Author Topic: i know many here are atheist/agnostic, but the concept of hell is so weird  (Read 1311 times)

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Rman

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i do consider a christian but always had a problem with the concept of hell. i'm not fundie either.  i believe in evolution and lgbtq rights.

but from the stuff i've read, hell isn't even that prominent in the bible. it's nowhere in the old testament.  st. paul's letters barely mention it. dude wrote half of the new testament.  if hell was true and all you need to do say a magic prayer before your death bed and it's beam me up scottie?

also, if only christian are going to heaven, that means a huge amount of non-christian are damned to hellfire.  all for not believing in christian doctrine? and then it's completely fear based. any decent parent will know that fear based authority may work, but it creates rebellion long term.

from my reading of the bible it seems the main theme is love, not hell. hell is barely mentioned.

also not hating on more conservative christians, if there are some here, just wanted to chat about this very strange teaching.

Nintex

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Yeah it's weird. ETERNAL DAMNATION for the sinners and the 'sins' change with the times.
I think we just all end up in heaven where Tupac and DMX are dropping hot lyrics right now.

I also doubt that the rules have been modernized and many religions have prophets and idols who were pedo's according to todays standards.
If there was a heaven or Hell, someone like Epstein would sooner end up in Heaven for Charity work and Funding research than Hell for raping kiddo's.
Because the holy texts never considered that a sin.

Same with war, thou shall not kill. Yeah but what if you shot a couple of Nazi's in WW2? Does that mean you lose your ticket to heaven?
Is god able to connect pressing a trigger over Hill 57 in Vietnam to drop Napalm to save your buddies to your own 'personal' sins commited with your body?
How has monitoring technology progressed? Can the angels keep track of all the data streams and billions of people?

How does all this work  :dizzy
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Skullfuckers Anonymous

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If Paulie’s going to purgatory, so am I.

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Raist

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D3RANG3D

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« Last Edit: April 12, 2021, 09:49:42 PM by D3RANG3D »

Propagandhim

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Here's a little snapshot of the misery and hopelessness of hell:




Still not feeling the heat, Mr agnostic?

Potato

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Well, there's the Christianity of the Bible and then there's the Christianity of the fucking hypocrites that have run the church for the past 2000 years. Those people learned early on that threatening people with eternal damnation and promising eternal happiness only after you've given all of your money and obedience to the church is a good way to maintain power over the population.
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Nintex

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"wtf man these bitches ain't listening to us. I split the motherfucking sea ungrateful bastards"

"That's because you keep telling them to cut their dicks off weirdo"

"Fuck off Allah, wait, wtf did god just do?"

"Did he just fuck a human?"

"Bro that's some fucked up shit man"

"Allah, Jaweh, you are both out of business soon. These 'bitches' will listen to one of their own. I have planted my seed and my message"

"Bro this shit is so not O.K. I will promise my humans that they will get 72 virgins if they kill your fucked up people and your humans will be tax slaves to mine. I'm sick of this shit. First the apple, then the flood, now this"

"My humans won't give a shit, my message says they will burn in hell if they don't follow and listen to me. They don't want to burn in hell"

"WTF is hell breh?"

"A place where you burn forever. Otherwise you end up in heaven which is like super awesome"

"Shit man, you totally stole that last piece of my shit. I'm done with you both"

"Your humans are also done Jaweh, there's a new KING in town"

"Not for long you asshole"
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GreatSageEqualOfHeaven

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If I remember right from R.E. at school, it's something like the fire and brimstone and eternal pain shit is metaphor for basic bitches who don't have much in the way of an inner world, because whatever physical pain you're getting, over an eternity you're gonna become numb to it and tune it out, right?

So it's more like god is just this huge, pure and intense love, and hell is not being able to be with that love anymore, and in the full knowledge that it exists, and you don't get it because you fucked it all up.

I think that was the gist, I'm not a theologian.

Uncle

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yeah assuming any of it has any merit, the idea of hell is just as wrongheaded as the idea of a big guy in a robe with a white beard, all we have are concepts that put things into context for our limited understanding

supposedly the idea is that hell is simply the absence of being in god's presence forever, whatever that means, and however that would make your soul feel after having all truth revealed to you


Same with war, thou shall not kill. Yeah but what if you shot a couple of Nazi's in WW2? Does that mean you lose your ticket to heaven?

