, because in Hell there is NO relationships at all, a soul is alone with nothing, absolutely nothing around them. This described it quite well for me, no fiery furnace, just nothing at all, completely cut off.

anybody remember the comic book ghost rider he used hell fire that burned your soul could be like that

I suspect all of the descriptions of torment: burning fire, freezing ice, tormenting demons, etc, are metaphors to describe an indescribable torment. Hell is, foremost, the state of being away from God. Thus, by going to Hell, one is removed from the source of all goodness, hope, and joy.

To me hell is all your fears coming true. I said that in another post and I stand beside it. If your going to hell you aren't ever going to be in peace. As some say your going to burn forever, Satan and all his demon minions are there. Blah blah blah....... We have no idea what Hell contains or if there is in fact one. We should live our lifes the way WE want to. Not anyone else. Why should we make our lives around other people and what they believe. It's not fair to us. And what if Earth is Hell. It sure feels like it most of the time with all the things going on here. But like I said before we will never know until we get there.

Huh. That's interesting. I watched something on the histrory channel about this a few weeks ago and some priets along with christian scholars suggested that there are seven different levels of hell. So it's never ending punishment.

I don't beleive in hell being an eternity. It makes much more sense for it to be a temporary, as there is no possible way you can commit sins that would take eternity to repent for. That said, the torture would most likely be psychological, forcing you to feel what you did to others during your life. But once an understanding was forced on you, there would be no reason for you to be there.

You said it. That is what I also believe. However, I think there is the fire and such. Perhaps there are different levels of hell and some only get the isolation from everything most importantly, God. Some get the works because of their purposeful evilness in life. Yes, I think there are different levels, yet all of them are very bad. Like the people who openly scoff at and blaspheme God and lead others to do the same. I am certain they get it the worst. And yes, God is the source of all joy, love and goodness.

I think I'll stand besides Archosaur. Hell for me isn't a fiery lake. It's worse.
Being far far far away from God... And because YOU decide to... That's what it is.

Yes. WE decide if we want to be with God. And that is the worst thing there is........being seperate from God.

There is no such place; "hell".

The idea was created by the Roman Empire/Catholic Church to scare people into order. GOD created man, man created religion. Men lie!

the issue at hand isnt what kind of torture hell provides. the point is that no matter what kind of pain you're in, whether it's mental, physical, emotional, etc,.. it will still be constant for ETERNITY. no matter how horrible it is, it will fade away in time. and no matter how GREAT heaven is, that will fade in time too.

Actually this is VERY close to what i believe hell to be like. Hell is not necessarily the pit of burning hellfire for all eternity that is the common Christian belief. Although it is very scary and will scare most people into believing pretty much anything to escape that, i believe hell to be not just nothingness, but the complete and utter absence of God's presence. I for one can not imagine anything worse than knowing there is a creator. A God who loves you and wishes nothing but the best for you, but you are unable to get to him or even feel his presence because you did not believe when you had the chance. You would be quite literally alone, in nothingness with nothing but the complete and total knowledge of what you had done for all eternity, Never to feel anything but regret and pain at the waisted chance you had here on earth. Time has no meaning what so ever. Words like eternity and forever are used to describe being outside of time to beings who feel nothing but the passing of time. Time has no meaning at all in hell. You never get numb to it because time doesn't pass.

Thats hell, and honest to god it terrifies me to think about it.

Actually at the end of days you don't actually go to heaven to stay. You can go there but thats not where we will reside. Earth is remade as it should have been (perfect) and we are sent there to live for eternity. No its not going to fade. I honesty don't think you would ever be bored in heaven, anymore than you could ever be numb to hell. You are thinking like a human with a mortal body, Stop it. Try and imagine you don't exist in time anymore. Time means nothing. Everything in hell that is just is. There is no present, no past, no future. You are alone, not forever, not eternity. Just Alone. Nothing but alone in the dark. Thats it. There is nothing else. You cant ever become numb to something that has no concept of time.

