^{I am a christian as you already know, But I have questions about hell and satan just like anyone else would. I read in another thread where someone had bible scripture to back up claims that satan and hell do indeed exsist. There have been many books written on the subject and views from people who say God allowed them to see hell so they could tell us ,Yes it does exsist and you will spend eternity there No hope to cling to just a utter hopeless eternity. I have my own opinions and veiws, But I would like to hear yours. I don't look forward to death it will be there when I am suppose to meet it, And I pray I have a place in Heaven With God. I am curious to what hell is like and what goes on in hell , Just like I wonder what heavens' like and what happens there.I know we will never know until we pass, But one can always speculate and wonder. I also have heard many stories about people who have had near death experiences and went to hell and came back really shaken and afraid. I also know doctors and scientst say it happens because of your brain and what happens to your brain when you are under an enormous amount of stress. I think the bible says you will be cast in a lake of fire, I don't recall ever seeing the word hell mentioned in the bible. I could be wrong. Any thoughts you have on the subject is welcome, As always Its a pleasure hearing from you.}

As my history teacher once said..

The concept of heaven and hell exist in the real world. Because life can be as good as "heaven" or as bad as "hell" as you make it.

Which is actually makes a whole hells of alot of sence. To me atleast. But in the afterlife sence.. well, it just seems like a ploy made up by those in power of early religions that wanted to keep the "lower classes" under their thumbs. If you don't do this.. your soul will be tormented in some bad scary place for thousands of years!

Just smacks of a scare tactic for control. Not to mention that even the name of "hell" was taken from a different place.. A Norse goddess, Hel.

If you're interested in getting a perspective of what Heaven is like, you might want to consider reading Don Piper's book "90 minutes in Heaven". He was in a bad car accident and died. He was in Heaven for like 90 minutes as a man prayed over his body on earth. He was then revived, and some time later he decided to write about his experience.

Your teacher makes alot of sense yes, But how can we be so sure that it doesn't exsist. I hope it doesn't , Its very disturbing to me that all those people suffer for an eternity, Always a pleasure.

Here's a bit of other advice...

Don't sweat the small stuff. And remember that everything is the small stuff.

To be perfectly honest, you can sit and wonder and fear that such a place exist. But in the end, you're just losing time when you could be doing something more meaningful and fun in your life. (Unlike.. posting on a messageboard! Hey! heh) Does it matter in the end if such places exist? Are they truly worth losing time in your life over? Some people think so. I don't. I'd rather be spending my thought over passing my internship, or what to draw next, or how to better show someone that they're special to me. Worrying over wheither or not hell exists, is rather like putting yourself in hell... alot of unneeded worry.

I have read alot of books on this, I missed that one thank you for telling me about it. Always a pleasure.

Hell exists. It's called New Jersey.

I take it you live in jersy, I have never been there but have heard it is hell several times. Whats so terrible? Always a pleasure.

hmmmmm, if I recall correctly, the early catholic church discovered a unique way to bring in additional revenue: indulgences, whereby a person could pay off their 'sins' in this life by making special donations to the church. You could also 'buy' a persons soul out of hell. So much for "eternal damnation", hey?


To those who believe in the concept of hell, there is nothing I could say or do to make you change your mind. Nor would I desire to do so.

Things are only as good or as bad as you make them in life.. Once you die, I wonder if maybe the same rule applies. I wonder if perhaps our soul continues to pass through positive and negative energy but can only choose for itself how to deal with this energy.

I know this makes no sense.. I don't even understand it. But then again there is so much we don't understand, and that is what fuels me in life.

Am I understanding you correctly, you can buy your way out of helll according to someone?

Yes. IIRC, it was one of the things that led to a major split of the church and the beginnings of Lutheranism.


A link to the Catholic Encylopedia provides further info:

Indulgences

According to my research, the "Hell" which is spoken about in the bible is nothing more than the "grave". If you google "Hell Grave" you'll probably get information on what I'm talking about. It's hard to accept at first, but once you look into it, it makes alot more sense. All using bible scriptures as well.

http://www.bibleed.com/bibleteachings/othe...ellandgrave.asp

I don't believe in hell myself but I do think that it's more something to scare you with then anything else. But back to the OP there are some people out there who don't believe in a hell like the bible speaks of but more of a sepration from God, just a thought.

Good question. I was raised Catholic and learned of Hell and Heaven. I am not sure what happens when we pass, but I think most of us here have seen or heard spirits, which means to me, the soul continues on. The one thing I often wondered is, lets say a mass murderer/rapist gets convicted, and sentenced to death. SO many of them find "God" and make amends. So, simply because they say SORRY does that mean they go to a nice place or bad place, or the other side, like others? Or do their souls suffer eternally? JN

why ?

