The concept of hell itself represents the nature of most organized religion. The use of negative enforcement of behavior upon others in such a mass scale already does not speak well for any religion. If anyone tells me that I will "go to hell" if I decide to masturbate or swear, then they can be damned.
One fallacy in that logic, as far as my limited knowledge of theology goes, is it violates the concept that God is merciful. Wouldn't the fact that hell exists in Christianity deter possible new-comers from the faith, as well as make believers think twice? In addition, why do people require a "hell" to fear in order to behave? Does its existence in the back of your head alter your behavior? Shouldn't your own conscience and morality be used to judge yourself instead of a fictional entity?
The phrase "punishing the wicked" sounds like a sort of last laugh used to make people feel better. If you go through life repressing your desires, and you convince yourself that they will get their just desserts in the end, doesn't it make hell a childish revenge?
Example: I didn't get to do all those things I wanted to do, but I get to go to heaven, and they will go to hell. Ha ha, my repression has paid off! Who's laughing now?
If hell is required for a religion to maintain discipline in the ranks of the believers, then I think the religion is not worth following. Unfortunately, all religions contain some type of reward/punishment system for regulating behaviors, even buddhism (e.g. reborn as a rat if you misbehave). The existence of heaven and hell is one reason I am atheist.
See also heaven.
When Armageddon comes, and the world ends, there will be a judgement.
Those who didn't bother to sign up for Salvation aren't on the list. Didn't bother to register. Aren't going on the train to the new world.
But guess what...the old world's being destroyed. I guess that's why they call it...the end of the world. Neh?
The only thing left, after that, is this place called "hell" that was created as a place for Satan and the other angels who decided that telling God to fuck off would be a good idea.
So...the folks not on the guest list default to there. It's all that's left. Wasn't designed for them. But there isn't anywhere else.
How is hell described? Well, yeah, there's noise about fire and brimstone. But at it's heart?
Hell is total seperation from God for eternity. From all that is good and pure and orderly. From the source that holds the universe together. Etc.
Christianity has turned it into a threat, true. But they're getting it wrong.
Hell wasn't built by a loving God as a place to punish sinners for being bad people.
Hell was built to punish Satan for turning against God and actively acting to corrupt the world. It's just that heaven is only for those who have chosen to accept salvation. It's eternity in the presence of God.
And those who rejected that salvation...because they think it's a faerie tale, because their parents or great grand parents or whatever didn't pass it on...well, it's the only other place to go. *shrug*
Yell and scream as you want. Protest fairness. After all, it's easy for you tell tell an infinite God how it is, and how it goes. By the way, create a hippo for me.
Hell is also a small town in Norway, much to the amusement of the English speaking world.
Traces of settlement and runic inscriptions and carvings have been found, dating back to approximately 6,000 BC. Hellir, the town's original name, dates back to 2,000 BC.
Hell has a population of only 352. That number includes the 1990 Miss Universe, Mona Grudt, who has been chosen as an ambassador of Hell. (She even appeared on David Letterman's "The Late Show" as the Beauty Queen from Hell.)
Needless to say, many of the inhabitants of Hell refer to their home town jokingly when around foreigners. The post office makes big business out of selling "Postcards officially stamped in Hell", the weather forecasters; "It's going to be a cold day in Hell", and the road signs point out the Highway to Hell.
Hell's official homepage, which has an even funnier URL: http://www.hell.no/
Yes, I'm serious! This place does indeed exist. I'm not making this up.
It is very possible that when early writters talked about "being sent to hell", it may have meant nothing more than this pit of fire where your body is burned. It apears that the idea of "eternal lakes of fire" and all of the other images of hell may have come much later.
A common christian interpretation among scholars (however, certainly not the only one) is that everyone dies and goes to "hell". Just dead. Then when the day comes, those who were deserving, will be ressurected and transmitted into heaven. Those who are not do not suffer, they are "just dead"
In Italy, Hell is often used as a synonym for Lager Beer. Probably because Hell means "light" in German. In Italy, there is even a beer called "Hell Bier" (probably from Tirol region, in Northern Italy).
FR.TED: July 19th ... Why does that strike me as important? DOUGAL: Yes!... Ah, July 19th, I wouldn't know Ted you big bollocks. FR.TED: I'm sorry? DOUGAL: I said 'I wouldn't know Ted, you big bollocks'. FR.TED: Have you been reading those Roddy Doyle books again Dougal? DOUGAL: I have yeah Ted, ya big gobshite.
It is finally time for the holidays, so Ted takes Father Dougal and Father Jack to a remote camp site, where Father Larry Duff has a tiny, rusty caravan, that they have to share with Father Noel Furlong and four of his parishioners children. Dougal manages to forget the trailer with all his toys AND the scrabble:
FR.TED: Did you bring the travel Scrabble, Dougal? DOUGAL: I brought the travel Scrabble and the normal Scrabble Ted. The travel Scrabble for when were travelling and the normal Scrabble for when we arrived. FR.TED: Good man. DOUGAL: Ah no wait a minute. Now that I think of it. I didn't bring either of them.
