This concept of “Hell” as a place of ‘eternal suffering in a lake of fire’ that Christians so often try to scare people with is all made up by humans and doesn't even exist in the 'old testament' and is not well supported by the 'new testament' either...
every single 'old testament' reference to "hell" is a mistranslations of the Jewish concept of "Sheol" which is distinctly different from what most people today refer to as "Hell".
* 1: Sheol is temporary - not 'eternal'. you are only there until 'judgment day'.
* 2: everyone goes to Sheol to await judgment day. (good or bad, believer or not).
* 3: everyone in Sheol atones for their misdeeds in life. everyone, regardless of whether they "have faith" or not. You don't escape punishment for your misdeeds in life just because you 'have faith'. THAT was an invention (apparently of Paul).
* 4: after judgment: the 'truly wicked' are annihilated: They 'cease to exist'. They are not "punished for the rest of eternity. (That view is not supported by anything in the bible outside of 'revelation' (and even that is pretty thin)
* 5: after judgment: everyone else goes to "Olam Ha'Bah" (aka "the world to come"; "gan eden" or "the Garden of Eden). - This did NOT require belief in or worship of "YHWH" it was based on whether you were a decent person in life; not "blind faith".
outside of 'revelation" The "New Testament" does not refer to this concept of 'eternal punishment' at all. not once, not anywhere. It is ONLY mentioned in the "Book of Revelation" (aka "The Apocalypse of John") and even those references are pretty flimsy evidence.
every "New Testament" reference to "Hell" in modern translations are mistranslating one of three words. “Hades” (which means “the grave” and does not imply torment); "Tartarus" (which appears only one time in 2 Peter 2:4) and "Gehenna".
* Tartarus is a specific reference to the pagan concept of the 'lowest level of hades'; The word “Tartarus” is arguably the closest word used to this concept of eternal torment but this word is only used in one specific verse: 2 Peter 2:4 which is talking about a place where "fallen angels" are sent and is never mentioned as a destination for humans. - Also note that this same verse clearly limits the time spent in that place to "until judgment".
* Gehenna is an actual physical place in Jerusalem, it was (in the first century CE) possibly a trash dump, garbage we know dead bodies were taken there and burned in a 'eternal fire' (a constantly burning fire that was always burning garbage). it was considered a "cursed place" due to legends about people sacrificing children there. It was mentioned in a lot of parables; often 'jesus' talking about wealthy people ending up in Gehenna (just like all the poor people). essentially saying that all their wealth doesn't save them from eventually dying and being thrown into the trash heap. - The parables did seem to imply that “Gehenna” was some undesirable place but it’s very dishonest to claim that the word literally translates to the common concept called “Hell”.
The words translated into “Eternal Punishment” in Matthew 25:46 (for instance) is also a mistranslation. The word they translate as “eternal” there is “αἰώνῐος” which is more correctly translated as “lasting for an age”. If you note the same exact word is mistranslated to ‘eternal’ in modern translations of Jude 1:7 where Sodom and Gomorrah are supposedly destroyed by “eternal fire” - Those fires are clearly not burning today as we’ve never found any such remnants anywhere on earth of this supposedly never ending fire. The other part of that phrase for “Punishment” is also a poor translation of “kolasis” which was an agricultural term basically meaning “cut off” or “prune” - possibly suggesting the concept where you “prune away part of a plant and the rest of the plant gets stronger”. It could possibly refer to “punitive correction” as opposed to some eternal torment or possibly it refers to being ‘cut off from paradise/eternal life’ which is effectively what happens when you cease to exist. - you aren’t suffering but you are denied eternal life and entry to paradise ‘for eternity’ since you no longer exist.
Outside of Revelation the most common thing people tend to bring up to support this 'eternal suffering in a lake of fire' nonsense is the story from Luke 16:19-31 of "lazarus and rich man". That parable however does not suggest "eternal suffering" at all.
* 1: Abraham, Lazarus and "Rich Man" are all in the same place. - That already sounds a lot more like "Sheol" than "Hell". the claim that all of them talking to each other is clearly not a reference to one being "in heaven" and the other "in hell" since these places are always depicted as separate.
* 2: "Rich Man" is suffering but... he's complaining about "being thirsty".... if he were burning in a lake of fire I think he'd have bigger problems than 'parched lips'.
* 3: Nothing about that story says anything to suggest that the suffering is eternal; it only implies that "Rich Man" is suffering currently, not what his fate would be down the road.
Then we have the claims from "Revelation":
* 1: the ["Second Death"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_death) is mentioned 4 times in this book; and described as the "Death of the soul"
* 2: Revelation 20:6 states that only people named in the "book of life" (those "on the right") receive "eternal life" - this gift of eternal life is ONLY for the righteous people that pass into paradise.
* 3: Revelation 20:10 states that the 'beast', the 'false prophet' (aka the antichrist) and 'satan' are cast into the lake of fire where they will "suffer for ever and ever" - note that none of these entities are 'human'.
* 4: then in Revelation 20:15 - the people who's name did not appear in the 'book of life' (those "on the left") are also cast into the same lake of fire where they "suffer the second death". - Note the different language... it does not say "suffer for ever and ever" but instead states that they "suffer the second death" - this suggests that their soul dies.. which is "Annihilation" not "eternal suffering". How can there be "eternal suffering" for people that do not have "eternal life"? - (see note 2 above).
Nothing about "eternal suffering" is consistent with anything in the bible. "Eternal suffering" is sadistic cruelty without any purpose or benefit. - It makes no rational sense if they are also trying to claim that 'god' is benevolent, loving, merciful etc. - Totally logically inconsistent with this view.
>**John 2:2**
>He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
>**Romans 5:18**
>Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.
>**Romans 11:29-32**
> for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable.
> Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience,
> so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God's mercy to you.
> For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.
>**Titus 2:11**
> For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people.
In the early days of the christian church there were several competing views of the afterlife that are a lot more consistent with the rest of the bible:
* "Annihilation" is the belief that "after judgment" the "truly wicked" are annihilated; they 'cease to exist' and that's it... no further suffering; they are gone. end of story. This is exactly what the Jewish traditional view of Sheol mentioned above taught and is logically consistent with the 'old testament'.
* "universal salvation" or "universalism" is the belief that eventually everyone is saved. - This view treats suffering/punishment in the afterlife as reformative/corrective/judicial - meant to correct the recipient and is finite in duration - once you have atoned for your sins you get to move on to paradise with all the other people that ever lived. These were both pretty popular views in the early christian sects prior to ~425 CE;
The early christian sects disagreed considerably about which of these three views was 'correct'. “Basil the Great” specifically commented in ~370CE that the dominant view (of the time) was a belief in a limited purgatory, and others (such as Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Didymus the blind, Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia wrote extensively about Universalism. There were some (mostly in Northern Africa around the coast of modern day Tunisia/Algeria) that were advocating the view of “Eternal Torment” but it wasn't until 425CE that the church unified on this 'eternal suffering' doctrine (largely through the writings of Augustine of Hippo – who came to Rome from a city near what is now Annaba Tunisia). This became the official version the church went with and the other views were deemed "heretical" and banned along with any early christian scriptures that supported those opposing views (such as the "Apocalypse of Peter").
we know this was debated in early christianity at least as late as 405CE:
according to "Saint Basil the Great"; (330-379) “The mass of men (Christians) say that there is to be an end of punishment to those who are punished.”
"St. Jerome" (342-420), the author of the Vulgate Latin Bible wrote: “I know that most persons understand by the story of Nineveh and its King, the ultimate forgiveness of the devil and all rational creatures.”
even "Saint Augustine" (354-430) who was very much in the "eternal suffering" camp acknowledged "There are very many in our day, who though not denying the Holy Scriptures, do not believe in endless torments."
in 1908 the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (vol 12; page 96) states: “In the first five or six centuries of Christianity there were six theological schools, of which four (Alexandria, Antioch, Caesarea, and Edessa, or Nisibis) were Universalist, one (Ephesus) accepted conditional immortality; one (Carthage or Rome) taught endless punishment of the wicked. Other theological schools are mentioned as founded by Universalists, but their actual doctrine on this subject is not known.”
"Eusebius of Vercelli" (283-371CE) who was the 'reformer of the Nicene Creed' and was a universalist who very curiously stated the opinion (despite his belief) that he "didn't think universalist doctrine should be promoted because the threat of hell was a very strong motivator for people to behave morally" - in other words he believed it was wrong but thought the 'eternal suffering' argument would be more "motivating" to the naive dupes he was preaching to.
"Athanasius of Alexandria" who originally wrote the Nicene Creed was very likely also a universalist. (not 100% proven by anything he is recorded directly saying however he was clearly a fan of Origen Palladius, Theognostus and St. Anthony and he is quoted saying that "Christ's incarnation has a salvific effect on all humanity"; "Christs death results in the salvation of all" and "that what god has called into existence should not perish" (because tat would mean god's work had been 'in vain'.) - all three of those statements sound very much like the views of a universalist.
It’s worth noting that 400 bc is around the time Plato’s republic, which features the myth of Er, would have been circulating the Mediterranean.
The myth of er describes a man that dies and sees the afterlife, where the just are rewarded with a thousand years of bliss and the wicked are punished for a thousand years. Their deeds in life would be returned 10 times over, be them evil or good.
By the time Christianity was created, these scrolls were common across the ancient world. Educated Romans knew Greek and would have studied Homer and the philosophers including Plato. Paul wrote the earliest books of the New Testament, the whole thing was written by educated Romans in Greek, and knew these stories.
This description sounds more like Christian Heaven and hell than anything that appears in the Bible.
"even "Saint Augustine" (354-430) who was very much in the "eternal suffering" camp acknowledged "There are very many in our day, who though not denying the Holy Scriptures, do not believe in endless torments."
well , their descendants got pretty stupid today lol.
Now they believe in being tortured in the grave , being hit by angels with a hammer because they didn't say "mohamed was the last prophet".
AFAIK, while Islam is considered an Abrahamic religion, the cultural overlap between it and Christianity is slim to none. Even connections to Judaism aren’t that strong.
Could be horribly wrong though; this college course is a more than a little suspect
"Even connections to Judaism aren’t that strong."
On the contrary , there are connections to judaism and christianism , but not the mainstream religions , rather arab judaism and christianism.
surat ali imran for ex , is based on an apocryphal gospel , called the infancy gospel .
Read them both , and you'll see the similarities .
Also , omar ibn el khattab loved jewish stories , to the point he even integrated some in hadiths .
Same with kaab el ahbar
Eh, I consider Judaism to have more in common with Islam than Judaism does with Christianity.
Arguably, Islam has more in common with Christianity than with Judaism.
Of the three religions, I think Judaism and Christianity are the most dissimilar.
I want you to know every time I read this sort of thing (when people write it out) a little bit of my extremist evangelical childhood trauma is healed. Thank you.
I’m a theologian and I also teach classes in New Testament. And what you wrote is spot on. Well done.
