Let's Talk About Hell

[Lost_Wanderer]

Apparently, no argument will ever be good enough for those who are determined to be obtuse – especially when they profess to be Catholics.

That’s not a good argument either… especially since they can say the same thing. :\

 

[At_Trent]

That’s not a good argument either… especially since they can say the same thing. :\

Of course not. You are not comfortable with the dogma of Hell, nor those who are. Yet you persist in trying to convince those who post on a traditional Catholicism board they are wrong.

Hell is not a pleasant subject. But to speak against the dogma in the way you are doing so is troubling. Perhaps when you are older you will understand.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Of course not. You are not comfortable with the dogma of Hell, nor those who are. Yet you persist in trying to convince those who post on a traditional Catholicism board they are wrong.

Hell is not a pleasant subject. But to speak against the dogma in the way you are doing so is troubling. Perhaps when you are older you will understand.

Kindly dictate one post here where I made the heretical claim of denying hell. Do you actually have any idea how much I wish I could find a gateway to that place, drag out an archfiend by the horns, and show it off to prove to the world of its existence?

It’s true that hell is not a pleasant subject but it’s just simply not going to convince people. I don’t even need statistics; just go to YouTube and watch the vids of the notorious street preachers there.

I believe it was C.S. Lewis who said that there are two ways the devil can lure people into hell. One way is to have them in the fullness of his occult presence instead of Christ’s via witchcraft, paganism etc and the other is to make them blind to his existence.

The second one has become his weapon in the 21st century (and possibly from the very start of the Enlightenment). It’s a weapon geared to rendering the threats of hell useless and you still insist on using it as a tool for conversion and argument? That’s like using a sword after it’s been broken by a sword-breaker.

 

[At_Trent]

Kindly dictate one post here where I made the heretical claim of denying hell.

Show me where I implied it. You can’t, because I didn’t.

But when you dismiss the importance of preaching on Hell, it is troubling. That’s what I meant.

 

[Shin]

The second one has become his weapon in the 21st century (and possibly from the very start of the Enlightenment). It’s a weapon geared to rendering the threats of hell useless and you still insist on using it as a tool for conversion and argument? That’s like using a sword after it’s been broken by a sword-breaker.

Let’s see, so the argument is the devil has won, let him win, it’s useless, the saints and Jesus are wrong, or outdated in preaching Hell, the world has changed.

I think you’ll find Hell more useful than that, properly applied. It does sink in despite the demonic passions raging against it in self-righteous pride and moralizing.

Hell has always been tremendously beneficial to me, personally I can testify to that.

The resistance to it shows how effective a weapon it truly is.

 

[Monica4316]

I think that sometimes it’s good to think about hell because it encourages us to try harder to follow Christ and helps us understand the importance of salvation. After I watched the Passion of the Christ, I realized a bit more how horrible hell is (maybe because of how the movie portrayed the devil) and that encouraged me to practice virtue and repent of sin.
But it’s also important to not despair and remember God’s love and mercy, because despair and the belief that God won’t forgive us, can also lead to hell.

God bless

 

[Revs96]

I voted daily, only because I hate the devil for all he’s done to me in my life and also to the Church in the last 100 years.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Show me where I implied it. You can’t, because I didn’t.

But when you dismiss the importance of preaching on Hell, it is troubling. That’s what I meant.

Let’s look at the definition of dogma shall we?

1. a system of principles or tenets, as of a church.
2. a specific tenet or doctrine authoritatively laid down, as by a church: the dogma of the Assumption.
3. prescribed doctrine: political dogma.
4. a settled or established opinion, belief, or principle.

The reality of Hell itself is dogma being that it is an established belief. However, where do you get off saying that the effectiveness of preaching about it is?

Let’s see, so the argument is the devil has won, let him win, it’s useless, the saints and Jesus are wrong, or outdated in preaching Hell, the world has changed.

I think you’ll find Hell more useful than that, properly applied. It does sink in despite the demonic passions raging against it in self-righteous pride and moralizing.

Hell has always been tremendously beneficial to me, personally I can testify to that.

The resistance to it shows how effective a weapon it truly is.

In defending the Church, I pride myself as a sort of spy in that that the culture I sink myself into gives me brief glimpses into the minds of our enemies.

