Do you honestly believe in hell?

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I believe in heaven, but I don’t believe in hell. That’s just my honest belief about the matter. Of course not everyone can get into heaven, but I think those who don’t just die. They don’t go to hell, they don’t go anywhere. They literally just stop existing.

Wouldn’t a punishment for being a mortal sinner be much worse if you ended up completely dead and alone versus being with other sinners in hell? What do you guys think?
 
The punishment of hell is part of the deposit of faith of the Church. A good Catholic does not dismiss that which the Church teaches. If the Church teaches it and you disagree, it would be best for you to study the subject to see exactly where you are wrong instead of being so bold as to say the Church is wrong.
 
Timothysis said:
The punishment of hell is part of the deposit of faith of the Church. A good Catholic does not dismiss that which the Church teaches. If the Church teaches it and you disagree, it would be best for you to study the subject to see exactly where you are wrong instead of being so bold as to say the Church is wrong.
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I am not saying that the church is necessarily wrong. I am just stating that I personally do not believe in a fiery place where people are stabbed with pitchforks, and I was curious if anyone else imagined life after death for those sinners differently.
 
religioussoup said:
I am not saying that the church is necessarily wrong. I am just stating that I personally do not believe in a fiery place where people are stabbed with pitchforks, and I was curious if anyone else imagined life after death for those sinners differently.
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That is not the Catholic teaching on hell, anymore than heaven is a bunch of babies with wings playing harps while sitting on clouds. Study the subject.
 
Jesus does talk quite a lot about hell in the bible, so neither I nor the Church are in a position to contradict him.
 
religioussoup said:
I believe in heaven, but I don’t believe in hell. That’s just my honest belief about the matter. Of course not everyone can get into heaven, but I think those who don’t just die. They don’t go to hell, they don’t go anywhere. They literally just stop existing.

Wouldn’t a punishment for being a mortal sinner be much worse if you ended up completely dead and alone versus being with other sinners in hell? What do you guys think?
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If someone just stopped existing after they died, it would be no more a punishment than it was not existing prior to being born.

I’m curious, if you believe in Heaven, on what authority do you not believe in Hell?
 
I believe in Hell, I just do not believe in the rationality of it, from a devine perspective.
with being human, having enough problems as it is, I find it hard to believe that everyone would be 100% liable for their soul on a management basis. I have a horrible time, trying to decide between Chick Fila, or Pizza on a daily basis.

At what level, would a boss or supervisor allow me to be responsible for my own eternal destiny. I like to think that is the entire idea behind Christ.
 
When a person commits a mortal sin they are intentionally separating themselves from God. They can persist in this state because God gave all of us the gift of free will. God’s infinite love will never allow for Him to pull someone kicking and screaming back to Him if they choose to remain separated. This would be an injustice to the gift of free will and render it useless. So, yes, if a person freely chooses to separate themselves from God and will not repent because the god of their sin seems better than the Almighty God then God will allow that person to stay that way. While the person is alive actual graces will continue to reveal God to them in the hopes that they will repent. If they die refusing to come back to God then God will grant them their choice and that person will be eternally separated from God. We call that hell. We could only wish for fire and pitchforks since that is the worst punishment we can imagine. In reality, seeing God (Matthew 25:31-46) and then knowing that you will never see Him again is an absence that is indescribable. Jesus actually mentions hell more times in scripture than He does of heaven. To deny the existence of hell is to deny the very teachings of Christ. He exhorts us to follow Him into eternal life but He knows that some will resist and enter eternal death. To deny the existence of hell one has to not only deny the teachings of Jesus but must also deny the teachings of the Church which was founded on Jesus and is guided by the Holy Spirit. One cannot deny the existence of hell and say they are following Catholic doctrine. The Church has never proclaimed any specific person to be in hell but has always taught that it does indeed exist.
 
See your parish priest, pastor, or director of religious education. This is nothing a little good catechesis can’t overcome, and it will probably even cause you to change your religion on your profile from “confused catholic”.

Peace and all good!
 
“Just dying” would be a reward, if you think about it. Hell is the eternal separation from God. **There could be no greater torment than this. **It is not something God punishes us with, but rather something that we choose by rejecting Him upon judgement. We are taught by our Catholic faith to believe that Hell exists. We are not required, however, to believe that a single soul occupies it.

Whenever I hear of someone who thinks Hell does not exist, I get a shiver down my spine. I worry for this attitude, to be very honest. I think of the Screwtape Letters, where one demon is training in a younger demon, and explains that the best way to win this battle is to convince man that demons and Hell simply do not exist. It’s a pretty effective tool. Of course, C.S. Lewis was writing fiction, but he spoke very succinctly on this theological phenomena–that is, the ability to believe in Heaven but to shun the idea of Hell. It would be like believing there is light, but denying there is darkness. How possibly can light be light if there is no darkness to contrast it to?

There is a constant warfare going on around you, around me, around everybody. The destruction and ruin of our souls is sought after by the Enemy. Christ came in order to conquer death! Conquer it! Even in the gospels, Christ descended to Hell for three days prior to his Resurrection. If anything our Church teaches is true–and I believe everything she teaches is true–then Hell is absolutely, definitely real.