During the 24 hours the fathers are camping, they manage to lose Father Jack, get cautioned for indecent assault three times, get blasted with manure and spend a sleepless night in a caravan with a mad priest and 4 singing and dancing adolescents. The setting is almost surreal and the dialogue is outright bizarre at times. Graham Norton as Father Noell is as camp as you can be as a priest without upsetting official priesthood.
In my opinion the best episode. Ever.
Or, A Heck of a Place!
Ask enough people, and one or more will eventually tell you you're going to languish in some version of it for some amount of time, ranging from a few weeks to all of eternity.
So you'd better bring something to read.
Notions of "Hell" are global; almost every faith and culture has somewhere to send its malcontents and sinners in the afterlife, such as it is. Images of Hell abound in literature, film, every storytelling medium ever devised by anyone who thought there was a cosmic force to get on the wrong side of--indicating the awesome presence that divine or spiritual correction maintains in the human consciousness.
What will follow here is an attempt to go over (quite briefly) the most prevalent of the varieties of Hell, with references to other very excellent writeups, and a heavy leaning on western culture (typical!), as it is Christianity which has really popularized Hell in its current manifestation. There will also be some hopefully entertaining miscellanies.
*Warning* I am not a particularly religious person, so you may find my tone somewhat flip given the subject matter. I mean no offense. Nor am I necessarily culturally aware--if any of the information that follows is grossly inaccurate or incomplete, please let me know.
And whatever you make of it, don't worry--it'll all get sorted out in the end.
There Was the Word
"Hell" came down through the Old English, hel, which had the same origin and retained much of the meaning of the Old Norse hel (more on that later). The Indo-European root is kel-, meaning "to cover" or "conceal," creating Hell a covered or hidden place, as well it should be.
First Things First
Historians--for what those types are worth--claim that one of the first faiths to include eternal damnation, an evil overlord, etc., was Daena Vanuhi, adjusted in the 18th Century to Zoroastrianism. A monotheistic religion (refer all prayers to Ahura Mazda), its main proponent spoke of bad souls failing to make it across the Chinvato Peretu, the Bridge of Swords, and plummeting to the dominion of the Evil One. There would be a day of judgment at the end, followed by a planet-wide bath of molten metal.
Thus spake Zarathustra, about 4000 years ago in what is now Iran.
The Polytheistic Mythologies
Your famous old civilizations all had their own particular explanations of where the soul went post mortem. Take a look at the writings of Dem Bones; he's gone above and beyond. I'm only going to cover some of the better known.
The commonly held concept of either up or down has been around for some time, as has the idea of a journey. Always keep your eyes open for similarities between myths, and with modern concepts as well. Chances are, your radical ideas about Hell have already occurred to others.
Egyptian: The Egyptians were all about the Underworld, known variously as:
Your ka's appointment with Osiris would take place at what was occasionally known as Abtu, the seat from where he rendered judgement and sent you on your hopefully merry way. In order to get there, however, you had to pass through a horrible area full of poisonous snakes, demons, boiling lakes and burning fires. Those last bits should sound familiar. These were intended as trials to test the virtue of your soul, and were capped off by the weighing of the heart against all its sins on a scale Osiris may or may not have had his thumb on.
Pass the test, you went on to rejoin your friends. Fail, and the Devourer--part crocodile, part hippo, part lion--had your heart for a snack, and your essence vanished forever.
One of the "try again" doctrines.
This is a "true" hell in the modern context in as much as the spheres of good and evil are separated following judgment, with the understanding of eternal suffering thrown in to boot. Your soul didn't just get to bow out if it received low marks.
Damnation here was not necessarily eternal--you served your sentence in Tartarus according to the severity of your crimes, then went on to greener pastures.
Don't expect visitors; no one who went in came out again, gods included. Did I mention it's absolutely freezing down here?
And that's just a few of them, there are countless others. Extremes of temperature, snakes, rivers, and dogs seems to be fairly common elements in Hell, along with judgement, wonderful, wonderful judgement.
Oh, For God's Sake
Precisely. Now a breakdown of Hell by some of the world's currently best-known religions. Why divide 'religion' from the ancient civilizations listed above? Because nowadays you're more likely to meet someone taking orders from Allah or Buddha than Zeus or Xtoepelopochaetl.
Buddhism: Check out Cornelius Scarecrow's writeup, first of all--I'll just say there are levels of punishment depending on sin, and terms of sentence doled out accordingly. As CS tells it, murderers get off with only 500 years, whereas liars get hit with 8000. The Lotus Sutra describes an "Avici hell," and the Sutta Nipata indicates that nefarious characters face boiling in worm-infested water, jungles of swords, streams of water that cut like razors, and being chewed upon by all manner of nasty animals.
