Hell is Bogus!

The simple answer to all of this ... is to google the term "theodicy" and possibly "the inconsistant triad". all the answers you need are there.

At the end of times I don't believe God causes the wicked souls to stay in hell forever and suffer. Hell is a learning experience. It's your own wicked thoughts that torment you. The evil in you becomes your own reality. I think God even tries to save the souls that are in hell. If they can't be saved they are cast into a lake of fire and simply cease to exist. That's merciful. Ceaseing to exist is alot better than being tormented forever. Especially since I believe that you are given many, many chances to redeem yourself before that happens.

Originally posted by Regulator

Originally posted by Nans DESMICHELS

I also got a friend who say that hell is a place lot of surprises...

Yes.... One of the biggest suprises is that you must be dead....

It's another topic but you need to be dead to know what the hell look like. Some people received visions of hell, and I believe that sleep, dreams and nightmares are in a certain sense a trip your soul take to hell every night...

Really...

But anyway, the message is clear, life is a dream, and death is the awakening.(Chinese proverb)

You may be interested in reading this;
Here

Originally posted by shmick25
I know there is a lot of talk about Hell on this forum and how that if you do believe in Christ then you will burn to a crisp. According to what most christians believe, once Christ returns, all the good people will go to heaven and the bad people will burn in hell and have eternal suffering. Ouch!

So the situation is this. God & Heaven = Good, Hell & Satan = Bad

If God is a God of love as the Bible states and is perfect, how can he let hell evil and suffering exist? Logically it doesnt make sense.

Any ideas out there?

In order for good to exist. There must be evil. If not then we wouldnt be able to tell the difference between days of our life. Everything would be good. Which makes for boring lives . Plus, without evil and suffing to exist then it takes away our ability of free choice.

I think that the connotation of heaven and hell is more along the lines of its connection with the universal law of duality, which is experienced through our current three dimensional view point. It's everywhere, hot/cold, love/hate, good/bad. However, one must note that this law is just infact an illusion.

Really, these states/opposites are merely conditions of one solid state of being, the everything, the all, you name it. Thus, from this, everything is interconnected and all that we actually perceive are infact simple conditions. Set by who? That's a question that can produce a debate worth infinity. So to me, both terms are more or so considered states of perception in the mind/soul.

This idea isn't new to anyone really, that you create your own heaven and hell, here on earth, through your specifically developed world view. It all comes down to what makes you feel happy, sad, love and hate. Flick your paintbrush at the canvas of the universe to express the unique colour that is you.

LifeIsElsewhere

[edit on 25-9-2004 by LifeIsElsewhere]

Originally posted by shmick25
According to what most christians believe, once Christ returns, all the good people will go to heaven and the bad people will burn in hell and have eternal suffering. Ouch!

I agree this is what some who are christians or say they are christians believe. This is not what the Bible says. Hell will be the existance of those who have rejected Christ, it will be total and complete seperation from God. Those who receive Christ will enter eternity and live it with God.

How can it be said that God is not a vengeful god? haven't you ever heard the Scripture "Vengeance is Mine, saith the Lord"?

God is a God of love, that's why he allows us to make the conscious choice to reject Him. Hell was not prepared for men, but for 'The Devil and his angels'

I have been asked several times, "How can God, who is omnipotent and omniscient, allow us to go on the way we do? if He knows how it's all going to end anyway, why does He allow this or that to happen?" Well, I think of it like this:

Let's say, for mathematical purposes, there are 10 possible paths from one decision, and each successive path has ten more, and ten more then on, and so on.

God, being all knowing, knows each of the infinite possibilities, and has pre determined how to steer the course of events toward His eventual culmination of the age. By nudging us here and there, or exerting His will on those receptive to it, He steers our course toward His ultimate goal. Yes, he already knows what will happen, He knows you are going to accept/reject His teachings. But becuase he is love, he allows us to freely decide that ourselves, and then tries to nudge us in the hopes that possibility x will come true instead of possibility y. But He knows both, thus he knows the future. He also loves us enough to allow us to deny him and choose to go to hell of our own free will. His word teaches the consequence of rejecting God. If we choose to ignore this, he loves us enough to respect the decision, but with the knowledge we will suffer the consequence one day.

After all, God is also pure righteoussness, and without the blood of Jesus cleansing one from ones sins, we could never enter His presence, therefore a rejection of the message produces an individual not covered by the blood of Christ, and so that person cannot enter His presence, and has chosen hell.