Pope John Paul II has said , "The images of hell that Sacred Scripture presents to us must be correctly interpreted. They show the complete frustration and emptiness of life without God. Rather than a place, Hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy."






fullywired

Sorry but this makes me mad why do people believe others when someone makes a statement like that? He's telling me that the only way to be happy in life in to worship God, to me this is such a load of bull.

What he's telling you is that there is no hell


fullywired

So your saying hell is what we make it, or invision it to be? I am sorry if I am being dense I don't mean to be, Always a pleasure

I don"t believe in "Heaven", i don"t believe in "Hell", i don"t believe in any of the "Gods", i don"t believe in the " ".
I have no frustration with life & certainly feel no emptiness without worshipping some "god".

I"m a decent guy, with a fantastic wife , kids & extended family.
This is my "heaven", just living my one & only life out with people that i love & who love me for what i am.
"Hell" would be here on Earth, if anything happened to the kids, or the pain in my heart if my wife passes away before i do.

I think someone already said that the "Hell" thing was just a scare tactic from religious zealots. Bang on.
For reasons of POWER OVER YOU the Christian church took over PAGAN festivals & stopped men from worshipping women (the bearers of life), & the seasons.
Theyv"e got a lot to answer for.

This is your life, NOW, it"s the only one you will have, so get out there, grab life by the throat & ENJOY YOURSELF!(without worrying about "hell" & other religious BS). Don"t be scared, just LIVE IT.

If you believe in christ you have to believe in satan.

I'm actually from Texas. I have friends in New Jersey, they call it New York's a******.

I think maybe you are right God speaks of satan and what will happen to him. Why would he be included in the bible if he wasn't as real as God is? Always a pleasure.

this is a great question and one that has many ideas...from what i have read and studied in the KJV here is what i get from it...when we die, we lie in the grave until we are called out by Jesus at the proper time dteremined whether we rise to glory or to judgement (condemnation)...at that time, all those who are condemned are tossed into the lake of fire...hell had been set aside for satan and the fallen angels as a holding spot until the very end when all sin is erased from the world...i will look at it again to make sure and let you know...

randomhit10

No it was saying that Hell is people who do not have God in their lives.

But that sounds fine for me.

We lie in our graves, I always assumed that if you are going to heaven that you go when you die. In spirit form, human form, Its all very confusing. Do you think we lie in our grave until God returns/ The rapture? Thats really a depressing thought, to lie in the grave waiting for Gods return to go to heaven, Always a pleasure

Check out some near death experiences, where Doctors have said patient was clinically dead, The stories of those who come back, do not tell of lying in a Grave.

Love Omnaka

So your saying that Jesus's resurrection was not a unique occurrence and happens quite frequently??


fullywired

There also are virtually NO REPORTS of a hell in NDE's. (by many non-Christians also by the way)

Explain that now please,>> according to many,who claim that you must accept Jesus as your savior to get to heaven ?

Yes.
Jesus said the same thing.

Love Omnaka

Virtually says there are reports. I've heard many stories of NDE's Seeing hell. not sure what religion though. and my advise to check out The Nde's was to sandee who wanted to know if we all just lie in a grave someplace untill The last day.

Wether Heaven or hell, I've not heard of a nde who did nothing, and lay in the ground.

Love Omnaka

Whether Hell is or is not an actual place, a spritual place, an empty threat, another planet, another plane, another diminsion, a fact or a fantasy, a lake or an inferno full of levels there is one constant....God is absent from there. carry God with you and there you will not go.

Could you quote the source please



fullywired

Somewhere in thhe bible it is said that he said to someone somewhere These things you will do also even better.

Also Father (God told me)


Love Omnaka

somewhere in the bible it says to beat your kids with sticks and somewhere else in the bible it says Jezebel was tossed out of a window and trampled by horses.....

and in order to say ressurections occur all the time is plain blashpemy IMHO. you don't know that because you aren't there. and to go spouting off what God does and who he blesses with out baring witness to the truth of it is disrespectful, and possibly untrue, making you a claimer that God is a liar, and that is unfair.

When I was younger & religious ,I was very interested in NDE's. Now I am somewhat again (interested in NDE's).The books I read claimed there have only been about 3% where people claimed something similar to hell (sorta) but it was complete isolation & darkness no fire,screaming,teeth gnashing & stuff.

Omnaka I just found a site you may enjoy. It looks good ,I'm going to check it out.

