Hell and Christianity

**Rhyfelwyr** · 02-02-2010, 00:52

Do you think the idea of Hell is compatible with the wider message of the Bible?

The strange thing with this issue is that you can't place it along the usual liberal/fundamentalist lines, or at least not how you might expect it to fit. It tends to be the more moderate Christians that believe in traditional ideas of hell, whereas those who deny it's existence often come from the more radical fundamentalist sects.

I do believe Hell exists. I know I could just go an quote a couple of verses, but it's more than that, it's part of my wider understanding of Christianity as a whole. Although I will also admit that it isn't so clear cut I could really give an opinion with any certainty when it comes to the specifics.

Any thoughts from others on this?

**Tellos Athenaios** · 02-02-2010, 01:10

I think to understand ‘hell’ as it was meant you have to look long & hard at the context in which it occurs. I am not a very learned person when it comes to theology; but as I understand it, hell is only really very important in the context of ‘salvation’. That is; you have people who receive ‘salvation’ and you have those who don't and those who don't, they go to hell. So it is not really ‘hell’ that is so important. What is important is ‘salvation’, and that ‘good will triumph’, that keeping faith may not be easy at all times but that it is also faith which will at the end reward you. This is distinct from taking matters into your own hand and being an obstructive warrior of the faith (Maccabees); this is more the quiet enduring kind of faith (Ruth).

The problem I have with the idea of a wider message of the bible is that it is a body of somewhat awkard fitting theological views that clearly shifts a lot too. The closest analogy would be the repeated & doomed attempts of Mathematicians to find one basic set of axioms from which all of the known body of Math could be constructed by induction.

**Lord Winter** · 02-02-2010, 01:17

I think it makes a large difference in what way you define as hell. If you define hell as an eternal inescapable place of punishment you violate Christan core values like forgiveness and love. However I think there is room for hell if it is treated as a temporary step to one's eventual repentance. Either way the idea of a fire and brimstone hell full of pain and torture is ridiculous and needs to go.

**Hax** · 02-02-2010, 01:22

Bah, just when you thought that life on this earth wasn't quite bad enough.

There is one fundamental issue: Where do sadomasochists go? Hell for them is Heaven and vice versa. I think Hell and Heaven are personal concepts.