Hell

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Bezant said:
Why is hell an eternal punishment?
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Hell is an eternal punishment because the soul of the dead person is now outside of time and thus unable to change any decisions that turned them away from God in life.

While there is always an opportunity for mercy from God for those who sin but are ignorant, a person who is not repentant and aware of their sinful nature may have hell as their final destination.

For a clearer, detailed explanation with Scriptural references and Early Church Fathers writings, see this Catholic Answers tract on Hell.
 
Bezant said:
Why is hell an eternal punishment?
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Two explanations are usually given:
  1. A sin is more serious depending on who the sin is against. For example, it is a sin to kill a dog without justification. But it is a greater sin to kill a man without justification. When one sins against God, one sins against an infinitely good being. So it is proper that the punishment for the sin should be infinite if it is not repented.
  2. Second, considering that hell is a matter of separation from God, the damned while they are in hell are accruing further punishment by continuing to reject God.
For example, suppose a man commits a crime and goes to jail. Suppose he commits further crimes while in jail. Doing so, he is sentenced to further punishment. Maybe hell is like this. A person goes to hell, but continues to commit the sin of rejecting God. Hence he continues to accrue further punishment.

I should make one, note, this assumes that hell is a matter of punishment that God imposes. A lot of people would say that hell should be understood not only as punishment, but as a matter of the natural consequences of separating oneself from God. (Like a diver cutting his own breathing tube). As one continues to be separated from God by his own free choice, he continues to suffer because of that separation.
 
Hell is an example of God’s generosity. The people who don’t want to see God won’t. And they won’t change their minds either. People are in hell for eternity because that’s what they want.
 
Buck_Crosswhite said:
Hell is an example of God’s generosity. The people who don’t want to see God won’t. And they won’t change their minds either. People are in hell for eternity because that’s what they want.
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Fulton Sheen said that "hell is the final guarantee of human freedom. The guarantee that a damned soul can forever raise his clenched fist at God and say non serviam! (I will not serve).

or as Milton’s Satan put it, “better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.”
 
Buck_Crosswhite said:
Hell is an example of God’s generosity. The people who don’t want to see God won’t. And they won’t change their minds either. People are in hell for eternity because that’s what they want.
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I don’t want to serve in heaven or reign in hell. If God were so generous as to give us what we desire, there’d be a third option, at least.
 
ASimon said:
I don’t want to serve in heaven or reign in hell. If God were so generous as to give us what we desire, there’d be a third option, at least.
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Why should God give you what you desire when you have no intention of giving him what he desires?
 
ASimon said:
I don’t want to serve in heaven or reign in hell. If God were so generous as to give us what we desire, there’d be a third option, at least.
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Same reason I my mother didn’t let me eat a box of Nerds candy for dinner when I was 6 years old.

God knows what’s best for you. He’s God. You’re just some poster named A Simon. Probably a great poster in your own right, but hardly God.
 
bmullins said:
Why should God give you what you desire when you have no intention of giving him what he desires?
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Because he gives it to everyone else. Buck’s quote: “People are in hell for eternity because that’s what they want.”
 
ASimon said:
Because he gives it to everyone else. Buck’s quote: “People are in hell for eternity because that’s what they want.”
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Those who choose Hell freely receive it. Likewise, though who choose eternity with God receive it as well.
 
Sorry, ASimon, sometimes we don’t get as many choices as we’d like to.
 
VonDerTann said:
Sorry, ASimon, sometimes we don’t get as many choices as we’d like to.
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Fine. So, can we stop with this nonsense that God is “generous” for creating hell, and that he gives us what we desire (so long as we only desire Heaven or Hell)?

That’s really what I was driving at. You’d all be on much firmer ground, both logically and coherently, if you’d stop treating everything God does as an example of his love and generosity. Say this about fundamentalists - they don’t waste time trying to square every circle they come across. Up is up, and the opposite of up is down. Hell is where you go when you stop loving God, and God decides to stop loving you back. It isn’t “the other place God sends you (but while still loving you just as much as he did before).”
 
ASimon said:
Fine. So, can we stop with this nonsense that God is “generous” for creating hell, and that he gives us what we desire (so long as we only desire Heaven or Hell)?

That’s really what I was driving at. You’d all be on much firmer ground, both logically and coherently, if you’d stop treating everything God does as an example of his love and generosity. Say this about fundamentalists - they don’t waste time trying to square every circle they come across. Up is up, and the opposite of up is down. Hell is where you go when you stop loving God, and God decides to stop loving you back. It isn’t “the other place God sends you (but while still loving you just as much as he did before).”
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What is it that you want? You don’t want eternal happiness and you don’t want eternal absence of God. What could you possibly want?
 
ASimon has raised some points though.

I don’t beleive people freely choose hell. They choose to do what they want to do, and by doing so may end up in hell one day.

