Existance of hell

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mikeyrobbie

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Forgive me brothers and sisters in the Church,

But I’m having a hard time believing an existence in hell… I really would rather believe that an all knowing and loving God who is probably one of the most enlightened and merciful in the history of man condemns people to suffer forever…

I’m questioning the fact that all my Buddhist, Muslim, Orthodox, Jewish, and Protestant friends and family members who are happy in their faiths are condemned to hell…

I just can’t bring myself to believe it… I tried talking to my parish priest and asking him about it and all he said was that “Hell is there; accept it and get over it.”

I refuse to believe it… And it’s sad because I’m willing to continue the belief that all are eventually reconciled with God…

Call me a heretic or universalist if you must; but an all loving God could not be so cruel to let people “burn in hell.” He created us in his image and even says he loves everyone…

I refuse to believe in eternal suffering…
 
mikeyrobbie said:
Forgive me brothers and sisters in the Church,

But I’m having a hard time believing an existence in hell… I really would rather believe that an all knowing and loving God who is probably one of the most enlightened and merciful in the history of man condemns people to suffer forever…

I’m questioning the fact that all my Buddhist, Muslim, Orthodox, Jewish, and Protestant friends and family members who are happy in their faiths are condemned to hell…

I just can’t bring myself to believe it… I tried talking to my parish priest and asking him about it and all he said was that “Hell is there; accept it and get over it.”

I refuse to believe it… And it’s sad because I’m willing to continue the belief that all are eventually reconciled with God…

Call me a heretic or universalist if you must; but an all loving God could not be so cruel to let people “burn in hell.” He created us in his image and even says he loves everyone…

I refuse to believe in eternal suffering…
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No offense my brother in Christ,but your denial of Hell makes no difference with Truth.In essence, you are becoming the judge of Divine Revelation. You are making God your student and you the Teacher. Hell exists and the belief we are all going to Heaven is a pipe dream!
 
mikeyrobbie said:
I’m questioning the fact that all my Buddhist, Muslim, Orthodox, Jewish, and Protestant friends and family members who are happy in their faiths are condemned to hell…
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I’m curious, what makes you think that the Church, Who definitely teaches (as Jesus did) that hell exists, also teaches that your friends who are happy in their faiths are condemned to hell…

My thoughts on hell is that God doesn’t condemn us to hell, so much as we choose hell over God’s Love.
 
Nicea325 said:
No offense my brother in Christ,but your denial of Hell makes no difference with Truth.In essence, you are becoming the judge of Divine Revelation. You are making God your student and you the Teacher. Hell exists and the belief we are all going to Heaven is a pipe dream!
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No offense, my brother in Christ, but did you go to the same sensitivity training as mikeyrobbie’s parish priest? 😉
mikeyrobbie said:
I just can’t bring myself to believe it… I tried talking to my parish priest and asking him about it and all he said was that “Hell is there; accept it and get over it.”
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mikeyrobbie said:
Forgive me brothers and sisters in the Church,

But I’m having a hard time believing an existence in hell… I really would rather believe that an all knowing and loving God who is probably one of the most enlightened and merciful in the history of man condemns people to suffer forever…

I’m questioning the fact that all my Buddhist, Muslim, Orthodox, Jewish, and Protestant friends and family members who are happy in their faiths are condemned to hell…

I just can’t bring myself to believe it… I tried talking to my parish priest and asking him about it and all he said was that “Hell is there; accept it and get over it.”

I refuse to believe it… And it’s sad because I’m willing to continue the belief that all are eventually reconciled with God…

Call me a heretic or universalist if you must; but an all loving God could not be so cruel to let people “burn in hell.” He created us in his image and even says he loves everyone…

I refuse to believe in eternal suffering…
Click to expand...
From what I’ve learned about Catholicism on this Forum and elsewhere, I don’t think Catholic teaching states that Orthodox, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists automatically go to Hell since they are not Catholic. Especially Orthodox, and also Protestants, who are fellow Christians; but Jews and Muslims as well, according to the Catechism, and even Hindus and Buddhists, are not necessarily bound for Hell, based on the possibility of invincible ignorance on their part.

I share your disbelief in eternal suffering and torment from an all-merciful and loving G-d. I believe Catholicism says that it is we who choose to separate ourselves from G-d by not atoning for our mortal sins up to the final second of our lives. This separation from G-d is the main element of Hell; however, actual torment is a by-product. Although I’ve never really gotten a clear response regarding the “fire and brimstone” physical nature of Hell, there are Biblical passages which point in that direction. My own feeling is that most of us can be cleansed in Purgatory.
 
The existence of a Hell in no way implies that members of other religions necessarily go there.

In fact, I’d imagine many Catholics go there because those who have the true faith are held to a higher standard at the Throne of Judgement.