10 commandments also say thou shalt not lie

when you think about it every single joke that was ever told is a form of lying

why did the chicken cross the road? you're not talking about any specific chicken who crossed the road, you never witnessed this!

so if breaking 1 commandment means hell then no one is ever getting to heaven

I think according to christianity, a common belief is that mr. christ rewrote the rules and became the sacrifice necessary to atone for all of everyone's sins forever, so yeah please don't lie and don't kill nazis, but if you do the guy has you covered as long as you're proper sorry for it
Uncle

Uncle

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god is a programmer running the most complicated game of the Sims ever created and is heavily invested in the personal lives of all the NPCs

he decided to play it as himself for a while, took manual control of one of the sims and went around telling people the most virtuous way to live their lives, and the way the in-game AI worked out, the other sims didn't like what he was saying very much so they killed his avatar

everybody who acts in accordance to the rules he set down, when they die he backs them up on a different server and tells them the whole story and hangs out with them sometimes

the rest of them, maybe he deletes them, I don't know but basically they fucked up
Uncle

naff

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earth is the terrarium, we are the monkeys. i don't pretend to have any strong ideas on how we really came to exist or the true nature of the universe, shit is a mystery to the best and brightest. but our current spiritual beliefs seem much too basic and literal to be real. i went to a kadampa buddhist center a few times a week in my late teens with a girl i liked. as i started to "move up" they got onto the more theistic beliefs stratifying the various levels of existence based on karma (down to an analogue for hell). kinda sucked as i really liked the practice and got a little freaked out by how deeply they believed in all this cooked shit and gave up practicing meditation which was actually pretty good for me in retrospect
« Last Edit: April 12, 2021, 09:46:42 PM by naff »
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Potato

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This discussion made me think of this old classic from Hypocrisy.




Peter Tagtgren FTW
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Raist

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The concept of hell in the bible (like pretty much everything else in that book) is a mishmash of other religions that has been rewritten and altered to fit contemporary needs, translated from translations, etc.

For hell it's basically been used in place of sheol, gehenna, hades, tartarus and probably a few others. None of which being exactly like the christian idea of hell, although amusingly gehenna was a real place, a dumpster outside jerusalem where they'd burn the "wicked".

Whether you're religious or not, I suggest reading "A history of god" by Karen Armstrong. It's quite interesting.

Rman

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The concept of hell in the bible (like pretty much everything else in that book) is a mishmash of other religions that has been rewritten and altered to fit contemporary needs, translated from translations, etc.

For hell it's basically been used in place of sheol, gehenna, hades, tartarus and probably a few others. None of which being exactly like the christian idea of hell, although amusingly gehenna was a real place, a dumpster outside jerusalem where they'd burn the "wicked".

Whether you're religious or not, I suggest reading "A history of god" by Karen Armstrong. It's quite interesting.

never read that book, but i even the concept of hell wasn't codified until 400 years after christ in the early church. some early church fathers didn't even accept it.

again, the actual bible barely mentions it, but it has become this control mechanism to convert people.

eternal conscious torment or say a magic prayer and go to church? i wonder what medieval people will choose?

i saw this is a christian as well. to me jesus's message is about love, forgiveness, embracing the forgotten and destitute, and serving others. this is an obvious theme for anyone that reads the gospels. he mentions the poor and greed a lot.

romans turned into a political machine via Constantine and americans, centuries later, turned it into a business.


« Last Edit: April 13, 2021, 07:37:34 AM by Rman »

Uncle

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never read that book, but i even the concept of hell wasn't codified until 400 years after christ in the early church. some early church fathers didn't even accept it.

again, the actual bible barely mentions it, but it has become this control mechanism to convert people.

eternal conscious torment or say a magic prayer and go to church? i wonder what medieval people will choose?

i saw this is a christian as well. to me jesus's message is about love, forgiveness, embracing the forgotten and destitute, and serving others. this is an obvious theme for anyone that reads the gospels. he mentions the poor and greed a lot.

romans turned into a political machine via Constantine and americans, centuries later, turned it into a business.