Surprise surprise...."Hell" as it is described in all it's many forms by the many sects of christianity....................does not exist.
One of the last acts by pope John Paul the sixteenth was to issue two papal bulls. *documents recognised as being signed off on,, as it were, by God* The first was an apology for and an open look at the atrocities committed during the yeas of the Inquisition, which was not formally and officially brought to a close until the end of the last century. The second bull was far more conrtoversial, I am surprised so few are aware of it. He said that Hell was an invention of the catholic church used as a means of bullying and frightening non christians into converting.
It is also worth mentioning that it was a conferance of bishops convened in Constantinople toward the end of the 900's that determined God is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The reason for this was so many converts were confused as to the nature of God: Is God "GOD", is god Jesus or the Holy Soirit? Who do we pray to? to whom are we ultimately anserable to? Who has the Final Authority? How can they be all one and the same yet still separate entities?
....for until then, they were recognised specifically as separate entities. To eliminate confusion and prevent anything like what had happened with the Pelagian movement, a Huge conferance of Tippy top bishops got together and ..... made it all up. Keep in mind that the God of the Xtians is the same God as that of the Arabs and the Jews. The Jews had him first, then Moses screwed up and was forbidden to enter the holy land and created the Arab nations with those who stayed with him. Later, Paul became the first pope and founded.....in some way.....what eventually got all twisted up and bastardised into the Catholic Church from which hath sprung all other sects of Xtianity.
Wierd, eh?

Its in the bible, the catholics put together the bible but did not write it themselves, so i don't care what the pope said or did, the can not simply write off the existence of hell to Christians.



Good for them, The trinity is in the bible as well.

As for how can one being be three separate entities, that is simple to explain yet hard to understand. Try and imagine that you are a two dimensional being and god is a three dimensional being. if God were to stick his fingers into our dimension we would see five fingers or five separate beings, yet if we could see the third dimension we would see the entire hand. God is one being, however he looks like three separate beings when he appears in our three dimensional universe. Think about it.



You really need to reread your bible here because thats not the way the arab nations sprung into existence, and while the God of the Christians is indeed the same God that the Arabs and the Jews worship that is not what makes the difference between the religions. Christians believe in the sacrifice of god's son Jesus. This is what makes them Christians.

Kanji,

When Druidub was suggesting that the Catholics added things to scare the population into submission, and you blew it off with as "It's in the bible," did you think that maybe the Catholics REWROTE the portions of the bible to their liking?

When people use the Bible as their source of evidence, it baffles me. This was a collection of stories that were dictated or written long after they occurred. Then, some of the stories were taken out, and changed, and rearranged, and translated, and different people in power added what they wanted, and took out what they didn't. There are tons of other 'stories' that probably were meant to be part of the Books of the Bible, but got left out. King James had scribes add whatever he felt like, he didn't care, he wasn't a Christian anyway.

So, using the Bible instead of your brain and your faith isn't as rock solid as you seem to think. Realize it was a man-made book, and men are not perfect.


Anyway, back to the subject of hell. Someone mentioned already that the OP was thinking as a man. Even if there WAS a hell, and it was meant to be viewed literally, while it would be normal for a human to eventually not feel the pain, whether physical or mental, I don't think it would be the same for the soul. The brain controls pain, which is why, for survival's sake, it can deaden itself to it. But without a brain, and only consciousness, would you be able to do the same thing? If god is all powerful, I am sure he would have figured out how to torture us forever.

I personally think the idea of Hell was a creation basically nothing more than a clever scare tactic that's purpose is to instill fear and control into society. If the concept of spending your entire life burning in a fiery pit isn't enough to scare people into leading a so called perfect life then what is?

Burning in the pits of hell just seems pretty comical to me because I have pinched some pick n mix as a child seems pretty silly to me lol

One of the biggest control mechanisms is religon it starts with the brain washing you receive as a child through school etc.

Well as I am a individual I will think for myself

I think hell would be bespoke. Whatever you fear the most interspersed with whatever yo love the most, just to keep the pain(corporeal or non-corporeal) alive

well if that's true, then screw god (no offense). what kind of all merciful, loving god figures out a way to torture his creations forever? he's like some sadistic madman.

Yeah, that was my point. So no offense taken!

GOD doesn't toture, men do.

Hell is a man made concept by the Roman Catholic Church. It was used to instill fear in people.
A very clever method to obtain money and keep people in line.

In my own study hell is depicted as of course a fiery torture. Not True!!!! In my own views when the books of the New testament were written many people did not know or believe in Jesus so to make people believe the apostles used scare tactics to bring people closer to God. Here were your options: Eternity in torturous hell or eternity in blissful happiness with God. I feel that hell is not full of fire but there is torture. And that torture is being without God. Hell to me is just nothingness. You are by yourself in nothing. Someone started a topic early that was a quote from the pope and he said the same thing. That hell is not fire but it is the worst thing a soul could have without which is god.

My p/s take on this is, there is no actual place of hell, it's all bull shizer. lol! It's only in our minds literally.
It's just the wicked & sinister part etc of our human nature & our all important conscience finally catching up with us.
If there is a hell it's from our own doing right down here on little ol 'terror' firma. <---<- planet earth.