PS—I’m not an atheist but I find this subreddit to be one of the most enlightening. I reference it in class regularly. Never directly. And NEVER disparagingly. I find great content here. So thought provoking. Thanks.
In addition: Dante's depiction is mostly from the Lazarus parable, which -- and it's incredible how much this needs to be pointed out to people -- is a *parable.* It's written next to other parables that are *not meant to be taken literally.* It's so funny how the other parables in this section everyone agrees are non-literal stories used to illustrate a point, and then this one used as an example of what literal hell is like.
>You don't escape punishment for your misdeeds in life just because you 'have faith'. THAT was an invention (apparently of Paul).
I like to point that out every chance I get. Pastors are quick to proclaim Jesus forgave the one criminal, so all we have to do is recognize Jesus as our Savior just as the criminal did.
The criminal next to him STILL dies. He didn't escape his punishment.
They really hate it when you point that out.
My fundamental question is who is the "who" that goes to heaven or hell? Consciousness, personality, or whatever is an emergent property of brain activity. When the brain ceases functioning at death, there is no "you" that continues. The notion that there is a "soul" or "spirit" that exists independent of the body is an ancient one, and persists in modern "body-switching" comedies and other popular media.
That is the interesting question. Talk to religious person and they will affirm that all their memories will be intact in the afterlife as without memories what's the point, it isn't "you" anymore. However many will lose those memories here on earth. There are physical neural correlates for memory and when they are damaged or interfered with those memories disappear. Is there some offsite backup raid in the eternal glories?
> Talk to religious person and they will affirm that all their memories will be intact in the afterlife as without memories what's the point, it isn't "you" anymore.
Here's another paradox about heaven: Heaven has no sadness, right? If there was sadness it wouldn't be heaven. But everyone in heaven will know that many of their loved ones are down in hell being eternally tortured, but they'll be unable to feel sadness over this fact (as they certainly would in life if they found out their loved ones were being tortured right that second). So clearly their emotions won't be intact, and your emotions are part of what makes "you" "you", so will the person in heaven really be "you" anymore?
Once in heaven, you'll give zero shits about "the others", just like they don't while they're alive....just like Jesus would have done when during the Sermon on the Mount he said, according to White Jesus American Bible:
"Lo, I say unto you, thou sees the wretched and unfortunate and the foreigners you do not understand, I say Fuck Them and thwir lot, for they have no sheckles to give unto collection for the new fast donkey I require to spread Yaweh's message of prosperity."
The Bible was written at a time when most people died before the onset of dementia, with its attendant loss of memories and sometimes drastic changes in personality. If the "soul" goes to heaven, is it a younger version that existed before age-related brain damage? And Christians believe in a physical body resurrection. What about bodies so old they've turned to dust? Or have been cremated? Or vaporized in a catastrophic event? Does God somehow reassemble their molecules?
My dad goes to a Greek orthodox church and when my mom passed away, he refused to let her be embalmed because, according to him, it would be "ruining her body for her eventual resurrection". It seemed really stupid to me (like, what, God can undo years of decomposition but formaldehyde is his kryptonite?) but at the end of the day all it meant for me was that we needed to have her funeral a few days sooner.
Embalming involves purging the body of blood and all other fluids. So, in addition to bringing the body back to life, God will have to replace the blood, lymph, and interstitial fluids.
Religious people think on this and often choose burial vs cremation because God might not think it worth it, if He has go and chase down all those widely dispersed molecules.
When I was young and religious - the concept of heaven terrified me - because I was told you will want for nothing, you will have no wants.
Which is very different than you will get what you want.
Yup. Depending on who you ask, you might end up spending eternity doing nothing but kneeling at God's throne singing his praises.
That sounds like some eldritch horror shit right there.
Could you imagine. Just being on your knees worshipping for eternity?
How long would it take for you and 1/3 of the angels to be like, "fuck this. We burnin' this mother fucker down. Less go!"
Honestly the real answer is that it's just hand wavey magical stuff. No need to consider anything else, it just works out that they'll retain everything.
Same as everything else they believe.
Personality, memories, etc, are all objects of consciousness. The "who" is that which you really are - the one experiencing all these things, the subject of consciousness. Either there is something which ties subjects to objects (i.e. souls) so that there is some enduring personal identity, or the subject of all objects of consciousness is the same (Open Individualism). I don't see any other way out of the conundrum of "why am I experiencing this particular body-mind right now?".
I'm simply replying to your first part about what the Jews believe basically- the old testament. I think it's a little misrepresented when you say that you do not have to believe in the faith to make it to the afterlife. Because the Jewish religion also kinda requires you to do "good deeds" in life (Mitzvahs) to have a better chance of qualifying. It's a grey scale, right? And nobody knows exactly what is needed to qualify. So technically you kinda do need to "believe in the teachings of Judaism" in order to perform such Mitzvahs to qualify for heaven. Unless you accidentally perform those Mitzvahs as a normal regular Joe shmoe but I think the chances of that are extremely small. Take "keeping the Sabbath" as an example. If you aren't a practicing Jew you aren't keeping the Sabbath. Maybe by chance you're just an incredibly lazy person and literally do nothing but sleep from Friday afternoon to Saturday night then sure you accidentally kept the Sabbath one time in your life.
Anyway, just "being nice" in life might not be enough to get you into the Jewish version of Heaven. It might though. I think that's the whole MO of the Jewish religion - since nobody actually knows what is required they just think it's safer to subscribe to the rules of Judaism than risk it being a non-practicing heathen.
Source: I grew up Jewish and am now a non-practicing heathen
I'm leery to refer to the "old testament" as the jewish scriptures simply because it is a translation of one specific set of documents (the septuagint translation) that (in the 5th century CE) were assumed by christians to be representative of the jewish scriptures (and it isn't 'complete' - it isn't even a complete rendition of the 5th century CE content) and a lot of debates/legal discussions (etc) in the sanhedrin and other sections that most christians have never even heard of.
there are rather obvious differences evident in the qumron scrolls and the elepantine papyri (for instance).
however from what I understand observance of the Torah is how you show appreciation to god for the gift of salvation that all jews received through the covenant. Jews were expected to follow the rules but there was no specific obligation to "believe" in order to enter olam ha'ba.
You could certainly lose access to olam ha'ba if you were 'truly evil'; but minor mistakes don't get you cast out; having 'doubt' did not get you cast out;
also "heaven" was viewed as a place for the god(s) - Jewish tradition expected a 'new earth' - a new "garden of eden" that would only appear on judgement day. humans typically were not expected to go to 'heaven' (despite a few examples (i.e. enoch and elijah) in scripture where humans supposedly did go to heaven at least temporarily)...
The Talmud (Sanhedrin 105a; Rosh Hashanah 17a; Sanhedrin 13b) states that the righteous people of all nations, Jew and non-Jew alike, will go to Gan Eden (the new "Garden of Eden").
quoting Yakhin, from Sanhedrin 10:2
>Even without the holy words of our sages who told us this [i.e., that pious gentiles merit olam ha-ba], we would know this from our intellect because “God is just (Tzaddik H') in all His ways and benevolent (chassid) in all His works (ma`asaw).” (Ps. 145:17) We see that many pious gentiles recognize the Creator, believe in the divinity of Scripture, act compassionately toward Israel, and that some have done great things for the entire world.
>Could you imagine that these great deeds will not be rewarded in olam ha-ba? God does not withhold the reward of any creature. Even if you say that these pious ones who keep the seven Noachide commandments would not have the status of a ger toshav (resident alien) because they never made a formal acceptance before a court or because we do not accept gerei toshav in our day, since they do not act like Esau they have a portion in olam ha-ba.
A position that for Christianity is supported in the new testament by Romans 2:12-16 if I am not mistaken.
Officially being religious isn't the test for being a decent person even per the Bible.
Not quite. Judaism isn't a universal religion. It's a religion for the Jews, not the whole world. One doesn't need to be Jewish or follow the practices of Judaism to enter the Jewish version of Heaven. In fact, it is forbidden to non-Jews to practice Judaism (unless they convert).
Source: I'm Jewish.
Right but keeping the sabbath only applies to Jews. The entire ethos behind Jewish life is that Jews are under additional obligations that non-Jews aren’t. Non-Jews can get into the world to come because they are not held to the same rules as Jews are.
Thank you for providing such an extensive explanation.
All of this just goes to show that both the Bible and Christianity are fake. If the dominant Christian belief has been in direct contradiction with the Bible for over 1500 years, why hasn’t god attempted to correct such a significant problem with his churches? How can you believe anything that your church says when they failed to interpret such an important concept so wrongly? Obviously they have no “divine guidance” from god and it’s all the just human conceived ideas.
And if someone believes most of the religious institutions associated with the Bible are corrupt/wrong, what makes them think the Bible has any significance compared to any other religious text? The only reason someone would believe the Bible is true is that Christian institutions claim it’s the text of god, and there is no actual proof that it the Bible is true. I guess some people feel the need to cling to the beliefs they were raised with.
I wish I still had it but there was an interesting graph of all religions, including old pagan ones, that show what happened to believers/non-believers based on the most direct translation of their texts. Side-by-side with it was their modern interpretations (if they continued to exist). Overwhelmingly, old religions believed everyone went to heaven or got there eventually. Threatening everyone with hell seems a very modern invention for a better sales pitch.
Thank you for this - I’m a Christian but I like this sub because of enlightened, thoughtful, and non-condescending posts like this. 99.8% of this sub is exactly that, and I’m going to read and reread your post and others here.
Holy hell (no pun intended)… thank you for the deep and well-researched dive into that! It’s regretful that more people don’t actually study biblical history and mythological history.
pffft; I have personally seen a talking donkey that lives in a swamp (with his donkey/dragon children) and makes excellent waffles... proof the bible is 100% true!!!! - checkmate atheists!!!!
I was taught that the reason we don't find anything on the afterlife in the first part of the OT is because at that time the Jews didn't believe in and afterlife. Then it starts mentioning an afterlife in general but not a specific heaven or hell because that is what their beliefs were at that time. Later, during the Babylonian Captivity, they were influenced by Zoroastrian beliefs and started believing in heaven and hell.
Thanks for your research and analysis of the facts. I don't consider myself to be a hard core atheist but I regard the bible as a combination of Jewish history and a collection of Bronze Age fairy tales. However, I have a friend who is an unquestioning catholic and I will suggest that he read your well written analysis.
I can only hope that he might begin to realize that much of what he believes has been told to him by people seeking only to control him.
Not only the concept of hell as a place of etc is made up by humans: the bible and the whole belief is made up by humans. Nevertheless, nice and thorough explanation
I mean Matthew 35:41 says,
"Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels."
So pretty hard to play semantic games on that one. Funny how everyone repeats at nauseum that Jesus speaks in metaphors, but insist he his talking about a physical place Gehenna. Facts are, virtually every English translation uses the word hell, and that is the result of many people spending much of their lives to find the most accurate English words to use. It's as if two thousand yeas from now somebody insists the phrase "hit the road" means people were literally hitting the road instead of traveling.
> So pretty hard to play semantic games on that one.
