It truly is. Gehenna, the word hell is translated from in the New Testament, is rooted in an Old Testament location. It is generally regarded as derived from a valley nearby Jerusalem that originally belonged to a man named Hinnom. Scholars say the word is a transliteration of the Valley of the Sons of Hinnom, a valley that had a long history in the Old Testament, all of it bad. For example Molech worship (human sacrifice) occurred there.

During Jesus lifetime, the Hinnom valley was the trash dump outside of Jerusalem. The belief in the eternal part comes from the mistranslation of the Greek aion: it always meant a period of time - not forever. It's where our word eon comes from. So when Jesus said Gehenna, his listeners knew where he was talking about as a real physical place they had seen with there own eyes, not a spiritual place of eternal torture.

The OT word the KJV mistranslates as Hell is actually sheol and it means grave, not hell. . Eternal torture was never mentioned once in the entire Old Testament. The continued contemporary belief stems from mistranslation of the Greek and Hebrew which brought Hell into our English translations. Words like Sheol, Hades, Tartarus, Gehenna, and aion. Hell actually come from a old word, hel, that means to bury, i.e. you hel your potatoes. The Bible truly does not teach Hell in its correct translation.

I am a Christian. I believe the concept of eternal damnation to be an invention from the same minds that came up with indulgences. To control the population with fear. God takes no joy in torment, punishment is supposed to be instructive, what would be the use of eternal punishment? Yes there is sin and evil in the world but God created man for happiness. He just wants you to choose him over the world.

Eternal judgement is repulsive to many because it is assumed to last a long, long time!

But the bible says that time itself will one day come to an end. So the argument that eternal judgement is unjust because it (allegedly) represents a long, long time...is flawed.

Eternal judgement is judgement in units of eternity. Whatever eternity is, it does not require a timepiece to measure it's passing.

I think eternity is a permanent or fixed state or condition. Time is a temporary vehicle which facilitates the making of choices that ultimately will catapult us into either one eternal state or another.

I believe I experienced hell for maybe 5 minutes.

I did not see a pic like this. In fact I did not see anything at all.

I felt the most awful trapped torment inside my soul that I would never want to go back.

It is just torture, not from anyone doing anything, just a sensation that stays with you for as long as it does. It spirals up and down inside you. There is no escape just torment. The sensation becomes physically painful. A constant spiral trapped feeling... and it is so intense, there is nothing to make it go away.

Thank GOD I did not feel it for too long!

I don't think a pic can adequately portray the feeling of hell. That is all I can say, that pic, although dimmed and rather ASTRAL does not equate at all to the feeling of which I got to experience.

cheers

Originally posted by Bigwhammy I am a Christian. I believe the concept of eternal damnation to be an invention from the same minds that came up with indulgences. To control the population with fear.

As a Christian, do you reject the words of Christ and the Apostles? They both provide numerous descriptions of Hell in the Bible as a VERY real place!

God takes no joy in torment, punishment is supposed to be instructive, what would be the use of eternal punishment?

2 Peter 3:9 "The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. .

Yes there is sin and evil in the world but God created man for happiness. He just wants you to choose him over the world.

What about those who do not choose Christ? Who make the conscience decsion to reject Him and do as they please? Unfortunately, some men choose evil over good...

Interesting how the idea of hell has changed over the years and how hell seems so much nicer than in the biblical days. We have some new hells.

Hell? Yeah sure.

Experiences described as "hell" all have a psychological explanations, stress, psychosis and so on. I dont understand how people actually believe this stuff.

There is no hell, there is no heaven. The bible is a fairytale based on a dude that likes sandals and has no hairdresser, give him some tatoos, give him a guitarr and place him in system of a down, theres your heaven.

It seems to me that hell would either be:
The eternal removal of God's presence for you. (True torment, being the void of knowing you are cut off for all eternity from Him)
Or:
Judgement. Each soul in an endless conveyor line. Each soul walks through a wall of ionic flame. Those found lacking have their soul and very essence destroyed by the flame. Those deserving walk through unscathed into heaven, or explore the universe, or meld with God, or whatever other thing you want to think of.

Hell is ther eternal seperation from the realm that God inhabits and that we will as well. The plan called for the creation of a race of beings that God could trust with ALL of His abilities and nature. As joint heir's with Christ, we will also become the ' new man ' the first of a new kind of being: Fully able to travel from the spiritual realm to the physical realm, and with no machines or physics needed.

God was, but He was alone. He wanted sincere loving company, like we all do. We all do as part of our nature because he did first, we inherit all good traits from His nature, and all bad one's by ignoring His will and Word. In order to accomplish this and have it genuine, not ordered and with no choice on our parts, he had to come up with a plan to create and test and eliminate those souls that would not believe in or recognize God if he stood in front of them. This was one thing that Jesus told doubters, as you recall. If they could not believe by faith, they could not believe their own eyes.

BUT, there will be very very few souls that are seperated from God. The Bible says that ' hell is made for the devil and his followers '. A follower is presumed to be one in agreement with and in submission to an authority figure that represents the group as a whole.The only people who are destined for eternal seperation are those that know very well what the truth is, and purposefully choose the path of evil and rejection of God.

Very few souls are stupid and vain enough to believe that underneath it all God is pulling a fast one on all of us and that when we choose the dark side we will become ' enlightened ' and realize that we too are God's that had been denied this knowledge by a jealous and meanspirited God who wants all the glory for hinself. But a few will, because they want to abandon morality or the Godly traits in order to live a life that suits the flesh and ego and not the soul. At some point they will recognize that Christ is Lord and that the Bible is true, and they will turn away and choose death because they shun holiness: They see holiness as inhibiting their desires and lusts and that they will not give up.

So, a small part of mankind will reject God knowingly and will have no complaints or gripes when judgement comes, as their own words will convict them. God convicts no man, no soul. We will each stand before God one day and either have a point of proof that one accepted the truth and will live, or there will be proof openly for all to see that will send the corrupt soul away forever as the only just act for one that would destroy all of creation to be able to deny God exists and is deserving of all we can give him.

We will, by our own words and deeds, displayed for all to witness, our own fates. We walk up and decalre one way or another and so there can never be a finger of accusation pointed at God that He was unjust or unfair. it will be plain and clear. Of course when those who have chosen foolishly and selfishly find out what awaits them in a realm devoid of all traist that God possess, they will certainly be ' weeping and wailing ' as it sinks in what their reward is for believing that God was a liar.

Now that those souls have been eliminated, and God's spirit ,which already indwells the believer already, has the chance to operate without interference from the distractions of sin, can give literally all of His nature and abilities to us, in full. You know what that makes us? Before you get upset and think that to be a god is the same as being God, we will all know the difference very well, and with nothing but God's nature to guide us, imagine what reality will become for us!!! We will be able to create any and all things that we wish; we can be trusted to only do God's will and we can be assured of always knowing that we have the Father to turn to if we ever have a question.

The future is one of incredible gains for us, and God gets what He wanted all along; company that understands Him and can love Him freely and eternally because of who He is, and what He has done for us. It staggers the mind when you even get part way into the real deal of Christ. I have a very uniqe story that I may tell here is there are enough interested. It is a story of witnessed and personal contact with the spirit of God. I tell it seldom, and never have here, but I am lead to offer it if any are interested.

I see a lot of people on here making statements but very few using scripture (from any religion) to back them up...let's keep our standards of proof high, people!

Ummm. Given that the earliest sources of the Gospels we have are in Greek, how do you claim to know what word the "original" books of the NT used when Jesus is said to have said "hell"?

[edit on 15-2-2008 by d60944]