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Does Hell exist?

Does Hell exist?

  • Yes

    Votes: 16 27.1%
  • No

    Votes: 43 72.9%

  • Total voters
    59

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Hell is your heaven and heaven is your hell. Earth bound logic distorted in earth bound ideologies from a dualistic point of view. When you remove the lopsided perception literature and scripture place in the super subconscious to create the illusion of what is and what isn't then you receive a different kind of knowing. This is primary in an understanding that yes there are worlds between worlds, and yes if you are conceptualising most of it in local polarities then these are your limiters of belief. Indeed when you start to understand the nonlocality of this earth bound experience is much broader and comprehensive than the current limited paradigms of heaven and hell, dualities, like all dualities of which are many. Then death consciousness needs no longer apply, it is the journey not the destination that matter, the journey into the heart is thy knower of truths. Which disperses the notations that heaven and hell are local expressions, which they are born from fear, doubt, insecurity, shame, pride, greed, prejudice, judgment etc. Were these ideas born from unconditional love then the whole view would shift, indeed the paradigm as it were from a material, mind concept of heaven and hell to a different kind. Much more strongly connected than earthly paradigms which personality creates pockets of realities, like weights, burdens towards these ideas.

How much different life might become when many conditions are released and new words become manifest that creates unification rather than separation. That is what this is, separation, separation from self, separation from others, separation from a host of things, things that articulate this that or other. but what is this that or other upon this earthen abode as defined by a hell, a heaven. A way station, a bridge, towards an expansion in consciousness, teachers towards our filament of being our energy affirmed as a nonlocal journey, across cellular memory, across the time and space.

These ideas, are ideas that create boxes which create safety zones when the mind is conditioned to believe it as such, and freedom when the heart starts seeing and paradigms shift when drama's energy changes nonlocally as much.
 

KDude

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Indeed when you start to understand the nonlocality of this earth bound experience is much broader and comprehensive than the current limited paradigms of heaven and hell, dualities, like all dualities of which are many.

I like dualities though. If anything, because of the inherent drama. Makes for good comic books at least.
 

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I like dualities though. If anything, because of the inherent drama. Makes for good comic books at least.

Serves its purpose I suppose, if being in service of sufferance of woundings is a necessary learning, to be stuck with mirrors all of life seems strange. When there is a way to deprogram the distortion towards genuine balance then we become the story creators, the world stops being story creators for us. I for one intend to move past the road blocks that take away power and restore, become my power source well and truly, in fearless gratitude. :D
 

KDude

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Serves its purpose I suppose, if being in service of sufferance of woundings is a necessary learning, to be stuck with mirrors all of life seems strange. When there is a way to deprogram the distortion towards genuine balance then we become the story creators, the world stops being story creators for us. I for one intend to move past the road blocks that take away power and restore, become my power source well and truly, in fearless gratitude. :D

So avoiding the world, and it's trappings, is balance, eh?

I can't believe that.
 

Lily flower

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If you read the stories of people who experience Near Death, or one of those "dead for 15 minutes", then revived stories, some are of heaven, but some are also of hell. Even on earth, we see both heaven (good, love) and hell (evil, hate). If they are both here while we are alive, why do we think there will only be heaven after we die? Thinking that way is kind of naive and extremely over-hopeful.

The Bible teaches that hell was designed for Satan and his angels (ie demons), and evil - ie the cause of most suffering in the world) but that God would like everyone to be with Him, not in Hell (that was the whole purpose of sending Jesus to save us),

but God is a gentleman in that he doesn't force anyone to be with Him that doesn't want to. So the people who don't want to be with him have to go somewhere, because we are created to be eternal spirits. The reason it is "hell" is because God is all good, and if you go somewhere where there is no good, then it is obviously going to be hellish.
 

Magic Poriferan

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I take near-death experiences to be delirium and they don't convince me of much.
 

Sanctus Iacobus

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I think God gives free will but has a plan, people can deviate from it if they want, although they will be happier if they dont and will know themselves when they are living according to it or not.

