what was before hell?

Before Satin tried to over throw God how did God punish people for sinning? With out punishment is their even a thing such as sin? Why does God think its ok for him self to sin? He lets soles be cast into a eternal lake of fire causing pain and suffering. Yet if we wear to do the same thing to the people that "deserve it" then it would be a sin.

Light cannot exist with out darkness, so before hell their was no light?

So what was the punishment before hell?

nobody sinned. they were all on the same side.

it was Heaven.

Considering hell is a place invented by men, used by men as a control/fear mechanism....

The Catholics & other early denominational Christians believed anyone who's a heretic, including those who only slightly deviated from their dogma, were going to hell. They would tell the people they tortured they were going to hell. The people they ruthlessly [mass]murdered were also going to hell. Hell exist in the beliefs of many religions, and every time it's used to manipulate the masses.

If hell exist, which I most certainly hope it doesn't, I would presume it's only meant for those who's lives were ruled primarily by hate/violence. & Eternity is not forever.

Originally posted by Infi8nity
Before Satin tried to over throw God how did God punish people for sinning? ...what was the punishment before hell?

He subjected them to annoying harps playing all day and all night forcing those poor souls with him to worship him and sing lame songs to him day in and day out. Agghhh!! [color=gold]CREEPY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why does God think its ok for him self to sin?

Hypocrite. Like Father, like worshipers...

He lets soles be cast into a eternal lake of fire causing pain and suffering. Yet if we wear to do the same thing to the people that "deserve it" then it would be a sin.

Again... hypocrite.

And lets not forget, in the Christian gods mind, it is WAY more suitable to punish good and decent souls just because they didnt accept the fairy tale story of a bearded mythical man-god guy over the souls of an EVIL flawed piece of # who decided one day on his death bed to accept the mythical guy as his "Messiah" and "savior" just so that they have a golden ticket to the so-called alleged "heaven" place. Than like MAGIC...all sins are WIPED FREE!! WHOOPEE, SAVED!!!!!!

...but the GENUINELY GOOD soul burns in "hell" forever... just for not saying a little prayer to a fairy-tale mythical bearded man-god. And a man-god who isnt even the ORIGINAL man-god.

ASININE isnt it?

(Hell is fake by the way. The original Hebrew words and meaning of "hell" makes the typical believers of it look like DAMNED FOOLS, which they are.)

reply to post by Infi8nity


Easy question easy answer, no one sinned. Back then everyone was good, even the fallen angel Satan. Until Satan believed he could rise to be more powerful is when his mind strayed away into the evil. In a sense there's always good and evil as in there's always a choice to be good or evil. Back then no one chose to be evil, now we are living at a time where there are people living in a state of good and evil. The objective is to separate the two by testing all souls.

Originally posted by Warpedconsciousness
reply to post by Infi8nity

 

Easy question easy answer, no one sinned. Back then everyone was good, even the fallen angel Satan. Until Satan believed he could rise to be more powerful is when his mind strayed away into the evil. In a sense there's always good and evil as in there's always a choice to be good or evil. Back then no one chose to be evil, now we are living at a time where there are people living in a state of good and evil. The objective is to separate the two by testing all souls.

Why is back then any different from now?

and WHAT IF some one chose to be bad "back then"? If they could not then their was no choice. Thus no good nor evil because one cant exist with out the other?

reply to post by Infi8nity


What? The difference from back then and now is that no one committed an evil act before satin, that is why satan is so bad, he was the first. Then some angels followed, he broke the flood gates. You see in the bible it states that the devil was made with much power and beauty and the leader of all the angels, then he fell when he thought he could get more powerful. What is up with the "WHAT IF", the bible pretty much says the first being to sin was Satan. Everyone of the angels could have sinned, but they chose to obey God until Satan finally wanted more and some angels decided to still obey God. There's always a choice.

reply to post by Infi8nity


Hell is a mythological concept, built upon other, slandered and misinterpreted, mythological concepts.

