Do You Believe in Hell?

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I have Catholic relatives who attend weekly Mass, but say that they do not believe in Hell because a loving God would never torture his creatures with fire for all eternity. It’s been a very long time since I’ve heard a homily on this dogma of Hell at Mass. Do YOU believe in Hell?
 
I voted yes. To clarify, i don’t believe that hell is a place where God wishes us to be tortured for being naughty. God’s love is infinite as is His mercy. Hell is where we CHOOSE to go if we choose a life (now and eternal) without God. He will not force us to join Him in heaven…
 
a place where the fire burns your skin off and it grows agains so you can feel the pain, forever and ever and ever…anyone who goes in will never be able to go out…enjoy your sin, so that you shall also enjoy your punishment
 
God does not torture people in hell, hell was not made for people. People decide they want to go to hell, they reject God and God honors that decision, allowing them into to a place that was nevere intended for people. Separation from God is what they want, it is what they get.
 
God punishes.
God is merciful.
God is understanding.

if you consider hell torture…well, it is as you say, they deserve what they got.
 
After reading the book called “HELL” by Fr. F.X. Schouppe, I am convinced that Hell is indeed a place where the soul is tortured forever by every imaginable pain experience known to mankind… except it is million-fold worse and there is no escape and there is no relief. The agony of Hell is forever. This book scared the… uh… heck out of me!

:eek: :eek: :eek:
 
TLM08 said:
After reading the book called “HELL” by Fr. F.X. Schouppe, I am convinced that Hell is indeed a place where the soul is tortured forever by every imaginable pain experience known to mankind… except it is million-fold worse and there is no escape and there is no relief. The agony of Hell is forever. This book scared the… uh… heck out of me!

:eek: :eek: :eek:
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Yes, the soul is tortured. It is tortured by the person themselves, the choices to reject God that person made while waking this earth - God permits the torture, He does not turn the crank.
 
Yes. . .and it’s a sign that many have lost a sense of sin in our seeing that many people today have lost the idea that anybody could ‘deserve’ anything other than eternal bliss because after all, they’re only human and how could God punish them ‘forever’ for some itty bitty mistakes that after all were His fault to begin with for not making Himself ‘clearer’ to them, for being too ‘hard’ to follow, for not ‘rescuing’ them before they erred, etc.

These are the people (and I’m not removing myself from among them) who have grown up with the idea that provided they are not engaged in activities on the scale of Adolf Hitler, they’re ‘OK’ and ready for heaven. These are the people who are convinced that laws apply to everybody else but them. . .who always have a convenient reason why their sins are either not sins at all, or are eminently reasonable and just actions, and if anybody is the problem it’s God for being UNreasonable about it!

So of course they’ll downplay hell. Because if they started to think that maybe they weren’t the patterns of perfection whom God should be **thrilled **to have them deign to recognize Him in any way, and that maybe they had some rather serious issues that were impeding them from following God’s will and actually being truly holy instead of ‘legends in their own minds’. . .then hell might become something they would have to think about instead of something they could dismiss as being ‘impossible for a just God.’
 
TLM08 said:
I have Catholic relatives who attend weekly Mass, but say that they do not believe in Hell because a loving God would never torture his creatures with fire for all eternity. It’s been a very long time since I’ve heard a homily on this dogma of Hell at Mass. Do YOU believe in Hell?
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Yes I do.
Hell is a place that we are eternally separated from God. At least that is my understanding of Hell on the philosophical level.
 
magic_stick said:
Why yes. Yes I do believe in hell. It’s where I work. It’s a living hell.
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:rotfl:

It sounds like the OP’s relatives don’t understand the concept of Hell. They could probably use some good reading on the subject, but I don’t have anything to recommend.
 
I agree …

There is a hell… and we send ourselves there by rejecting God’s love and God’s mercy.

I think the worst part of hell would be knowing you did it to yourself…
 
TLM08 said:
Okay… Who voted “NO” and why?

:eek:
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I voted no. I don’t believe in any kind of afterlife. You get one life and what you make of it is what you make of it. If you live well and treat others kindly, you will be remembered fondly, if you treat others unkindly, you will be remembered as a villain. After all, not many families name their sons Haman.
 
Hell exists precisely because God is love. Salvation is abiding in His love. It is when we obstinately refuse to receive the love of God and to give ourselves to Him in love that we are left with our sins and the suffering they cause rather than being transfigured by God and having them purged away.

As an interesting sidenote, one thing the liturgical reform did by making the lectionary larger was it added many more readings on Hell. Here’s an article on that:

catholic.com/thisrock/2006/0605fea4.asp
 
a_cermak said:
I voted no. I don’t believe in any kind of afterlife. You get one life and what you make of it is what you make of it. If you live well and treat others kindly, you will be remembered fondly, if you treat others unkindly, you will be remembered as a villain. After all, not many families name their sons Haman.
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This is not consistent with what Judaism teaches.

Since your profile says you are Jewish, I assume that rather than your religion, it is only your ethnicity. Is that correct? (Just curious, not trying to be offensive here.)
 
Yes I believe in hell. Whether it is fire and gnashing of teeth or not, I don’t know. I do believe it exists. I’ve heard hell is a complete separation from God for all eternity. People on earth aren’t completely separated yet, they still have a chance at repentance. But once you die, if you’ve committed a mortal sin you don’t get any more chances. shrug
 
rpp said:
This is not consistent with what Judaism teaches.

Since your profile says you are Jewish, I assume that rather than your religion, it is only your ethnicity. Is that correct? (Just curious, not trying to be offensive here.)
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No, it is consistent with the stream of Judaism of which I am part. I am a Reform Jew, some believe in an afterlife and probably about as many don’t. It is not required to believe in a certain way on this topic to be a Jew.
 
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