What about the tribes in Africa or whatever that have never heard? Well, the Bible also says that He will not return until ALL NATIONS hear the word and have the chance to choose, so no real issue here.

Try this Link
Excerpt- Hel , in Norse mythology, the underworld (sometimes called Niflheim) and the goddess who ruled there. In early Germanic mythology, Hel was the goddess who ruled the majestic abode for the dead. Later, particularly after the advent of Christianity, Hel became a place of punishment, similar to the Christian hell.
According to other sources Christianity adapted the Nordic Hell into it's particular pantheon of God's and Goddesses.

Remember "Old Religion = bad ... New Religion = good"

Say that one hundred times!

.
Being an athiest/agnostic i don't subscribe to heaven or hell persey. I think what you experience in life is sort of like what you experience after life, or it could just be oblivion. In either event to me it makes sense to enjoy life. Find joy and little bits and pieces of time for yourself. If you don't do it now, seems to me you sure aren't going to do it after you are dead.
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Originally posted by slank
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In either event to me it makes sense to enjoy life. Find joy and little bits and pieces of time for yourself. If you don't do it now, seems to me you sure aren't going to do it after you are dead.
.

Everyone who has ever or will ever live will spend eternity somewhere. Eternity is forever and ever. We can't grasp the concept of something that is neverending because of all the death and destruction we see and experience. Hell is everlasting and so is eternal life with God. No matter how you try to talk yourself out of not believing in hell it still exists, but you don't have to wind up there.

I've been a christian all my life, of the Lutheran denomination. But over the past couple years (i'm 17), i've began to form my own opinions, which are miles away from what my family and basically everyone around me wants me to think. I've become an agnostic at heart. I can't sing or talk in church, i just can't do it b/c i don't know if i believe everything my parents and everyone else has been shoving down my throat for years and years. But didn't Jesus supposedly die for the forgivness of all our sins? If that's the case, how can any of us go to hell? Maybe hell existed before jesus, but after he died i don't believe anyone goes to hell. I don't even know if jesus really died anyway, hell nobody does. Hasn't there been books uncovered telling that jesus escaped and married and had a child? But if jesus did indeed die for the forgivness of all our sins, how could anyone be sent to hell now?

Just doesn't make any sense to me...I'd love to regain my faith though b/c i was a much happier person when i had it.

I think that lots of people here are talking about different perspectives when it comes to hell.

Some people believe that hell is being tormented forever, others believe that you just burn. I personally believe that it is nothing. You cease to exist. Can you remember what happened before you were born? Well, we would go into that state again.

I believe this because in the Bible it talks about evil being destroyed. If hell exists, then evil exists. If God is a god of love, he would not let evil co-exist. It is simply a disease that must be removed.

People also believe that as soon as we die, we go straight to heaven or hell.

I do not believe this either. It says again in the Bible that the dead know nothing. I think we lie in a dormant state waiting for judgement day and the return of christ. Once we are judged we either go to heaven or get destroyed when the earth is destroyed.

So you can ask the question: If you cease to exist when we die, explain ghosts and spirits etc.

According to my logic, and what I understand from the Bible, ghosts and spirits are indeed supernatural forces, however, I believe they are from the devil. Yes, even supposidly good spirits. Why would the devil send them? Well, to confuse and deceive us. I think satan wants to confuse the beliefs of people as much as he can, and the afterlife is one of them. Have you seen the show on TV where that guy can supposidly talk to the dead? Do you see the hope in peoples eyes? If the dead know nothing, who is doing this??

Tell me what you think of my wild theories! ;-)

The question of heaven and hell is one that has been problematic since the very dawn of our race. Homo Sapiens has the unique (we think) capacity to think beyond the moment and to live symbolically. We understand causality and wonder about the universe we inhabit. We wonder if we are but a expression of energy and whether or not something immeasurable inhabits us and survives the "mortal coil."

Can anyone know about life after death? In my opinion, not experientially. To paraphrase Lao Tse, "He who speaks does not know; He who knows cannot speak." If you are reading this and you have been pronounced dead, you are the victim of a misdiagnosis.

Yet the question lingers and we decide for ouselves whether or not to live as though there is no life after death or to live as though there were. Many, feel that it is better to live as though there was and be wrong than to live as though there was not and be wrong. This sounds like a safe bet, but it really is spiritual cowardice and denies the power of faith to guide one's life and reduces one's life to a mere fear reaction of the unknown.

