The Christian Hell

[Rozzy]

The best thing to do is research the info I put forward and see if it checks out. What I posted is only the tip of the iceberg once you know what you are looking for you can go into information overload, chuckle.

Ask youself this question, would a God who created all, the God that created man in his own image send in the high nineties percent to an everlasting hell where they would suffer forever and ever for eternity? litterally sending billions of people to there eternal suffering in fire and just keep doing it generation after generation, age after age? I personally do not think so. Would he send people for correction for a time, a correction that maybe very hard to bare that lasts the length of time He determines, yes I think He would.
Now I have some travel plans I need to attend to, adios!

Rozzy

[Rush_of_Blood]

The best thing to do is research the info I put forward and see if it checks out. What I posted is only the tip of the iceberg once you know what you are looking for you can go into information overload, chuckle.

Ask youself this question, would a God who created all, the God that created man in his own image send in the high nineties percent to an everlasting hell where they would suffer forever and ever for eternity? litterally sending billions of people to there eternal suffering in fire and just keep doing it generation after generation, age after age? I personally do not think so. Would he send people for correction for a time, a correction that maybe very hard to bare that lasts the length of time He determines, yes I think He would.
Now I have some travel plans I need to attend to, adios!

Rozzy

You have missed a great discussion on this very subject! look at the first five or six pages, and hopefully your question will be at least partially answered. i am open to more questions if you have them!

[kiki1982]

I don't have time to read absolutely everythig, but I read about the first half of this dicussion...

I am also a Christian, but I seem to have more liberal views.

The whole discussion about Jesus' existence.
If Jesus did not exist, why do certain Roman writers actually mention him then?The key here is not if he existed, that is a preconceived fact which the Romans, in their urge to be administrative, probably even noted down. The key is what the gospels made him.
In the early days he was a rebel, a sekt leader (like there are ones now), but incidentally the belief in Christ and his doctrines grew to a proportion that made it a religion. Jesus is not perfect, he was a man, but history and certain canonic books (cleverly selected, no doubt) have made him perfect.

Anyway: the Hell.

I seem to have noticed that the Catholic Church got rid of that idea a few years ago, but I may be wrong.
It seems indeed strange to conceive that a God who is love would 'punish' people by eternal suffering (however that may be). Jesus indeed never mentioned it and I don't think it exists in Jewish religion either. (if someone would be so kind as to enlighten me on that).

Heaven, Hell and Purgatory were very popular as categories of people:
Really bad people went to Hell: muderers, people who committed blasphemy, thieves etc. etc. However, if you got absolution for your sins before death then you would go to heaven anyway. (??)
The Purgatory was for temporal suffering, if I'm right, and for unbaptised children (children who died just after birth. That's why they all baptised them straight away: then they would go to Heaven because they had got rid of the birth sin (???), because a baby was considered to have resulted out of the sin of lust (???)), and people who committed suicide. People who still had to pay for their sins, but didn't have to burn in Hell for eternity would go to the Purgatory until they were allowed in Heaven, I think. I don't think they went to Hell because that was eternal condemnation, although maybe during a certain period the Purgatory may not have existed (anymore).
Heaven was for the truly good, or the ones with no sins.

For me that structure speaks of worldly creation in order for people to understand the consequences of their behaviour here on earth, to reward good and repel bad behaviour. Like that rich man who asks Jesus what he needs to do to be happy because he has done already a lot of good. And Jesus tells him to get rid of his riches. Which normal person would do that unless he would get a reward for it? In order for a bunch of uneducated people (because that is what medieval peope were) to do good, there needs to be a clear aim: Heaven. A place where it is much better than here: where there is no hunger, no disease, no suffering, no pain, no nothing apart from love and eternal life.

There are probably theologists who could provide a lot more info on Hell, how it came about, who wrote about it the first time etc, which must be very interesting. But I am afraid I do not believe that God Himself does not punish or reward and that the Christian afterlife is the same as all afterlife: a place where the souls of people live on, good or bad, together.