Committing any one of the Five Violations (parricide, matricide, murder of an arhant, disturbing the peace in monastic community, and drawing blood from a Buddha) get you a non-stop ticket, as will disparaging comments against Buddha's teachings. This last gets you a double dose of uninterrupted torment.
Happily, this suffering is not eternal, though it can go on as long as the soul fails to break out of the cycle, traveling from one Hell to another. Buddhists believe in multiple planes and manifestations of it.
Most of you will be familiar with the notion of reincarnation. All beings will eventually be enlightened, it's just going to take some longer than others. Karma, man. Karma.
This doesn't have be the only plane you exist on in the afterlife--the goal isn't punishment, it's education. The syllabus for this course, found in the Garuda Purana, includes: being chopped into pieces by axes, burnt with torches, buried in pits, boiled in butter and oil, thrown into the path of trampling elephants, thrown off of cliffs, thrown into wells, with extra credit in being worm-eaten and having your head pierced with arrows.
*Note* Rules may vary depending on practice. There are over three million gods in the Hindu religion--hopefully they don't all go to same parties.
The real nastiness is for unbelievers. This bit is eternal, no escape, and unsavory descriptions abound. The word Gehenna appears, an ancient Hebrew term for hell in the Jewish faith--wait for it--but there the similarity ends. The Islamic hell for infidels is a lot closer to the Christian regimen. Beneath the gates to hell, from which it would take a rock thrown over the side over seventy days to hit bottom, the Qu'ran (Quran, Koran...) speaks of a toasty fire reffered to as al-nar, laza, al-hutamah, sair, or saquar. The area comes complete with the expected tortures: scorpions, snakes, boiling, head-crushing, and so on.
True Muslims will all eventually get to Paradise.
It is also called She'ol, though this is less an actual place than state of being, in death.
As thecarp writes above, Hell (the word) may have originated with a pit of burning rubbish outside Jerusalem. The pit may actuallly have been a valley to the south of the Temple, the Valley of Hinnom, where perpetual fires burned and idols were built to honor Molech, a Canaanite god. The area natually became associated with godly judgment and all things hellish--flames and a thorougly unrighteous stench.
The more metaphysical counterpart can include your basic fire and brimstone, but is typically thought of as kareit, being "cut off" from "your people." This in turn is perceived as cut off from God, cut off from The World to Come, or cut off from the memories of those you left behind, who choose to forget you, rotten bastard that you were.
"Hell" here is Satan-free, though some of Judaism's mystic elements maintain that each sin committed in life creates a demon for you to deal with later. Failing that, Gehenna is a gray room where your soul is sent to think about what it's done. Remorse of conscience is the worst of it, which is probably more than enough.
The Talmud puts a twelve-month limit on your stay, after which you go on to Olam Ha-Ba, a not-as-cloudy nor as angel-filled kind of heaven. But if you're particularly undeserving, your soul remains permanently grounded, or is destroyed outright.
Catholic? These are your options:
You Protest? Lots of different churches believe lots of different things. For example:
This much is for certain--there's no purgatory and no limbo. And for your more stringent Protestants, the way you live your life has bugger all to do with your shot at eternal bliss. It all comes down to belief. Justification by faith alone. Haven't accepted Jesus as your savior and repented of your sins? Haven't been saved by belief? Down you go.
Read Much?
Looking to the Bible for descriptions of the Christian Hell won't yield much, or at least, not much that's very well told. We owe the best part of our ideas about the place to other works of literature. Top two for your lesson in geography:
A few other views I've come across worth reading are:
There are thousands of others; these are just my personal favorites.
Lighten Up
Now for a bit of fun. If you've become bored by this--can't say I blame you--stop reading. It gets silly after this.
Such Things We Say!:
Et cetera, et cetera. /msg me your contributions, if you have any.
And That'll Do, Really
This is by no means a definitive writeup, plenty remains to be said on the subject of Hell. It's a very complicated subject with deliciously intricate details and interesting cross-cultural implications. This has been intended merely as a brief reference guide.
See you there. Maybe.
Research:
Hell (?), n. [AS. hell; akin to D. hel, OHG. hella, G. holle, Icel. hal, Sw. helfvete, Dan. helvede, Goth. halja, and to AS. helan to conceal. . Cf. Hele, v. t., Conceal, Cell, Helmet, Hole, Occult.]
1.
The place of the dead, or of souls after death; the grave; -- called in Hebrew sheol, and by the Greeks hades.
He descended into hell. Book of Common Prayer.
Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell. Ps. xvi. 10.
2.
The place or state of punishment for the wicked after death; the abode of evil spirits. Hence, any mental torment; anguish.
Milton.
It is a knell That summons thee to heaven or to hell. Shak.
3.
A place where outcast persons or things are gathered
A dungeon or prison; also, in certain running games, a place to which those who are caught are carried for detention.
A gambling house.
A place into which a tailor throws his shreds, or a printer his broken type.
Gates of hell. Script. See Gate, n., 4.
© Webster 1913.
Hell, v. t.
To overwhelm.
Spenser.
printable version chaos
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