I have taken some excerpts from The Urantia Book that address sin, life after death, reward, punishment and the adventure of eternity. You will also find links to Papers dealing with the question of life after death.

Consider the following:

The life after death is no different in the essentials than the mortal existence. Everything we do in this life which is good contributes directly to the enhancement of the future life. Real religion does not foster moral indolence and spiritual laziness by encouraging the vain hope of having all the virtues of a noble character bestowed upon one as a result of passing through the portals of natural death. True religion does not belittle man's efforts to progress during the mortal lease on life. Every mortal gain is a direct contribution to the enrichment of the first stages of the immortal survival experience.
mercy.urantia.org...

�the law of deliberately nourished evil is universally and unerringly executed. "The wages of sin is death"--eternal obliteration.
mercy.urantia.org...

3. THE PHENOMENON OF DEATH

Urantians generally recognize only one kind of death, the physical cessation of life energies; but concerning personality survival there are really three kinds:

1. Spiritual (soul) death. This kind of death is final in its significance irrespective of the temporary continuation of the living energies of the physical and mind mechanisms. From the cosmic standpoint the mortal is already dead; the continuing life merely indicates the persistence of the material momentum of cosmic energies.

2. Intellectual (mind) death. On the universe records a mortal personality is considered to have met with death whenever the essential mind circuits of human will-action have been destroyed. And again, this is death, irrespective of the continuing function of the living mechanism of the physical body. The body minus the volitional mind is no longer human, but according to the prior choosing of the human will, the soul of such an individual may survive.

3. Physical (body and mind) death. When death overtakes a human being, the Adjuster remains in the citadel of the mind until it ceases to function as an intelligent mechanism, about the time that the measurable brain energies cease their rhythmic vital pulsations. Following this dissolution the Adjuster takes leave of the vanishing mind, just as unceremoniously as entry was made years before, and proceeds to Divinington by way of Uversa.

After death the material body returns to the elemental world from which it was derived, but two nonmaterial factors of surviving personality persist: The pre-existent Thought Adjuster, with the memory transcription of the mortal career, proceeds to Divinington; and there also remains, in the custody of the destiny guardian, the immortal morontia soul of the deceased human. These phases and forms of soul, these once kinetic but now static formulas of identity, are essential to repersonalization on the morontia worlds; and it is the reunion of the Adjuster and the soul that reassembles the surviving personality, that reconsciousizes you at the time of the morontia awakening.

[�]

5. SURVIVAL OF THE HUMAN SELF

Selfhood is a cosmic reality whether material, morontial, or spiritual. The actuality of the personal is the bestowal of the Universal Father acting in and of himself or through his manifold universe agencies. To say that a being is personal is to recognize the relative individuation of such a being within the cosmic organism. The living cosmos is an all but infinitely integrated aggregation of real units, all of which are relatively subject to the destiny of the whole. But those that are personal have been endowed with the actual choice of destiny acceptance or of destiny rejection.

That which comes from the Father is like the Father eternal, and this is just as true of personality, which God gives by his own freewill choice, as it is of the divine Thought Adjuster, an actual fragment of God. Man's personality is eternal but with regard to identity a conditioned eternal reality. Having appeared in response to the Father's will, personality will attain Deity destiny, but man must choose whether or not he will be present at the attainment of such destiny. In default of such choice, personality attains experiential Deity directly, becoming a part of the Supreme Being. The cycle is foreordained, but man's participation therein is optional, personal, and experiential.

Mortal identity is a transient time-life condition in the universe; it is real only in so far as the personality elects to become a continuing universe phenomenon. This is the essential difference between man and an energy system: The energy system must continue, it has no choice; but man has everything to do with determining his own destiny. The Adjuster is truly the path to Paradise, but man himself must pursue that path by his own deciding, his freewill choosing.

[�]

True it is, you mortals are of earthly, animal origin; your frame is indeed dust. But if you actually will, if you really desire, surely the heritage of the ages is yours, and you shall someday serve throughout the universes in your true characters--children of the Supreme God of experience and divine sons of the Paradise Father of all personalities.
[Presented by a Solitary Messenger of Orvonton.]

www.urantia.org...

Iniquity is the willful, determined, and persistent transgression of the divine law, the Father's will. Iniquity is the measure of the continued rejection of the Father's loving plan of personality survival and the Sons' merciful ministry of salvation.
mercy.urantia.org...