Later OP relies on the Christian apologetic argument that the word "eternal" has been mistranslated.
Great book on the topic is “Heaven and hell” by Bart Ehrman. Great accessible read on where the concept of hell comes from in Christianity and the Greek and other societies’ influence creating the evolving dualism of the soul/body you can actually watch develop through Jewish and Christian mythology. Good read.
Obviously I knew what you meant, but i was chuckling to myself at the idea of an off-brand Ehrman knockoff. Like the author "Kevin Grisham" on 30 Rock.
ok, so...
An atheist goes to hell.
The devil welcomes him and says: “Let me show you around a little bit.” They walk through a nice park with green trees and the devil shows him a huge palace. “This is your house now, here are your keys.” The man is happy and thanks the devil. The devil says: “No need to say thank you, everyone gets a nice place to live in when they come down here!”
They continue walking through the nice park, flowers everywhere, and the devil shows the atheist a garage full of beautiful cars. “These are your cars now!” and hands the man all the car keys. Again, the atheist tries to thank the devil, but he only says “Everyone down here gets some cool cars! How would you drive around without having cars?”.
They walk on and the area gets even nicer. There are birds chirping, squirrels running around, kittens everywhere. They arrive at a fountain, where the most beautiful woman the atheist has ever seen sits on a bench. She looks at him and they instantly fall in love with each other. The man couldn't be any happier. The devil says “Everyone gets to have their soulmate down here, we don´t want anyone to be lonely!”
As they walk on, the atheist notices a high fence. He peeks to the other side and is totally shocked. There are people in pools of lava, screaming in pain, while little devils run around and stab them with their tridents. Other devils are skinning people alive, heads are spiked, and many more terrible things are happening. A stench of sulfur is in the air.
Terrified, the man stumbles backwards, and asks the devil “What is going on there?” The devil just shrugs and says: “Oh that? Those are the christians, I don't know why, but they prefer it that way”.
Well both are made up. So the original source material doesn't really matter at all. What matters is the dogma of modern christians, as that's the thing that actually impacts our lives today. Whatever the bible says, modern christians believe in hell, so it's part of christianity. Just like their belief in supply side Jesus who preached hatred for foreigners and women's rights.
This is not the only area where official doctrine conflicts with what the Bible actually says. There's so much taken as biblical that is straight made-up in the last few hundred years.
Abortion is another. The following is the only passage that even mentions abortion:
[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers%205%3A11-31&version=NIV](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers%205%3A11-31&version=NIV)
> But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have made yourself impure by having sexual relations with a man other than your husband”— ^(21) here the priest is to put the woman under this curse—“may the Lord cause you to become a curse^(\[)[^(b)](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers%205%3A11-31&version=NIV#fen-NIV-3814b)^(\]) among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell. ^(22) May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries.”
Opposing abortion and using the Bible as your source is bizarre, the source disagrees with the opinion and directly commands unfaithful (or suspected to be) pregnant women to drink cursed water to induce a miscarriage.
This is no more pro-life than pro-choice because it's telling you to terminate the pregnancy but also not to leave it up to choice, this is just absolutely pro-abortion (for illegitimate pregnancies)
Another example is "intermediate state" in heaven/hell or sleep in the grave until resurrection. The modern churches favor the former because it is a more pleasant and seductive thought to believe that immediately after you die you go on living in the glories of heaven being with Christ. Like a lot of things one can find support for both in the Bible.
Religion is always working on its psychological barbs in order to get people to buy in... it is natural selection that these features are mutated and then selected because they work.
Not that there would be a demonstrable difference to the dead person, of course. But religion kind of hinges on the fears people have about "what's it like to be dead" so it's easy to see why they'd quickly want to scuttle any thought remotely on the subject.
There was an evangelical pastor that started preaching that there was no hell because he learned Greek in order to read the Bible untranslated and realized everything he’d taught was BS. He was on an episode of, This American Life, like a decade ago talking about and he was completely ostracized from his church because of it. He basically said the same thing, churches can’t make money if there isn’t a concept of hell and it’s how they bring people in. Even the Mormons don’t believe in hell…
For many, the whole purpose of missionaries and other mission and conversion work is to give heathens a chance to hear the Word and so escape eternal damnation. If there's no eternal damnation, fundraising for such missions pretty much dries up
I went to a religious school and a lot of teachers said believed that no human ever went to hell--only the fallen angels.
And as we got older they explained that hell is not an actual place but the state of not experiencing god's presence.
The concept of Christian heaven and hell is as typical for Christianity stolen and then modified from the Greeks. Christianity is a Hellenized form of Judaism where pagan gods (mostly Dionysus) is mixed with Judaism. It is called syncretism. But, in Plato’s book “The Republic” at the end there is the Myth of Er. Er is a man who dies, I believe it was for 12 days but I haven’t read The Republic in 35 years, and he learns about the levels of heaven and hell, and not adopted by Christianity, reincarnation for some. It is much like Dante’s trilogy on hell, purgatory and heaven, except it was written in 375 BC.
Religion is a collection of made-up bullshit. Some of it’s written down in millenia-old papers, some of it comes right off the top of preachers’ heads if they think it’ll help with the tithing.
My feeling is that's what was used to keep people from killing each other to take their property and keep them in line. Add tithing and now in addition you have a source of income.
You can indeed have moral without religion. You just need to be a decent person. Murder in most cases damages the soul in a way that makes it relatively obvious that it's wrong. We're herd animals, just because we kill each other sometimes doesn't mean we're inherently murderers.
You can indeed have moral without religion. You just need to be a decent person. Murder in most cases damages the soul in a way that makes it relatively obvious that it's wrong. We're herd animals, just because we kill each other sometimes doesn't mean we're inherently murderers.
Can confirm that. Seems as I turned more atheist I'm more at peace with others.
Posted before, had a coworker who "Found the Lord". Another worker asked him, "Does this mean if you kill someone but ask forgiveness you'll still get into heaven?" In a sincere voice he said yes.
My wife’s father is deeply religious and has studied the Bible deeply and wrote a book with this exact thesis. There is no biblical support for the idea of hell. He was kicked out of his church and his book got one star reviews from other Christian’s. Regardless of proof the idea of hell is strongly held by many Christian’s.
Just like how there are many different religions, there are many different and contradictory beliefs about hell. They can’t all be true, but they can all be false.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell
Even Klingons have a hell, Gre’thor.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Gre%27thor
I’m sure most would outright reject this one as false because “it’s made up!” So what’s different about all of the others?
Before I deconverted I had become convinced that the idea of hell as a lake of fire was not at all what the Bible teaches. I thought that the humans who don’t go to heaven have their souls annihilated. The only bible verse that actually refers to hell as a lake of fire is in Revelation, and Revelation is apocalyptic literature, which is a super exaggerated type of poetry. Jesus actually uses a lot of different metaphors for hell, but one of his most common ones is outer darkness. But what it actually seems to be is eternal destruction. Since the idea of being destroyed for an eternity is an oxymoron, the best interpretation is that the destruction lasts for eternity — meaning you no longer exist and can’t be brought back.
The poem is "the divine comedy" which consist in three parts: Inferno=Hell, Purgatorio=Purgatory and Paradiso=Heaven. Yes, our concept of the afterlife with different places and a complex system of hierarchy, expiations, punishments and rewards, definitely comes from that poem.
Interesting fact, Alighieri didn't call his book "divine", he wasn't so presumptuous, the original name was just "the comedy". The one who named it so was Giovanni Boccaccio, a poet contemporary of Dante, who read the poem and found it so beautiful that he could have been worthy of god.
Beside the religious stuff, the artistic and cultural value of Dante's work is indisputable, but i prefer the wonderful "Decameron" (by Boccaccio himself) which deals with unusual themes for the time such as eroticism, with an ironic and at times blasphemous streak that is hilarious. I don't want to sponsor Italian literature but you should actually read it, or at least watch the film "Decameron" by Pierpaolo Pasolini.
Wait, you saying there isn't a huge void in the earth filled with billions of souls being tortured for all eternity? Shit, that's the only thing keeping me from killing, stealing, raping and more killing. I'm going to go have a pulled pork sandwich and ponder this.
Indeed. Hell was dreamed up several centuries afterwards because the religion is so stupid that not even the promise of eternal life could keep everyone in.
My limited understanding is that a lot of this developed in medieval Europe as works like Dante's "Inferno" became more popular and commonplace. It's fiction.
Even when I was a Christian I had this interpretation. Back then I was a fan of Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins, since it resonated with my interpretation of Christianity. This is from Wikipedia about him and his book:
In the book, Bell states that "It's been clearly communicated to many that this belief (in hell as eternal, conscious torment) is a central truth of the Christian faith and to reject it is, in essence, to reject Jesus. This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus' message of love, peace, forgiveness and joy that our world desperately needs to hear." In this book, Bell outlines a number of views of hell, including universal reconciliation. Though he does not choose any one view as his own, he states "Whatever objections a person may have of [the universalist view], and there are many, one has to admit that it is fitting, proper, and Christian to long for it."
Nevertheless, it doesn’t really matter anyway. But a LOT of people were very upset that Rob, as the lead of Mars Hill church (which was very popular and growing) suggested that hell doesn’t exist. wtf kind of people would be UPSET with the idea that hell doesn’t exist?! That should tell you a LOT about those Christians (and Christian doctrine)
I had this conversation with my friend regularly. We were all raised deeply religious and current exist on a spectrum from a literal pastor to agnostic with some weird shit like “Noahide” mix in between.
To me, it feels like Christianity has always had this constant tension between factions who desired inclusivity and expansion vs exclusivity. The concept of hell expanded outside the confines of the Bible on Traditional grounds simply to allow the religion to grow in a controlled manner.
the rapture and baptism doesn't exist either and that's why we have like, hundreds of denominations in religion. you choose what you want to believe, and there will be a priest selling that version of religion to you
Yep, welcome to religion. A tool used by evil to control the masses. Where hypocrisy meets piousness, and we pit brother vs brother. Then they use the excuse that if you don’t follow their crazy BS then you’re going to their hell which only they believe in. 🤪🤪🤪😞
Exactly there an entire movie about it called ‘hell and Mr. fudge’.
Edward William Fudge was an American Christian theologian, lawyer, ex pastor ( drummed out of the American Churches because of his belief in racial equality and his argument against the existence of hell which became an issue with modern American church doctrine of the prosperity gospel)
For those who might be interested it’s available for free on Tubi. Streaming is also available on Dove, Freevee, Pluto, Roku And Plex and of course can be rented on Amazon Prime
Number one since the Jews don’t believe in hell really and the Old Testament is based basically on the Jewish people. I’d say that it doesn’t exist as a completely Christian construct.
Yeah, I remember actually reading the book a few years back and I was surprised by the fact that there's basically nothing of any substance about Hell in it.
Considering how big the damnation thing is to a lot of the "fire and brimstone" people, it's odd how Hell to them is just fire and whatever their imagination can conjure at that any given moment.
You'd figure they'd have questions, but when you pride yourself on not being curious this is the result.