But to doubt Hell is to doubt our LORD, since He first taught it’s existence. Therefore, if there is no Hell, neither is there a point to the faith. To that extent, your priest was right: there is Hell; we have to come to terms with it.

God Bless and ICXC NIKA
 
mikeyrobbie said:
Forgive me brothers and sisters in the Church,

But I’m having a hard time believing an existence in hell… I really would rather believe that an all knowing and loving God who is probably one of the most enlightened and merciful in the history of man condemns people to suffer forever…

Suppose people WANT to go to hell?

I’m questioning the fact that all my Buddhist, Muslim, Orthodox, Jewish, and Protestant friends and family members who are happy in their faiths are condemned to hell…

Wrong Belief.

I just can’t bring myself to believe it… I tried talking to my parish priest and asking him about it and all he said was that “Hell is there; accept it and get over it.”

Not a bad answer. You did not create nothing and you and me are nothing. What do we know of this world? If we know nothing of this world, what do we know of the other?

I refuse to believe it… And it’s sad because I’m willing to continue the belief that all are eventually reconciled with God…

Better believe this way: God is so good for humankind that gave His Only son who was crucified for us. Do you want better proof that God wants us all in Heaven? At the same time, God is infinitely Just (not like human justice), He makes NO MISTAKES IN JUDGING. We cannot have better than that. Now, how he judges is none of our business, dont you think so? But if He is infinitely good and just, dont you think that all is right? It is not compulsory that you or I understand !

Call me a heretic or universalist if you must; but an all loving God could not be so cruel to let people “burn in hell.” He created us in his image and even says he loves everyone…

That an opinion of an ant thinking about Einstein.

I refuse to believe in eternal suffering…

What about leaving that aside and being good, forgiving enemies, praying to God and to the Saints, giving money to Somalia, asking for God’s forgiveness, praying hard, receiving the Eucharist…? You would spend better your time
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Hell exists. Scripture says: “Then he will say to those on his left hand, ‘Depart from me, accursed ones, into the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels’” (matthew 25: 41). Remember this: actually God doesn,t put anyone in hell. They put themselves there. They freely chose hell themselves when they decide to turn their face away from God… to turn their back on God, and to turn over to the devil, this happens when a person commits a mortal sin. Scripture speaks of hell 70 times and Christ himself speakes of it 25 times.
 
Hell exists. There is no question about it.
But the Church does not teach that people who follow other religions go to Hell. It does not even teach that there is a single person in Hell.
Catholics who die in a state of mortal sin, and people who know the truth, that the Catholic Church is the One, True, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church but choose not to follow it, and those who believed this but left the Church are the people we know go to Hell.
People who sincerely love God, and to the best of their ability serve him, even though they don’t understand fully him or the true faith(Muslims, Jews, Protestants) will be saved because they worship the one, true God.
I believe even Pagans can be saved because there is truth in all religion. I believe they are really worshipping God but their view of him has been tainted and distorted.
 
If everyone is reconciled before God, then what’s the reward of Heaven? In order for there to be any sort of reward, there has to be a “lack of” a reward.

Also, what’s the point in being good at all – I’ll still go to Heaven… sex, drugs, thievery: I can do all of this to my heart’s content, and I’d still get be with God!

Remember: God is also perfectly just.
 
I think the crux of the matter is:

What is Hell?

The way I understand it, Hell is less of a “demons with pitchforks stoking fires and tossing poor helpless souls into pits” and more of simply “the absence of God and the full knowledge that it is your own fault that you are not in heaven”. The agony is knowing that you are going to be without God for eternity.
 
Also there’s the ‘temporal’ misunderstanding.

How often I hear people say, “How could a loving God condemn FOREVER people who only sinned for a time? it’s not fair!”

And it wouldn’t be fair. . .but that is not what happens.

When we die, if we repent our sins, even if it is with the very last ‘nanosecond’ fraction of our last breath. . .we can be forgiven.

However, if we do NOT repent our MORTAL sins (remember this means the sin must be grave matter, must be committed with full knowledge, and with full consent ) at death, then, by definition, we’re still sinning right? If sin separates us from God (it does) and we do not repent and return to God, we are still separated, aren’t we? And once we enter eternity, time as we know it ceases to exist for us. Therefore if we enter in a state of mortal sin, we CONTINUE in that mortal sin, forever.

So the consequence of unrepented mortal sin at death is that the sin continues in eternity and thus the free choice of hell also continues for eternity. There is no ‘time’ in which the person will say, “Gee, what’s the matter with me? i’ve suffered for 50,000 years and now I’m sorry”. The whole idea that a person with unrepented mortal sin will somehow at some ‘time’ be sorry is wrong.

So --how does a loving God handle the freely chosen choice of a person to sin mortally and to refuse to repent?

