Love help: Can it possibly be that a large portion of our world are deluded into believing there is a Hell? - Help.com

So . . . can you imagine a heaven which is populated by murderers, rapists and people who loved to screw over other people?

I can’t.

And it’s not God who sends people to hell. People send themselves to hell through their own actions.

The more dangerous belief, by far, is that you can do whatever you want in this life and not face an accounting for it.

Hell is eternal torment. Think about it. Being in an eternal fire. Excruciating. Would you do that to your worst enemy? Couldn’t God just wipe out the bad ones and give the good ones heaven. And also, you get good people who reject Jesus. Do those good people deserve top be tormented. No one chooses Hell. No one in their right mind will put themselves into eternal torment.

who is to say what’s good or bad?
the way i figure it, god gave us an option. we either accept him or reject him.
who says hell is eternal fire anyway? maybe hell is just nothing. an enterity of being spiritually alive but disconnected from anything and everything. like living in a black hole.
you should read Dante’s Inferno

If you are to be controlled then you need something to be afraid of.

Grim_Hardcastle wrote:
If you are to be controlled then you need something to be afraid of.

Surely Jesus didn’t think, “Oh I want to control millions of people in the future. I will preach Hell.”

Hell is only for people who knowingly choose it. We have free will. Hell is eternal separation from God and some people do not want to spend eternity with God.

As for everyone who “rejects Jesus” going to Hell, that is absurd. God is perfect in justice and that would be absolutely unjust. A person who tries their best to follow God’s way, regardless of the belief system they follow, and who sincerely repents of their sins and attempts to not sin anymore, will find paradise.

A person who chooses to not even try to follow God’s way and does not regret their sins will not spend eternity with God - in the case of that person, eternity with their sins would also be torment, right? So Hell is the kinder option than eternal bitterness and regret.

Anonymous wrote:
No one chooses Hell. No one in their right mind will put themselves into eternal torment.

That’s where you wrong. People choose hell all the time, just like the rich man in the parable about Lazarus chose hell. People choose hell through their actions or inactions.

People make conscious decisions to reject God and to screw over their fellow human beings. Take the Wall Street bankers who caused the financial meltdown that caused the recession. They were already rich, but they wanted to get richer. And they didn’t care who lost his or her job, or home, or health insurance, or the will to live. They plain just didn’t care about other people. In my mind, these are the perfect people to populate hell–the ones who didn’t give two cents about anybody else.

But as for eternal torment, no . . . the Book of Revelation tells us that death and hell will be cast into the lake of fire–the second death.

Then there will be only oblivion.

The Sherlockian wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No one chooses Hell. No one in their right mind will put themselves into eternal torment.

That’s where you wrong. People choose hell all the time, just like the rich man in the parable about Lazarus chose hell. People choose hell through their actions or inactions.

People make conscious decisions to reject God and to screw over their fellow human beings. Take the Wall Street bankers who caused the financial meltdown that caused the recession. They were already rich, but they wanted to get richer. And they didn’t care who lost his or her job, or home, or health insurance, or the will to live. They plain just didn’t care about other people. In my mind, these are the perfect people to populate hell–the ones who didn’t give two cents about anybody else.

But as for eternal torment, no . . . the Book of Revelation tells us that death and hell will be cast into the lake of fire–the second death.

Then there will be only oblivion.

I’m confused. Torment is not eternal?

Mariam* wrote:
Hell is only for people who knowingly choose it. We have free will. Hell is eternal separation from God and some people do not want to spend eternity with God.

As for everyone who “rejects Jesus” going to Hell, that is absurd. God is perfect in justice and that would be absolutely unjust. A person who tries their best to follow God’s way, regardless of the belief system they follow, and who sincerely repents of their sins and attempts to not sin anymore, will find paradise.

A person who chooses to not even try to follow God’s way and does not regret their sins will not spend eternity with God - in the case of that person, eternity with their sins would also be torment, right? So Hell is the kinder option than eternal bitterness and regret.

The corner stone of Christianity is the assumption of surrender to the Deity of Christ. Can one not surrender and not go to Hell then? Can one believe he is a man and survive?

Anonymous wrote:
The corner stone of Christianity is the assumption of surrender to the Deity of Christ. Can one not surrender and not go to Hell then? Can one believe he is a man and survive?

Yes, yes, that is what the preachers say. And remember the parable of the good Samaritan? Didn’t Jesus teach you that a person who does not follow your religion might be more righteous than one who does? Who do you follow: Jesus or preachers? Do you think God is unjust? Not everyone in the world is Christian, and not everyone who submits to God is Christian.

Can I then read books written by authors who are of other religions without fear that I am rejecting God. I want to read other books besides the Bible, but I am afraid that will lead me to Hell.

