The Bible clearly states that Hell is a real place, there is a lake of fire, that there will be much wailing and nashing of teeth. That doesn't sound like much fun to me. Why would anyone willingly choose to spend eternity that way?

Hell is not going to be one big party that all of the "cool people" will be at. It is eternal torment and tourture.

Old testament = When you die thats it. soul gone, lights out, pitch black for eternity.

Thats the quote you posted. To be away from god is to not exist.

New testament = heaven and hell, fire and brimstone hell, angels with harps heaven.

What are you going to "feast" on in hell? Does the feastee get to turn it around and become the feaster? How about neither heaven nor hell? How about neither life nor death?

Originally posted by Equinox99
Since none of you know for a fact that these places exist/do not exist, then we can believe whatever we want without people putting us down. Nohup, you do realize that not everyone who believes in a religion is an idiot right?

Some people may be surprisingly intelligent about other things, but when it comes to religion they pretty much prove themselves to be idiots by believing in it.

But I'm a fairly reasonable person. Show me specifically how it is not idiotic to accept as absolute truth and fact a lot of wild stories or shaky, logically paradoxical notions with no proof (or even a chance of being proven) and I'll change my mind.

[edit on 17-7-2008 by Nohup]

Is it going to be like on the last day, when God comes down and takes all the righteous away and the rest of us get left in peace

Originally posted by jprophet420
Old testament = When you die thats it. soul gone, lights out, pitch black for eternity.

Thats the quote you posted. To be away from god is to not exist.

New testament = heaven and hell, fire and brimstone hell, angels with harps heaven.

In reality there's no difference between what the new and old testaments say about our existence after death, it's just worded differently. The old says we sleep until the judgment, the new says we are resurrected at either the return of Christ or at the judgment 1000 years later. The resurrection at the judgment is not a resurrection to eternal life, though some will then receive it as they are judged. Biblically, no matter what any church will try and tell you, there is currently only one who is risen from the dead to eternal life..

1CORINTHIANS 15:22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.

Revelation 20:5 But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.

Also, eternal life is a gift of God through Christ, the wages of sin is death, so how can a non repentant sinner gain eternal life, even in what some believe to be "hell"?

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yes there is a lake of fire, also referred to in the Greek as Gehenna, but Christ says what happens in Gehenna, it is not eternal torture, you are destroyed, permanently...

There is no fiery kingdom called hell where Satan rules and tortures people for eternity, that is a product of the Catholic church and adopted by the rest of mainstream Christianity. Do yourself a favour and look into the meanings of the Greek words translated as "hell" in the english, yes there are more than one, Hades, Sheol, Tartarus, Gehenna. Hades and Sheol mean simply the grave, tartarus is a state of restraint for certain fallen angels etc, and Gehenna was a rubbish dump outside of Jerusalem where trash, dead animals, and the bodies of criminals etc were burnt and destroyed, which is a reference to the final lake of fire.

As for going to heaven when we die, that is another product of the churches, and not of the Bible. We are resurrected to be where Christ is, and Christ is coming back here.

Originally posted by pureevil81
maybe im wrong i dont know but i just think churches nowadays like to sugarcoat everything.

I think it depends where you are. Fire and brimstone still does a booming business in the American Southeast, where you can still find "revivals" and that sort of thing to go to on any weekend.

The psychology of it is interesting, though. Some people really want to believe in Hell, because they want evil people eventually brought to justice, because in this life that doesn't seem to happen all the time. I also find that a lot of people want to be punished for what they see as their own transgressions. I think this has something like being little children who do bad things and are smacked by their parents for it. Some people equate harsh punishment with caring, and on some level they're right, because if Mom and Dad don't care, who gets spanked? Nobody. And if God punishes the wicked (including the believing sinners), that at least proves he/it exists. Otherwise, who knows?

Hey, it's the way some people were raised, and they carry it through life until they are old.

So much goes back to childhood and the way we're raised. From the way the question was posed, I'll bet the OP has a little bit of evil kid still in him, wanting to be a bad boy so that people show they care. Just a guess.

