Saturday, June 9, 2012

What I think about hell.

In the Old Testament, the scriptures about hell are very vague and brief. They were usually used in poems. The commentary on what happens after a person dies isn’t very clearly defined at all. I have been looking and can’t find overly specific details. For whatever reasons, the details on who goes where, when, how, and for how long, simply weren’t things the Hebrew writers were terribly concerned about.

In the New Testament, I have found the word for “hell” used about 12 times, almost always by Jesus. I didn’t count when different writers wrote about the same instance hell was being used so you may count more, if you count every instance that it is repeated by different writers. The greek word for “hell” that gets translated into English is “Gehenna.” Gehenna was an actual valley just south of Jerusalem. It was literally, the city dump. Since it was the dump, there was always a fire going, to burn the trash. Wild animals would fight for leftover scraps of anything they could get. The poor people would often be there, scavenging for anything they could find that someone may have thrown out, that could be useful to them. Of course the poor are not happy and if you are digging through the dump, you are probably crying. You are most definitely, not living your best days. So you get a visual of a place where the fire never goes out and there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. The people listening to Jesus would have known exactly what He was talking about. James used “Gehenna” once when talking about the power of the tongue but all other mentions of Gehenna were from Jesus.

So, let’s go over the times Jesus uses the word Gehenna. In Matthew 5:29 He says “It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.” In Mathew 10 and Luke 12 he says “28 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.” In Mathew 23 he says 15 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.” In Matthew 18 and Mark 9 he says 9 “And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.”

And that’s it. Those are all the mentions of hell from Jesus. There are two other words that are sometimes used for hell. Tartarus and Hades. In 2 Peter chapter 2, Peter refers to the underworld. It was borrowed from Greek myth and was a place where the demigods were judged. Hades is basically the Greek version of Sheol (the Hebrew word for hell). Hades is used in Revelation 1, 6, and 20 and in Acts 2. This by the way is a quote from Psalm 16. Jesus uses Hades in Matthew 11 and Luke 10. He says “You will go down to Hades.” In Matthew 16 He says “The gates of Hades will not overcome it.” He also uses it in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16.

And that concludes all mentions or likenesses of the word hell in the New Testament. Anything people have ever said about hell, they got from those few, obscure verses. For the most part, the ideas we get from hell are held over from primitive, mythic religions that used fear and punishment to control people. But obviously, we have evolved from all of those outdated beliefs, right?
Something that I find very significant is that all the mentions Jesus made of hell; he didn’t use hell to jam up the non-believers. He told the city of Capernaum; they would go to Hades, where the demigods are judged, but other than that he wasn’t overly harsh with His use of the word hell. Except with one particular group of people. There was a group of people that Jesus threatened with hell, more than once. That group was the Pharisees. The so-called religious experts of the day. The people who were convinced that when it came to heaven, they were in. It seems to me that Jesus, repeatedly informed them that they were “not” IN, and the people they were condemning, were going to be ok. I find that very significant because in today’s “church” people are usually condemning non-believers to hell. Since we don’t see Jesus ever doing that, I think Christians should be cautious in how they wield that sword. Especially since, “they” are the type of people Jesus threatened with hell. Not the non-believers.

So the next question would be, “does Victor believe in hell?” The answer is yes. I believe in hell because I see it every day. My wife and I are foster parents. We recently had a child in our home that had been sexually abused. She would stop going to the bathroom in the evening. Then when it was time for bed, she would crawl into bed and immediately pee the bed. So we started restricting her drinks in the evening. To compensate for this she would take a plastic grocery bag and pee in it throughout the day. She was saving it for bedtime. We also had a little boy who had been sexually abused. One day after he first moved in with us, he came out of the bathroom and had smeared poop on himself. I went in the bathroom and it was everywhere. This is not uncommon in foster care. There are usually about 500,000 children in foster care in America. 75% of children in the foster care system have been sexually abused in some way.

Do I believe in hell? Absolutely, I do.


In the world, there is estimated to be 2.5 million people who are stuck in the human sex industry. Most of them are women and children. Portland, Oregon is considered one of the main hubs in America for human trafficking and has the highest rate of human trafficking, per capita, of any city in America. We don’t hear about it as much in America because our leaders want us to feel like we are “safe” and don’t want to admit that something as horrific and disgusting as human trafficking, occurs as often as it does in America. Organizations like Operation Ransom work to fight against human trafficking and have rescued over 87,000 women and children since they were created.  