Good surmise. Man has total free will within the dominion that God gave to Adam. Unfortunately, Adam gave up his dominion to Eve, who had been seduced by Satan, effectively giving man's dominion to Satan. Since God gave dominion of earth to man, and God cannot contradict Himself, God had to come to earth as a man, Jesus, to reclaim the eternal souls of men, restore creation to a new earth, and take His rightful place as eternal King, on earth.

Hell is where the "chaff" go. That is, when Jesus comes to reclaim dominion, some will believe in His salvation and be claimed in Jesus Christ as sons of God, receiving all Christ has (the total glorification of God) and the rest, who refuse to recognize Jesus for who He is and remain in a state of fallen short of the glorification of God, will be burned, which is something we do every day with waste and things which no longer serve their purpose... which by default, is all of us (unless we are in Christ in this life, then we get to be with Him upon His return and not cast away to be burned).

Whether a person believes in hell is irrelevant, of course. Whether you believe Jesus, and believe He is the son of God, and believe that only Jesus fully glorifies God and you don't, and thus need Jesus (all of this is a free gift, given by God's grace to those who ask)... that is what determines whether you will go to hell or not. Again, whether a person believes in hell is irrelevant, as not believing it exists isn't going to make it go away, just like not believing in taxes doesn't mean you don't have to pay them.
 

KDude

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Except, the Adam and Eve story chronologically takes place 6,000 years ago, and modern humans are at least 200,000 years old. It doesn't help that Genesis' stories were shared in various forms across Mesopotamia by people who didn't worship the same god or gods. It's just a story one tribe took and adapted for their purposes, because that's what they knew best at the time. I think it's a mistake building an entire theology, let alone, cosmology, out of it.

I'd really like to believe in Jesus' purpose to be a sacrifice - it makes it easy for me. I don't have to do anything but accept his gift, in that case. But if that was the case, then his whole life was kind of pointless up until the point he died on the cross. He was at least 33 years old - he spent a relatively long time on earth (especially for his era), but in this convenient form of the gospel, nothing he did or said means anything except the last 3 days when he visits Jerusalem and gets killed. If that's all God wanted, then maybe God should have just sacrificed him as an infant.

I'd like to think following Jesus means actually listening to what he said, and not just licking the blood from his wounds.
 

Sanctus Iacobus

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Except, the Adam and Eve story chronologically takes place 6,000 years ago, and modern humans are at least 200,000 years old. It doesn't help that Genesis' stories were shared in various forms across Mesopotamia by people who didn't worship the same god or gods. It's just a story one tribe took and adapted for their purposes, because that's what they knew best at the time. I think it's a mistake building an entire theology, let alone, cosmology, out of it.

I'd really like to believe in Jesus' purpose to be a sacrifice - it makes it easy for me. I don't have to do anything but accept his gift, in that case. But if that was the case, then his whole life was kind of pointless up until the point he died on the cross. He was at least 33 years old - he spent a relatively long time on earth (especially for his era), but in this convenient form of the gospel, nothing he did or said means anything except the last 3 days when he visits Jerusalem and gets killed. If that's all God wanted, then maybe God should have just sacrificed him as an infant.

I'd like to think following Jesus means actually listening to what he said, and not just licking the blood from his wounds.

I'll just skip the part you say about humanity being 200,000 years old because this has endless "fact" bashing argument written all over it.

Jesus was human and lived a human life. His purpose was to do the will of God the Father and achieve all glory, apparently that took 33 years. Jesus did a lot of things before and after His death and resurrection too. Also, Jesus didn't "get killed", He allowed it because it was the will of God the Father. There was plenty of times Jesus avoided capture, and He told His disciples at the last supper and even walking the road to where He would be captured that He had to die.

Therefore, it is no surprise that what He taught and told followers do aligned with what He accomplished on the cross. See:

28 Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”
29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
30 So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’[c]”
32 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
34 “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”
35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. (John 6)

Jesus later refers to Himself as bread at the last supper:

26 While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body which is for you.”

We can safely draw the conclusion that partaking in Jesus' sacrifice was not only His will and desire, but also what was to be done as the work of a follower: to believe in Him and what He accomplished, and thus partake in the use of Jesus' body as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of all who believe.