Love and peace be with you, my friend!!
 
religioussoup said:
I am not saying that the church is necessarily wrong. I am just stating that I personally do not believe in a fiery place where people are stabbed with pitchforks, and I was curious if anyone else imagined life after death for those sinners differently.
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Oh many people have imagined Hell differently. The imagery you are calling to mind comes from the Divine Comedy (Comedea). It is a collection of three books, the most famous being Dante’s Inferno. In this piece, he depicts the “layers” of hell and what they contain. But this is an imagining. The three books are totally worth a read, for the record. So good.

Biblically speaking, Hell is often described in three ways:
  1. The burning of chaff from the wheat (where the wheat is what was fruitful, the chaff is what is discarded).
  2. The eternal fire
  3. A place of great torment, where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Christ spoke to us in parables. He took imagery that our minds are able to comprehend in order to teach about truths that are so far above us. This is what made him the Great Teacher. I don’t know if these different descriptions of Hell are parabolic–giving us a mental image of great suffering analogous to the suffering we would feel in Hell–or if they are to be taken literally. What I chose to take from all of these passages in the Bible is A) Hell exists and B) I really, really don’t want to go there. 🙂
 
religioussoup said:
I believe in heaven, but I don’t believe in hell. That’s just my honest belief about the matter. Of course not everyone can get into heaven, but I think those who don’t just die. They don’t go to hell, they don’t go anywhere. They literally just stop existing.

Wouldn’t a punishment for being a mortal sinner be much worse if you ended up completely dead and alone versus being with other sinners in hell? What do you guys think?
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Oh, I think it exists alright, and I think there’s people there, I’m sorry to say.
 
religioussoup said:
I believe in heaven, but I don’t believe in hell. That’s just my honest belief about the matter. Of course not everyone can get into heaven, but I think those who don’t just die. They don’t go to hell, they don’t go anywhere. They literally just stop existing.

Wouldn’t a punishment for being a mortal sinner be much worse if you ended up completely dead and alone versus being with other sinners in hell? What do you guys think?
Click to expand...
You don’t believe in hell…but Jesus does!
 
religioussoup said:
I believe in heaven, but I don’t believe in hell. That’s just my honest belief about the matter. Of course not everyone can get into heaven, but I think those who don’t just die. They don’t go to hell, they don’t go anywhere. They literally just stop existing.

Wouldn’t a punishment for being a mortal sinner be much worse if you ended up completely dead and alone versus being with other sinners in hell? What do you guys think?
Click to expand...
Judaism, which hardly discusses hell, believes that hell is separation from G-d. I think the Catholic Church shares this belief but I’m not certain whether it also believes in some form of physical torment that accompanies the separation.

Personally, I have a tough time believing in separation from G-d FOR ALL ETERNITY, let alone physical punishment FOR ALL ETERNITY. I just don’t think a G-d of such mercy would inflict (or allow) that kind of punishment, even though I realize it is not He Who directly caused it. Well, maybe the separation can occur only to the truly evil. But G-d has His own reasons which none of us can fully comprehend. We would do well to trust in His justice and mercy rather than complain or speculate too much.
 
I have no problem with Hell.

Hell makes sense, unlike a raft of other things we are called to accept as Catholics.

The fires and pitchforks are NOT a matter of faith, but the existence of a Hell, is.

ICXC NIKA.
 
I believe in it, as much as I wish there were no such place…or state…whichever it really is. I, personally, think it is an actual place, with darkness and torment, just as it is clearly described in Catechism. It’s a horrifying, shuddering concept.
 
If Hell is a state, does that mean there are two Senators from Hell???

:):)🙂
 
religioussoup said:
I believe in heaven, but I don’t believe in hell. That’s just my honest belief about the matter. Of course not everyone can get into heaven, but I think those who don’t just die. They don’t go to hell, they don’t go anywhere. They literally just stop existing.

Wouldn’t a punishment for being a mortal sinner be much worse if you ended up completely dead and alone versus being with other sinners in hell? What do you guys think?
Click to expand...
I tend to actively disbelieve in a hell that takes on the shape of a medieval torture chamber. where the objective is to extract as much excruciating pain as possible for as long as possible for the purpose of retribution and punishment.

Believe in the godliness of such a hell in effect justifies imaginative replications of such a place on earth for similar purposes.
Western society in general has moved beyond seeing such places as a mimicking of Divine justice, or even a good method of serving justice of any kind.

It is a difficult question of where the balance lies between justice and undeserved mercy, or how justice can even be a concept if there are no consequences for bad behavior, since often not here, then in the after-life.

It is Christian teaching nevertheless, that has led us out of the cruel and inhumane, hellish tortures and practices that defined justice in the not-too-distance dark places of our past, even as it has been Christian teaching that had been the justification and model for such dark places.
Our models of justice and mercy still are a far cry from perfect, even if they are no longer medieval. What we do know is that the justice and the mercy of God is perfect. We know that because that alone is according to the nature of a God who alone is worthy of being worshiped and adored.
So, in sum what we know is that the justice systems of moderately humane Western countries are a far cry from perfect, but better models of justices than what existed in the medieval period. Therefore, it is time that understand that Christian teaching of hell can no longer be imagined following the medieval model either. That would make the justice of God lesser than the justice of modern man, and would therefore contradict the very essence of who any Being worthy of worship must be.
 
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