What is your concept of hell?

There are as many views of what hell is as there are differing views of heaven. I have heard the fundy vision of fire and brimstone, and I can't buy that, I think hell is being denied that what you desire most.
If you were given a taste of an afterlife, an idillic afterlife that was everything your personal vision was, then that was removed, and you were sent away from that, maybe just far away enough to where you could still view and hear that which you desired most, would be a more tortorous form of hell than fire and imps and brimstone.
Since we don't know and can't find out for sure that seems to be more of a hell to me, but, I'm curious what is your vision of divine punishment, and for a bonus what would get you there?

:evilgrin:

It's a place that doesn't allow dogs :-)

That would be punishment for me.

i was raised on rod serling's morals and values. there were many having nazi themes. those really got to me.

In case you were wondering :)

Hell is the absence of reason.

.

And that dumb "Have you Forgotten" song.

can't lump all country music into one pot, imo . . . yes, there's a lot of terrible country music (most of the current stuff), but there's also a lot of great country music from masters like the Carter Family, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, etc. . . . give a listen to an album called "Will The Circle Be Unbroken" by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and a bunch of country legends . . . you may change your mind . . . :)

the stuff they put out now is white kid pop music.
What though, would get us hell as a punishment?

An eternity spent watching re-runs of Chris Matthews.

Hell is a myth.

It has two stores, a post office, and a bridge. The two streets that lead to Hell are Darwin and Church Street.

Hell as a concept is a creation of certain religious institutions. It forms part of the basis for promoting the propogation of the basis idea within the belief, namely that there is something called god that created the world.

Combined with concepts such as the soul, heaven, and salvation, hell operates as the negative state should one fail to adhere to the core belief. It also become an impetus to propogate the belief to loved ones and others.

Thus hell takes on whatever ideas of loss and suffering a particular culture or subculture may imagine. Be it fire and brimstone or the absense of love. It is a variable thing and takes on the form of whatever will be most effective to aid distribution of the core belief to others in the vicinity.

Black jagged rocks all over the place is how it got its name.

I can't believe it's eternal. I mean when I was in Catholic school we were taught that if you are in the state of mortal sin when you die, you will be sent to Hell forever. So if you didn't go to Mass on Sunday (mortal sin)and are hit and killed by a car in the street, you will burn in Hell forever no matter how blameless your life was before. I don't believe that. Of course I don't believe in Hell anyway. If there is an existence after this one, most likely you will have to pay your karmic debt somehow before ascending to another plane of existence.

in order to understand hell.

First think about the people who will be going to heaven first, and decide if you can tolerate being with them.

Then, what do you do in heaven? According to Twain, stand around and sing hymns for eternity. Hymns are worse than country music as far as I'm concerned.

(Actually there's lots of great country music, but i think that's for another thread.)

--IMM

nm

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

The devil confronts Moores character with the reality of heaven. God plops himself on a pedestal (a mailbox) and tells Moore to praise him. Moore gives him some compliments. The devil then tells him to give some better compliments. Moore complies. The devil demans more praise. Moore starts to comply but then stops and says "this is a bit boring". To which the devil replies "Exactly".

Character, gets his every wish, can't lose at gambling, women, says, "Take me to the other place."

Mr. Pip: "This is the other place."

--IMM

right here

freeperville

followed by 8 years under President Jeb Bush & Company.

Howard Storm, former atheist, experienced the Void.
http://www.near-death.com/experiences/storm01.html

It seemed to be, almost, a game for them, with me as the center-piece of their amusement. My pain became their pleasure. They seemed to want to make me hurt – by clawing at me and biting me. Whenever I would get one off me, there were five more to replace the one.

By this time it was almost complete darkness, and I had the sense that instead of there being twenty or thirty, there were an innumerable host of them. Each one seemed set on coming in for the sport they got from hurting me. My attempts to fight back only provoked greater merriment. They began to physically humiliate me in the most degrading ways. As I continued to fight on and on, I was aware that they weren't in any hurry to win. They were playing with me just as a cat plays with a mouse. Every new assault brought howls of cacophony. Then at some point, they began to tear off pieces of my flesh. To my horror I realized I was being taken apart and eaten alive, slowly, so that their entertainment would last as long a possible.

At no time did I ever have any sense that the beings who seduced and attacked me were anything other than human beings. The best way I can describe them is to think of the worst imaginable person stripped of every impulse to do good. Some of them seemed to be able to tell others what to do, but I had no sense of any structure or hierarchy in an organizational sense. They didn't appear to be controlled or directed by anyone. Basically they were a mob of beings totally driven by unbridled cruelty and passions.


For some other who experienced the Void, it is utter blackness and separation from everything else. In a few dreams in the past, I've had a taste of it. Small wonder that I consider them the worst nightmares possible.