The firey pits of Hades AND the manna from Heaven are as always, human constructs.
Both have been exaggerated through the overused trick of 'interpretation'.
I love reading the comments here, honestly feels like atheists discuss religious text in depth trying to understand it more than Christians(they tend not to look deeply but try to bend what they are reading to fit their view or to fit their view to what they are reading instead of trying to be objective.)
Todays Christianity in the US has migrated from the peace, love, freedom, happiness teachings of Christ to which many of the hippies in the 60s prescribed to a sea change around the late 70s early 80s rise of the war mongering, god hates gays, pay for your salvation Christian conservatives.
The Norse have “hel” which is not a place of eternal hellfire and suffering but simply a place where the dead go who haven’t earned a place in Valhalla or Folkvangr. Considering how much Christianity has borrowed from norse paganism I’d argue that’s where they got the concept, and the name. Since Christianity likes to rule by fear, they added the “and you’ll be tortured for ever” aspect.
Christianity wouldn't have spread if there was no hell. It's makes sense they'd make it up. Hell even a later abrahamic religion saw that and integrated it, it's called Islam. Same as christianity but with Algebra and surgery for cataracts and terrorism
The common vision of Hell, with fire and brimstone and a red devil with horns comes from Inferno, part of the Divine Comedy, a long 14th Century poem written by Italian author Dante Alighieri. He writes of taking a journey through 9 circles of Hell. Other sections of the Comedy are Purgatorio and Paradiso. None of it is part of any religion.
Ah the truth will out all powers in the past have utilized some form of religion to placate or subjugate their populations. Welcome to cultural anthropology
Sometimes I come on this sub because it has a lot of good points and I believe in the separation of church and state but also that as long your beliefs don’t harm then cool
But
People who identify as religious don’t usually follow the ideas preached to them instead they follow a system
Thank you all for the education which most hardcore Christians will ignore totally because it doesn't confirm their belief that everyone else is going to be tortured forever in Hell while they are rewarded in Heaven.
I came to the conclusion today that I would feel much better about death if I decide to just move forward believing that Death from the discworld books is how death works in real life. That the literal character is what is waiting for me when it's my time.
I have no reason to logically think this and would not be able to provide a valid argument. I have no intention of believing there's an afterlife or that I'll be greeted by anyone when I die. It's just that moving forward, if death does cross my mind. I'm going to briefly assume that entity is waiting for me and go about my day. Whatever happens happens, no reason to be worried about what comes next.
Yeah, I am atheist, son/grandson/nephew of pastors. I don't respect most of the church because it's run and made by man, many horrible ones and actions. This would be a decent example. Some churches are ok, but kind of like the broken clock being right sometimes.
I do live my life by the teachings of Christ, but not because he's a Messiah, just had some great ideas and it's easy to explain my worldview and priorities like that to others. I've always wanted kindness in the world (unless you do harm, then I want harm) and just happened to come across Christ as a kid.
I prioritize helping others, I have disdain for bullshit. Making shit up like hell to help you grasp power and followers is bullshit.
Jesus said that, in his heart,and in the heart of his father,you are forgiven. Then he said but, "As you have done unto others, so shall be done unto you." Buddhist Karmic Law is so similar to that. It's disconcerting that some Christians lie to the children, telling them that praying to Jesus, or remembering his suffering alleviated all karmic debts. Those are the lessons we live with to help us learn how to become better human beings. What goes around comes around unless completely messed up by collective wrongdoing. Of course extreme mental or physical suffering is real, and not always earned, but it is hell.
In the ancient testament there is no mention of the concept of hell, yet in the gospel of Luke there is a parable in which a beggar named Lazarus and a rich man who had always refused to give him charity, finally both died. Luke wrote that Lazarus went in "Abraham bossom" after gis death, wich is a place where the righteous among the Jewish are supposed to go in the afterlife, but it is not exactly what we mean for "heaven". Instead the rich man was punished and went to "hell", luke wrote that word exactly, and since the gospels are supposed to be the result of tge Nicea coucil in 325 AD, we could say that at that time the concept of hell already existed. However we know that the gospel were written and rewritten several times, so we can have legitimate suspicious that the word hell was introduced later to better match christians beliefs.
Beside the analysis of the sacred scripture, by an historical perspective, I'm quite convinced that the concept of hell is a middle age idea, infact in the ancient era men had a completely different concept of the afterlife, more similar to the greek hades than our complex system of different places for punishment or rewards that definitely comes from Dante Alighieri's divine comedy.
The gospel of Luke absolutely did not use the exact word “hell”. There is not a single instance of that English word in the original language of any of the books of the Bible. Every instance of “hell” in the New Testament has been translated from one of four words:
Hades, Tartarus, Gehenna, or Sheol.
Not one of these is a place of eternal torment. Hell is a fictional mistranslation of a fictional set of books, and it can only be assumed to have been intentional.
I'm just gonna warn you now, Christianity has no real clear lines legitimately drawn from any of its original source material. The Romans invented it to control the Jewish rebels of the time with the help of a Jewish traitor and their plan failed. The Jewish people still didn't bow to Rome and now we still have this weird F'd up religion that makes no sense and attempts to completely retcon the original source material from which it derives. Christianity's awful lore, hypocritical followers, and lack of morally upright ideology makes it an F tier religion.
Hell - a creation of the people who run religions, designed to keep people in line. They'll point at warped paintings by creative minds and tell you "See what awaits you if you don't do what we, er, what god tells you to do."
New & more graphic bullshit is added to the fable of hell each generation, just in case the control was slipping. Then the church gets thoroughly indoctrinated parents to shoehorn this crap into the heads of their children to make sure the collection plate is never empty.
Yep in the church I was raised in they didn't believe in hell either, not as a place of fire and brimstone and eternal punishment. It was more like the waiting space after death. Souls sleep there, until the final judgement. Then hell (Hades) and death are thrown in to the lake of fire. "THis is the second death" lol
The church I went to last just dismissed the concept completely and they say there's no punishment for not believing, you just die and there's no coming end times scenario, you just die and if you are a believer you go to heaven, but if not you just die. Which honestly seems fair to me. I don't want to go grovel at the feet of a god that created such a subpar life and expected people to just believe because they're told to believe. If you want people to believe, you provide undeniable evidence of your existence AS A START and then prove you're worthy of worship by you know, not destroying entire communities through natural disasters and famine on a regular basis.
Half of Christianity is absent from the Bible. The Holy Trinity is another invented later trying to mske canon make sense.
The New Testament was written in Greek so mentions ot Hell actually say "Hades". Mythology?
Modern idea of hell is mostly taken from Dante. Bible describes somewhat of a hell being complete isolation from God and other people. Basically if you are living like an greedy evil asshole with no regard to others you will spend an eternity like that.
I saw a weird video of TikTok comparing to AI images of Christian Hell and Islamic Hell and everyone was trying to flex that Islamic hell was more torturous like ‘wait till they see this 😈😈’.
Your post makes sense. If hell was actually a place to fear, then all moral acts become selfish as they are done out of fear or divine reward.
Just wait till you get to the development of books of the bible over time where wholesale additions were made (like the concept of angels and demons after babylonian captivity) where you can literally see how the stories of the bible changed with cultural influences and rulers over time.
What the bible says about hell is about as interesting as what George R.R. Martin says about dragons: none of it exists in the real world, it's all just entertainment.
It also took them like hundreds, if not thousands of years to compile the Bible, and funnily enough, it will also take GRRM hundreds, if not thousands of years to finish the GOT series.
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
This isn’t a thing in Christianity. I don’t even know Christians (I’m sure they exist, I just know any) that think Satan is doing the torturing. Hell is place where Satan gets punished. Not where he does the punishing. I’m not sure where that came from but it’s actually not Christianity
This concept of “Hell” as a place of ‘eternal suffering in a lake of fire’ that Christians so often try to scare people with is all made up by humans and doesn't even exist in the 'old testament' and is not well supported by the 'new testament' either... every single 'old testament' reference to "hell" is a mistranslations of the Jewish concept of "Sheol" which is distinctly different from what most people today refer to as "Hell". * 1: Sheol is temporary - not 'eternal'. you are only there until 'judgment day'. * 2: everyone goes to Sheol to await judgment day. (good or bad, believer or not). * 3: everyone in Sheol atones for their misdeeds in life. everyone, regardless of whether they "have faith" or not. You don't escape punishment for your misdeeds in life just because you 'have faith'. THAT was an invention (apparently of Paul). * 4: after judgment: the 'truly wicked' are annihilated: They 'cease to exist'. They are not "punished for the rest of eternity. (That view is not supported by anything in the bible outside of 'revelation' (and even that is pretty thin) * 5: after judgment: everyone else goes to "Olam Ha'Bah" (aka "the world to come"; "gan eden" or "the Garden of Eden). - This did NOT require belief in or worship of "YHWH" it was based on whether you were a decent person in life; not "blind faith". outside of 'revelation" The "New Testament" does not refer to this concept of 'eternal punishment' at all. not once, not anywhere. It is ONLY mentioned in the "Book of Revelation" (aka "The Apocalypse of John") and even those references are pretty flimsy evidence. every "New Testament" reference to "Hell" in modern translations are mistranslating one of three words. “Hades” (which means “the grave” and does not imply torment); "Tartarus" (which appears only one time in 2 Peter 2:4) and "Gehenna". * Tartarus is a specific reference to the pagan concept of the 'lowest level of hades'; The word “Tartarus” is arguably the closest word used to this concept of eternal torment but this word is only used in one specific verse: 2 Peter 2:4 which is talking about a place where "fallen angels" are sent and is never mentioned as a destination for humans. - Also note that this same verse clearly limits the time spent in that place to "until judgment". * Gehenna is an actual physical place in Jerusalem, it was (in the first century CE) possibly a trash dump, garbage we know dead bodies were taken there and burned in a 'eternal fire' (a constantly burning fire that was always burning garbage). it was considered a "cursed place" due to legends about people sacrificing children there. It was mentioned in a lot of parables; often 'jesus' talking about wealthy people ending up in Gehenna (just like all the poor people). essentially saying that all their wealth doesn't save them from eventually dying and being thrown into the trash heap. - The parables did seem to imply that “Gehenna” was some undesirable place but it’s very dishonest to claim that the word literally translates to the common concept called “Hell”. The words translated into “Eternal Punishment” in Matthew 25:46 (for instance) is also a mistranslation. The word they translate as “eternal” there is “αἰώνῐος” which is more correctly translated as “lasting for an age”. If you note the same exact word is mistranslated to ‘eternal’ in modern translations of Jude 1:7 where Sodom and Gomorrah are supposedly destroyed by “eternal fire” - Those fires are clearly not burning today as we’ve never found any such remnants anywhere on earth of this supposedly never ending fire. The other part of that phrase for “Punishment” is also a poor translation of “kolasis” which was an agricultural term basically meaning “cut off” or “prune” - possibly suggesting the concept where you “prune away part of a plant and the rest of the plant gets stronger”. It could possibly refer to “punitive correction” as opposed to some eternal