Like the old trick logic question of ‘can God make a boulder too heavy for him to lift’ --a nonsense question because God cannot do ‘stupid’. . .

the idea that God could somehow ‘make’ eternity into something different whereby eternity becomes ‘temporal’ and thus would enable a person to ‘change his mind’ after x amount of ‘time’ is another nonsense concept. God does not simultaneously exist and not exist; God does not simultaneously make a given action both good and evil, and God does NOT simultaneously allow eternity to be both ‘beyond’ time and ‘part of time’.

Again, it is not a question of God being ‘mean’. It is a misunderstanding of what God, and love, and sin all are. God is love but love is justice along with mercy. It is not ‘mercy whether the person asks for it or not, mercy even if the person won’t accept it’, because that would not be mercy at all.

If you were dying of poison, knew it, knew there was an antidote, but freely chose not to take the antidote because you wanted to punish your spouse, make them feel guilty over your death, make your children orphans in poverty, and above all wanted to make it clear that you didn’t believe in any kind of afterlife. . .but your doctor ‘forced’ you to take the antidote–you would sue him for malpractice, and as soon as possible, go and take the poison again, because it was more important for you to inflict suffering on others and you didn’t ‘believe’ in any afterlife anyway. (you’ll say this is crazy and sadly it isn’t at all. People are capable of much good but they are also capable of evil, and freely choose it.)

Even if you were a being who lived 1000 years, 10,000, 100,000, you would still go on taking that poison if you had the antidote’ forced on you. No matter how merciful it would seem to ‘rescue’ somebody from death, that kind of person would see the ‘mercy’ as something dreadful, in fact as a terrible punishment. So the idea that God’s mercy MUST be perceived as mercy by every soul is also wrong. The offer of salvation is great mercy to those who choose it, but it would be an eternal torment to those who reject it.
 
Saw lots of the use of the word “I” in your post. A quick word of correction here. You don’t get to decide which parts of the faith you will accept or not.

It is due to God’s love that we are allowed to go to hell. If we spend our lives telling God that we don’t want Him, He very sorrowfully and assuredly grants us our wish, hell, eternity separated from His love. It is after all precisely what we asked for.
 
Hell is self-chosen and our own particular hell would be self-chosen. Hell is the absence of God’s love and grace and light and beauty, a choice we make, or not, by how we live our lives.

If you read Matthew 25 verses 31-46, and you will see what Jesus who is judge of souls, says about the judgement of souls

…and what is plain is that people have either chosen for God by living with kindness and practical charity to others, or have rejected God by refusing to live in love and kindness.

By the time we come before God we have ourselves already made that choice by our lives, so it is we who condemn ourselves to existence without the God of light and love.

To exist without the light and love and goodness of God is hell, dreadful hell, because we were made for light and love and goodness shared with God and in communion with other human beings.

That third of angels who became devils, became this because they rejected the love and light of God, without God’s life and love, they and we are ugly and miserable and have the burning absence of all good. This was the choice we made with our lives, if we chose to live without love for for God and for others on earth.
 
Your idea of who can be saved is not in agreement with the teaching of
the Catechism of the Catholic Church

scborromeo.org/ccc/p123a9p3.htm
Quote:
818 "However, one cannot charge with the sin of the separation those who at present are born into these communities [that resulted from such separation] and in them are brought up in the faith of Christ, and the Catholic Church accepts them with respect and affection as brothers . . . . All who have been justified by faith in Baptism are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers in the Lord by the children of the Catholic Church."272

819 "Furthermore, many elements of sanctification and of truth"273 are found outside the visible confines of the Catholic Church: "the written Word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope, and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, as well as visible elements."274 Christ’s Spirit uses these Churches and ecclesial communities as means of salvation, whose power derives from the fullness of grace and truth that Christ has entrusted to the Catholic Church. All these blessings come from Christ and lead to him,275 and are in themselves calls to "Catholic unity."276

Who may be saved
“Catechism of the Catholic Church” Imprimi Potest. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict)

816 “Those who through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience–those too may achieve eternal salvation”

Or with From the Dogmatic Constitution of the Catholic, LUMEN GENTIUM, solemnly promulgated by his holiness Pope Paul v1 on November 21, 1964
  1. The Church recognizes that in many ways she is linked with those who, being baptized, are honored with the name of Christian, though they do not profess the faith in its entirety or do not preserve unity of communion with the successor of Peter. (14*) For there are many who honor Sacred Scripture, taking it as a norm of belief and a pattern of life, and who show a sincere zeal. They lovingly believe in God the Father Almighty and in Christ, the Son of God and Saviour. (15*) They are consecrated by baptism, in which they are united with Christ. They also recognize and accept other sacraments within their own Churches or ecclesiastical communities. Many of them rejoice in the episcopate, celebrate the Holy Eucharist and cultivate devotion toward the Virgin Mother of God.(16*) They also share with us in prayer and other spiritual benefits.
Likewise we can say that in some real way they are joined with us in the Holy Spirit, for to them too He gives His gifts and graces whereby He is operative among them with His sanctifying power. Some indeed He has strengthened to the extent of the shedding of their blood. In all of Christ’s disciples the Spirit arouses the desire to be peacefully united, in the manner determined by Christ, as one flock under one shepherd, and He prompts them to pursue this end. (17*) Mother Church never ceases to pray, hope and work that this may come about. She exhorts her children to purification and renewal so that the sign of Christ may shine more brightly over the face of the earth.

