Does Hell Exist?

[More Than A Feeling]

Poll question: Does Hell Exist?

[mnhtnbb]

1. If hell is described as the absence of God, then yes, hell exists

where humans have betrayed the best part of themselves to behave without love
toward their fellow man (women).

[Orsino]

27. Yeah. Right here, where we make it. n/t

[Solo_in_MD]

2. Heaven and Hell defined

Heaven:

German mechanics
Italian lovers
French chefs
English policemen
Swiss bankers

Hell:
German policemen
Italian bankers
French mechanics
English chefs
Swiss lovers

Note there are lots of variations on the above

[TechBear_Seattle]

24. The way I heard it put...

Heaven:
German car
English chauffeur
French cook
Italian wife

Hell:
French car
Italian chauffeur
English cook
German wife

[moobu2]

3. Yeah, it’s right next to the tooth fairies ranch

[thethinker]

4. Yes

Hell is when you have republican congress and a republican president.

[Qutzupalotl]

5. If hell is regret, then yes.

*That* is the fire that never quenches.

You don't make spiritual progress without realizing countless decisions you've screwed up. And yet, you have to make compensation and then let it go.

A literal place of fire? Uh, no.

[raccoon]

21. Well said!

"If hell is regret, then yes.
*That* is the fire that never quenches. "

Yes! Regrets can eat you alive. I'd agree hell is regrets.

[goddess40]

6. No heaven therefore no hell nt

[IanBean]

7. who knows

not me and not you

[Pyrzqxgl]

8. We're living in hell right now.

It's called The Bush Administration.

[saltpoint]

9. As the absence of mercy, it exists on earth.

Or the absence of justice, or of dignity.

I don't see it as a Dante-like hole with blue flames shooting out of it for an eternity.

[1620rock]

10. Hell and Heaven both exist in the mind. eom

[Quantess]

11. Yes, but only if you allow yourself to be there.

Otherwise, no.

[Meshuga]

12. It depends...

Is hell that fiery place where people like me are supposed to go in an afterlife or is it having to deal with DC metro area traffic every single day?

I don't believe in the one that has to do with an afterlife.

[trotsky]

13. And more to the point,

if you believe hell exists, can people get out? Or are they punished forever and ever?

I am very relieved that so few people have answered in the affirmative so far.

[cain_7777]

14. Hell exists only in the minds of the religiously disturbed or mentally incapable

[Odin2005]

15. "Hell is other people" -Sartre

[Egalitarian]

16. Allegorically or Literally?

Literally, as a physical place, no.

Allegorically, as in ones mental relationship with the world and themselves, Yes.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

17. Imagine there's no heaven.

OR hell, for that matter.

[Unvanguard]

18. No. And if it does, and those confined there are confined there for eternity

then whatever deity set up the system is very far from loving, merciful, or morally good.

[zonmoy]

29. I definitely concur

such a deity would be a sadistic monster and his followers not much better.

[Evoman]

19. .......

There is no such a place that's called Hell.
And I think thats pretty darn swell.
You took one bad turn.
And forever you'll burn?
Can you imagine the smell!

[nickols_k]

20. Yes!

Surely, yes!

Be bless!

[EvolveOrConvolve]

23. Are you sure?

[MistressOverdone]

22. I think that evil is rampant right here on earth

and it doesn't need its own zipcode.

[NAO]

25. Hell exists in gruesome detail in the minds of children brainwashed into xtianity

The abuse in teaching children that the Bible - which CLEARLY teaches the existence of a LITERAL BURNING ETERNAL HELL - is much more egregious than physical abuse.

I spent the better part of my childhood crying and not sleeping at night because I KNEW that there were hundreds of millions of people screaming in Hell RIGHT NOW, with billions more on the way. I knew that they would suffer agonizing pain FOR EVER AND EVER. I wished it was not true, but it is SO explicit in the Bible, and particularly in the (alleged) teachings of Jesus as recorded in the canonical gospels, that I could not deny it. EVERLASTING FIRE. ETERNAL TORMENT. WEEPING AND GNASHING OF TEETH. OUTER DARKNESS. TORMENTED IN FLAMES. All EXACT words of J.C. himself, if you believe the gospels accurately record things.

