/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.16247950]

I have a question.

Christian Hell is depicted as a state of eternal suffering. Now: from which standpoint this suffering is evaluated?
From the standpoint of our earthly lives, Hell would be some sort of torture directly affecting our soul, a torture more intense than anything we could suffer here on Earth.
What if, instead, the real standpoint is life in Heaven? This is a life of eternal and infinite bliss, everything that is not eternal and infinite bliss would be nothing compared to it (since you would compare a finite quantity to an infinite one). As such, from the point of view of someone in Paradise, anything less than his form of life would be Hell. This would include our earthly lives: to paradisiac beings, our life is Hell.

If that's the case, Hell might not be as bad as people picture it. It could be something similar to the continuation of our current life: sure, it's nothing compared to eternal and infinite bliss, but it's still better than the torture we usually imagine (which is something worse than what we currently experience).

[Anonymous No.16248044]

The demons Legion that Jesus cast out in the exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac begged not to be cast out into Hell but rather to remain on Earth in possession of a herd of pigs instead. Apparently Hell is a worse place to be than Earth.

[Anonymous No.16248076]

>>16248044
Have demons ever experienced Heaven? If it is so, then they would prefer Earth insofar as God can still be found here. In this sense, Earth would be better than Hell. This still does not imply that Hell is a place of torture and pain. In fact it could be a place filled with Earthly pleasures. It would make sense for someone who knows God to deem a Hellish experience to be forever dominated by these lowest desires (compared to the life of eternal, infinite bliss that God can offer).

[Anonymous No.16248844]

Bump

[Anonymous No.16248859]

It's good then that we know this stuff to be completely wrong

[Anonymous No.16248869]

>>16247950
>>16248076
So let me get this straight, your entire arguement hinges on an understanding of heaven and hell as per the backpage summary of the Divine Comedy

[Anonymous No.16248872]

>>16248076
Lol what a retard

[Anonymous No.16248951]

Protip: Christianity is a religion with a tradition. You can't just make up your own theology. Your speculations were already asked and answered 1900 years ago by some Church Father or Doctor of the Church or other and some Ecumenical Council or other either ruled the matter a heresy or a mystery a few decades or a century after that then everyone forgot about it for over a thousand years. Christianity is a mountain you climb not a lump of Play-Doh you manipulate to suit your desire to innovate.

Spoiler Alert: Even if you reject all the above I guarantee there are at least a few dozen Protestant sects or cults or extinct heresies that already hold as doctrine exactly whatever opinion you cook up here so you're just reinventing the wheel and it isn't even a wheel that rolls.

[Anonymous No.16248973]

>>16247950
>Hell might not be as bad as people picture it
Hell is the big boogaboo to scare the ignorant and gullible, of course it's supposed to be as bad as people can picture it you fucking moron

[Anonymous No.16248976]

>>16248951
>You can't just make up your own theology
That's what Christians have always done, along with every other superstitious sect derived from hallucinating goat fuckers

[Anonymous No.16248985]

>>16248976
Please don't make me post a picture of an unattractive male wearing an unfashionable hat while performing an antiquated gesture.

[Anonymous No.16249050]

"Eternal" in the original Greek has two meanings, basically. One is a length of time and an experience and the other is the INTENSITY of said time and experience. I believe it's the latter. So no, it likely wouldn't be just earth. It'd be more intense.
And maybe not forever forever.
But not annihilationism.

...Rob Bell got to me, boys.

[Anonymous No.16249546]

>>16248859
Can you point to arguments against my claims? I'm not trying to be snarky here, I'm genuinely curios about this question.
>>16248869
No, I've mentioned it because it is close enough to what most people I know (including myself) think about Hell. I've also mentioned that this torture pertains the soul alone, and not the body.
>>16248872
:(
>>16248951
That's why I've formulated my claim as a question. I wanted to discuss it with someone who might be more theologically grounded than me. I'm also not interested in being original, I was just expressing a genuine doubt I had: are we to interpret the notion of Hell from the standpoint of earthly life, or from the one of heavenly life?

[Anonymous No.16249555]

Hell is worldhood.

