I'm lost.. I guess I'll burn?

[thespitfiredragon]

Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court...that book rocks!

[Sharp_Kid]

I agree with TomSawyer (!!!!!do you want to go back and read that one again?!!!!)
The idea of eternal hellfire and damnation is irritating at best and downright patronising at worst.
And if hell is the seperation from God, then I'm in hell, because I have no time for the guy.
Damnation is nothing to worry about. You'll be dead anyway.

[Fear_nam_Beanntan]

Originally posted by HollyElise
Remember... God is loving and forgiving. Thinking about God should be a comfort, not distressing.

I agree to a point. But the general spiritual rule is, the closer one gets to God, the more consciouss one becomes of his own sin. As C. S. Lewis put it, "If you came into contact with a being of perfect righteousness right now, would it be joyous or scary?" I think it would be quite scary, because we would realize how short we fell of perfection, and how little we actually deserved the blessings we had recieved.

Case in point: the first time I read the Sermon on the Mount. It kinda knocked me out of my secular lay-z-boy chair. It made me realize I was doing everything wrong. Quite distressing.

So, I think that religion should contain both the dour and the joyous, the forgiving and the just. It should comfort the believer but also compel him to improve himself.

[Fear_nam_Beanntan]

Originally posted by TomSawyer
Sartre wrote a play called "No Exit" which depicts an ever graver hell than the Biblical one.

What a coincidence! My preist mentioned that play in his homily yesterday. He compared the state of the characters in the play to the state of the disciples after Jesus had died but before he was resurrected.

And speaking of the Bible, it may interest you to know that the word 'hell' originally only mean 'place of the dead' and fire and eternity were added by translators.

I disagree with your belief that the Bible has been edited.

1. I don't think the Bible ever explicitly says that hell is eternal.
2. The original language does mention fire. Jesus uses Gehenna, the valley of the perpetual trash fires, as a metaphor for hell.

I do, however, agree that Sheol/Hades does not necessarily mean "place of fire and pain." I think it is stratified. After all, all of the righteous people that lived before Jesus, including the Old Testament Patriarchs, were down there until Jesus descended and opened the gates of heaven to them. And they weren't being tortured. They were just waiting.

That having been said, I do believe that some are damned eternally.

[thespitfiredragon]

I agree with Fear...you know, that guy makes good points every time I see him! Cheers Fear!

Fear, I know I wouldn't be ready to face my maker at any given moment. I try hard, but fall desperately short of the commandment to "be perfect as thy father which is in heaven is perfect". Did you know that the word "sin" simply means to fall short of perfection?