If you believe in Heaven and Hell, what do you envision the experience of Hell to be like?

i believe in heaven an hell

and i believe hell is different for everybody.. each person creates their own hell.

My interpretation is that hell is on earth and is what people create for themselves while they're alive.

I don't believe in a biblical hell (or heaven for that matter). I do believe there's something after this, whether it's reincarnation or some type of "afterlife". Don't base that on anything specific. Just what I think. I do believe the bad things we do come back to us somehow.

Hot.

Hell is the place that is totally devoid of God and all that comes with him(ie Goodness and all pleasures). Hell is less a place created directly for punishment and more a place created by sin that is totally devoid of God.

Thinking of hell in that view, it makes a lot more sense to think as to why people who choose to reject God would go there.

^^^^Extreme temperatures are probably just an easy human attempt to explain the torment of the place. I think such visuals, while not totally inaccurate, might be taken a bit too literally sometimes.

I guess I don't really believe in it. If there is a God, I imagine he would be loving like a parent, and I would never, ever condemn my kids to an eternity of misery just for rejecting me. And if there isn't a God like that, then it doesn't make sense to me for there to be a hell anyway.

thepossiblepolice wrote:

I guess I don't really believe in it. If there is a God, I imagine he would be loving like a parent, and I would never, ever condemn my kids to an eternity of misery just for rejecting me. And if there isn't a God like that, then it doesn't make sense to me for there to be a hell anyway.

CeCe wrote:

thepossiblepolice wrote:

I guess I don't really believe in it. If there is a God, I imagine he would be loving like a parent, and I would never, ever condemn my kids to an eternity of misery just for rejecting me. And if there isn't a God like that, then it doesn't make sense to me for there to be a hell anyway.

thanks

thepossiblepolice wrote:

I guess I don't really believe in it. If there is a God, I imagine he would be loving like a parent, and I would never, ever condemn my kids to an eternity of misery just for rejecting me. And if there isn't a God like that, then it doesn't make sense to me for there to be a hell anyway.

God isn't going to force himself on somebody who doesn't want him. If he dragged everyone to heaven regardless of the life they led, there'd be no reason to follow his rules and therefore everything from raping and murdering children to the most hateful of intolerant crimes would become "okay."

Hell is a place where God's presence is gone. If you reject God by your life, reject his loving embrace, then guess what? It is not GOD that is condemning you; you are choosing to condemn yourself. God's a loving parents but he's also a God of justice and, in his life, he gave us free will. Thus, he is not going to drag people to heaven who obviously do not want to be there.

Forgiveness Man wrote:

thepossiblepolice wrote:

I guess I don't really believe in it. If there is a God, I imagine he would be loving like a parent, and I would never, ever condemn my kids to an eternity of misery just for rejecting me. And if there isn't a God like that, then it doesn't make sense to me for there to be a hell anyway.

God isn't going to force himself on somebody who doesn't want him. If he dragged everyone to heaven regardless of the life they led, there'd be no reason to follow his rules and therefore everything from raping and murdering children to the most hateful of intolerant crimes would become "okay."

Hell is a place where God's presence is gone. If you reject God by your life, reject his loving embrace, then guess what? It is not GOD that is condemning you; you are choosing to condemn yourself. God's a loving parents but he's also a God of justice and, in his life, he gave us free will. Thus, he is not going to drag people to heaven who obviously do not want to be there.

I don't see it that way.

thepossiblepolice wrote:

I don't see it that way.

So God WOULD force himself on somebody who doesn't want him?

Forgiveness Man wrote:

thepossiblepolice wrote:

I don't see it that way.

So God WOULD force himself on somebody who doesn't want him?

I don't think that God fits inside our box that we put him in, I think that we assign human emotions to him because that's all that we can understand (similarly to how people assign human attributes to animals that don't necessarily possess them).

I don't think it hurts God's feelings if we "reject" him, I don't think that he would take it personally, just like I don't take it personally when my daughter would rather spend time with her friends than she would with me.

If there is a heaven and God rules over it and decides who gets in and who doesn't, I would think that a loving God would recognize that on earth we are human and we are not all knowing. If someone is trying to be a good person, living their life the best way that they know how, whether they are an atheist, a Christian, a Muslim, Wiccan...Whatever, I don't think that God is going to say "Too bad, you chose wrong, too bad for you."

If I die and God is mad at me for not being a certain religion, then I guess I'll have to say "I'm sorry, I did my best with the info that I had, please forgive me." My intention is not to reject God anyway. My intention is to live my life with compassion and be the best person that I can be, I don't believe that rejecting religion means that I'm rejecting God and I don't believe that there are many people out there who intend to reject God, even if some people might think that they are.

As for rapists and murderers, wanting them to be punished for eternity is a very human desire, IMO. I imagine that a loving God would have compassion even for them.

^^^^I never said he'd take it personally. God will go on just as he is with or without our acceptance of it. It's no skin off his back.

If your intention is not to hurt God, I'd say you have hope. God would have compassion for rapists and murderers, but he isn't going to force those who chose outright to reject him into heaven. God respects the choices we make and if we chose hell, it's what we get. The idea that everyone will go to heaven no matter what, IMO, is very much wishful thinking.

Forgiveness Man wrote:

^^^^I never said he'd take it personally. God will go on just as he is with or without our acceptance of it. It's no skin off his back.

If your intention is not to hurt God, I'd say you have hope. God would have compassion for rapists and murderers, but he isn't going to force those who chose outright to reject him into heaven. God respects the choices we make and if we chose hell, it's what we get. The idea that everyone will go to heaven no matter what, IMO, is very much wishful thinking.

I guess I don't see people "rejecting God". I don't think I know one person who is convinced that there is a God who says "I believe in God but I hate him and want nothing to do with him."

^^^^By choosing to do their will when it contradicts his, that's exactly what they do. And I think it happens much more than we care to admit. It's less outright contempt for God and more or less just indifference to his will. I think our modern world decides that God will bring them to heaven no matter what so they can give him the finger and he's just gonna look the other way regardless or whether or not they repent.

It depends on whether you think you know what God's will is...I don't think I do. If it's a strict set of rules that you have to follow then yes, I'd agree. If all it takes is a desire and intention to be a good person, then I think that a lot of people would end up in heaven.

^^^^^God's not unreasonable enough to expect mankind to guess at his will. He's not some big secret keeper; he tells us.

Define a desire to be good. I don't feel the rules set are really strict. Don't kill? Don't steal? Don't have sex outside of his established uses? Doesn't really sound all that strict to me. But as I said, define good. If you're doing all these things regularly, how is it you really call yourself a good person with a desire to be good?

This isn't about judging any particular person and more just showing that people choose hell by their actions every day.