[Anonymous No.16249560]

Morally speaking, how is an eternal Hell justifiable? I just don't get it.

[Anonymous No.16249575]

>>16249546
We have very little info on what early Christians thought of as hell
Some sources that miiiiiiiiiiiiight be reliable effectively describe it as absolute distance from God, complete and utter isolation, existing within true nothingness
Another portrayal has it as being attached in a physico-spiritual way probably-maybe but never being able to reach the other
You are not banished there, you go there yourself to wallow for eternity

[Anonymous No.16249581]

>>16249546
Oh but I should note that since Francis became king of the Vatican, Catholics believe that hell is just non-existence

[Anonymous No.16249596]

>>16249575
>You are not banished there, you go there yourself to wallow for eternity
What if you change your mind? And why would anyone take that path in the first place, after having discovered that God exists? Maybe some Don Giovanni-types would do it, but if I had to guess, it would still be something rare and unusual.

[Anonymous No.16249621]

>>16249596
Pope Francis denied these claims, and said that they were the result of Scalfari's faulty recostruction of their discussion.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43596919

[Anonymous No.16249625]

>>16249575
...

...The New Testament.

[Anonymous No.16249645]

>>16249596
I wonder this myself. My dad was part of a Swedenborgian church for awhile and I remember him mentioning they believe Hell as being distant to or not with God. I don't think they thought it was eternal, but what is time in a timeless/spaceless existence?
Maybe you wallow because you arrive at Heaven's gates and realize you never lived by God's grace while alive, and now that you're a spirit, with all of truth and beauty before you, it's too much to bear. As a living person you had the opportunity to cultivate your spirit through good deeds but instead allowed your spirit to degenerate. It's just not strong enough to handle God's grace.

[Jesus No.16249658]

>>16247950
where is the question, retard?

[Anonymous No.16249675]

>>16249596
>In Christian hamartiology, eternal sins, unforgivable sins, unpardonable sins, or ultimate sins are sins which will not be forgiven by God. One eternal or unforgivable sin (blasphemy against the Holy Spirit) is specified in several passages of the Synoptic Gospels, including Mark 3:28–29, Matthew 12:31–32, and Luke 12:10.
>... to sin against the Holy Ghost is to confound Him with the spirit of evil, it is to deny, from pure malice, the Divine character of works manifestly Divine.
>Thomas Aquinas lists, or has responded to, six sins that go against the Holy Spirit:[6][7]
>despair: which consists in thinking that one's own malice is greater than Divine Goodness, as the Master of the Sentences teaches,[8]
>presumption: if a man wants to obtain glory without merits[9] or pardon without repentance[10]
>resistance to the known truth,
>envy of a brother's spiritual good, i.e., of the increase of Divine grace in the world,
>impenitence, i.e., the specific purpose of not repenting a sin,
>obstinacy, whereby a man, clinging to his sin, becomes immune to the thought that the good searched in it is a very little one.
>Thomas Aquinas explains that the unforgivability of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit means that it removes the entrance to these means of salvation
>The images of hell that Sacred Scripture presents to us must be correctly interpreted...hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God...“To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called ‘hell’”...“Eternal damnation”, therefore, is not attributed to God's initiative because in his merciful love he can only desire the salvation of the beings he created. In reality, it is the creature who closes himself to his love. Damnation consists precisely in definitive separation from God, freely chosen by the human person and confirmed with death that seals his choice for ever. God’s judgement ratifies this state.

[Anonymous No.16249710]

>>16248076
>Have demons ever experienced Heaven?
The absolute state of /lit/

[Anonymous No.16249742]

>>16249710
Aren't fallen angels demons?

[Anonymous No.16249955]

>>16247950
Who's Christian Hell?

[Anonymous No.16251062]

>>16249560
It wouldn’t be eternal if sinners were capable of loving God instead of being self-worshipping sock lovers. Heaven and Hell are both bathed in the direct light of God’s radiance. The difference is how each individual soul reacts to it. If you are selfless and love God and all of His creation, it is heaven. If you despise and denounce God while clinging to the material and putting yourself above God (and by extension, everything else), it becomes hell, and you suffer eternally in your own sin.