You said: I’m questioning the fact that all my Buddhist, Muslim, Orthodox, Jewish, and Protestant friends and family members who are happy in their faiths are condemned to hell… I have endeavoured to give you the official teaching of the Church on this matter.
 
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church
The Church and non-Christians

839 "Those who have not yet received the Gospel are related to the People of God in various ways."325
The relationship of the Church with the Jewish People. When she delves into her own mystery, the Church, the People of God in the New Covenant, discovers her link with the Jewish People,326 "the first to hear the Word of God."327 The Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already a response to God’s revelation in the Old Covenant. To the Jews “belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ”,328 "for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable."329…

841** The Church’s relationship with the Muslims**. "The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day."330
842 The Church’s bond with non-Christian religions is in the first place the common origin and end of the human race: All nations form but one community. This is so because all stem from the one stock which God created to people the entire earth, and also because all share a common destiny, namely God. His providence, evident goodness, and saving designs extend to all against the day when the elect are gathered together in the holy city. . .331

843 The Catholic Church recognizes in other religions that search, among shadows and images, for the God who is unknown yet near since he gives life and breath and all things and wants all men to be saved. Thus, the Church considers all goodness and truth found in these religions as "a preparation for the Gospel and given by him who enlightens all men that they may at length have life."332
844 In their religious behavior, however, men also display the limits and errors that disfigure the image of God in them: Very often, deceived by the Evil One, men have become vain in their reasonings, and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and served the creature rather than the Creator. Or else, living and dying in this world without God, they are exposed to ultimate despair.333

845 To reunite all his children, scattered and led astray by sin, the Father willed to call the whole of humanity together into his Son’s Church. The Church is the place where humanity must rediscover its unity and salvation. The Church is “the world reconciled.” She is that bark which “in the full sail of the Lord’s cross, by the breath of the Holy Spirit, navigates safely in this world.” According to another image dear to the Church Fathers, she is prefigured by Noah’s ark, which alone saves from the flood.334
 
Hell certainly does exist. Don’t go to hell, you will suffer eternal torment. If you aren’t saved yet, read Peter’s reply in Acts 2:38.

You must:
  1. Repent
  2. Be baptised in water in full immersion (infant baptism doesn’t count)
  3. Receive the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues.
After doing these, continue to do good and look forward to eternity in heaven with God !
 
InDefense said:
Hell certainly does exist. Don’t go to hell, you will suffer eternal torment. If you aren’t saved yet, read Peter’s reply in Acts 2:38.

You must:
  1. Repent
  2. Be baptised in water in full immersion (infant baptism doesn’t count)
  3. Receive the Holy Spirit** with the evidence of speaking in tongues**.
After doing these, continue to do good and look forward to eternity in heaven with God !
Click to expand...
This is nonsense. What cult do you belong to?
 
mikeyrobbie said:
Forgive me brothers and sisters in the Church,

But I’m having a hard time believing an existence in hell… I really would rather believe that an all knowing and loving God who is probably one of the most enlightened and merciful in the history of man condemns people to suffer forever…

I’m questioning the fact that all my Buddhist, Muslim, Orthodox, Jewish, and Protestant friends and family members who are happy in their faiths are condemned to hell…

I just can’t bring myself to believe it… I tried talking to my parish priest and asking him about it and all he said was that “Hell is there; accept it and get over it.”

I refuse to believe it… And it’s sad because I’m willing to continue the belief that all are eventually reconciled with God…

Call me a heretic or universalist if you must; but an all loving God could not be so cruel to let people “burn in hell.” He created us in his image and even says he loves everyone…

I refuse to believe in eternal suffering….
Click to expand...
So you are telling us that Jesus lied???
 
InDefense said:
Hell certainly does exist. Don’t go to hell, you will suffer eternal torment. If you aren’t saved yet, read Peter’s reply in Acts 2:38.

You must:
  1. Repent
  2. Be baptised in water in full immersion (infant baptism doesn’t count)
  3. Receive the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues.
After doing these, continue to do good and look forward to eternity in heaven with God !
Click to expand...
As to your point 3: Saint Paul would likely disagree with you. His preaching on the Spiritual Gifts infers that not everybody will speak in tongues.

ICXC NIKA
 
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