Hell

[ROFL Copter]

I am Catholic, at least officialy, and though I am not devout or anything I have a general understanding and belief in at least the morals taught in the Church. The problem is, Im caught up in whether to believe in more. It seems that the church uses scare tactics to convince people to believe, and this is condradictary to every other teaching in the New Testiment. But the thought is still, if you believe, incredably frightening. So I ask this forum if they think there is a Hell, and not that it is just metaphoracle.

*This thread is NOT to debate the existance of a God.*

[Garrigan]

A metaphor for what?

[Visna]

Being Jewish in what seems to be same way that you're a Catholic, I don't believe there is a Hell. It's a "modern" concept designed to scare.

[Nazgûl Killer]

I honestly think it's just a metaphor of some sort... I mean, do I know if it exists? No. Do I think it exists? No... I just think it's some way of helping legend/storytellers really get their point across and stuff like that.
Or some sort of an evil story to scare children.

[ROFL Copter]

It could be a metaphor by Jesus for, to him, the eternal separation from God, which would be like an eternal flame. It is not like his god to brutally punish those he says he loves beyond measure.

[Visna]

For a good read and a (imo) good Catholic interpretation of the concept of Hell, I recommend "The Divine Comedy" .

[★Bandiera Rossa☭]

For a good read and a (imo) good Catholic interpretation of the concept of Hell, I recommend "The Divine Comedy" .

Although the Divine Comedy is usually denied by the Catholic church (probably originally because of Dante having Ghibelline sympathies)

[ACEnglish]

I think a lot of Christians are so out of fear of 'Hell', which they believe to be physically real. In simple terms, their 'faith' is in fact fear.

[The Alchemist]

It's a metaphor really. The explanation that seems right to me is that hell is not a place, it is a what the mind goes through when all connection with God is completely and thoroughly cut.

[Mr. Pink]

There is a hell... we're in it

[mrcrusty]

Hell really is just a state of separation from God, hellfire and brimstone with goat legged Satan and his pitchfork is a BS analogy meant to scare kids.

[Shams al-Ma'rifa]

it could b both

[mrcrusty]

it could b both

True, it could be, but I doubt it.

[DekuTrash]

The Divine Comedy is a great viewpoint, but yes it's more likely the seperation from god part.

[CtrlAltDe1337]

Hell isn't a literal flame as in physical fire, but fire is used to represent the intense agony that is inexpressible in human language. Its also called a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth, Gehenna (a place where people dumped and burned garbage/dead animals), darkness, and more. The lake of fire and brimstone isn't a physical fire in that sense, as Hell is a spiritual place, not physical. Yet, it will be a place of terrible suffering, even more than being cast into a lake of fire for eternity.

[Holger Danske]

Rofl, that would do as eternal punishment, especially for the hetrosexuals

But no, just a nightclub with very cute ladies. And free bar.

[Old_Scratch]

Is there any scriptural evidence to back up the "hell is a metaphor" argument? Jesus himself described hell as an eternal fire, and likened it to the flaming garbage heap of Gehenna.

[Aldgarkalaughskel]

Hell doesn't exist, it's a metaphor of human life as compared to afterlife, or in other words, materialism compared to spirituality, negative emotions compared to positive emotions. On the other hand, Heaven is a real place, it looks like this:

[Old_Scratch]

We are talking about the Christian hell here right? It's made pretty clear that it's a fiery place of torment in the NT.

[Jwb187]

I believe it is a place. But not of physical pain, I think it is of emotional torture(aka: separation from god)