[The Atheist]

The whole discussion about Jesus' existence.
If Jesus did not exist, why do certain Roman writers actually mention him then?

Which Roman writers were they? I'm not aware of any non-biblical texts which mention Jesus.

But I am afraid I do not believe that God Himself does not punish or reward and that the Christian afterlife is the same as all afterlife: a place where the souls of people live on, good or bad, together.

You must be an Anglican with those liberal views!

[kiki1982]

Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, Suetonius among others.
Certainly Pliny and Tacitus are respectable sources, seems to me. There is no doubt that they refer to the 'crucified person in Israel who had a lot of followers', who was executed by Pilate. But they also describe Jesus' followers as peculiar people. Like we would do of a sekt leader. The Christians only became a major religion, in my opinion, because they were realistic about their beliefs and not too extreme like the JW's, Scientologists, or others of that kind.

I would say, in a political perspective, that Che Guevara is a good example of reality to myth. Che is now a synonym for any freedom fighter and alternative spirit with T-shirts and everything, but he himself was part of a guerilla-movementand was killed very young. It just grows into myth, no matter what the contents of his life... Yet there are other guerilla fighters, like Pol Pot (?) who do not get that status...

As to miracles f.e.: any normal person realises that a miracle is not possible, or that there is a very minor chance of it happening. It is not denouncing God (as I might do for more pious people), but it is just being realistic. Why is it that all those miracles used to happen and that they don't anymore? Because the perception of people is a lot more scientific and a lot wider than it used to be and they couldn't put an ailment down to a certain disease. Now they can, so the actual going away of a disease is also not anymore solely up to God, so God doesn't perform miracles through his servants anymore, but it is now the servant who makes them happen (the doctor). The Jehova's Witnesses have found a good argument to 'explain' that kind of mistery: 'they don't happen anymore, because God doesn't do them anymore' . I am sorry, but that just speaks naivety... Both in belief and perception of the world. Sadly, it is people like that who shout the loudest and who make people believe that Christians are peculiar and unrealistic in their world view.

I am a Catholic actually. Surprising, isn't it? And I am not against contraception, not against abortion, not against condoms, not in favour of virginity before marriage etc. etc. Strange isn't it...

[kiki1982]

This is what Pope John Paul II said about Hell:

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

In essence, the view of John Paul really provides more realistic people with an acceptable answer to the Hell-question, whether those people are atheists or less-simplistic Christians who also believe but do not choose to be unscientific about things.

Pope Benedict XVI, though, said:

Hell really exists and is eternal

I think, even as a Catholic, that John Paul's view was more accessible and more universal than Benedict's view, but John Paul was a lot more modern and was the first pope to seek other religions of the Christian faith (the Orthodox and Protestant) and even the Jews and Muslims to unite in their vision of God.

This is interesting, though:
In the Catechism, which is still used apparently (in Belgium it went largely out of use in the 60s, I think), it says about Hell:

We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves: "He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him."610 Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren.611 To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self- exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called "hell."

Yet in one of the first it says (very simplisticly):

Hell is a state to which the wicked are condemned, and in which they are deprived of the sight of God for all eternity, and are in dreadful torments. (Question 1379)

But we will still have to see how Benedict gets on... However, shuld anyone care what he says no matter what? We all believe in our own way, so we should all be unique in our thinking, and no pope can tell us what to think...

I can imagine that it is not great to live in eternal damnation, but that eternal damnation does not occur because one has stolen something... It occurs when one is greedy, lustful, envious, etc. (the seven cardinal sins) and does not repent. But I think that that state of mind provokes suffering anyway, and doesn't need God to punish it, because even on the earth during your life, that state of mind of selfishness, striving for material possessions, in short, striving for an empty box (because what does all that bring you?), makes one unhappy.
So in essence, if looked at properly, there is or shouldn't be an element of punishent involved. It is so in popular culture because it is easier to understand that way...Whether damnation depends on God Himself, I very much doubt it.

[The Atheist]

Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, Suetonius among others.