"Believe" is a little hard to understand in this context, so I'll put it this way. When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, God has to kill an animal to atone for them, and then used the fur of the dead animal to clothe them. In the same way, those who "believe" clothe themselves in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus which covers their sins, since all have fallen short of God's glory, but Christ did not, we get this status if we believe in Him (and by necessity therefore not believing in ourselves, we take off our old self and put on Jesus' right relationship with God the Father). Also, the Holy Spirit works from inside a person to change them and do a new work through that person, founded entirely on belief (which is faith).
 

KDude

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I'll just skip the part you say about humanity being 200,000 years old because this has endless "fact" bashing argument written all over it.

I'm not bashing anything. I'm just stating it. Why so defensive?

The truth is, your gospel is not as easy as you make it out to be. You don't expect anyone to just believe in Jesus. You have many other prerequisites, else you look unkindly on others. Case in point, you expect them to not address any supposed facts at all. Admit it or not, it's part of your gospel. We can't even get to Jesus yet.
 

Sanctus Iacobus

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I'm not bashing anything. I'm just stating it. Why so defensive?

The truth is, your gospel is not as easy as you make it out to be. You don't expect anyone to just believe in Jesus. You have many other prerequisites, else you look unkindly on others. Case in point, you expect them to not address any supposed facts at all. Admit it or not, it's part of your gospel. We can't even get to Jesus yet.

It's one of those things where you'll say what you call "fact" and I'll say what I call "fact" and it ends up in people bashing one another personally because it's tough to prove on an internet forum!

As for the rest of what you said, that is entirely untrue! Maybe if you're talking about religion. The love of Jesus surpasses all of that and in His lifetime He often rebuked the religious leaders for standing in between Him and the people who need Him. Jesus does not turn people away. In fact, this is the only prerequisite to a sincere rebirth of faith... that we must become like children. Children do not have a bunch of false notions and worrisome expectations to prevent them from doing things, they just do them. They don't think about all the prerequisites they don't meet. Do you remember ever being like that? That is the relationship God the Father desires with you. God wants to adopt sons, and He does this through belief in His only begotten Son Jesus, so that nobody can brag about it, since it was not them who achieved it but Jesus. His accomplishment is imparted to us through our belief in Him.


Religion and Christianity are very different. They can almost be opposites. For instance, if Abraham was religious, he would have told God that he could not commit murder and disobeyed when he was told to sacrifice his son Isaac (which he had waited a very long time to have, by the way). We too often think of "God's command" as a list of rules like the 10 commandments and forget that the 10 commandments were given to the Israelites personally for their present circumstances. The "command" of God is as living and active as God is. This is because religion makes God out to be distant, uninterested, and for the most part not even alive or interested in a personal relationship. However, this makes no sense, considering God made us to be close to Him, enjoy Him and have our needs fulfilled by Him (worship), and have a loving relationship with Him that lasts forever. God doesn't need anything... why else would he make us except to glorify Himself by our creation and loving relationship to Him (and enjoying Him in the process)?

When you write it down as a bunch of rules, take God out of the picture, then worship the rules, then you have religion. Christianity is about Jesus, who is the very one the command of God is for in the first place, therefore Jesus is greater than the commands and there is no prerequisites because Jesus fulfills them all for you. This way you can have, you know... a real relationship in the present moment. Jesus didn't die so people can have a religion.

The reason we always talk about believing is because that's the hard part. It's not like anything we've known before we experience it. God knows this is hard for us to believe, which is why it is the primary concern as well as the only requirement: believe. Forget the rules, we're way past that... everyone got an F on that test. Believe in God and see His solution to it all: Jesus Christ. Believe like you did when you were a kid and go to Jesus (i.e. pray... He's not here in the flesh anymore He is in heaven). That's all it takes. There is no catch.
 

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So avoiding the world, and it's trappings, is balance, eh?

I can't believe that.