Do I believe in hell? Absolutely, I do.

I believe in “two” hells. There is the hell on earth that if you are willing to look at, you can easily find. We know this hell exists and we can support it with videos, eye witness testimony, police records, and real concrete data. Then there is the hell that exists after we die. This hell, we know very little about. We have no eye witness testimonies, no scientific data, no records of any sort that give any specific details on exactly what takes place or what happens, or long it lasts. As a Christian, I choose to focus on the hells on earth. The hells I can see, touch, experience, prove, and identify with.
An observation that I have made in the Christian community is that the people that focus on the “hells’ on earth now, don’t usually pay too much mind to the “hells” after we die. They seem to be so occupied with helping real people, in real danger, today, that they just don’t seem to have the energy to compare, criticize, and critique how other people live their lives. On the other hand, the people I see that have a condemning and judgmental view of who will be in hell after this life, don’t really get involved in the “hells” that occur on this earth.

But again, that’s just my observations.


So, what will you do, now? Will you focus on the "hells" later or the "hells" now? At the very least, hopefully, you will choose both, if you are a christian. If you are not a christian, I am certain you can agree with me at least in regards to the hells on earth we see everyday. If you are interested in being a foster parent, send me a message. I can help and guide you. If you want to help fight against the human trafficking industry go to the operation ransom website and help. You can also come to my gym and buy some of their retail. We do not keep any of the money. It all goes back to supporting their mission.

14 comments:

  1. You seem like a pretty nice guy. I have a question for you: Do you think that any human being deserves to be tortured forever after death?

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    1. That's a pretty slippery slope for a human to go down. Initially I would say "no" because of my human compassion. But I also dont have an eternal perspective or knowledge to make that type of decision.

      I wouldn't be able to see someone suffer as bad as fundamentalists say they will, especially if their crimes were minimal.

      I wouldn't make a very good fundamentalist god.

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  2. various forms of annihilationism are consistent with the Bible and avoid the point of James' question...

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    1. what exactly are you referring to, Eric?

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    2. I hope to see all Christians subscribe to annihilationism within the next few generations.

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    3. While I think annihilationism is far more difficult to defend from a biblical point of view, it certainly does have a greater appeal to one's moral sensibilities.

      Feels like a tug of war between one's conscience and the bible.

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  3. Hi Victor,
    I like your spin on dealing with whatever evil that we can while here on earth, but you sort of dodge the question of what the eternal hell may be like by saying you don't know enough about it, and simply don't focus on it. I appreciate your honesty, but I'm guessing your answer will satisfy neither Christians nor atheists.

    The way I see it is that the concept of eternal torment is simply incompatible with the concept of true justice. Some corrective punishment, maybe; eternal torment, no way. I simply can't believe that a 'good' God that would create such a place, and if such god exists, I will gladly give him both fingers as he sends me there. I as an imperfect human have more compassion than that fictional creature. Such a god would not be worthy of worship. Even if he accepted me and sent the modern day Pharisees to hell, I still would not praise him. No one deserves eternal punishment. It is obviously a scare tactic dreamed up by religious leaders.

    But this eternal torment is so much a part of Christianity that it cannot be removed without fundamentally changing the religion, which is why the Universalists and others that deny hell are usually pushed out of the main stream. It may eventually happen, as James hopes, but in the mean time I want nothing to do with Christianity nor the supposed god it worships.

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    1. //I appreciate your honesty, but I'm guessing your answer will satisfy neither Christians nor atheists.//

      HA! When have you ever known me to actually appeal to christians or atheists?!?!? I usually tick both of them off.

      Like you, I struggle with the idea of punishment forever. And although, I can't see myself giving the Creator of th eUNiverse, two middle fingers, It would definately not go with the the whole concept of "loving and merciful" that our God is described as being.

      Call me a bleeding heart liberal when it comes to my faith, but I like to believe that everyone gets a chance to be with God, as He intended it.