My apologies - I meant contemporary sources, of which there are none. Plenty of later ones.

I am a Catholic actually. Surprising, isn't it? And I am not against contraception, not against abortion, not against condoms, not in favour of virginity before marriage etc. etc. Strange isn't it...

You're a bad Catholic!

Pope Benedict XVI, though, said:

Yes, Herr RatZZinger seems determined to bring back the Inquisition and fear of hell. Nice bloke.

But we will still have to see how Benedict gets on... However, shuld anyone care what he says no matter what? We all believe in our own way, so we should all be unique in our thinking, and no pope can tell us what to think...

Are you sure you're Catholic? I trust you don't apply your beliefs to ex cathedra statements?

But I think that that state of mind provokes suffering anyway, and doesn't need God to punish it, because even on the earth during your life, that state of mind of selfishness, striving for material possessions, in short, striving for an empty box (because what does all that bring you?), makes one unhappy.

Lovely theory, but people can be either amoral or immoral, which is where the premise falls apart. There is no universal sin.

[kiki1982]

Of course they are later. The sources they drew on to make those accounts are no longer available to us, but they were to them. It is probable to historians that Pliny interrogated Christians on who they worshipped and that was passed on to Tacitus. It is not totally impossible for Pliny to have spoken to one who knew Jesus.
Josephus wrote

About this time came Jesus, a wise man, if indeed it is appropriate to call him a man. For he was a performer of paradoxical feats, a teacher of people who accept the unusual with pleasure, and he won over many of the Jews and also many Greeks. He was the Christ. When Pilate, upon the accusation of the first men amongst us, condemned him to be crucified, those who had formerly loved him did not cease to follow him, for he appeared to them on the third day, living again, as the divine prophets foretold, along with a myriad of other marvellous things concerning him. And the tribe of the Christians, so named after him, has not disappeared to this day.

Although it is not agreed upon if this was his true style, in the 10th century there was an independent translation fom a Christian Arab who quotes Josephus as well:

At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. And his conduct was good, and (he) was known to be virtuous and many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not desert his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that he was alive; accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders

The two passages certainly have the same contents, only the tone is different, which could be a corruption of the copyist, which was done fairly much. The fact that an independent translation of the same work was made, suggests and makes it very probable that Josephus, of whom is recorded that he was a Jew and not a Christian, indeed wrote about Jesus and that very shortly after the crucifixion.
There seems to be a link with the gospel of Luke as well as Josephus and Luke tell the same story about Emmaus. They must both have consulted the same source for their story, because both were not there. However, Josephus can have had access to earlier sources. As the gospel of Luke was written around about 85-90AD and Josephus Testemonium in the 90s of the first century, the source must have been available before that time. As Josephus was born around 37 (around the same time that Jesus was crucified 'during Tiberius' reign' which ended in 37AD) he can certainly have met people seeing as he lived in Jerusalem, was a priest there and came only in the world very very shortly after Jesus was crucified. He was already writing in 70AD. There is a big chance that he had first hand accounts of the man Jesus and not the myth Jesus, which is also to be seen in how he wrote about the man.

I don't see why I should be a bad Catholic? At least I don't terrorise people with my own (sometimes) problematic ideas, that's very Christian to me... Not the principles you follow make you Catholic, Protestant, Calvinist or whatever, but it is what you believe in that makes you something. I believe in Heaven, in Jesus as the son of God, and technically, I should believe in the immaculate conception, although my scientific mind cannot conceive how a baby gets to be without sperm... But the notion of the immaculate conception only came to be (I believe) because of the 'existence' of the initial sin (baby made out of lust). For Jesus that wasn't possible because he was taught to be perfect. How do you solve that? 'He came out of a virgin', which implies no sex, no initial sin. In the eldest gospels Mary is the wife of Joseph and not his pregnant fiancé. But the words of the angel who comes to tell Mary that a son will be born, got interpreted as a ground for the immaculate conception...