Religious experience, being essentially spiritual, can never be fully understood by the material mind; hence the function of theology, the psychology of religion. The essential doctrine of the human realization of God creates a paradox in finite comprehension. It is well-nigh impossible for human logic and finite reason to harmonize the concept of divine immanence, God within and a part of every individual, with the idea of God's transcendence, the divine domination of the universe of universes. These two essential concepts of Deity must be unified in the faith-grasp of the concept of the transcendence of a personal God and in the realization of the indwelling presence of a fragment of that God in order to justify intelligent worship and validate the hope of personality survival. The difficulties and paradoxes of religion are inherent in the fact that the realities of religion are utterly beyond the mortal capacity for intellectual comprehension.
mercy.urantia.org...

If this were a mechanistic universe, if the First Great Source and Center were only a force and not also a personality, if all creation were a vast aggregation of physical matter dominated by precise laws characterized by unvarying energy actions, then might perfection obtain, even despite the incompleteness of universe status. There would be no disagreement; there would be no friction. But in our evolving universe of relative perfection and imperfection we rejoice that disagreement and misunderstanding are possible, for thereby is evidenced the fact and the act of personality in the universe. And if our creation is an existence dominated by personality, then can you be assured of the possibilities of personality survival, advancement, and achievement; we can be confident of personality growth, experience, and adventure. What a glorious universe, in that it is personal and progressive, not merely mechanical or even passively perfect!
mercy.urantia.org...

Sin is never purely local in its effects. The administrative sectors of the universes are organismal; the plight of one personality must to a certain extent be shared by all. Sin, being an attitude of the person toward reality, is destined to exhibit its inherent negativistic harvest upon any and all related levels of universe values. But the full consequences of erroneous thinking, evil-doing, or sinful planning are experienced only on the level of actual performance. The transgression of universe law may be fatal in the physical realm without seriously involving the mind or impairing the spiritual experience. Sin is fraught with fatal consequences to personality survival only when it is the attitude of the whole being, when it stands for the choosing of the mind and the willing of the soul.

Evil and sin visit their consequences in material and social realms and may sometimes even retard spiritual progress on certain levels of universe reality, but never does the sin of any being rob another of the realization of the divine right of personality survival. Eternal survival can be jeopardized only by the decisions of the mind and the choice of the soul of the individual himself.
mercy.urantia.org...

Paper 47 The Seven Mansion Worlds

Paper 48 The Morontia Life

The Urantia Book

GradyPhillpot

I don't beleive this is the first thread you've mentioned that URANTIA BOOK or whatever. I don't want to wade through all of the specifics of it, but can you just generally explain what the book is about, where it's from, etc.???

Thanks

I refer to the UB because it is so often relavent to the discussions here. I have studied the book for about 15 years and I find it fascinating and inspiring. It's message has influenced my life as few other books have. I often cite the Bible, the I Ching and the UB as being the works that have most influenced my life, not necessarily in that order.

It can be read as a revelation from supermaterial beings with a wonderful message or it can be read as work of fiction of human origin with a wonderful message. From my perspective, it is immaterial.

When the papers were being presented to a group of individuals in Chicago during the early 20th century, they concluded that they did not care about the origin of the book, they were just interested in its message and the relationship with the Universal Father that it suggests and the "religion of Jesus" it purports.

Essentially, it tells us that God is our Father and that we are his children and that the highest goal of any human is to do the will of the Father. A personal relationship with the Universal Father is within the grasp of any human of normal intellect and that a fragment of the Father dwells within each of us to help us in finding God's will and directing our lives. The Spirit of Truth has been given to mankind to help us in our discrimination of truth and untruth.

From the forward:

In formulating the succeeding presentations having to do with the portrayal of the character of the Universal Father and the nature of his Paradise associates, together with an attempted description of the perfect central universe and the encircling seven superuniverses, we are to be guided by the mandate of the superuniverse rulers which directs that we shall, in all our efforts to reveal truth and co-ordinate essential knowledge, give preference to the highest existing human concepts pertaining to the subjects to be presented. We may resort to pure revelation only when the concept of presentation has had no adequate previous expression by the human mind.

