Are you literally on fire if you go to hell?

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MindOverMatter2 said:
Not really. When given the fact that there is much parable, metaphor, allegory/analogy, and story telling in the bible, it far from idle speculation.

Your idle claim is just an assertion, a cover up, a statement to the fact that you refuse to admit error.
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What I’m learning from you is that you don’t believe there is a place called Hell and that God doesn’t punish the damned.
 
Thing is, I keep seeing "Hell is not a physical place; ‘physical pain’ is somehow MORE terrifying than ‘spiritual pain’,’. . .

and it’s all offered as speculation and opinion.

Why am I not seeing this set out in the Catechism? Why, when I bring up actual teaching of the Church, is it set aside?

Somebody please show me where Jesus or His Church EVER said that:

Matter doesn’t exist --after death you’re nothing but spirit.

If you sin with your body and your soul, only your SOUL will get eternal punishment because punishing your body TOO is just plain evil.

Why is it so hard for people to understand that actions have consequences? Because it’s easier to rationalize ‘spiritual agony’ but nobody wants to think their bodies will ever undergo ‘pain’ after death? What makes the body at once more ‘valuable’ than the soul. . .so valuable that people would rather the physical ‘body’ were to ‘disappear’ than to consider that it could be ‘harmed’?

Why is it all right to imagine (and it is imagination) that we turn into magical ‘spirit’ things and that the spirit (which, they say, is all we will be) undergoes eternal agony? BUT the idea that we could have PHYSICAL bodies which LIKEWISE undergo PHYSICAL agony just is totally evil?

What, pray tell, is the DIFFERENCE between a person being ‘all spiritual’ (and suffering spiritual agony). . .and the person being spirit and physical, and suffering spiritual and physical agony?

And why should a person’s suffering spiritual agony be ‘fine’ but suffering physical agony not? What makes the body more valuable than the soul that it can’t be allowed to suffer?
 
MindOverMatter2 said:
It is enough that people are separated from eternal happiness.
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Perhaps I can reword the question that you’re responding to:
And can someone tell me why [the pain of being separated from eternal happiness] is acceptable, but eternal ‘physical’ fire is unthinkable and evil?
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Most of your response was an outrage about the idea that there would be a painful punishment in eternity – this supposedly makes God a tyrant and monster, etc.

But then you say quite calmly that “it’s enough” that people are forever separated from happiness.

I guess you’re saying that the pain of being separated from God forever is really not that bad?

Of course, to be separated forever from God, one must be wicked and a slave to the evil of Satan. This is what people choose. They don’t want to be with God or to worship Him. God is the cause of all happiness and goodness, and there can be no joy, no fulfillment, no beauty, no peace and no love when separated from Him. So, even with your version of Hell, we have a world of chaos, disorder, ugliness, torment of conscience, vice, false loves, hatred, emptiness and sadness.

So, what you’re saying really doesn’t make any sense.
 
Buck_Crosswhite said:
What I’m learning from you is that you don’t believe there is a place called Hell and that God doesn’t punish the damned.
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I’m not sure I’d go that far. . .it’s actually kind of hard to tell exactly what MOM believes. . .

but what I’d like to see is more actual ‘proof’ from the Church to support the claim that this is authentic teaching. I’m not seeing that. I’m seeing people’s OPINIONS touted as fact, and I’m seeing people who actually offer Church documents (catechism, etc.) being the ones who are accused of spreading misinformation at best and lies at worst.

I want to keep the discussion on a civil level, so I’ve asked over and over for people to provide some documentation that what they claim is authentic Church teaching. . .and no, “Well, everybody KNOWS” or 'HOW could you POSSIBLY believe anything other than. ." are NOT documented proof of Church teaching.
 
Tantum_ergo said:
I’m not sure I’d go that far. . .it’s actually kind of hard to tell exactly what MOM believes. . .

but what I’d like to see is more actual ‘proof’ from the Church to support the claim that this is authentic teaching. I’m not seeing that. I’m seeing people’s OPINIONS touted as fact, and I’m seeing people who actually offer Church documents (catechism, etc.) being the ones who are accused of spreading misinformation at best and lies at worst.

I want to keep the discussion on a civil level, so I’ve asked over and over for people to provide some documentation that what they claim is authentic Church teaching. . .and no, “Well, everybody KNOWS” or 'HOW could you POSSIBLY believe anything other than. ." are NOT documented proof of Church teaching.
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Post #8 is scriptural proof that hell exists

Post #17 is the catechism about hell

Read these and then tell me what you want.
 