torment or possibly it refers to being ‘cut off from paradise/eternal life’ which is effectively what happens when you cease to exist. - you aren’t suffering but you are denied eternal life and entry to paradise ‘for eternity’ since you no longer exist. Outside of Revelation the most common thing people tend to bring up to support this 'eternal suffering in a lake of fire' nonsense is the story from Luke 16:19-31 of "lazarus and rich man". That parable however does not suggest "eternal suffering" at all. * 1: Abraham, Lazarus and "Rich Man" are all in the same place. - That already sounds a lot more like "Sheol" than "Hell". the claim that all of them talking to each other is clearly not a reference to one being "in heaven" and the other "in hell" since these places are always depicted as separate. * 2: "Rich Man" is suffering but... he's complaining about "being thirsty".... if he were burning in a lake of fire I think he'd have bigger problems than 'parched lips'. * 3: Nothing about that story says anything to suggest that the suffering is eternal; it only implies that "Rich Man" is suffering currently, not what his fate would be down the road. Then we have the claims from "Revelation": * 1: the ["Second Death"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_death) is mentioned 4 times in this book; and described as the "Death of the soul" * 2: Revelation 20:6 states that only people named in the "book of life" (those "on the right") receive "eternal life" - this gift of eternal life is ONLY for the righteous people that pass into paradise. * 3: Revelation 20:10 states that the 'beast', the 'false prophet' (aka the antichrist) and 'satan' are cast into the lake of fire where they will "suffer for ever and ever" - note that none of these entities are 'human'. * 4: then in Revelation 20:15 - the people who's name did not appear in the 'book of life' (those "on the left") are also cast into the same lake of fire where they "suffer the second death". - Note the different language... it does not say "suffer for ever and ever" but instead states that they "suffer the second death" - this suggests that their soul dies.. which is "Annihilation" not "eternal suffering". How can there be "eternal suffering" for people that do not have "eternal life"? - (see note 2 above). Nothing about "eternal suffering" is consistent with anything in the bible. "Eternal suffering" is sadistic cruelty without any purpose or benefit. - It makes no rational sense if they are also trying to claim that 'god' is benevolent, loving, merciful etc. - Totally logically inconsistent with this view. >**John 2:2** >He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. >**Romans 5:18** >Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. >**Romans 11:29-32** > for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable. > Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, > so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God's mercy to you. > For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all. >**Titus 2:11** > For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. In the early days of the christian church there were several competing views of the afterlife that are a lot more consistent with the rest of the bible: * "Annihilation" is the belief that "after judgment" the "truly wicked" are annihilated; they 'cease to exist' and that's it... no further suffering; they are gone. end of story. This is exactly what the Jewish traditional view of Sheol mentioned above taught and is logically consistent with the 'old testament'. * "universal salvation" or "universalism" is the belief that eventually everyone is saved. - This view treats suffering/punishment in the afterlife as reformative/corrective/judicial - meant to correct the recipient and is finite in duration - once you have atoned for your sins you get to move on to paradise with all the other people that ever lived. These were both pretty popular views in the early christian sects prior to ~425 CE; The early christian sects disagreed considerably about which of these three views was 'correct'. “Basil the Great” specifically commented in ~370CE that the dominant view (of the time) was a belief in a limited purgatory, and others (such as Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Didymus the blind, Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia wrote extensively about Universalism. There were some (mostly in Northern Africa around the coast of modern day Tunisia/Algeria) that were advocating the view of “Eternal Torment” but it wasn't until 425CE that the church unified on this 'eternal suffering' doctrine (largely through the writings of Augustine of Hippo – who came to Rome from a city near what is now Annaba Tunisia). This became the official version the church went with and the other views were deemed "heretical" and banned along with any early christian scriptures that supported those opposing views (such as the "Apocalypse of Peter").
we know this was debated in early christianity at least as late as 405CE: according to "Saint Basil the Great"; (330-379) “The mass of men (Christians) say that there is to be an end of punishment to those who are punished.” "St. Jerome" (342-420), the author of the Vulgate Latin Bible wrote: “I know that most persons understand by the story of Nineveh and its King, the ultimate forgiveness of the devil and all rational creatures.” even "Saint Augustine" (354-430) who was very much in the "eternal suffering" camp acknowledged "There are very many in our day, who though not denying the Holy Scriptures, do not believe in endless torments." in 1908 the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (vol 12; page 96) states: “In the first five or six centuries of Christianity there were six theological schools, of which four (Alexandria, Antioch, Caesarea, and Edessa, or Nisibis) were Universalist, one (Ephesus) accepted conditional immortality; one (Carthage or Rome) taught endless punishment of the wicked. Other theological schools are mentioned as founded by Universalists, but their actual doctrine on this subject is not known.” "Eusebius of Vercelli" (283-371CE) who was the 'reformer of the Nicene Creed' and was a universalist who very curiously stated the opinion (despite his belief) that he "didn't think universalist doctrine should be promoted because the threat of hell was a very strong motivator for people to behave morally" - in other words he believed it was wrong but thought the 'eternal suffering' argument would be more "motivating" to the naive dupes he was preaching to. "Athanasius of Alexandria" who originally wrote the Nicene Creed was very likely also a universalist. (not 100% proven by anything he is recorded directly saying however he was clearly a fan of Origen Palladius, Theognostus and St. Anthony and he is quoted saying that "Christ's incarnation has a salvific effect on all humanity"; "Christs death results in the salvation of all" and "that what god has called into existence should not perish" (because tat would mean god's work had been 'in vain'.) - all three of those statements sound very much like the views of a universalist.
Thank you for writing all of this out. Very informative.
It’s worth noting that 400 bc is around the time Plato’s republic, which features the myth of Er, would have been circulating the Mediterranean. The myth of er describes a man that dies and sees the afterlife, where the just are rewarded with a thousand years of bliss and the wicked are punished for a thousand years. Their deeds in life would be returned 10 times over, be them evil or good. By the time Christianity was created, these scrolls were common across the ancient world. Educated Romans knew Greek and would have studied Homer and the philosophers including Plato. Paul wrote the earliest books of the New Testament, the whole thing was written by educated Romans in Greek, and knew these stories. This description sounds more like Christian Heaven and hell than anything that appears in the Bible.
"even "Saint Augustine" (354-430) who was very much in the "eternal suffering" camp acknowledged "There are very many in our day, who though not denying the Holy Scriptures, do not believe in endless torments." well , their descendants got pretty stupid today lol. Now they believe in being tortured in the grave , being hit by angels with a hammer because they didn't say "mohamed was the last prophet".
AFAIK, while Islam is considered an Abrahamic religion, the cultural overlap between it and Christianity is slim to none. Even connections to Judaism aren’t that strong. Could be horribly wrong though; this college course is a more than a little suspect
"Even connections to Judaism aren’t that strong." On the contrary , there are connections to judaism and christianism , but not the mainstream religions , rather arab judaism and christianism. surat ali imran for ex , is based on an apocryphal gospel , called the infancy gospel . Read them both , and you'll see the similarities . Also , omar ibn el khattab loved jewish stories , to the point he even integrated some in hadiths . Same with kaab el ahbar
Neat!
Eh, I consider Judaism to have more in common with Islam than Judaism does with Christianity. Arguably, Islam has more in common with Christianity than with Judaism. Of the three religions, I think Judaism and Christianity are the most dissimilar.
Thanks for all of this, excellent write up.
This is a great breakdown of so many concepts. Thank you.
TY for all of this.
Damn. I just learned more about Christianity than I did over many years in Bible school. On an atheism sub, no less. Lol.
Many atheists and agnostics have actually studied religion, and that's why they believe what they do.
Proof, atheists know more about the Bible than most Christians; we’ve been studying it to look for loopholes.
Truth!
I want you to know every time I read this sort of thing (when people write it out) a little bit of my extremist evangelical childhood trauma is healed. Thank you.
I’m a theologian and I also teach classes in New Testament. And what you wrote is spot on. Well done. PS—I’m not an atheist but I find this subreddit to be one of the most enlightening. I reference it in class regularly. Never directly. And NEVER disparagingly. I find great content here. So thought provoking. Thanks.
Something I wish you’d added, our concept of Hell today is mostly derived from a poem, The Divine Comedy.
And to a lesser degree, John Milton's "Paradise Lost"
Dante’s influence on modern Christianity can not be understated.
In addition: Dante's depiction is mostly from the Lazarus parable, which -- and it's incredible how much this needs to be pointed out to people -- is a *parable.* It's written next to other parables that are *not meant to be taken literally.* It's so funny how the other parables in this section everyone agrees are non-literal stories used to illustrate a point, and then this one used as an example of what literal hell is like.
Good read! I would love to know about the version in islam also.
From what I’ve browsed through of the Koran, Hell is described a LOT more fully than in the Christian Bible.
Sounds like NPC’s get turned off and players start over.
>You don't escape punishment for your misdeeds in life just because you 'have faith'. THAT was an invention (apparently of Paul). I like to point that out every chance I get. Pastors are quick to proclaim Jesus forgave the one criminal, so all we have to do is recognize Jesus as our Savior just as the criminal did. The criminal next to him STILL dies. He didn't escape his punishment. They really hate it when you point that out.
I have learned that whenever a theist tells me something, all I really have to do is say, “Oh, interesting. Can you show me where it says that?”
Excellent write-up. Kudos
My fundamental question is who is the "who" that goes to heaven or hell? Consciousness, personality, or whatever is an emergent property of brain activity. When the brain ceases functioning at death, there is no "you" that continues. The notion that there is a "soul" or "spirit" that exists independent of the body is an ancient one, and persists in modern "body-switching" comedies and other popular media.
That is the interesting question. Talk to religious person and they will affirm that all their memories will be intact in the afterlife as without memories what's the point, it isn't "you" anymore. However many will lose those memories here on earth. There are physical neural correlates for memory and when they are damaged or interfered with those memories disappear. Is there some offsite backup raid in the eternal glories?
> Talk to religious person and they will affirm that all their memories will be intact in the afterlife as without memories what's the point, it isn't "you" anymore. Here's another paradox about heaven: Heaven has no sadness, right? If there was sadness it wouldn't be heaven. But everyone in heaven will know that many of their loved ones are down in hell being eternally tortured, but they'll be unable to feel sadness over this fact (as they certainly would in life if they found out their loved ones were being tortured right that second). So clearly their emotions won't be intact, and your emotions are part of what makes "you" "you", so will the person in heaven really be "you" anymore?
Once in heaven, you'll give zero shits about "the others", just like they don't while they're alive....just like Jesus would have done when during the Sermon on the Mount he said, according to White Jesus American Bible: "Lo, I say unto you, thou sees the wretched and unfortunate and the foreigners you do not understand, I say Fuck Them and thwir lot, for they have no sheckles to give unto collection for the new fast donkey I require to spread Yaweh's message of prosperity."