And frankly, if you say these things to their faces, they’ll just think of you as another religious loon. You say it sinks in? They’ll say you’re “delusional” and “the only person you’re fooling is yourself”. Furthermore, they’ll probably hold you up as an example of what a Catholic is which is an insult to all other Catholics who value intellect as much as spirituality. I doubt a persecution complex will be enough to justify such shame.

satan has won the battle but that doesn’t mean he has won the war. We just need to find another way to fight it. Preaching to people about a place they don’t believe is just not gonna work.

 

[At_Trent]

The reality of Hell itself is dogma being that it is an established belief. However, where do you get off saying that the effectiveness of preaching about it is?

I never said preaching on Hell is dogma. Again, your irritation concerning the subject is clouding your reading comprehension. You can twist my words to suit yourself all you want, but they remain posted, and are what they are.

I didn’t post the OP to incite anger, and that is where you are heading, so I’ll just say we disagree. Carry on if you like, it’s a public forum and all opinions are welcome.

 

[At_Trent]

Preaching to people about a place they don’t believe is just not gonna work.

Sorry, missed that. if we drop the Hell bit, then we may as well drop the sin bit. Sorry, but as I said before, you can’t take Hell out of the equation. Anything short of it, then we simply go through the motions imho.

 

[At_Trent]

I think that sometimes it’s good to think about hell because it encourages us to try harder to follow Christ and helps us understand the importance of salvation. After I watched the Passion of the Christ, I realized a bit more how horrible hell is (maybe because of how the movie portrayed the devil) and that encouraged me to practice virtue and repent of sin.
But it’s also important to not despair and remember God’s love and mercy, because despair and the belief that God won’t forgive us, can also lead to hell.

God bless

Well said.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

I never said preaching on Hell is dogma. Again, your irritation concerning the subject is clouding your reading comprehension. You can twist my words to suit yourself all you want, but they remain posted, and are what they are.

I didn’t post the OP to incite anger, and that is where you are heading, so I’ll just say we disagree. Carry on if you like, it’s a public forum and all opinions are welcome.

Sorry if I come off as irritated, I’m not really. It’s just that certain portions of my bra(name removed by moderator)ower are being redirected elsewhere. I also realized that I read two of your sentences as one (I’m a fast reader you see, sometimes too fast ).

Still, my point still stands. You say you can’t drop hell out of the equation, well guess what? The likes of Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens have already done that and it would have proven to be effective in crumbling the Church’s moral stances completely had we not the turned to the aid of conservative philosophers and intellectuals to help back them up.

As I said before, the only way you can triumph with that method these days is to actually open a vortex to hell and convince the unbelievers (such as the ones I cited) that they’re not hallucinating.

 

[Victorious]

As I said before, the only way you can triumph with that method these days is to actually open a vortex to hell and convince the unbelievers (such as the ones I cited) that they’re not hallucinating.

Wrong again. Plenty of people who witnessed the miracles of Jesus and still refused to believe. And then there is this:

“There was a rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Laz’arus, full of sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table; moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried; and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes, and saw Abraham far off and Laz’arus in his bosom. And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy upon me, and send Laz’arus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in anguish in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Laz’arus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’ And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’ But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if some one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if some one should rise from the dead.’”

Luke 16:19-31
​

My earlier point still stands. I have now found one more candidate for The Last Person I Would Go to To Find Out How to Evangelize the World.

 

[At_Trent]

Sorry if I come off as irritated, I’m not really. It’s just that certain portions of my bra(name removed by moderator)ower are being redirected elsewhere. I also realized that I read two of your sentences as one (I’m a fast reader you see, sometimes too fast ).

Still, my point still stands. You say you can’t drop hell out of the equation, well guess what? The likes of Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens have already done that and it would have proven to be effective in crumbling the Church’s moral stances completely had we not the turned to the aid of conservative philosophers and intellectuals to help back them up.

As I said before, the only way you can triumph with that method these days is to actually open a vortex to hell and convince the unbelievers (such as the ones I cited) that they’re not hallucinating.

No big deal. I just don’t understand what unbelievers have to do with it. Atheists take themselves out of the equation, not Hell. Atheists reject the revealed Truth, and that includes the reality of Hell.

Acknowledgment of Hell tends to build faith, and if the mention of Hell, Satan, or temptation appears in the day’s readings, it’s a good opportunity to preach on Hell from the pulpit. I wish more would do so.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Wrong again. Plenty of people who witnessed the miracles of Jesus and still refused to believe.

