Well, There is a problem with the "hell is really, you being in someone else's shoes so you can see the torment you caused them". Quite a few people who are sent to hell would enjoy that type of thing. Which is the exact opposite of what hell is supposed to be. You have to have a conscious or a heart to be tormented by such treatment. Those without a heart or conscious would just laugh at all the pain that was caused. Which leads one to believe what logically follows, Hell is just a form of control made up by the some religious groups to scare people who have hearts/consciouses into acting certain ways.
hell is supposedly a religious-based place. But people are trying to say that the Bible tells us about it. All that is said in the Bible is that on judgement day, those who were accepted into Heaven burned forever. A pile of ash from a fire smokes for a long time, which means it is still burning. What's to say that those who aren't accepted into Heaven are just reduced to nothing but a pile of ash that's smoking. They cease to exist.
The main problem with the thought of Hell is that it was supposedly placed into existence by the same God that openly (and repeatedly) expresses love for ALL OF US. If God truly loves all of us why would he want to see any of us suffer for eternity? This discussion has a lot of other discussions all tangled up in it as you have to believe that God truly loves every one of us and that is about a lifetime worth of discussion.
Shadow of a Thought
I finally figured it out!! Hell was invented by the "Baptist" cult. They invented it so if you don't believe and join them, you will be wreathing in fire, with a "devil" torturing you on the rack and a spit, and drag you around, gut you and re-gut you all while you a burning with your skin falling off and then regrowing and then burning off again, and carrying around large boulders up a hill only to have it fall down to the bottom, and having sex with you forever and ...whewww...Baptists are scary.
I agree....I have been doing some reading on the Gnostic..They are thought to be the True teaching of what Jesus was teaching before the Church got involved and made it a heresy to believe such a thing. The Gnostics hold Paul in high regard and Paul's other writing are not included in scripture, but I have them...They are truly Gnostic along with some of James other writingsthat weren't included either. The church threw out the Gnostic teaching and burned them because it would be harder to control the people...The Gnostic don't have a person in charge like a pope. They teach you don't need one to "know" God. It's a personal journey. I'll have to go back and see what they teach about hell..If I remember right, it's not a burning place for eternity for the condemned.
There is no hell...This is a fear that was imposed on ALL OF US..from an ancient source...we ALL go to a divine place...ALL of us...God would never send anyone to a "hell". Think about it..It's like this. Would we, if we had the power of being god, send viruses to a place of eternal torment because they didn't get the rules right??
It's an illusion....It's in your mind...It's a game...Just another game that God lets us play...
I See it like this...God existed or what you would call God...It was very intelligent but could think and not experience, so it broke parts of it's self off. Part of it's pure energy. Like if it was a solid, like jello, it would cut off parts of it's self. Well this energy was placed in a material world with solid bodies created by some process on a hard matter world to experience real sensations and not just it's theories about what it would be like. So..in reality we are the parts that God cut off. That is our spiritual self, the invisible self. We are playing in this world, and God doesn't care...He knows we are all ok in the end...because in the end we all return back to the main source and remember who we really are..
We don't remember now, only through hypnosis, and near death experiences. In Gods eyes, we are just playing...It's like a parent see his children playing...does the parent care if they are playing hide- and seek, or tag, or hopscotch...NO..
And No..God wouldn't send parts of Himself/It's self to hell..now would he? For one thing..there is no hell.
I know this is a simplistic but I didn't want to take up more space..
Actually what you think does matter becuase as far as we know it might be true, i completly agree with you on that part that there is no hell.
I think hell was invented by religions to get more followers, the Roman Catholic church being the greatest example of this... So i very much doubt the excinstence of hell, i won't go as far as flat out deny its a possibility i don't think its there but we'll i've never seen any evidence to the deny it either so can't be 100% sure
Originally posted by debbiejo
I agree, there is always room for speculation...But I just can't imagine that God would send people to a place for EVER to burn...If you were god and all the ants were your masterpiece creation, would you suffer them to eteranl torment because they couldn't all figure out what you were about?
Hell no