I think it's a limit of our communication/understanding that there has to be more to what a person is called to do than just "love others"

because then you can say "I'm showing my deep love for the working class by murdering business owners  :heart"

or "your addiction to gaming is unhealthy, so I'm showing my love for you by stealing your playstation, you will thank me later  :heart"

there have to be some rules as to proper ways your love/kindness/service manifests

and if there are rules that forbid things, doesn't there have to be an implied threat that something negative will happen if you do those things? even if the negative thing that happens isn't being thrown into a fiery pit, but just receiving slightly less love than someone else who behaves better
Uncle

Rman

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never read that book, but i even the concept of hell wasn't codified until 400 years after christ in the early church. some early church fathers didn't even accept it.

again, the actual bible barely mentions it, but it has become this control mechanism to convert people.

eternal conscious torment or say a magic prayer and go to church? i wonder what medieval people will choose?

i saw this is a christian as well. to me jesus's message is about love, forgiveness, embracing the forgotten and destitute, and serving others. this is an obvious theme for anyone that reads the gospels. he mentions the poor and greed a lot.

romans turned into a political machine via Constantine and americans, centuries later, turned it into a business.

I think it's a limit of our communication/understanding that there has to be more to what a person is called to do than just "love others"

because then you can say "I'm showing my deep love for the working class by murdering business owners  :heart"

or "your addiction to gaming is unhealthy, so I'm showing my love for you by stealing your playstation, you will thank me later  :heart"

there have to be some rules as to proper ways your love/kindness/service manifests

and if there are rules that forbid things, doesn't there have to be an implied threat that something negative will happen if you do those things? even if the negative thing that happens isn't being thrown into a fiery pit, but just receiving slightly less love than someone else who behaves better

i see what you're saying, but the ambiguity actually helps more because it broadens the applications.

for example, the parable of the good samaritan was prompted by religious lawyers asking jesus to clarify, "who is my neighbor?" jesus then chose a hated (from the 1st century Judea perspective) minority-a samaritan-to illustrate what loving your neighbor really is.

Joe Molotov

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never read that book, but i even the concept of hell wasn't codified until 400 years after christ in the early church. some early church fathers didn't even accept it.

Jesus did tell the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, where we learn that rich people burn forever in hell.
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EchoRin

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I don't mean to sound rude to the religious folks, but the concept of hell sound just as weird as other aspects of religion.

Rman

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never read that book, but i even the concept of hell wasn't codified until 400 years after christ in the early church. some early church fathers didn't even accept it.

Jesus did tell the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, where we learn that rich people burn forever in hell.

but that was a one parable.  and paul never mentioned it. if hell was such a cosmic disaster, wouldn't it be shouted from the rooftop in the main texts?

Uncle

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the bible didn't warn us about anime either and if jesus was all-knowing you'd think he would've said something
Uncle

HardcoreRetro

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Going by the things we hear about the church I'm gonna assume he's a huge Boku no Pico fan so it's better to keep quiet.

tiesto

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god is a programmer running the most complicated game of the Sims ever created and is heavily invested in the personal lives of all the NPCs

he decided to play it as himself for a while, took manual control of one of the sims and went around telling people the most virtuous way to live their lives, and the way the in-game AI worked out, the other sims didn't like what he was saying very much so they killed his avatar

everybody who acts in accordance to the rules he set down, when they die he backs them up on a different server and tells them the whole story and hangs out with them sometimes

the rest of them, maybe he deletes them, I don't know but basically they fucked up

Sounds like Ultima Online, when Richard Garriott created a character and then got his character killed off by one of the players :P
^_^

Raist

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romans turned into a political machine via Constantine and americans, centuries later, turned it into a business.

Christianity and the older religions it's based off (judaism, babylonian etc) have been used as political tools loooooong before the Romans were even a thing.

Rman

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romans turned into a political machine via Constantine and americans, centuries later, turned it into a business.

Christianity and the older religions it's based off (judaism, babylonian etc) have been used as political tools loooooong before the Romans were even a thing.
no doubt.

GreatSageEqualOfHeaven

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I mean, anything codifying how people 'should' think and behave is inherently going to be political

Trent Dole

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Hi

recursivelyenumerable

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i think probably when you die you respawn as a new randomly chosen entity in a new randomly generated universe, which probably doesn't have the same physical structure or laws as our universe, doesn't necessarily have the same concepts of space or time, etc.
QED

Nintex

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the bible didn't warn us about anime either and if jesus was all-knowing you'd think he would've said something
Blame the Democrats for nuking Japan. Not even Jesus could imagine should evil. :trumps
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jorma

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romans turned into a political machine via Constantine and americans, centuries later, turned it into a business.

Christianity and the older religions it's based off (judaism, babylonian etc) have been used as political tools loooooong before the Romans were even a thing.

And Rome turned it into a business loooooong before the Americans were even a thing