Hell

Does anyone else find it intresting that Christianity (like most other religions) has a hell, and operates under the idea that "when you die, you're going to hell to be touchured for eternity. UNLESS, you follow our religion."

Hell seems to me like an idea created by man in order to scare people into following a certain religion

 

Yep, you got it. :iagree:

 

Pretty much. Blatant scare tactics that are still applied today in sunday schools to children. Foster the fear of eternal torture in them from the time they're old enough to read and they grow up with a powerful psychological barrier that keeps them from escaping religious belief.

Some less abhorrent religious people will claim that there is a heaven but not a hell. Instead sinners are banished to oblivion, limbo or other seemingly less horrifying options. Usually these are the modern american jesus heads who believe that all you have to do to be saved is accept jesus christ. Of course this begs the question of why god would be rewarding people for being credulous and irrationally fearful and punishing those for whom it is literally impossible to believe something without good evidence for it.

 

Religion is a symptom of the more fundamental cause of indoctrination into the cult. Culture is sustained by the virtue of taboo. It is a phenomena of every cultural institution we maintain. I maintain that to put into institution, is some thing we do with the insane.

 

actually NOT like "most other religeons", or at least not as much or as much as such.

i think those 'scare tactics' may have had some of the best of intentions, but i also agree they don't make the unknown anything other then the unknown.

 

Islam has a hell
Budism has a hell (though not an eternal one)
Hiduism has a hell (I think, I could be wrong though)
That's what I can name off the top of my head. I would assume there are many more.

 

there are MANY more beliefs. there a VERY FEW more "hells".
not that this has very much to do with the likelyhood of what is.
every place is both heavin and hell, depending on how it is percieved.
in the next life, the one after that, and this one as well.
how it is perceived depends on what the awairness dwells on.
a preoccupation with conflict, distruction, the momentary easy gratifications of causing suffering and harm, creates a perciption of all is hell.
this is not some outside judge assigning a punishment, but a self inflicted self fulfilment.

 

Maybe the idea of heaven and hell is a kind of projection from the mamilian digestive system. The food that gets assimilated = heaven, shit = hell.

 

i think hell is like one of those things your parents told ya when you was little to keep you from doin shit.

 

Tell me if I have the wrong idea about Christianity.

You are god, you created a beutiful world, and a bunch of different creatures. You could have let them live happily in peace and harmony forever, but you decided to put a fun little tree in the garden that would mess everyhing up. They of course, eat from it.

You kick them out of the garden, and they all start living evil selfish lives. This gives you an idea. They need to burn goats and cows to earn your love. This inevitably gets old, so you decide that instead of come down there in all your glory and set everyone straight, you go down in man's form and let them kill you.

Over the next 2000 years, the people that believe it was you 2000 years ago, get sent up to eternal paridise. But the people who don't realy believe we killed god are sent straight to hell to be torchured forever.

That makes sense

 

It makes sense if you don't give it much thought.

 

christianity wasn't the subject. hell was.
and humanity wasn't "kicked out" of "the garden" which was everywhere. they turned it into a hell by trashing the place.

 

A short skit based on a popular Zen story

Samurai: Tell me about heaven and hell, old man!
Monk: Why the f**@ should I tell a dirty, stinky piece of s##t like you?

<Samurai draws his sword>

Monk: Ooooh, I'm scared. That thing looks so dull and rusty I'll probably die of tetanus first before my head gets chopped off.

<Samurai raises sword and is about to slash when suddenly....>

Monk: Now THAT is hell.

<Samurai stops and slowly lowers sword>

Monk: And THAT is heaven.

 

LOL :cheers2:

 

Your right, it was off topic so I started a different thread based on that idea.

But what I was trying to point out is how ridiculous the reason for being sent to hell is. Unless god has a really sick and twisted sense of humor, (in that he makes people guess what the meaning of life is based on little evedence 2000 years after Jesus) hell is a creation of man, attempting to scare other men into joining his religion

 

I've never had much time for religion...

Ive always held my personal belive of 'heaven' and 'hell' I guess if the last thoughts you ever have are positive - you had a good time here and did good to many people then maybe you die happy. If you regret what you have done and know you could have done better in your life then your last thoughts will be regret.

end of the line it means fuck all, we die anyway. but, I would always like to think that the last thought I ever have is - at least i tried and tried to make people enjoy their time.

The whole idea of eternal happiness or eternal damnation is, in all honesty, laughable.

I'm happy enough knowing that the atoms I borrowed from this planet will end up going back to something else

 

I remember reading somewhere that God is holding everyone in his hand and if you disobey him, he can easily drop you into the fires of hell.

Lovely God...

 

Hell may just be the place where you don't get to meet those who meet god in heaven, in my view.

 

If your last dying thought is eternity then lying on your death-bed regretting what you did with your one chance to live could be 'Hell'.

 

Wheres the loving god in that?