Mariam* wrote:
Yes, yes, that is what the preachers say. And remember the parable of the good Samaritan? Didn’t Jesus teach you that a person who does not follow your religion might be more righteous than one who does? Who do you follow: Jesus or preachers? Do you think God is unjust? Not everyone in the world is Christian, and not everyone who submits to God is Christian.

My belief is that everyone will have an encounter with Jesus Christ on this side or on the other side of death. I do not believe that God sent His only begotten Son to humanity–to die on the cross–to not be acknowledged in this life or the next.

I am not saying that everyone who is not Christian is not going to heaven . . . but I do believe that they will not get to heaven without acknowledging Christ on the way.

Anonymous wrote:
Can I then read books written by authors who are of other religions without fear that I am rejecting God. I want to read other books besides the Bible, but I am afraid that will lead me to Hell.

God gave you a mind to use. If anyone tells you that it is dangerous to learn anything, absolutely anything in the world, they are going against God and should be avoided. Rejecting God requires MUCH more than seeking knowledge about things of this world. You would have to actually outright believe that works of God are not the work of God.

In my religion, we are required to learn as much as we are able during our lifetimes, even if we have to learn from pagans, even if we have to learn from hypocrites, even if we have to travel around the world to gain knowledge. God has created this vast and amazing universe - if we want to be “Godly”, shouldn’t we know as much about it as we can?

Free will is a responsibility. Use it wisely.

You don’t believe in Hell yet you are afraid of being sent there….
That does not make a lot of sense. Read the Bible and pray for Jesus Christ to lead you to better understanding.

You are not lost unless you want to be.

southern_comfort, IP wrote:
You don’t believe in Hell yet you are afraid of being sent there….
That does not make a lot of sense. Read the Bible and pray for Jesus Christ to lead you to better understanding.

You are not lost unless you want to be.

I didn’t say I don’t believe in Hell. I said I believe it is a ludicrous believe. I would like to not have any doubt that it exists.

I meant to type “it’s a ludicrous belief” and “I would like to not have any doubt that it doesn’t exist”

God is a jerk, good thing he’s only imaginary.

But people who have imagined superheroes and deluded senses of absolute moral authority can make hell real, so be careful.

I don’t know personally. I never really believed in a higher deity myself, but I’ve always been respectful of them.

There may or may not be a hell, but I personally don’t think there is one.

Shigaku wrote:
I don’t know personally. I never really believed in a higher deity myself, but I’ve always been respectful of them.

There may or may not be a hell, but I personally don’t think there is one.

Well you won’t know until after you get there. Then its too late. If I were you I would do everything in my power to keep from going there. It doesn’t take much. Forgiveness is a blessing and is a absolutely free gift.

How are we to know if there is a hell or not? Or if there really is a heaven or not? How can these kind of things be determined? Well actually, it is easy to know because our Creator has communicated to us concerning these things. So it’s not like we have to be groping around in the dark trying to discover what it’s all about. God did not leave us ignorant and in the dark!

In this life we can see terrible suffering, so why should we not expect it to exist in the world to come? Or why should we expect that such suffering won’t be our lot when it has happened to others? Are we exempt?

Jesus Christ, who was God’s very self expression in human form, told us this about God:

Luke 12:4 - “And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him!

The Bible also says that the demons believe in God and tremble.

Look at the Jews in World War 2. Six million were killed, and although many were gassed to death, many more were horribly treated and killed. Large pits in the ground, filled with newly arriving Jews, were hosed down with gasoline and set on fire with flame throwers. Also, some Jews were made to immerse in acid baths, which blinded and killed many, and others were subjected to horrible medical experiments as well as pain experiments. Can you imagine being used for research in pain experiments, where maybe your body is strapped down and you are subjected to extreme unrelenting pain until death is reached to see what happens to the mind and body under such circumstances? Many scientists today refuse to use this medical data, collected by the Germans, in their research because of the inhumanity of it all.

And all of this occurred with a God of love present and seeing every detail of it. God knew from the very beginning all of this was going to happen. This is God’s show - He could have easily prevented it from ever happening.

I used to think, “I’m sure glad that I’m not a Jew!” But as I found out, the Bible says that we are ALL under condemnation, not just the Jew! But the Bible says to the Jew FIRST (they are in line first for everything) then the Gentiles (i.e. the rest of us). Ever hear of the soon coming Great Tribulation period? That’s our turn. So, if the world is full of God’s wrath, if such is the long theme of history, what makes anyone think that there is not hell in the hereafter, especially when the Bible clearly states that there is???

Of course, since God is a God of great love, He did go to great lengths and trouble to make a way of escape from eternal hell through Jesus Christ, which is why He came to the earth in the first place.

Is hell eternal? Well, is heaven eternal? The answer is yes to both. Eternity is eternal. In eternity, there is no passage of time - the past, the present and the future are the same unceasing moment forever. That’s eternity. If you are in a wonderful paradise or in a terrible hell, it is the same unceasing moment forever - the eternal state.