Plenty? Are you kidding me? Even the Pharisees were convinced by what He did and resorted to calling it the devil’s handiwork. They resorted to a supernatural explanation, not the bamboozling “scientific” explanation of today’s skeptics. Don’t forget, the only power that could come to aid the preaching of hell is a supernatural one, the very phenomenon that skeptics work so hard to deny.

My earlier point still stands. I have now found one more candidate for The Last Person I Would Go to To Find Out How to Evangelize the World.

You do know quoting the Bible is an invalid argument right? But go ahead, walk the path of Jack Chick. Then again, we’ve seen how effective he’s been and he threatens people with hell more than all of today’s Catholic priests combined.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

No big deal. I just don’t understand what unbelievers have to do with it. Atheists take themselves out of the equation, not Hell. Atheists reject the revealed Truth, and that includes the reality of Hell.

Acknowledgment of Hell tends to build faith, and if the mention of Hell, Satan, or temptation appears in the day’s readings, it’s a good opportunity to preach on Hell from the pulpit. I wish more would do so.

Atheism makes easy prey out of those who are all faith and no intellect. If they can’t convince them, they paint them as fanatical, stubborn, fundamentalist nutballs to convince all the others. Sad to say, it does its job or we wouldn’t be living in a society that has become more godless and more difficult to become holy in as the years go by.

That’s what makes them effective because once you take the supernatural out of the picture. All believers have left is human philosophy and moral theory. Why not use them?

Threats of hell only work on the religious or at least those who have already established belief in the supernatural. They have accepted (at least partially) the revealed Truth. Sadly, they’re not the ones influencing the youth right now. They’re not the ones with the media’s sympathy.

It’s the ones who have rejected that Truth entirely and we oughta face the fact that we cannot use something they regard as an invalid argument and an empty threat.

 

[Victorious]

You do know quoting the Bible is an invalid argument right? But go ahead, walk the path of Jack Chick. Then again, we’ve seen how effective he’s been and he threatens people with hell more than all of today’s Catholic priests combined.

Thanks for the insult. It’s earned you a place on my ignore list.

 

[At_Trent]

I think that sometimes it’s good to think about hell because it encourages us to try harder to follow Christ and helps us understand the importance of salvation. After I watched the Passion of the Christ, I realized a bit more how horrible hell is (maybe because of how the movie portrayed the devil) and that encouraged me to practice virtue and repent of sin.
But it’s also important to not despair and remember God’s love and mercy, because despair and the belief that God won’t forgive us, can also lead to hell.

God bless

You know, St Alphonsus covers it all in Preparation For Death, the book we’ve mentioned. The most recent postings on this blog address Hell and God’s mercy and love for us.
alphonsianum.blogspot.com/

 

[John_of_Woking]

I admit it. I am a weak man. The fear of hell causes me to pray more fervently than love of God. I think on it daily, nay hourly!

I FEAR hell to a neurotic extent.

I do love the Triune God though and I am sure Jesus can hear my daily groanings as I yearn for Him to releive me from my exile in this valley of tears.

He can see my love for him is greater than for any creature. Having said that the very thought of Hell provokes feelings of anguish and anxiety. Hell is so Just a punishment and yet it makes me furious that a loving God could allow someone to burn for eternity…but my emotions arise because I am weak and I am viewing things from a human level and my mind is infinitely inferior than God’s and that is why I submit to The Truth and place my fury and pathetic feelings at the foot of the Cross.

I am with the disciples As I say to My Lord “Lord to whom else do I turn? You have the message of eternal life”

 

[John_of_Woking]

Atheism makes easy prey out of those who are all faith and no intellect. If they can’t convince them, they paint them as fanatical, stubborn, fundamentalist nutballs to convince all the others. Sad to say, it does its job or we wouldn’t be living in a society that has become more godless and more difficult to become holy in as the years go by.

That’s what makes them effective because once you take the supernatural out of the picture. All believers have left is human philosophy and moral theory. Why not use them?

Threats of hell only work on the religious or at least those who have already established belief in the supernatural. They have accepted (at least partially) the revealed Truth. Sadly, they’re not the ones influencing the youth right now. They’re not the ones with the media’s sympathy.

It’s the ones who have rejected that Truth entirely and we oughta face the fact that we cannot use something they regard as an invalid argument and an empty threat.

I respect your viewpoint and agree to a large extent. However, I think it is harder than ever to convince atheists from natural law theory or through reason alone. We have to promote and present supernatural truths (including the last things) or at least alert them to a possibility of a truth greater than their mind can comprehend.