[edit on 17-7-2008 by Nohup]

Originally posted by Distractions4Nothing
Lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride.

Do you really think you enjoy:

Lust more than love?

Gluttony more than variety?

Greed more than generosity?

Sloth more than satisfaction?

Wrath more than compassion?

Envy more than being-happy-for-someone?

Pride more than confidence?

I find it very hard to believe. I think you need to look a little deeper inside yourself. And no, I'm not talking about finding god. I'm an atheist.

It sounds like you're one of those misguided types who put others above themselves. But I'll answer your questions anyway.

1. Lust is infintely better than love. First of all, love is an illusion. Nobody loves anything. They just feel like they own other people's emotions. Therefore, those who claim to love are really just afraid to rely on themselves. Lust is a real passion because it has actual physical effects and can be satisfied.

2. Why are gluttony and variety mutually exclusive? Let's say I love chicken wings, pizza, pasta and jello. They're all different types of food, but that doesn't mean I can't be a glutton and go to a buffet and gorge myself on all four. From sex to narcotics to food and drink, everything good in life is better enjoyed in excess.

3. While greed is good, natural and necessary for one to succeed in life, generosity a foolish concept. I always say that a person foolish enough to give his belongings away deserves to have his more precious possessions stolen from him against his will, just to teach him a lesson about the idiocy of charity.

4. What's so unsatisfying about sloth? I'm not a lazy person, but I can enjoy a good break every know and then. I have to admit that this is my least favorite sin, though. It basically amounts to inactivity.

5. Compassion, like genorosity, deserves contempt. People who lack the spine to fight back at those who do them wrong are rightfully harmed again and again. Compassion is just a coward's excuse.

6. You should never feel happy for anyone besides yourself. In fact, if it weren't for envy, nobody would ever do what it takes to better themselves.

7. Without pride, confidence is impossible. And if you're unable to feel proud of yourself, why should you even bother living?

Originally posted by EverythingYouDespise


To cut right to the point, let's just examine the cardinal sins. This gives us a general idea of what God considers bad behavior, deserving of his eternal scorn:

Lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride.

Depending on one's interpretation, as many as all seven of those could much more easily be seen as virtues when you're trying to live an enjoyable life instead of following orders, and without the first - lust - the species would go extinct within a single generation! And when should it ever be considered wrong to be proud of oneself?

I'll tell you when. When you're a subject of the most vain entity in history. God wants nothing but blind obedience and praise from human beings. He does not appear to want us to be happy at all, and explicitly commands us not to seek knowledge or strive for success and wealth.

So why would you expect him to do a complete 180 once you're dead and in Heaven? If you've spent your entire life denying pleasures and slavishly adhering to a ridiculous doctrine, do you really think the reward will be a paradise?

I'd much prefer to spend eternity in Hell, where surely all Earthly passions and pursuits are held in the highest esteem - finally free from the reach of that great party-pooper in the sky. And, as an added bonus to being eternally separated from God, imagine the wonderful company of the other damned souls! Philosophers, pleasure-seekers, artists and the like, enjoying everlasting orgies, feasts and merryment. Heaven, meanwhile, would be full of slaves and prudes.

While I can't agree with everything here you definitely make a good point. I'm not a Christian but I used to be, mainly because of the guilt my father put on me as child coercing me into serving a God I could not see who despite my attempts at salvation refused to answer my prayers...

I've been a lot happier since I gave up Christianity and realized that it is only a perversion created by the Romans and medieval Catholics, the perversion of the teachings of a great rebel and philosopher named Jesus... created to control and instill guilt and shame... The logical inconsistencies in the current Bible truly boggle the mind, of course there's some spiritual philosophical wisdom within but far too many people take this stuff literally...

Anyway I agree that God, according to all the Christian doctrine I've seen is the "great party-pooper in the sky" (loved that by the way) and that the requirements for getting into Heaven are so strict that only a few thousand of the worlds most fun-less people will likely get in. So maybe Hell isn't a very nice place, but most of the people we know and love are going there so who wants to go to Heaven with a bunch of strangers???

I want to be surfing the lake of fire with Bill Hicks