Tantum_ergo said:
Why is it so hard for people to understand that actions have consequences? Because it’s easier to rationalize ‘spiritual agony’ but nobody wants to think their bodies will ever undergo ‘pain’ after death? What makes the body at once more ‘valuable’ than the soul. . .so valuable that people would rather the physical ‘body’ were to ‘disappear’ than to consider that it could be ‘harmed’?
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Interesting points.

St. Polycarp was martyred by being burned in fire. Eyewitnesses noticed that he showed no pain at all - he was at peace as if he was taking a warm bath. Actually, many Catholic saint/martyrs experienced the same thing. St. Lawrence famously joked while he was being burned to death: “Turn me over, I’m done on this side”. He felt nothing of the burning flesh.

For those saints, the physical fire caused no pain, because their spiritual essence transcended the physical process.

That tells us (or me, anyway) that all pain has a spiritual component.

There is no difference between suffering a spiritual agony and suffering physically.
(Do people also think we can’t have spiritual joy, but only physical joy?)

On second thought – spiritual agony is far more acute and painful since it is not dependent on “changeable” matter (which has the potential to feel more or less pain).
For example, you can move your body to feel better, but you can’t move your soul if it is in pain.

Perhaps people think that your soul cannot feel severe pain that has nothing to do with the body.
 
Once again I’m going to bring up the Catechism.

**IV. HELL **
[1033](javascript:openWindow(‘cr/1033.htm’)😉 We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves: "He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him."612 Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren.613 To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called “hell.”
1034 Jesus often speaks of “Gehenna” of “the unquenchable fire” reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost.614 Jesus solemnly proclaims that he "will send his angels, and they will gather . . . all evil doers, and throw them into the furnace of fire,"615 and that he will pronounce the condemnation: "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire!"616
[1035](javascript:openWindow(‘cr/1035.htm’)😉 The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, "eternal fire."617 The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.
[1036](javascript:openWindow(‘cr/1036.htm’)😉 The affirmations of Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church on the subject of hell are a call to the responsibility incumbent upon man to make use of his freedom in view of his eternal destiny. They are at the same time an urgent call to conversion: "Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few."618
Since we know neither the day nor the hour, we should follow the advice of the Lord and watch constantly so that, when the single course of our earthly life is completed, we may merit to enter with him into the marriage feast and be numbered among the blessed, and not, like the wicked and slothful servants, be ordered to depart into the eternal fire, into the outer darkness where "men will weep and gnash their teeth."619
[1037](javascript:openWindow(‘cr/1037.htm’)😉 God predestines no one to go to hell;620 for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end. In the Eucharistic liturgy and in the daily prayers of her faithful, the Church implores the mercy of God, who does not want “any to perish, but all to come to repentance”:621

Notice that the Catechism speaks of ‘soul and body’ and of unquenchable fire, and that Christ spoke of this. The catechism doesn’t say, “But it’s not REAL fire, and that is the absolute final word of the Church”.

Notice also that the CHIEF punishment is the separation from God. But if there exists a ‘chief’ punishment (not a ‘sole’ punishment) by definition there must be ‘lesser punishments’.
 
reggieM said:
Perhaps I can reword the question that you’re responding to:

Most of your response was an outrage about the idea that there would be a painful punishment in eternity – this supposedly makes God a tyrant and monster, etc.
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Its not a rant about suffering as such, but rather its an argument against the kind of suffering that is being taken literally and the lack justification for taking it literally given the moral nature of God.
reggieM said:
But then you say quite calmly that “it’s enough” that people are forever separated from happiness.
I guess you’re saying that the pain of being separated from God forever is really not that bad?
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Its not a matter of being “not that bad”. Rather it is not malicious and evil when the suffering that comes with being separated from God is a necessary outcome, and not something that is being imposed upon a being out of pure hatred towards that being. Unnecessarily burning somebody in physical fire can only come from hated; not love.
reggieM said:
God is the cause of all happiness and goodness, and there can be no joy, no fulfilment, no beauty, no peace and no love when separated from Him. So, even with your version of Hell, we have a world of chaos, disorder, ugliness, torment of conscience, vice, false loves, hatred, emptiness and sadness.
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Yes. And that is justified, since these are simply the necessary results of existing in opposition to the love of God.
reggieM said:
So, what you’re saying really doesn’t make any sense.
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It does make sense. I am not trying to argue for a “happy hell”. We are discussing the nature of hell. I am trying to preserve and protect the goodness and love of God from those who are distorting Gods nature with their pride and misrepresentations of scripture. The God that would burn a living being in a physical fire for an infinite duration is evidently evil and malicious. I do not worship that God and I never will.
 