It's the Near Death Experience Research Foundation http://www.nderf.org/

Thank you Omnaka, I agree too many people have said they have experienced what they thought to be hell. I don't apprciaite it when oher people intrude where they are not invited, Its rude if we wanted their opinion we would have asked, Always a Pleasure

I do not claim anything of a sort about God, I do claim God and I talk, It is my opinion that you judge what you do not know, from a book written in the infancy of this world.

I have been down 11 times, and Know resurection is the birth Right of every child of God.

I claim that no religion has it all right Or better or Is loved More than any other.

I see nothing humble about your Opinionsaying I call God a lier.

I see this as your Rude uncalled for Judgement, and this is the Blasphemy, or maybe you are calling Me a lier Because I talk to God and visa versa?

Probably won't bother you a bit after saying all that, after you find out it's true huh?

Love Omnaka

God and I talk to, it is called prayer, but tell me if God is actually speaking to you what mission are you on...and internet thread mission. a quest to befuddle minds online?

been down to what? dead 11 times? ressurection at physical death is not a birth right of any person spiritual ressurection i will let you have because I don't know I have never been a spirit.

i didn't humbly say that God is a liar. I humbly said that in my one little personal opinion you are full of blasphemy. and have actively gone against the word of God and if God wanted his children to not follow those words he would have created other words. but he didn't.

What I am saying is that you should think about where you are getting your information from because it is not Godly and not held up by the principals that God has lain down. It sounds more like the psycho babble people drip to anyone who listens right before initiating a suicide pact.

Im not going to stick around to find out if the things you say are true because you have said nothing. you illustrate each of your points by asking a redundant question. which has no intellectual basis. you have not been capable of making one theological argument, one purely logical statement, or even one of common sense and backed it up with anything other than that is what God is telling you. and you can't even respond to what is actually being said to you. you take what you want a person to have said so that you can attack it, even though that is not what they said...( i am assuming in your next post you will have something to say about the word "attack" that I just used) but so be it. Im not saying you cannot have your beliefs or opinions or own private religion, im saying that if you are going to try and infect other people with it at least have something convincing to say, that would be prudent if you really want people to consider the things that you say to be true, if not for any other reason than that they are so true....but the mystic way you type and the ignoring of everything you don't want to pin point and play with shows that you don't heed your own admonitions.
Love Ravergirl.

What I share is better than your fire death and revenge from a loving god, which makes no sense at all , but you might find some who you scare in to loving god by your warped interpretation of the bible.
its not real love if it is forced.

good luck with that mission.
love omnaka

Hello there!

My opinion. Hell exists, there will be a day of justice where people who have done terrible things and refuse to feel remorse and repentance will go to be punished and people who have done good will be rewarded.

Also in my opinion people get mixed up between God on one hand and religion on the other.

God/ Jesus is a real personage, religion is dead.

Life is through the person of Jesus who is God's son, life is not through any religion, as the bible says im JOhn chapter 3:

16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son


'Believe' is all about what is on the inside of a person, when you are at peace on the inside, what other people see on the outside will be peace and love too.

Why? Why do people feel that there needs to be some system of punishment/reward for those who go to the other side of life?
I have heard this sentiment expressed before, but have yet to get a satisfactory answer.

God brought us in to this world and he can take you out, this is the short version. Always a pleasure

Pardon me Ma'am, but that is not sufficient. Nor is it accurate. I'm not sure about you or anyone else on these boards, but my parents "brought me into this world".
Neither does it answer my question.




good journey

I knew it was not sufficent but God did create man I know we disagree on this and thats okay. I don't know how to answer your question other than to say the bible tells us we will be judged and dealt with accordinly. I know thats not fact to you but it is to me and I don't know any other way to explain it right this miniute, Always a pleasure. Jmpd you have never heard someone say i brought you into this world and I can take you out?

There is no hell, and there is no "Satan". Don't fret, this life is what matters, not what happens after.

Leaving God and the bible out of it for just a moment, i think we want to sum our lives up. Most people try to be good and try to better themselves all the time. But what reconigtion do they get for their efforts? maybe thats what its for the big pat on the back for doing good their whole life. And the Bad ? Maybe they want to be told its ok they were not such good people. Just a thought jmpd, Always a pleasure

Are your Biological parents The creator of your Spirit also?


Why? Why do people feel that there needs to be some system of punishment/reward for those who go to the other side of life?
I have heard this sentiment expressed before, but have yet to get a satisfactory answer.

I think it is how they are taught in their religious upbringing, Most religions teach this.

I would settle for The love of Heavenly Father and Mother (God) and My wife who I will go through Eternity with.

The ol testament God said he that believeth in me shal have everlasting life. Thats a pretty good reward.

What constitutes sufficient?

Love Omnaka