Who said about avoiding the world?
You know God and Jesus are a wounded masculine archetype and Mary is a wounded feminine archetype, I wonder where wholeness in masculine and feminine archetypes reside? This theme like pattern seems to be in many cultures and backgrounds this woundedness and separation removed from wholeness, its too unusual to dismiss.
 

KDude

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Who said about avoiding the world?
You know God and Jesus are a wounded masculine archetype and Mary is a wounded feminine archetype, I wonder where wholeness in masculine and feminine archetypes reside? This theme like pattern seems to be in many cultures and backgrounds this woundedness and separation removed from wholeness, its too unusual to dismiss.

You talk about avoiding the world often. Something about not letting it's "energy" in or something. And here you mention not wanting the world creating "stories" for you.

In any case, I'm not the world's biggest fan, but what you say doesn't sound balanced to me to either. I would think any kind of balanced existence goes both ways.
 

Tamske

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Hmmm, why such a thorough discussion about the existence of hell?
I took the question literally, as it seemed to me that the first post was pointing to that meaning. So hell, as a place where humans get punished after their death, doesn't exist.
It would be perfectly evil to create a world, put some beings in it, and punish them for ever if they don't behave according to some morals they don't know. I mean - what's going to put you in hell? Being not a muslim? Or being not a christian? Being gay? Wearing clothes of mixed fabric?
God, in al his power, could have been clearer. If I taught my lessons as confusing as he does, I would be fired and rightly so.
So even if there is a god who makes such a place, and even if he makes it perfectly clear he exists and will put me into hell for not worshipping him, I'm not going to worship him. Because a god who does this is evil.

To be clear: I don't believe in a god, I don't believe in heaven, I don't believe in hell.

Of course, hell in a metaphorical sense is a whole other story. War is hell. Hunger and drought can lead to hellish situations... In that sense, I think hell is very real. And it's in our human power to abolish it.
 

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You talk about avoiding the world often. Something about not letting it's "energy" in or something. And here you mention not wanting the world creating "stories" for you.

In any case, I'm not the world's biggest fan, but what you say doesn't sound balanced to me to either. I would think any kind of balanced existence goes both ways.

Could be the old me, whether I talk about it in the last few months to a year as much as prior to then who knows. You misunderstand. 99% of the population is imbalanced. The genuinely balanced people happen to be children before the imbalance starts.

This changes once perceptions and values of wounded feminine and masculine energies, people, feed the child their stories they think is true which were learned from their upbringing that their generations thought were true...this leads to a cycle of wounding, many unhealthy scripts. This then becomes reinforced in society by pretty much everyone. It is rare you will find another person who will be balanced. If you dig deep enough, ask enough questions you will find very few people are able to reconcile their woundings.

By letting the world create stories for you you are giving away your power to the world and in turn your identity. To change this by reclaiming your power by creating your stories rather than the world means you are now changing towards a balanced view without avoidance. For then you create the boundaries to know, understand why the world, people in your life are wounded.

Until you start actively changing yourself you will find my words baffling.
 

KDude

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Until you start actively changing yourself you will find my words baffling.

I once put a guy in the hospital by slamming his head into a concrete wall. Why? Because he didn't give me 50 cents. It was that retarded. And tragic. And..evil, I would say. This is only one thing, but needless to say, I've changed from that stage. I know change as well as the next person.

I'm not going to get into my whole life story, but I think you assume too much probably.

And I don't find you baffling. You should understand that I find you disagreeable instead. There's not going to be any step where if I did this or saw that, then I'd be less confused by you. It's just that I don't like what you're saying (Your values sound commendable, don't get me wrong. You just lose me when you start making it about you and the entire world. I don't think you know much of anything about the world to begin with).
 

Tiltyred

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It's one of those things where you'll say what you call "fact" and I'll say what I call "fact" and it ends up in people bashing one another personally because it's tough to prove on an internet forum!

