The Doctrine of Hell

[Jester]

It came up in another topic that Christians are varied in our descriptions of Hell. I thought that this would make an excellent point of discussion. For the sake of clarity, here are the questions for discussion.

1. How literal are the descriptions of Hell in the Bible?
(a). If they are basically literal, what can we infer about the nature of Heaven, Hell and God as Christianity describes it?
(b). If they are basically figurative, what is their purpose in being included in the Bible and, again, what can we infer about the nature of Heaven, Hell and God?

2. What is the nature of Hell?/What makes Hell so bad? (i.e. physical torture, psychological torture, separation from God, etc.)

3. How does one avoid hell? That is to say, how does one receive forgiveness from God, and why is that necessary for forgiveness?

[Easyrider]

I take them as being literal. I've seen quite a few individuals testify of dreams and visions and being "taken to hell" for a visit by the Lord or by angels, and it all comes back the same: fire, torment, extremely frightening and powerful demons, complete loss of hope, screams of agony, a foul stench, having a hard time even breathing due to the excessive heat, etc. One individual said there were snakes, scorpions, spiders, and all kinds of nasty crawling things all over the place, and they were constantly biting, etc. After one Christian experienced that "visit" his wife found him curled up on the living room floor screaming, and it took him several weeks to calm down.

All contradictory accounts, that can't all possibly be true.

What's contradictory?

Dreams are as a rule, not real, purely something conjured up by the subconscious that represents something in life. It's likely that those who fear hell are going to have nightmares about it. And it's also likely that if you hear of such stories from other people that you will have similar dreams.

Dreams can have a powerful effect on you, but you can't take them seriously.

You can if they're from God. Get one from God and you'll know you've experienced something entirely profound. Very vivid. And then you'll always wake up at the end of it. Often he'll give you the interpretation.

I would be impressed if you could work out the difference between the dreams from your God from those from Satan for even Satan can disguise himself as an Angel of Light.

You're forgetting the two don't have the same agenda.

[Goat]

I take them as being literal. I've seen quite a few individuals testify of dreams and visions and being "taken to hell" for a visit by the Lord or by angels, and it all comes back the same: fire, torment, extremely frightening and powerful demons, complete loss of hope, screams of agony, a foul stench, having a hard time even breathing due to the excessive heat, etc. One individual said there were snakes, scorpions, spiders, and all kinds of nasty crawling things all over the place, and they were constantly biting, etc. After one Christian experienced that "visit" his wife found him curled up on the living room floor screaming, and it took him several weeks to calm down.

All contradictory accounts, that can't all possibly be true.

What's contradictory?

Dreams are as a rule, not real, purely something conjured up by the subconscious that represents something in life. It's likely that those who fear hell are going to have nightmares about it. And it's also likely that if you hear of such stories from other people that you will have similar dreams.

Dreams can have a powerful effect on you, but you can't take them seriously.

You can if they're from God. Get one from God and you'll know you've experienced something entirely profound. Very vivid. And then you'll always wake up at the end of it. Often he'll give you the interpretation.

I would be impressed if you could work out the difference between the dreams from your God from those from Satan for even Satan can disguise himself as an Angel of Light.

You're forgetting the two don't have the same agenda.

Using scripture alone, please show me what the 'agenda' is of Satan.. and show me what the 'agenda' is of God.

[Easyrider]

I take them as being literal. I've seen quite a few individuals testify of dreams and visions and being "taken to hell" for a visit by the Lord or by angels, and it all comes back the same: fire, torment, extremely frightening and powerful demons, complete loss of hope, screams of agony, a foul stench, having a hard time even breathing due to the excessive heat, etc. One individual said there were snakes, scorpions, spiders, and all kinds of nasty crawling things all over the place, and they were constantly biting, etc. After one Christian experienced that "visit" his wife found him curled up on the living room floor screaming, and it took him several weeks to calm down.

All contradictory accounts, that can't all possibly be true.

What's contradictory?

Dreams are as a rule, not real, purely something conjured up by the subconscious that represents something in life. It's likely that those who fear hell are going to have nightmares about it. And it's also likely that if you hear of such stories from other people that you will have similar dreams.

Dreams can have a powerful effect on you, but you can't take them seriously.