***

excerpt from Robert Ingersoll's Why I Am an Agnostic
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/why_i_am_agnostic.html


As a last answer, as a final excuse, the worshipers of Jehovah
said that all these horrible things happened under the "old
dispensation" of unyielding law, and absolute justice, but that now
under the "new dispensation," all had been changed -- the sword of
justice had been sheathed and love enthroned. In the Old Testament,
they said. God is the judge -- but in the New, Christ is the
merciful. As a matter of fact, the New Testament is infinitely
worse than the Old. In the Old there is no threat of eternal pain.
Jehovah had no eternal prison -- no everlasting fire. His hatred
ended at the grave. His revenge was satisfied when his enemy was
dead.

In the New Testament, death is not the end, but the beginning
of punishment that has no end. In the New Testament the malice of
God is infinite and the hunger of his revenge eternal.

The orthodox God, when clothed in human flesh, told his
disciples not to resist evil, to love their enemies, and when
smitten on one cheek to turn the other, and yet we are told that
this same God, with the same loving lips, uttered these heartless,
these fiendish words; "Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire,
prepared for the devil and his angels."

These are the words of "eternal love."

No human being has imagination enough to conceive of this
infinite horror.

All that the human race has suffered in war and want, in
pestilence and famine, in fire and flood, -- all the pangs and
pains of every disease and every death -- all this is as nothing
compared with the agonies to be endured by one lost soul.

This is the consolation of the Christian religion. This is the
justice of God -- the mercy of Christ.

This frightful dogma, this infinite lie, made me the
implacable enemy of Christianity. The truth is that this belief in
eternal pain has been the real persecutor. It founded the
Inquisition, forged the chains, and furnished the fagots. It has
darkened the lives of many millions. It made the cradle as terrible
as the coffin. It enslaved nations and shed the blood of countless
thousands. It sacrificed the wisest, the bravest and the best. It
subverted the idea of justice, drove mercy from the heart, changed
men to fiends and banished reason from the brain.

Like a venomous serpent it crawls and coils and hisses in
every orthodox creed.

It makes man an eternal victim and God an eternal fiend. It is
the one infinite horror. Every church in which it is taught is a
public curse. Every preacher who teaches it is an enemy of mankind.
Below this Christian dogma, savagery cannot go. It is the infinite
of malice, hatred, and revenge.

Nothing could add to the horror of hell, except the presence
of its creator, God.

While I have life, as long as I draw breath, I shall deny with
all my strength, and hate with every drop of my blood, this
infinite lie.

http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/why_i_am_agnostic.html

[Manifestor_of_Light]

26. Christianity is emotional and mental abuse.

I know.
I've been there.
Original sin is fake and there is no need for substitutionary atonement.

Original sin is like a crooked cop charging you with something you didn't do.

We can make enough mistakes on our own without being loaded down with unearned guilt and shame.

I wonder how many people through history have killed themselves because they took that crap seriously??? And decided they couldn't live up to those impossible expectations of goodness?

Read John Bradshaw and Alice Miller for explanations.

[rasputin1952]

28. Hell is not reserved to Christianity, almost every religion has a version...

of hell.

Jews, Muslims, polytheistic religions and a host of others. It is seen as retribution for those who have committed great sins and crimes against humanity. There are as many versions of hell as there are people on this earth, all differing on some points, and all the same on others.

While I personally do not believe in the conventional Christian or Islamic versions of hell, I do believe that if we move through life w/o a conscious thought toward the better aspects of humanity, we create hell here on earth, and possibly create a hell for ourselves after life...butit would not, I believe, be the one of "sulfur and flames", but "gnashing of the teeth" for having to understand face our chosen failures on humanitarian levels would not be ruled out. If forced to face what we "could" have done, and instead chose to do something else when we knew that we could have made a positive change but didn't, I think we look closer at what hell might actually be.

I can't picture people being roasted on a spit, their skin ripped off and used for condoms by demons, who rape them incessantly after attaching fishhooks to their genitalia...but I can certainly see where a sudden knowledge that comes upon a person that they have made some seriously bad choices and must pay for them by returning to the pain they caused...I can see that. That would be w/o mercy and it would be falling in line w/justice.

[genie_weenie]

30. Ooh hell is a place on earth

Sorry Belinda Carlisle...

Seriously, I do not believe hell exists because I do not believe in Satan. Nor do I believ Hel exists, because I don't believe in the Norse Pantheon either...

[MilesColtrane]

31. Many who are in the throes of an addiction have seen hell. h/t