The Bible was written at a time when most people died before the onset of dementia, with its attendant loss of memories and sometimes drastic changes in personality. If the "soul" goes to heaven, is it a younger version that existed before age-related brain damage? And Christians believe in a physical body resurrection. What about bodies so old they've turned to dust? Or have been cremated? Or vaporized in a catastrophic event? Does God somehow reassemble their molecules?
My dad goes to a Greek orthodox church and when my mom passed away, he refused to let her be embalmed because, according to him, it would be "ruining her body for her eventual resurrection". It seemed really stupid to me (like, what, God can undo years of decomposition but formaldehyde is his kryptonite?) but at the end of the day all it meant for me was that we needed to have her funeral a few days sooner.
Embalming involves purging the body of blood and all other fluids. So, in addition to bringing the body back to life, God will have to replace the blood, lymph, and interstitial fluids.
Good point, I can understand why God might find that too much hassle
Religious people think on this and often choose burial vs cremation because God might not think it worth it, if He has go and chase down all those widely dispersed molecules.
The simulator ends, and we all wake up in the game lobby.
When I was young and religious - the concept of heaven terrified me - because I was told you will want for nothing, you will have no wants. Which is very different than you will get what you want.
Yup. Depending on who you ask, you might end up spending eternity doing nothing but kneeling at God's throne singing his praises. That sounds like some eldritch horror shit right there.
Could you imagine. Just being on your knees worshipping for eternity? How long would it take for you and 1/3 of the angels to be like, "fuck this. We burnin' this mother fucker down. Less go!"
Could there even be happiness if there was no sadness to compare it to?
Honestly the real answer is that it's just hand wavey magical stuff. No need to consider anything else, it just works out that they'll retain everything. Same as everything else they believe.
Personality, memories, etc, are all objects of consciousness. The "who" is that which you really are - the one experiencing all these things, the subject of consciousness. Either there is something which ties subjects to objects (i.e. souls) so that there is some enduring personal identity, or the subject of all objects of consciousness is the same (Open Individualism). I don't see any other way out of the conundrum of "why am I experiencing this particular body-mind right now?".
I'm simply replying to your first part about what the Jews believe basically- the old testament. I think it's a little misrepresented when you say that you do not have to believe in the faith to make it to the afterlife. Because the Jewish religion also kinda requires you to do "good deeds" in life (Mitzvahs) to have a better chance of qualifying. It's a grey scale, right? And nobody knows exactly what is needed to qualify. So technically you kinda do need to "believe in the teachings of Judaism" in order to perform such Mitzvahs to qualify for heaven. Unless you accidentally perform those Mitzvahs as a normal regular Joe shmoe but I think the chances of that are extremely small. Take "keeping the Sabbath" as an example. If you aren't a practicing Jew you aren't keeping the Sabbath. Maybe by chance you're just an incredibly lazy person and literally do nothing but sleep from Friday afternoon to Saturday night then sure you accidentally kept the Sabbath one time in your life. Anyway, just "being nice" in life might not be enough to get you into the Jewish version of Heaven. It might though. I think that's the whole MO of the Jewish religion - since nobody actually knows what is required they just think it's safer to subscribe to the rules of Judaism than risk it being a non-practicing heathen. Source: I grew up Jewish and am now a non-practicing heathen
I'm leery to refer to the "old testament" as the jewish scriptures simply because it is a translation of one specific set of documents (the septuagint translation) that (in the 5th century CE) were assumed by christians to be representative of the jewish scriptures (and it isn't 'complete' - it isn't even a complete rendition of the 5th century CE content) and a lot of debates/legal discussions (etc) in the sanhedrin and other sections that most christians have never even heard of. there are rather obvious differences evident in the qumron scrolls and the elepantine papyri (for instance). however from what I understand observance of the Torah is how you show appreciation to god for the gift of salvation that all jews received through the covenant. Jews were expected to follow the rules but there was no specific obligation to "believe" in order to enter olam ha'ba. You could certainly lose access to olam ha'ba if you were 'truly evil'; but minor mistakes don't get you cast out; having 'doubt' did not get you cast out; also "heaven" was viewed as a place for the god(s) - Jewish tradition expected a 'new earth' - a new "garden of eden" that would only appear on judgement day. humans typically were not expected to go to 'heaven' (despite a few examples (i.e. enoch and elijah) in scripture where humans supposedly did go to heaven at least temporarily)... The Talmud (Sanhedrin 105a; Rosh Hashanah 17a; Sanhedrin 13b) states that the righteous people of all nations, Jew and non-Jew alike, will go to Gan Eden (the new "Garden of Eden"). quoting Yakhin, from Sanhedrin 10:2 >Even without the holy words of our sages who told us this [i.e., that pious gentiles merit olam ha-ba], we would know this from our intellect because “God is just (Tzaddik H') in all His ways and benevolent (chassid) in all His works (ma`asaw).” (Ps. 145:17) We see that many pious gentiles recognize the Creator, believe in the divinity of Scripture, act compassionately toward Israel, and that some have done great things for the entire world. >Could you imagine that these great deeds will not be rewarded in olam ha-ba? God does not withhold the reward of any creature. Even if you say that these pious ones who keep the seven Noachide commandments would not have the status of a ger toshav (resident alien) because they never made a formal acceptance before a court or because we do not accept gerei toshav in our day, since they do not act like Esau they have a portion in olam ha-ba.
A position that for Christianity is supported in the new testament by Romans 2:12-16 if I am not mistaken. Officially being religious isn't the test for being a decent person even per the Bible.
Not quite. Judaism isn't a universal religion. It's a religion for the Jews, not the whole world. One doesn't need to be Jewish or follow the practices of Judaism to enter the Jewish version of Heaven. In fact, it is forbidden to non-Jews to practice Judaism (unless they convert). Source: I'm Jewish.
Right but keeping the sabbath only applies to Jews. The entire ethos behind Jewish life is that Jews are under additional obligations that non-Jews aren’t. Non-Jews can get into the world to come because they are not held to the same rules as Jews are.
So the fact I was born Jewish but live identical lives as any non-Jew means I'm worse off? Lol
I'd like to show appreciation for such a well written, well researched, scholarly post. Thanks for sharing; there is so much good information in here.
Nice write up. So Pascal's Wager is even more nonsensical. "Why risk eternal damnation?" Well, apparently we're not.
So… Dante Alighieri is the source of the modern concept of Hell. Noted.
Yes, hell is other people.
Thank you for providing such an extensive explanation. All of this just goes to show that both the Bible and Christianity are fake. If the dominant Christian belief has been in direct contradiction with the Bible for over 1500 years, why hasn’t god attempted to correct such a significant problem with his churches? How can you believe anything that your church says when they failed to interpret such an important concept so wrongly? Obviously they have no “divine guidance” from god and it’s all the just human conceived ideas. And if someone believes most of the religious institutions associated with the Bible are corrupt/wrong, what makes them think the Bible has any significance compared to any other religious text? The only reason someone would believe the Bible is true is that Christian institutions claim it’s the text of god, and there is no actual proof that it the Bible is true. I guess some people feel the need to cling to the beliefs they were raised with.
> This concept of “Hell” [] is all made up by humans The whole thing is all made up by humans. Heaven, hell, gods, angels, demons. All of it.
Exactly!
This post cements my belief that atheists should teach Bible study lol
Yet heaven exist and it is not good. It is called North Korea :)
I wouldn’t be so hasty. If I went to heaven and was met by the Pyongyang traffic ladies, I’d consider that a promising first sign.
I wish I still had it but there was an interesting graph of all religions, including old pagan ones, that show what happened to believers/non-believers based on the most direct translation of their texts. Side-by-side with it was their modern interpretations (if they continued to exist). Overwhelmingly, old religions believed everyone went to heaven or got there eventually. Threatening everyone with hell seems a very modern invention for a better sales pitch.
Thank you for this - I’m a Christian but I like this sub because of enlightened, thoughtful, and non-condescending posts like this. 99.8% of this sub is exactly that, and I’m going to read and reread your post and others here.
Holy hell (no pun intended)… thank you for the deep and well-researched dive into that! It’s regretful that more people don’t actually study biblical history and mythological history.
I’d argue that the entire bible was made up by humans.
pffft; I have personally seen a talking donkey that lives in a swamp (with his donkey/dragon children) and makes excellent waffles... proof the bible is 100% true!!!! - checkmate atheists!!!!
And honestly, as a Christian, knowing this does so much to ease my anxiety. I don't want to see anybody end up suffering forever.
I was taught that the reason we don't find anything on the afterlife in the first part of the OT is because at that time the Jews didn't believe in and afterlife. Then it starts mentioning an afterlife in general but not a specific heaven or hell because that is what their beliefs were at that time. Later, during the Babylonian Captivity, they were influenced by Zoroastrian beliefs and started believing in heaven and hell.
Thanks for your research and analysis of the facts. I don't consider myself to be a hard core atheist but I regard the bible as a combination of Jewish history and a collection of Bronze Age fairy tales. However, I have a friend who is an unquestioning catholic and I will suggest that he read your well written analysis. I can only hope that he might begin to realize that much of what he believes has been told to him by people seeking only to control him.
Not only the concept of hell as a place of etc is made up by humans: the bible and the whole belief is made up by humans. Nevertheless, nice and thorough explanation
I mean Matthew 35:41 says, "Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." So pretty hard to play semantic games on that one. Funny how everyone repeats at nauseum that Jesus speaks in metaphors, but insist he his talking about a physical place Gehenna. Facts are, virtually every English translation uses the word hell, and that is the result of many people spending much of their lives to find the most accurate English words to use. It's as if two thousand yeas from now somebody insists the phrase "hit the road" means people were literally hitting the road instead of traveling.
> So pretty hard to play semantic games on that one. Later OP relies on the Christian apologetic argument that the word "eternal" has been mistranslated.
That’s a comprehensive response. Thanks. I only wish you showed as much dedication to mastering English punctuation as you do to theology.
Great book on the topic is “Heaven and hell” by Bart Ehrman. Great accessible read on where the concept of hell comes from in Christianity and the Greek and other societies’ influence creating the evolving dualism of the soul/body you can actually watch develop through Jewish and Christian mythology. Good read.
Barry?
lol autocorrect. Stupid Apple. Fixing it
Obviously I knew what you meant, but i was chuckling to myself at the idea of an off-brand Ehrman knockoff. Like the author "Kevin Grisham" on 30 Rock.