Buck_Crosswhite said:
What I’m learning from you is that you don’t believe there is a place called Hell and that God doesn’t punish the damned.
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That is a straw-man. I never said that hell is not a place of suffering. I said that hell is not a physical lake of fire in which God disposes of the people that don’t measure up.
 
Tantum_ergo said:
And why should a person’s suffering spiritual agony be ‘fine’ but suffering physical agony not? What makes the body more valuable than the soul that it can’t be allowed to suffer?
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Spiritual agony is self-inflicted as the result of pride and other vices whereas physical agony is not - unless one is a masochist. There is no obvious reason to believe hell is full of masochists! They are to be pitied rather than permitted to suffer…
 
Tantum_ergo said:
Once again I’m going to bring up the Catechism.

**IV. HELL **
[1033](javascript:openWindow(‘cr/1033.htm’)😉 We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves: "He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him."612 Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren.613 To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called “hell.”
1034 Jesus often speaks of “Gehenna” of “the unquenchable fire” reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost.614 Jesus solemnly proclaims that he "will send his angels, and they will gather . . . all evil doers, and throw them into the furnace of fire,"615 and that he will pronounce the condemnation: "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire!"616
[1035](javascript:openWindow(‘cr/1035.htm’)😉 The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, "eternal fire."617 The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.
[1036](javascript:openWindow(‘cr/1036.htm’)😉 The affirmations of Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church on the subject of hell are a call to the responsibility incumbent upon man to make use of his freedom in view of his eternal destiny. They are at the same time an urgent call to conversion: "Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few."618
Since we know neither the day nor the hour, we should follow the advice of the Lord and watch constantly so that, when the single course of our earthly life is completed, we may merit to enter with him into the marriage feast and be numbered among the blessed, and not, like the wicked and slothful servants, be ordered to depart into the eternal fire, into the outer darkness where "men will weep and gnash their teeth."619
[1037](javascript:openWindow(‘cr/1037.htm’)😉 God predestines no one to go to hell;620 for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end. In the Eucharistic liturgy and in the daily prayers of her faithful, the Church implores the mercy of God, who does not want “any to perish, but all to come to repentance”:621

Notice that the Catechism speaks of ‘soul and body’ and of unquenchable fire, and that Christ spoke of this. The catechism doesn’t say, “But it’s not REAL fire, and that is the absolute final word of the Church”.

Notice also that the CHIEF punishment is the separation from God. But if there exists a ‘chief’ punishment (not a ‘sole’ punishment) by definition there must be ‘lesser punishments’.
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Notice that every-time fire is mentioned as a qualifier its placed in quotation marks; “fire”. These are being quoted from the Bible. Thus it cannot be said that just because they turn up in the Catechism that such words are describing the literal nature of hell. The literal “nature” of hell is not the subject matter at hand; but rather it is the fact that there is a hell full of suffering that is being discussed. You cannot tell from what is being quoted that the quotes themselves are not analogies, allegories, or metaphors, depicting the incredible suffering of hell. You are quoting the Catechism out of context. Since the Bible itself (from which the Catechism quotes) is being questioned in regards to the nature of hell, it seems you are putting the kart before the horse. If the catechism were saying that hell is a physical fire, and then quoting scripture in order to back it up, you would have a strong point. But instead you are merely playing on appearances.
 
Tantum_ergo said:
I want to keep the discussion on a civil level, so I’ve asked over and over for people to provide some documentation that what they claim is authentic Church teaching. . .and no, “Well, everybody KNOWS” or 'HOW could you POSSIBLY believe anything other than. ." are NOT documented proof of Church teaching.
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Does the Catechism state that there is **physical **fire in hell?
 
MindOverMatter2 said:
*Does the Catechism state that there is **physical ***
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Then where **on earth **can we find “documented proof of Church teaching” that there is **physical **fire in hell?

I wonder what the **physical **counterpart is in heaven… Could it be water? Hot or cold?

It sounds like a lot of (extremely) hot air. 😉
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tonyrey said:
Then where **on earth **can we find “documented proof of Church teaching” that there is **physical **fire in hell?

I wonder what the **physical **counterpart is in heaven… Could it be water? Hot or cold?

It sounds like a lot of (extremely) hot air. 😉
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Wow TR. Would you be disappointed to find yourself in Life eternal and being embodied?
?

You certainly seem to disdain the idea of physical being in the next life.

ICXC NIKA.
 
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