You can if they're from God. Get one from God and you'll know you've experienced something entirely profound. Very vivid. And then you'll always wake up at the end of it. Often he'll give you the interpretation.

I would be impressed if you could work out the difference between the dreams from your God from those from Satan for even Satan can disguise himself as an Angel of Light.

You're forgetting the two don't have the same agenda.

Using scripture alone, please show me what the 'agenda' is of Satan.. and show me what the 'agenda' is of God.

Read the Bible and it might come to you. Start with John 14:6 and go to John 8:44. Anyone who is well versed on Christianity knows God and the devil have different agendas.

[OnceConvinced]

I take them as being literal. I've seen quite a few individuals testify of dreams and visions and being "taken to hell" for a visit by the Lord or by angels, and it all comes back the same: fire, torment, extremely frightening and powerful demons, complete loss of hope, screams of agony, a foul stench, having a hard time even breathing due to the excessive heat, etc. One individual said there were snakes, scorpions, spiders, and all kinds of nasty crawling things all over the place, and they were constantly biting, etc. After one Christian experienced that "visit" his wife found him curled up on the living room floor screaming, and it took him several weeks to calm down.

All contradictory accounts, that can't all possibly be true.

What's contradictory?

I'm talking in general - when it comes to near death experiences. Many have entirely different accounts of what heaven and hell are like, but yet all are convinced what they saw is real.

Actually looking back at the things you have written there, it's unlikely you'll have those biting animals running around in hell. They've be suffering, just like the humans!

Also demons are not powerful. They are weak, snivelling creatures and flee at the name of Jesus, remember? It's Hollywood that makes them out to be powerful creatures, which is why people dream about them being powerful.

Ever heard of Parasomnia?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasomnia
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=3919672&page=1

Dreams are as a rule, not real, purely something conjured up by the subconscious that represents something in life. It's likely that those who fear hell are going to have nightmares about it. And it's also likely that if you hear of such stories from other people that you will have similar dreams.

Dreams can have a powerful effect on you, but you can't take them seriously.

You can if they're from God. Get one from God and you'll know you've experienced something entirely profound. Very vivid. And then you'll always wake up at the end of it. Often he'll give you the interpretation.

I've had some very profound and vivid dreams and don't believe any of them are from God. The thing about dreams is that they're so convincing you think they must be supernatural. But they're not. And anyone can come up with an interpretation for a dream if they think about it. Dreams are dreams. There's nothing supernatural about them.

Have you ever noticed that when people tell stories about being visited by demons and angels, it's always at night? Why do you think that is? Because they dreamt it and it seemed so real they thought it was true. But it's all dreams, just your subconscious conjuring up subjects that you think about regularly or have thought about. It's all completely natural.

[byofrcs]

I take them as being literal. I've seen quite a few individuals testify of dreams and visions and being "taken to hell" for a visit by the Lord or by angels, and it all comes back the same: fire, torment, extremely frightening and powerful demons, complete loss of hope, screams of agony, a foul stench, having a hard time even breathing due to the excessive heat, etc. One individual said there were snakes, scorpions, spiders, and all kinds of nasty crawling things all over the place, and they were constantly biting, etc. After one Christian experienced that "visit" his wife found him curled up on the living room floor screaming, and it took him several weeks to calm down.

All contradictory accounts, that can't all possibly be true.

What's contradictory?

Dreams are as a rule, not real, purely something conjured up by the subconscious that represents something in life. It's likely that those who fear hell are going to have nightmares about it. And it's also likely that if you hear of such stories from other people that you will have similar dreams.

Dreams can have a powerful effect on you, but you can't take them seriously.

You can if they're from God. Get one from God and you'll know you've experienced something entirely profound. Very vivid. And then you'll always wake up at the end of it. Often he'll give you the interpretation.

I would be impressed if you could work out the difference between the dreams from your God from those from Satan for even Satan can disguise himself as an Angel of Light.

You're forgetting the two don't have the same agenda.

Using scripture alone, please show me what the 'agenda' is of Satan.. and show me what the 'agenda' is of God.

Read the Bible and it might come to you. Start with John 14:6 and go to John 8:44. Anyone who is well versed on Christianity knows God and the devil have different agendas.