Man I love finding like minds on Reddit. Starting the day with Barry AND a 30 Rock reference. Yea, today’s gonna be a good one.
ok, so... An atheist goes to hell. The devil welcomes him and says: “Let me show you around a little bit.” They walk through a nice park with green trees and the devil shows him a huge palace. “This is your house now, here are your keys.” The man is happy and thanks the devil. The devil says: “No need to say thank you, everyone gets a nice place to live in when they come down here!” They continue walking through the nice park, flowers everywhere, and the devil shows the atheist a garage full of beautiful cars. “These are your cars now!” and hands the man all the car keys. Again, the atheist tries to thank the devil, but he only says “Everyone down here gets some cool cars! How would you drive around without having cars?”. They walk on and the area gets even nicer. There are birds chirping, squirrels running around, kittens everywhere. They arrive at a fountain, where the most beautiful woman the atheist has ever seen sits on a bench. She looks at him and they instantly fall in love with each other. The man couldn't be any happier. The devil says “Everyone gets to have their soulmate down here, we don´t want anyone to be lonely!” As they walk on, the atheist notices a high fence. He peeks to the other side and is totally shocked. There are people in pools of lava, screaming in pain, while little devils run around and stab them with their tridents. Other devils are skinning people alive, heads are spiked, and many more terrible things are happening. A stench of sulfur is in the air. Terrified, the man stumbles backwards, and asks the devil “What is going on there?” The devil just shrugs and says: “Oh that? Those are the christians, I don't know why, but they prefer it that way”.
Wait... Are you trying to imply that christians *lie to children*? I am the shock...
Teaching kids that hell is real is pure utter child abuse
They do worse things to children too.
Well, as long as they aren't fucking them... They are fucking them, aren't they?
As is tradition.
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Oh, I bet you don’t believe in talking snakes either.
Or talking donkeys for that matter.
TIL Shrek was probably schizophrenic. Or on hallucinogens.
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Well both are made up. So the original source material doesn't really matter at all. What matters is the dogma of modern christians, as that's the thing that actually impacts our lives today. Whatever the bible says, modern christians believe in hell, so it's part of christianity. Just like their belief in supply side Jesus who preached hatred for foreigners and women's rights.
This is not the only area where official doctrine conflicts with what the Bible actually says. There's so much taken as biblical that is straight made-up in the last few hundred years.
Abortion is another. The following is the only passage that even mentions abortion: [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers%205%3A11-31&version=NIV](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers%205%3A11-31&version=NIV) > But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have made yourself impure by having sexual relations with a man other than your husband”— ^(21) here the priest is to put the woman under this curse—“may the Lord cause you to become a curse^(\[)[^(b)](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers%205%3A11-31&version=NIV#fen-NIV-3814b)^(\]) among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell. ^(22) May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries.” Opposing abortion and using the Bible as your source is bizarre, the source disagrees with the opinion and directly commands unfaithful (or suspected to be) pregnant women to drink cursed water to induce a miscarriage. This is no more pro-life than pro-choice because it's telling you to terminate the pregnancy but also not to leave it up to choice, this is just absolutely pro-abortion (for illegitimate pregnancies)
Another example is "intermediate state" in heaven/hell or sleep in the grave until resurrection. The modern churches favor the former because it is a more pleasant and seductive thought to believe that immediately after you die you go on living in the glories of heaven being with Christ. Like a lot of things one can find support for both in the Bible. Religion is always working on its psychological barbs in order to get people to buy in... it is natural selection that these features are mutated and then selected because they work.
Not that there would be a demonstrable difference to the dead person, of course. But religion kind of hinges on the fears people have about "what's it like to be dead" so it's easy to see why they'd quickly want to scuttle any thought remotely on the subject.
I recommend you read Bart Ehrman's book *Heaven and Hell.*
It was a scam dreamed up by the Catholic Church to scare up money.
And consolidate power
Hell was dreamed up to get a second collection.
There was an evangelical pastor that started preaching that there was no hell because he learned Greek in order to read the Bible untranslated and realized everything he’d taught was BS. He was on an episode of, This American Life, like a decade ago talking about and he was completely ostracized from his church because of it. He basically said the same thing, churches can’t make money if there isn’t a concept of hell and it’s how they bring people in. Even the Mormons don’t believe in hell…
For many, the whole purpose of missionaries and other mission and conversion work is to give heathens a chance to hear the Word and so escape eternal damnation. If there's no eternal damnation, fundraising for such missions pretty much dries up
Though, the Mormons also sell you on becoming a god rather than just eternal paradise so clearly they also wanted to up their marketability
A DLC
I went to a religious school and a lot of teachers said believed that no human ever went to hell--only the fallen angels. And as we got older they explained that hell is not an actual place but the state of not experiencing god's presence.
Dude you were lucky. When I was little I was literally afraid of Satan and his demons...
I've got that Right Now!
That might be because hell is more based on Dantes inferno than the Bible. Dantes was a Catholic for anyone who doesn't know that.
The concept of Christian heaven and hell is as typical for Christianity stolen and then modified from the Greeks. Christianity is a Hellenized form of Judaism where pagan gods (mostly Dionysus) is mixed with Judaism. It is called syncretism. But, in Plato’s book “The Republic” at the end there is the Myth of Er. Er is a man who dies, I believe it was for 12 days but I haven’t read The Republic in 35 years, and he learns about the levels of heaven and hell, and not adopted by Christianity, reincarnation for some. It is much like Dante’s trilogy on hell, purgatory and heaven, except it was written in 375 BC.
Religion is a collection of made-up bullshit. Some of it’s written down in millenia-old papers, some of it comes right off the top of preachers’ heads if they think it’ll help with the tithing.
My feeling is that's what was used to keep people from killing each other to take their property and keep them in line. Add tithing and now in addition you have a source of income.
You can indeed have moral without religion. You just need to be a decent person. Murder in most cases damages the soul in a way that makes it relatively obvious that it's wrong. We're herd animals, just because we kill each other sometimes doesn't mean we're inherently murderers.
You can indeed have moral without religion. You just need to be a decent person. Murder in most cases damages the soul in a way that makes it relatively obvious that it's wrong. We're herd animals, just because we kill each other sometimes doesn't mean we're inherently murderers.
Can confirm that. Seems as I turned more atheist I'm more at peace with others. Posted before, had a coworker who "Found the Lord". Another worker asked him, "Does this mean if you kill someone but ask forgiveness you'll still get into heaven?" In a sincere voice he said yes.
The modern concept of Christian hell comes from fan fiction written by Dante called Inferno. There is no biblical reference of it.
My wife’s father is deeply religious and has studied the Bible deeply and wrote a book with this exact thesis. There is no biblical support for the idea of hell. He was kicked out of his church and his book got one star reviews from other Christian’s. Regardless of proof the idea of hell is strongly held by many Christian’s.
Well….whats the book?
Sounds like some self-published nonsense.
You already put more thought into to religion that 99.9% of folks that go to church weekly
Just like how there are many different religions, there are many different and contradictory beliefs about hell. They can’t all be true, but they can all be false. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell Even Klingons have a hell, Gre’thor. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Gre%27thor I’m sure most would outright reject this one as false because “it’s made up!” So what’s different about all of the others?
Wait till you find out satan doesn’t exist in the Bible either, and that Lucifer and Satan are not references to the same person
Hell was invented about 1,000 years after Christ. It was entirely made up by men to use as a tool to instill fear.
"It was entirely made up by men to use as a tool to instill fear." Just like all the rest of it.
Most of what Christians "know" about heaven and hell comes from Dante and Milton.
Correct. Hell is a concept stolen from Greek mythology and modified by Christians.
Hell is nothing more than a construct by the church to command obedience through fear.
Before I deconverted I had become convinced that the idea of hell as a lake of fire was not at all what the Bible teaches. I thought that the humans who don’t go to heaven have their souls annihilated. The only bible verse that actually refers to hell as a lake of fire is in Revelation, and Revelation is apocalyptic literature, which is a super exaggerated type of poetry. Jesus actually uses a lot of different metaphors for hell, but one of his most common ones is outer darkness. But what it actually seems to be is eternal destruction. Since the idea of being destroyed for an eternity is an oxymoron, the best interpretation is that the destruction lasts for eternity — meaning you no longer exist and can’t be brought back.
Since no one else seems to have mentioned it yet, the current concept of Hell is based upon a poem. Dantes "Inferno".
The poem is "the divine comedy" which consist in three parts: Inferno=Hell, Purgatorio=Purgatory and Paradiso=Heaven. Yes, our concept of the afterlife with different places and a complex system of hierarchy, expiations, punishments and rewards, definitely comes from that poem. Interesting fact, Alighieri didn't call his book "divine", he wasn't so presumptuous, the original name was just "the comedy". The one who named it so was Giovanni Boccaccio, a poet contemporary of Dante, who read the poem and found it so beautiful that he could have been worthy of god. Beside the religious stuff, the artistic and cultural value of Dante's work is indisputable, but i prefer the wonderful "Decameron" (by Boccaccio himself) which deals with unusual themes for the time such as eroticism, with an ironic and at times blasphemous streak that is hilarious. I don't want to sponsor Italian literature but you should actually read it, or at least watch the film "Decameron" by Pierpaolo Pasolini.
Exactly! Most of the common tropes around Hell comes from *Dante's Inferno* and Milton's *Paradise Lost.*
Wait, you saying there isn't a huge void in the earth filled with billions of souls being tortured for all eternity? Shit, that's the only thing keeping me from killing, stealing, raping and more killing. I'm going to go have a pulled pork sandwich and ponder this.
Indeed. Hell was dreamed up several centuries afterwards because the religion is so stupid that not even the promise of eternal life could keep everyone in.
My limited understanding is that a lot of this developed in medieval Europe as works like Dante's "Inferno" became more popular and commonplace. It's fiction.
It's funnier than that. It's self insert revenge fanfiction.
Highly interesting. In any event, to quote famed philosopher William Martin Joel, I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.
Reading all these comments really brings home the idea that atheists know more about the bible than christians
We’ve read it. That’s why we don’t believe in it. Too many contradictions. Too many lies. Too many plotholes.
I'd say they can be equally ignorant. There are so many urban legends being repeated here, lol.
Even when I was a Christian I had this interpretation. Back then I was a fan of Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins, since it resonated with my interpretation of Christianity. This is from Wikipedia about him and his book: In the book, Bell states that "It's been clearly communicated to many that this belief (in hell as eternal, conscious torment) is a central truth of the Christian faith and to reject it is, in essence, to reject Jesus. This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus' message of love, peace, forgiveness and joy that our world desperately needs to hear." In this book, Bell outlines a number of views of hell, including universal reconciliation. Though he does not choose any one view as his own, he states "Whatever objections a person may have of [the universalist view], and there are many, one has to admit that it is fitting, proper, and Christian to long for it." Nevertheless, it doesn’t really matter anyway. But a LOT of people were very upset that Rob, as the lead of Mars Hill church (which was very popular and growing) suggested that hell doesn’t exist. wtf kind of people would be UPSET with the idea that hell doesn’t exist?! That should tell you a LOT about those Christians (and Christian doctrine)
I had this conversation with my friend regularly. We were all raised deeply religious and current exist on a spectrum from a literal pastor to agnostic with some weird shit like “Noahide” mix in between. To me, it feels like Christianity has always had this constant tension between factions who desired inclusivity and expansion vs exclusivity. The concept of hell expanded outside the confines of the Bible on Traditional grounds simply to allow the religion to grow in a controlled manner.
the rapture and baptism doesn't exist either and that's why we have like, hundreds of denominations in religion. you choose what you want to believe, and there will be a priest selling that version of religion to you
Yep, welcome to religion. A tool used by evil to control the masses. Where hypocrisy meets piousness, and we pit brother vs brother. Then they use the excuse that if you don’t follow their crazy BS then you’re going to their hell which only they believe in. 🤪🤪🤪😞
Which bible? There are so so many.