In ancient Mesopotamian religions (roughly 6000 years before Christ) there was no Hell, or Heaven for those who died. There was only death. A choice few mortals, usually hand-picked by the gods, were allowed to quest for mythical plants and other sacred objects which would grant them immortality. But no one got to go to a Heaven or a Hell. Only to live forever, or die and be dead and gone forever.

In ancient Egyptian religions (roughly 5000 years before Christ) there was a place called the Duat. It was an "underground" Hall, where everyone who died went. Within the Hall the dead were tested to make sure they had lived good, benign lives. This was accomplished by making them answer a series of questions about themselves along their travel. If they answered correctly, they were brought to a great Meeting Chamber were choice gods waited. One god would collect the humans heart, another held out a scale of justice, and a third placed a feather of law upon the scale. If the human heart balanced the feather, then the human was allowed into what was called the Fields of Osiris, which was a paradise. If the heart weighed more than the feather, then the whole person was devoured by a monster, erasing them from existence forever. That was the closest Egypt had to a Hell.

In ancient Persia (about 3000 years before Christ) the dead were made to cross a precarious bridge over a pit of tormented sinners. Every bad deed they had committed was carried as a weight on their shoulders. If the weight was too much (they were too evil) then they were crushed and fell off the bridge into the pit. If they were light enough to walk across they were welcomed into paradise and eternal life.

In ancient Greece (roughly 500 years before Christ) the god Hades was given the Underworld as his kingdom. Almost all of the descriptions of Hell come from the poetic work of Dante in his poem The Divine Comedy. Dante's work comes from his knowledge of Hades, according to ancient Greek religions. Hades is a multi-continental location complete with: the Elysian Fields (Heaven) where warriors and loyal Greeks could go; the Asphodel Meadows (Limbo) where people who did both good and bad went; The 5 Rivers—Styx, Phlegethon, Cocytus, Lethe, and Acheron—where low-level sinners were sent based on their most common sins; Tartarus (Hell), where monsters, titans, the damned, and other evil beings were banished; and an empty sea where those of non-Greek descent were forced to wade for all of eternity (purgatory).

Since Judaism, the root-faith of Christianity, evolved in the Middle East, and the values of Mesopotamia traveled to Egypt, then to Persia, and then to Greece it becomes obvious that the Christian concept of Hell was inspired by these older Underworld mythologies. Hell, then, is not real, unless all of these places are real. If, then, all of these places are real, why worry about Hell, because you can just opt to try your hand at the Tuat, immortality, the Bridge, or Hades.

~ Wandering Scribe

Originally posted by Infi8nity
Before Satin tried to over throw God how did God punish people for sinning?

Just for the record, it wasn't Satin, it was Gold Lamé.

Otherwise, carry on, I have nothing else to offer.

reply to post by Wandering Scribe


Well there were religions before that were not written, so who's to say none had a depiction of hell similar to Christians. It seems reasonable to conclude that hell was interrupted and spread to Christianity throughout the centuries, but what about the Mayans. They are far from these regions and have depictions of a hell. From what we know NDE's are the only way for a human to peer into the after life and describe it to people still living. Medical services got better and so did are depictions of hell. Talking about NDE's is a totally different thing and I will not get into them. Finally we know Abraham talked to God and a more clear look into hell was understood that Judaism received.

reply to post by Warpedconsciousness


The Mayans and other Mesoamerican religious systems evolved after Christianity. The Christians could not have taken their influence from systems which were not yet in existence. As for religions before the Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Persian, and Greek... the only rival one was Hinduism, which does not have a similar concept of Hell, as the realms of suffering in Hinduism are temporary. The Doctrines of Reincarnation, and Karma allow for absolution and removal from a Hell Realm.