In their urge to actually structurise the belief system of the Catholic Church (or that is what it has now become) they started to get problems in the consistency of them. With the introduction of the Purgatory and the initial sin, they got conflicted with perfect Jesus... The dogma of the immaculate conception only was first mentioned in the 11th century... For the first Christians Jesus was a man who got born like the rest of us and who taught good beliefs, no more than that. And so ironically, would also have ended up in Purgatory, if he had died. But then again he was still Jewish, so that wouldn't have applied to him, I guess...

I believe in the Holy Trinity and that is what makes me Catholic.

It depends what ex cathdra means... I do not approve of what the pope or bishops or whoever says because 'they have authority'. Hitlier had authority because he was elected president, but was he right? That was only a metaphoric assertion, though, not a sneer towards Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. Authority is only earnt on a basis where it is respectable. Thus the authority of the pope should only go so far that his assertions are realistic. A condom is not immoral, the pill is not immoral, sex is not immoral. Of course if it pans out into a spiral of one-night-stands and 50 sex partners in a month, then it becomes quite exagerated, no matter whether you don't coneive any children because you use condoms or the pill. But then there is mostly an issue with the person who does have such a lot of sex with a lot of different men/women reagarding a self-image.
Let us hope that in three popes time there is one who is part of the modern world, but the problem is that the largest part of that Catholic world will still be conservative...

Of course, there is amoral or immoral, but still it is not good for a person's happy state of mind to go to the extreme for things like possession, anger, indulgence (seven cardinal sins, if I have to use that expression...). There the philosophy of the Catholics draws on stoic ideas about suffering and eradicating suffering.
Charity gives you a good feeling. Greed gives you possession. (that doesn't mean you have to give away what you don't have, though)
Humility gives you a feeling of peace and hapiness with people who like you, whereas pride repels people and when your pide is (inevitably) hurt it makes you feel bad.
I won't go on.
But what it was made in the 19th century or the things my grandmother believed was the simplistic version:
sloth was considered literal: being lazy. Whereas sloth was meant as apathy and a failure of doing God's work, spiritual apathy, so to say. (you might agree or not, about the main issue, but it shows how some early things got corrupted)
and like that, the real doctrine got popularised, but also narrowed down to something unrealistic and sometimes inconsistent.

I supose there is something like universal suffering which the Catholic church adopted from the stoics. Not universal sin, as that is going against a moral and if that moral is not there, there is no sin.

[The Atheist]

I don't see why I should be a bad Catholic?

I'm just kidding ya. "Good Catholics" are usually those whose doctrine matches the RCCposition. Yours doesn't, but I'd see that as positive.

It depends what ex cathdra means... .

Ex cathedra statements are made on behalf of god, are considered to be genuinely divine (by the RCC), and cannot be challenged.

[kiki1982]

I see what you mean by ex cathedra. For example the infallibility of the pope is a good one, I presume?

One should never follow as a meak sheep, and certainly not in religious questions. Look what happened in the past, and even now, when people do that...

[kiki1982]

Here is a good example of ex cathedra and what it means in Europe:

irrelevant

[Pendragon]

Unless the Pope is more than human, he is fallible in anything he might do or say, dogma be hanged...

[kiki1982]

hear, hear

[The Atheist]

Here is a good example of ex cathedra and what it means in Europe.

No, you just have it wrong.

Ex cathedra statements are very specially designated pieces and are divinely-inspired. There is only one recorded instance of its use.

Check Wiki - the description is correct.

[kiki1982]

Ah, yes. I think I made that view clear when I said what I said about the immaculate conception... I think they did a survey about that and I don't think there were many who believed it. Still, they said they were religious.

Sorry... When you are in something, you don't really pay attention to what the base of everything is. In some countries they teach it in schools, but eventhough I went to a Catholic school I didn't get taught about doctrine, but mainly about the history and the symbolic meaning of some passages in the bible and even philosophy and the main bases of other religions in the last year. The contents of the course of religious education largely depended on the year and included nothing of Heaven or Hell if I recall. Everything I know is through my own interest.

Thank you for highlighting that. I learned something new.