As for the rest of what you said, that is entirely untrue! Maybe if you're talking about religion. The love of Jesus surpasses all of that and in His lifetime He often rebuked the religious leaders for standing in between Him and the people who need Him. Jesus does not turn people away. In fact, this is the only prerequisite to a sincere rebirth of faith... that we must become like children. Children do not have a bunch of false notions and worrisome expectations to prevent them from doing things, they just do them. They don't think about all the prerequisites they don't meet. Do you remember ever being like that? That is the relationship God the Father desires with you. God wants to adopt sons, and He does this through belief in His only begotten Son Jesus, so that nobody can brag about it, since it was not them who achieved it but Jesus. His accomplishment is imparted to us through our belief in Him.


Religion and Christianity are very different. They can almost be opposites. For instance, if Abraham was religious, he would have told God that he could not commit murder and disobeyed when he was told to sacrifice his son Isaac (which he had waited a very long time to have, by the way). We too often think of "God's command" as a list of rules like the 10 commandments and forget that the 10 commandments were given to the Israelites personally for their present circumstances. The "command" of God is as living and active as God is. This is because religion makes God out to be distant, uninterested, and for the most part not even alive or interested in a personal relationship. However, this makes no sense, considering God made us to be close to Him, enjoy Him and have our needs fulfilled by Him (worship), and have a loving relationship with Him that lasts forever. God doesn't need anything... why else would he make us except to glorify Himself by our creation and loving relationship to Him (and enjoying Him in the process)?

When you write it down as a bunch of rules, take God out of the picture, then worship the rules, then you have religion. Christianity is about Jesus, who is the very one the command of God is for in the first place, therefore Jesus is greater than the commands and there is no prerequisites because Jesus fulfills them all for you. This way you can have, you know... a real relationship in the present moment. Jesus didn't die so people can have a religion.

The reason we always talk about believing is because that's the hard part. It's not like anything we've known before we experience it. God knows this is hard for us to believe, which is why it is the primary concern as well as the only requirement: believe. Forget the rules, we're way past that... everyone got an F on that test. Believe in God and see His solution to it all: Jesus Christ. Believe like you did when you were a kid and go to Jesus (i.e. pray... He's not here in the flesh anymore He is in heaven). That's all it takes. There is no catch.

This is how I learned it, too.
What denomination are you? I'm curious because the more I am on the internet, the more I realize that gazillions of people who believe things completely other than this also call themselves Christians. The word almost has no meaning anymore because there's so little agreement among all the people who identify as Christians. So I am curious what exactly you call this.
(I'm not sure what I think anymore.)

P.S. Are you a dispensationalist? Does that go along with your school of belief? Or would you call that a heresy?
 

Sanctus Iacobus

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This is how I learned it, too.
What denomination are you? I'm curious because the more I am on the internet, the more I realize that gazillions of people who believe things completely other than this also call themselves Christians. The word almost has no meaning anymore because there's so little agreement among all the people who identify as Christians. So I am curious what exactly you call this.
(I'm not sure what I think anymore.)

P.S. Are you a dispensationalist? Does that go along with your school of belief? Or would you call that a heresy?

Here are my views (1 Corinthians 1:10-17)

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1 Corinthians 1:10-17&version=NIV


This illustrates that even with things like denomination we can miss the point. God cares about the heart and therefore the unity of the church is more important than determining one person being right in doctrine and one being wrong... as there is truly only 1 right doctrine--only Jesus is righteous and we are only righteous as much as Jesus lives within us. What is the true church besides the body of Christ? That is... Christ is no longer here in body, but He left the Holy Spirit, who indwells our body and lives the life of Jesus through this present age. Hence, the "body"... and this is the only true church. It is not a building or religious organization.

I've never heard of dispensationalism, but I do not believe it's important to get caught up on whether things like that are accurate for the very reason I outlined above... as soon as we ask the question, we're already wrong, like Jesus' disciples were when they discussed which amongst them was the greatest.
 

Tiltyred

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Thank you for sharing your beliefs. It's very interesting to read.
What is the name of the church you attend? Do you identify as a Protestant, or a Baptist, or a Methodist, or an Evangelical, or a Charismatic, or any of such things?
 
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