The only beliefs pre-dating the organized theocratic socieities I used as examples are animism, shamanism, and whatever they were worshiping at Göbekli Tepe, but no one knows what that was, as none of them left clues beyond totemic structures. Animism, and Shamanism do not have a Hell, only a completely neutral and open Spirit World, where both benign and malign spirits co-exist together.

As for Biblical testimony... I don't really put any stock in the Bible. Hell, to the Jews was called Sheol and was more a place of waste and decay, then one of torment and suffering. The negative virtues and negative emanations of God found their place in the Sheol, as described in the Kaballah of the Hebrew mystics and Rabbanim.

Religions are like cultural memes, they evolve based on what contact the society has. The nomadic Jews traveled to Babylon (picking up negative existence: Sheol) then to Egypt where they adopted the 10 Commandments (which are in the Egyptian Book of Coming Forth by Day); then to Persia where they adopted the dualism of God and Satan, and also found out about Chaldean beliefs which prominently featured intermediaries between men and gods, called demi-gods or Angels; and finally into Greece where they adopted the image of Zeus for their deity, Yahweh, and learned of the resurrected god (Baal in Babylon; Osiris in Egypt; Adonis/Dionysus in Greece) which lead to the prophecy of the Jewish Messiah. As Rome took command and advanced, the Christian state-religion became important, and since Rome absorbed Greek culture, they took the religious cultural memes, and Christ was born as a mediator between Jewish belief, pagan belief, polytheistic belief, and non-belief.

Obviously the above is a very quick sketch of the growth and evolution of the religion, but, it's part of the Bible that the Jews traveled to those locations, and Rome's historical growth and spread of Christianity is well-known.

Hell is a cultural construct based upon pre-Christian religious afterlives dealing with judgment and absolution.

~ Wandering Scribe

reply to post by Infi8nity

Before Satin tried to over throw God how did God punish people for sinning?

Lucifer fell before God created man.

Originally posted by NOTurTypical
reply to post by Infi8nity

 

Before Satin tried to over throw God how did God punish people for sinning?

Lucifer fell before God created man.

Lucifer is a Latin word. Please explain how a Latin word was in use way back before the Holy Roman Church even invented the Latin Language? Isn't this called "circular logic?"

reply to post by autowrench


Okay, fair enough. The angelic entity that we commonly refer to as satan fell before man was created.

Satin is a type of cake icing or a fabric bride's maid's dresses are made from.
Satan is a character in the Bible who is the accuser of the people and a tempter.

The basic meaning of hell is death, so if you look at Revelation and you read about a lake of fire, it symbolizes the end of death, since death and hell are thrown into it to be destroyed, along with the beast who leads astray. It is not to be taken literally and we as readers of Revelation are not given the task of destroying anyone ourselves.

reply to post by jmdewey60

The basic meaning of hell is death, so if you look at Revelation and you read about a lake of fire, it symbolizes the end of death, since death and hell are thrown into it to be destroyed, along with the beast who leads astray.

end of death ? the beast who leads astray ?
can you please explain more ? have you got the specific verses of revelation ?

reply to post by icepack


the lake of fire is something you burn in real-time, we all do...

you do not want to take that imagery with you in the final big sleep either.

I wish I could go back and not see any of the world except the good stuff, probably wouldn't have had a single nightmare as a kid?

Wow. This thread is SERIOUSLY lacking in any good answers to OP's questions.

OP, I will get back to you with a lengthy reply to your questions / concerns.

My advice for you until then is to disregard every post made so far, as none have even come remotely close to answering your questions in a Truthful manner...

Originally posted by Iason321
Wow. This thread is SERIOUSLY lacking in any good answers to OP's questions.

OP, I will get back to you with a lengthy reply to your questions / concerns.

My advice for you until then is to disregard every post made so far, as none have even come remotely close to answering your questions in a Truthful manner...

I think that the evils of the world are there... it is not the bible that introduces you to them, it tells you how to deal with it.

I guess there could be three sides to every story, like a triple entendre...