Successive planetary revelations of divine truth invariably embrace the highest existing concepts of spiritual values as a part of the new and enhanced co-ordination of planetary knowledge. Accordingly, in making these presentations about God and his universe associates, we have selected as the basis of these papers more than one thousand human concepts representing the highest and most advanced planetary knowledge of spiritual values and universe meanings. Wherein these human concepts, assembled from the God-knowing mortals of the past and the present, are inadequate to portray the truth as we are directed to reveal it, we will unhesitatingly supplement them, for this purpose drawing upon our own superior knowledge of the reality and divinity of the Paradise Deities and their transcendent residential universe.

We are fully cognizant of the difficulties of our assignment; we recognize the impossibility of fully translating the language of the concepts of divinity and eternity into the symbols of the language of the finite concepts of the mortal mind. But we know that there dwells within the human mind a fragment of God, and that there sojourns with the human soul the Spirit of Truth; and we further know that these spirit forces conspire to enable material man to grasp the reality of spiritual values and to comprehend the philosophy of universe meanings. But even more certainly we know that these spirits of the Divine Presence are able to assist man in the spiritual appropriation of all truth contributory to the enhancement of the ever-progressing reality of personal religious experience--God-consciousness.

[Indited by an Orvonton Divine Counselor, Chief of the Corps of Superuniverse Personalities assigned to portray on Urantia the truth concerning the Paradise Deities and the universe of universes.]

According to the book, the universe and our planet are administered by spiritual beings of many orders and that our destiny is a condition of light and life, humans are still evolving and that as we evolve we will become capable of realizing the kingdom of heaven, which is a spiritual kingdom rather than a temporal kingdom.

I could go on, but I fear I might err in my interpretation and I don't want to mislead others. The UB wants us to rediscover the religion of Jesus.

Read "The Acme of Religious Living," I consider it to be one of the most inspiring essays I have ever read.

I hope these will answer your questions. If you have further questions, I will endeavor to answer them. I lost several attempts to complete this post, so please forgive me if frustration and fatigue have limited my ability to communicate.

www.urantia.org...

www.fact-index.com...

encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com...

www.google.com...


[edit on 04/9/27 by GradyPhilpott]

Originally posted by Kwintz
I've been a christian all my life, of the Lutheran denomination. But over the past couple years (i'm 17), i've began to form my own opinions,
Just doesn't make any sense to me...I'd love to regain my faith though b/c i was a much happier person when i had it.

Your 17 and you can't live off your parents faith any longer. You have to have your own. You have to perservere in this life, as you perservere and trust in Jesus your faith becomes stronger. There are many things to pull you from Christ, especially at your age, you are going toemember what you've learned and keep learning.

To as many as received(accepted Him) Him to them He gave the right to become the sons(and daughters) of God.

You said you were happier when you had faith in Christ, that should tell you something.

Dbrandt

I know it's logical to go back to what i believed when i was happy, but i just can't do it. I've learned a lot lately and everything tells me that the bible is nothing but pure metaphorical fiction. I'll follow the 10 commandments, b/c i do truly believe, whether god gave them to moses or not, that those 10 guidlines are essential to living a decent life. If you're a good person and live by the commandments, you don't have to worry about whether or not there's a hell.

Originally posted by Nans DESMICHELS

Originally posted by shmick25

If God is a God of love as the Bible states and is perfect, how can he let hell evil and suffering exist? Logically it doesnt make sense.

Hell is not bogus, but I think you don't have a correct conception of God.
A God of love, I mean.

Of course God love those who believe in him, but some people hate this God, and they try to do everything to kill, torture, rape people who believe in Him.
How many people bush (for example) killed, just for his political interests ?

You see, there are some people who ain't got no love for the human kind on earth, and they hate God and God them, that's why he made hell.

[edit on 21-9-2004 by Nans DESMICHELS]

so it turns out God isn't all loving at all! he has rage and anger too!

Of course, in this sense of punishement and pain for people who can't believe into religion and churches; I'm not agree with this misconception of hell. But in all cultures and religion, there is a place where the soul go away, after your death, and that's with this meaning of "hell" I'm down.

The romans and greeks used to call "hells" (inferis), the "elyses champs", the place where the heroes go to rest after a life of exploits and fights.

The christian religion, forced to attract people after centuries of oppression and regn of terror invented the "purgatory", for those who wasn't enought criminal to go and burn in the eternal flames, but not enought "saint" to go in heaven. (lol)

But of course, and place with stakes, chains, whips and bottomless pits...it's...errr...really sexy, no ?