With those two verses I remain unconvinced. By its very definition nature cannot fathom the supernatural irrespective of any belief in a supernatural. I could imagine a Angel of Light whose agenda is beyond reckon to all except the ultimate God.

I wouldn't want to start to play that game....but we digress.

The closest modern interpretation of Hell that matches the Atheist faith is Annihilationism or rather, the "only end is total non-being" (CoE "The Mystery of Salvation: The Doctrine Commission of the General Synod" (1995).

[Greatest I Am]

Read the Bible and it might come to you. Start with John 14:6 and go to John 8:44. Anyone who is well versed on Christianity knows God and the devil have different agendas.

Satan's agenda is God's agenda.
Job indicates that Satan is under God's directions.
Satan does not have greater power than God.
Go remains the only boss of this universe, not a lowly angel.
Satan like all of us answers to God.

Regards
DL

[Jester]

Satan's agenda is God's agenda.
Job indicates that Satan is under God's directions.
Satan does not have greater power than God.
Go remains the only boss of this universe, not a lowly angel.
Satan like all of us answers to God.

I would assert that, while Satan must answer to God on certain matters, that does not establish that they share an agenda. Agenda refers to one's goals, rather than accepting the reality of certain boundaries established from an outside force. To that end, the opening of the book of Job makes it clear that they see things differently, and have different ideas as to how things ought to be done. Hence, different agendas.

[Beto]

Satan's agenda is God's agenda.
Job indicates that Satan is under God's directions.
Satan does not have greater power than God.
Go remains the only boss of this universe, not a lowly angel.
Satan like all of us answers to God.

I would assert that, while Satan must answer to God on certain matters, that does not establish that they share an agenda. Agenda refers to one's goals, rather than accepting the reality of certain boundaries established from an outside force. To that end, the opening of the book of Job makes it clear that they see things differently, and have different ideas as to how things ought to be done. Hence, different agendas.

I wonder where I heard that angels have no free will and that when free will was given to Man, Lucifer became jealous and rebelled (makes no sense of course, because to rebel one needs free will, but that's no more contradictory than the tree of knowledge episode). Maybe it was a movie (the Prophecy, perhaps). Is there any biblical support to this?

[Jester]

I wonder where I heard that angels have no free will and that when free will was given to Man, Lucifer became jealous and rebelled (makes no sense of course, because to rebel one needs free will, but that's no more contradictory than the tree of knowledge episode). Maybe it was a movie (the Prophecy, perhaps). Is there any biblical support to this?

Not that I know of. Frankly, the Bible is pretty vague on angels, over and above the usual issues of interpretation. I haven’t read anything that seems to imply that they lack free will – though I have heard that claim as well. I can’t seem to remember where either. All I can say is that I haven’t seen The Prophecy, though I can’t rule out other films.

It does seem completely contradictory to assert that Satan rebelled without free will. I’d say that, unless someone can bring up a scripture that I’ve missed or forgotten, the Biblical stance is that angels have it.

With regard to Satan's rebellion, the Bible is vague about that as well. Most everyone agrees that Satan decided at some point that he would do a better job than God, and demanded the position.

I also know that the LDS (Mormon) church teaches that Satan felt that it was a bad idea to give humans free will (arguing that they'd just rebel), and that is what started him thinking that his ideas were better than God's. Perhaps a misunderstanding of this story is where the "angels don't have free will" idea began? I can't say that I know.

[Greatest I Am]

Satan's agenda is God's agenda.
Job indicates that Satan is under God's directions.
Satan does not have greater power than God.
Go remains the only boss of this universe, not a lowly angel.
Satan like all of us answers to God.

I would assert that, while Satan must answer to God on certain matters, that does not establish that they share an agenda. Agenda refers to one's goals, rather than accepting the reality of certain boundaries established from an outside force. To that end, the opening of the book of Job makes it clear that they see things differently, and have different ideas as to how things ought to be done. Hence, different agendas.

If their agendas were different then Satan would never do God's bidding.
Satan, representing evil, has the function of teacher just as God as the representation of good teaches his side.

When did God start losing control of His creations and or systems?

If Satan only responds on his terms then God would be displeased.

Regards
DL