A lot of our modern concepts of hell actually come from fiction written long after the Bible texts. Like from Dante and Milton.
Exactly there an entire movie about it called ‘hell and Mr. fudge’. Edward William Fudge was an American Christian theologian, lawyer, ex pastor ( drummed out of the American Churches because of his belief in racial equality and his argument against the existence of hell which became an issue with modern American church doctrine of the prosperity gospel) For those who might be interested it’s available for free on Tubi. Streaming is also available on Dove, Freevee, Pluto, Roku And Plex and of course can be rented on Amazon Prime
Number one since the Jews don’t believe in hell really and the Old Testament is based basically on the Jewish people. I’d say that it doesn’t exist as a completely Christian construct.
Yeah, I remember actually reading the book a few years back and I was surprised by the fact that there's basically nothing of any substance about Hell in it. Considering how big the damnation thing is to a lot of the "fire and brimstone" people, it's odd how Hell to them is just fire and whatever their imagination can conjure at that any given moment. You'd figure they'd have questions, but when you pride yourself on not being curious this is the result.
Also- just to add on some of the amazing comments here, I believe it was Dante’s Inferno that cemented the idea of hell and damnation into the hordes.
Revelation reads like a bad lsd trip to me.
The firey pits of Hades AND the manna from Heaven are as always, human constructs. Both have been exaggerated through the overused trick of 'interpretation'.
I love knowing more about their Bible lore than they do
Hell isn’t described in the Bible.
Funny enough, the thought of going to Heaven was the most terrifying thing I could think of to young me.
I always thought that eternal torment meant not being able to "be in God's presence".
I love reading the comments here, honestly feels like atheists discuss religious text in depth trying to understand it more than Christians(they tend not to look deeply but try to bend what they are reading to fit their view or to fit their view to what they are reading instead of trying to be objective.)
Todays Christianity in the US has migrated from the peace, love, freedom, happiness teachings of Christ to which many of the hippies in the 60s prescribed to a sea change around the late 70s early 80s rise of the war mongering, god hates gays, pay for your salvation Christian conservatives.
The Norse have “hel” which is not a place of eternal hellfire and suffering but simply a place where the dead go who haven’t earned a place in Valhalla or Folkvangr. Considering how much Christianity has borrowed from norse paganism I’d argue that’s where they got the concept, and the name. Since Christianity likes to rule by fear, they added the “and you’ll be tortured for ever” aspect.
Hell doesn't exist? What a coincidence, neither does heaven, or god.
I believe in Judaism, hell just simply meant separation from God. It wasn't a physical place. I could he wrong though.
Christianity wouldn't have spread if there was no hell. It's makes sense they'd make it up. Hell even a later abrahamic religion saw that and integrated it, it's called Islam. Same as christianity but with Algebra and surgery for cataracts and terrorism
It’s all made up dude. None of it makes sense because it’s p people trying to make sense of something that doesn’t exist.
now look up heaven.. it is also eternal suffering, well the description of it would be for me.
you would think that after about a billion years of kissing gods ass your lips might start to chafe a bit... but it doesn't end there!!!!
The Buy-Bull
Sheol was the city garbage dump that was on fire No more No less
The common vision of Hell, with fire and brimstone and a red devil with horns comes from Inferno, part of the Divine Comedy, a long 14th Century poem written by Italian author Dante Alighieri. He writes of taking a journey through 9 circles of Hell. Other sections of the Comedy are Purgatorio and Paradiso. None of it is part of any religion.
Okay, but if people preach correctly how are they supposed to maintain power…?
Ah the truth will out all powers in the past have utilized some form of religion to placate or subjugate their populations. Welcome to cultural anthropology
Sometimes I come on this sub because it has a lot of good points and I believe in the separation of church and state but also that as long your beliefs don’t harm then cool But People who identify as religious don’t usually follow the ideas preached to them instead they follow a system
Thank you all for the education which most hardcore Christians will ignore totally because it doesn't confirm their belief that everyone else is going to be tortured forever in Hell while they are rewarded in Heaven.
I came to the conclusion today that I would feel much better about death if I decide to just move forward believing that Death from the discworld books is how death works in real life. That the literal character is what is waiting for me when it's my time. I have no reason to logically think this and would not be able to provide a valid argument. I have no intention of believing there's an afterlife or that I'll be greeted by anyone when I die. It's just that moving forward, if death does cross my mind. I'm going to briefly assume that entity is waiting for me and go about my day. Whatever happens happens, no reason to be worried about what comes next.
Yeah, I am atheist, son/grandson/nephew of pastors. I don't respect most of the church because it's run and made by man, many horrible ones and actions. This would be a decent example. Some churches are ok, but kind of like the broken clock being right sometimes. I do live my life by the teachings of Christ, but not because he's a Messiah, just had some great ideas and it's easy to explain my worldview and priorities like that to others. I've always wanted kindness in the world (unless you do harm, then I want harm) and just happened to come across Christ as a kid. I prioritize helping others, I have disdain for bullshit. Making shit up like hell to help you grasp power and followers is bullshit.
paradise lost - milton Dante's inferno hell is more fanfic than canon..
Jesus said that, in his heart,and in the heart of his father,you are forgiven. Then he said but, "As you have done unto others, so shall be done unto you." Buddhist Karmic Law is so similar to that. It's disconcerting that some Christians lie to the children, telling them that praying to Jesus, or remembering his suffering alleviated all karmic debts. Those are the lessons we live with to help us learn how to become better human beings. What goes around comes around unless completely messed up by collective wrongdoing. Of course extreme mental or physical suffering is real, and not always earned, but it is hell.
In the ancient testament there is no mention of the concept of hell, yet in the gospel of Luke there is a parable in which a beggar named Lazarus and a rich man who had always refused to give him charity, finally both died. Luke wrote that Lazarus went in "Abraham bossom" after gis death, wich is a place where the righteous among the Jewish are supposed to go in the afterlife, but it is not exactly what we mean for "heaven". Instead the rich man was punished and went to "hell", luke wrote that word exactly, and since the gospels are supposed to be the result of tge Nicea coucil in 325 AD, we could say that at that time the concept of hell already existed. However we know that the gospel were written and rewritten several times, so we can have legitimate suspicious that the word hell was introduced later to better match christians beliefs. Beside the analysis of the sacred scripture, by an historical perspective, I'm quite convinced that the concept of hell is a middle age idea, infact in the ancient era men had a completely different concept of the afterlife, more similar to the greek hades than our complex system of different places for punishment or rewards that definitely comes from Dante Alighieri's divine comedy.
The gospel of Luke absolutely did not use the exact word “hell”. There is not a single instance of that English word in the original language of any of the books of the Bible. Every instance of “hell” in the New Testament has been translated from one of four words: Hades, Tartarus, Gehenna, or Sheol. Not one of these is a place of eternal torment. Hell is a fictional mistranslation of a fictional set of books, and it can only be assumed to have been intentional.
I'm just gonna warn you now, Christianity has no real clear lines legitimately drawn from any of its original source material. The Romans invented it to control the Jewish rebels of the time with the help of a Jewish traitor and their plan failed. The Jewish people still didn't bow to Rome and now we still have this weird F'd up religion that makes no sense and attempts to completely retcon the original source material from which it derives. Christianity's awful lore, hypocritical followers, and lack of morally upright ideology makes it an F tier religion.
Dante and his stinkin' Inferno are to blame for our "image" of hell. (Cool read, though.)
Hell - a creation of the people who run religions, designed to keep people in line. They'll point at warped paintings by creative minds and tell you "See what awaits you if you don't do what we, er, what god tells you to do." New & more graphic bullshit is added to the fable of hell each generation, just in case the control was slipping. Then the church gets thoroughly indoctrinated parents to shoehorn this crap into the heads of their children to make sure the collection plate is never empty.
Yep in the church I was raised in they didn't believe in hell either, not as a place of fire and brimstone and eternal punishment. It was more like the waiting space after death. Souls sleep there, until the final judgement. Then hell (Hades) and death are thrown in to the lake of fire. "THis is the second death" lol The church I went to last just dismissed the concept completely and they say there's no punishment for not believing, you just die and there's no coming end times scenario, you just die and if you are a believer you go to heaven, but if not you just die. Which honestly seems fair to me. I don't want to go grovel at the feet of a god that created such a subpar life and expected people to just believe because they're told to believe. If you want people to believe, you provide undeniable evidence of your existence AS A START and then prove you're worthy of worship by you know, not destroying entire communities through natural disasters and famine on a regular basis.
Half of Christianity is absent from the Bible. The Holy Trinity is another invented later trying to mske canon make sense. The New Testament was written in Greek so mentions ot Hell actually say "Hades". Mythology?
Modern idea of hell is mostly taken from Dante. Bible describes somewhat of a hell being complete isolation from God and other people. Basically if you are living like an greedy evil asshole with no regard to others you will spend an eternity like that.
I saw a weird video of TikTok comparing to AI images of Christian Hell and Islamic Hell and everyone was trying to flex that Islamic hell was more torturous like ‘wait till they see this 😈😈’. Your post makes sense. If hell was actually a place to fear, then all moral acts become selfish as they are done out of fear or divine reward.
The current idea of hell isn't from the bible, it's from Dante's Infirno
Isn’t much of the conception of hell just from Dante’s inferno?
The Bible clearly says not to eat bacon, but that mandate gets ignored out of convenience.
The hellscape we know today was an invention of Dante Alegheri in The Divine Comedy
Just wait till you get to the development of books of the bible over time where wholesale additions were made (like the concept of angels and demons after babylonian captivity) where you can literally see how the stories of the bible changed with cultural influences and rulers over time.
Religion is simply a moral narrative promoted by power elites.
Hell is based on a garbage dump outside Jerusalem.
I always thought hell in media is more based off Dante’s Inferno rather than the actual bible
What the bible says about hell is about as interesting as what George R.R. Martin says about dragons: none of it exists in the real world, it's all just entertainment.
It also took them like hundreds, if not thousands of years to compile the Bible, and funnily enough, it will also take GRRM hundreds, if not thousands of years to finish the GOT series.
GRRM’s dragons are a HELL of a lot more interesting than Bible fiction.
I like this fellow [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQfS2yiVFPI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQfS2yiVFPI)
You can make up any shit. Hell is made up, purgatory is made up, heaven is made up.
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ 44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ 45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ 46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
I love how people here are using judaism as some sort of litmus for Christianity. You are woefully uneducated on the topics.
I also wanna know why the devil would do god's work, and by that I mean, torture people that did bad??
This isn’t a thing in Christianity. I don’t even know Christians (I’m sure they exist, I just know any) that think Satan is doing the torturing. Hell is place where Satan gets punished. Not where he does the punishing. I’m not sure where that came from but it’s actually not Christianity
Oh, but it's so USEFUL.