Hell must a bad place. I know that because individuals angry with me have told me to go there.
People talk about the weather being hot as hell. But sometimes we say the weather is cold as hell. Taylor Swift sings about a guy being handsome as hell.
Dante made hell an interesting if unpleasant place in his Inferno. In his hell, one first passes a gate that says: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” There are different types of everlasting torture for different types of sins. Satan is in the worst spot due to his treachery against God. Near him, locked in a frozen lake, are individuals who were treacherous to someone in a special relationship with them. One example is Cain, who killed his brother, Abel. I don’t know whether rolling (MPs voting out) a prime minister qualifies.
I often show my psychology students a video of a woman talking about her only child, who had developed intractable schizophrenia. She says that she would not need to go to hell to know what it is like.
Christians, Jews, and Muslims believe in hell. Many dead religions, such as the ancient Egyptian one, included hell for sinners. But some religions, such as Hindu, have no hell.
Hell can be a powerful part of a religion because the risk of going there helps motivate believers to fit their behaviour into the rules of the religion. Hell is the ultimate threatened punishment.
According to polling, less than one-third of Australians believe in hell. The trend over time is in the direction of 0%, but I reckon there will always be hell holdouts.
Pat Benatar sings that “Hell is for children.” She thinks children are more likely than adults to believe in hell. I agree. Children believe what they are told.
Some people make fun of hell. AC/DC sing happily about being on the highway to hell.
Other people just reject the idea of hell. John Lennon tells us to imagine “no hell below us.”
I believe that there is a sort of hell below us. Go down about two kilometres in a mine shaft, and the temperature will be over 50 degrees Celsius, due to radioactive decay in the surrounding rocks. Go deeper, and the temperature will rise higher. You won’t be singing then.
What are your thoughts about hell?
Children believe what they are told. Intelligent adults do, too. That’s why – at least in my world, and in line with my way of thinking – there surely must be a Hell. I mean, intelligent people (smarter than me, for sure) agree that there must be a place where the wicked, unholy and wanton souls go when the body perishes, for instance: “Revelation 21:8 But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.” Certainly, this sounds terrifying to me, with the realization that it’s a “consignment” for all eternity – not just a mere lifetime as we experience on this good earth.
Matthew 10:28 states, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” That’s powerful. It’s from the New Testament – so that means it was either spoken or taught by the Lord Jesus Christ. Hard to argue with that kind of thinking, I’m sure. This verse is likewise from the New Testament, but, unlike the Book of Matthew (at the beginning of that testament), this one is at the bitter end — and it really is a “bitter dose” for the unbeliever: “Revelation 19:20 But the beast was captured and with it the false prophet who had performed the signs on its behalf. With these signs, he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped its image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur.”
It’s all very clear: “Live a good, decent, wholesome life. Believe in and love God and His Son, Jesus. Repent and seek forgiveness for your sins. And, most of all, as Jesus taught, “Love each other as I have loved you.” That, I’ve learned, is the most important lesson of all – all of one’s acts, hopes, deeds, promises, and so on, are nothing without the Gift of Love. God’s Love – that he gave to us 10,000 times 10,000 times over when He sent His Son Jesus Christ to die on the Cross at Calvary for our sins. Hallelujah and Amen!