But the church always seems to have a loophole.
so who knows?🤷
 
Buck_Crosswhite said:
What is it that you want? You don’t want eternal happiness and you don’t want eternal absence of God. What could you possibly want?
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Well, first of all, eternal happiness is an incoherent concept. If your entire conscious experience is nothing but perfect happiness layered upon perfect happiness every moment for all eternity, the whole concept of happiness loses any real meaning. This is what I hear whenever somebody asks why a benevolent God could ever let such horrible things (natural disasters, etc) happen, and the answer is surprisingly cogent: We need life to be occasionally difficult and unpleasant in order to truly appreciate what happiness and joy actually are. Now, nevermind that I think wiping out an entire city with a tidal wave before 9am is going a bit too far to illustrate that point - this argument actually makes some sort of sense. But unfortunately, it also makes just as much sense when you map it onto the afterlife. And that’s a problem with Heaven that simply goes unacknowledged by Believers. The only way Heaven could be a state of perfect, eternal happiness is if every trace of the individual - free will, personality, etc. - is stripped away. It will not be the case that Heaven isn’t ever boring or unpleasant - you will simply lose the freedom or the ability to know the difference.

If that isn’t reason enough to pass on Heaven, you might consider that, far from being advertised as a state of pure, unending bliss, it’s actually offered as a state of pure, eternal servility - endless praise and thanks for the Creator. Again, perhaps a fundamentalist view, and one that falls victim to the same trap as the gooey version of Paradise suggested above, but one that doesn’t fall victim (as much) to the loose double-talk of its more fuzzy, ingratiating cousin-theory. The fundamentalist tells you straight out that you are God’s eternal property, and you shall forever praise and thank him for that gift. Or forever burn in everlasting fire.

So to answer your question - what do I want? The glib answer is, “Make me an offer.” Given that I believe in neither heaven, nor hell, nor God, my assumption is that death is final - that my consciousness will return to the oblivion pool where it resided for nearly 14 billion years before I was born. This knowledge doesn’t make me particularly happy - but it’s an easy choice to make, given the alternatives. But if you’ve got something better A, B, or C, I’m all ears.
 
ASimon said:
Well, first of all, eternal happiness is an incoherent concept. If your entire conscious experience is nothing but perfect happiness layered upon perfect happiness every moment for all eternity, the whole concept of happiness loses any real meaning. This is what I hear whenever somebody asks why a benevolent God could ever let such horrible things (natural disasters, etc) happen, and the answer is surprisingly cogent: We need life to be occasionally difficult and unpleasant in order to truly appreciate what happiness and joy actually are. Now, nevermind that I think wiping out an entire city with a tidal wave before 9am is going a bit too far to illustrate that point - this argument actually makes some sort of sense. But unfortunately, it also makes just as much sense when you map it onto the afterlife. And that’s a problem with Heaven that simply goes unacknowledged by Believers. The only way Heaven could be a state of perfect, eternal happiness is if every trace of the individual - free will, personality, etc. - is stripped away. It will not be the case that Heaven isn’t ever boring or unpleasant - you will simply lose the freedom or the ability to know the difference.

If that isn’t reason enough to pass on Heaven, you might consider that, far from being advertised as a state of pure, unending bliss, it’s actually offered as a state of pure, eternal servility - endless praise and thanks for the Creator. Again, perhaps a fundamentalist view, and one that falls victim to the same trap as the gooey version of Paradise suggested above, but one that doesn’t fall victim (as much) to the loose double-talk of its more fuzzy, ingratiating cousin-theory. The fundamentalist tells you straight out that you are God’s eternal property, and you shall forever praise and thank him for that gift. Or forever burn in everlasting fire.

So to answer your question - what do I want? The glib answer is, “Make me an offer.” Given that I believe in neither heaven, nor @#!*% , nor God, my assumption is that death is final - that my consciousness will return to the oblivion pool where it resided for nearly 14 billion years before I was born. This knowledge doesn’t make me particularly happy - but it’s an easy choice to make, given the alternatives. But if you’ve got something better A, B, or C, I’m all ears.
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Well, we are all sorry to disappoint you then. Deep philosophical discussions on issues you can’t change or control are pointless In the end, you’ll be in Heaven or Hell.

You can claim that isn’t what you want, but the reality is you don’t know what you are talking about and creating false notions and applying human concepts to jopy in Heaven. To say Heaven would not be great because you lost the human ability to know the difference between pain and happiness is 1) a human mindset and 2) false.

If you don’t believe God exists, debating how Heaven could be pleasant is way down the line and beyond the person’s grasp. You can’t fathom God or His presence or esitence, and yet you want to debate what it would be like to spend eternity with Him, despite not acknowledging Him at all? It is likely teaching calculus to someone who can’t add. Truly a pointless exercise.
 
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