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    2. I do not speak officially on behalf of my church and do not claim to have the authority to preach its official doctrine. These are facts as I’ve come to know them, but make no claims that my knowledge is representative of the entire populace of my church.


      I'm not sure that my input will be particularly appreciated on this subject, but when is a Mormon's opinion ever really wanted in these discussions? In my Faith, we don't necessarily believe in a Hell as most Christians do (open to the general public of people who don’t believe in Christ and didn’t live righteously). We believe in multiple placements in the afterlife (according to ones faith and actions), but none of those that we (people who are not Satan, Judas, or a few other select individuals) have the opportunity of going to are explicitly bad or painful. We believe that all of those places are better than here, but in only one can you live with Heavenly Father. They are better than this earth because in all of these places we are free from Satan’s influence. The “Hell” that we more explicitly believe in, is knowing completely that had you lived a better life or chosen to follow Christ when you could have, you could be so much closer to the God that you would then know, beyond a doubt, did exist. That knowledge x eternity = Hell. Just some food for thought.

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    3. Rya,

      your input is always appreciated. Based on what you described about hell, what do you use as a source for those thoughts? Are they outlined in the book of Mormon? Or maybe a part of your traditional beliefs?

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    4. Well the book of Mormon, other Latter day saint scriptures, and I daresay the official teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints teaches that there are three levels of heaven, or degrees of glory, if you will. This claim is most explicitly stated in the Doctrine and Covenants section 76 (scriptures written by our accepted latter-day-prophets), however many cite 1 Corinthians 15:40-41 (King James translation) as another source for these claims. Now outside of those domains, there is a fourth place that beings may exist. (I would add that these doctrines are not always as well publicized by my church simply because they are so often and easily misinterpreted. However this isn’t anything that you can’t find on Wikipedia.) The fourth place is Satan’s domain, and I suppose would be the closest Mormon facsimile to the ‘Hell’ that most faiths believe exists. With Satan live his ‘sons of perdition’: those who were already his angels that fell with him and those who, having a perfect knowledge of Christ or God, still denied him in this life. The only commonly referred to members of the latter group are Cain and Judas, to my Knowledge. Please don’t quote me on the parts about Satan’s domain. So those are the places that we’ll finally end up in according my understanding of my religion.
      I may have been misrepresentative of my church when I said, “The “Hell” that we more explicitly believe in, is knowing completely that had you lived a better life or chosen to follow Christ when you could have, you could be so much closer to the God that you would then know, beyond a doubt, did exist. That knowledge x eternity = Hell.” Mormons as a whole don’t claim this to be the case, but I personally think it is so. I like to think of coming to live with God like walking up to a completely white house for a party. The party theme is white clothing. You are wearing white clothes, but they are covered in dripping mud and you feel uncomfortable as you begin to walk up to this party. You won’t want to go inside. Christ is a man standing outside with a hose saying let me wash you off. You say no to him and walk off looking for other parties but you never find one that was even close to the grandeur of that one, so some day you go back, only this time the man who was outside with the hose is gone. He went inside. It’s a crude analogy and I get that, but it fits well enough. I personally think that Hell will be knowing that we had the chance to live with the best and most pure and be pure and clean ourselves, but we passed it up for short term pleasantries. I think that the Hell will be knowing that we gave up an eternity of bliss for a blink of pseudo-happiness. These last things aren’t doctrinally supported, I don’ think, but it’s how I choose to view punishment for not accepting Christ into our lives.

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    5. Interesting perspectives. I have to say I am not familiar with those beliefs. Although it just strengthens my position that there are alot of varying ideas of hell and the Bible really doesnt give as much credence to the subject of hell as Christians do.

      thanks for sharing,

      V

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  4. That was very interesting about Gehenna, I've never heard that before. I'm still not sure why you believe in hell after we die considering that Jesus was talking about a dump and the Old Testament and Revelations seem to just make call backs to the Greek Hades, but...to each their own.

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    1. I believe in hell, Grundy because people who reject God and heaven have to have somewhere to go. I just dont think it will be like the christian fundamentalists claim it will be. I dont think we will see a red guy with a pitchfork who shoves red hot pokers up people's butts forever and ever.

      If God truly is merciful and loving, and people can choose to accept Christ up until 5 minutes before they die, then why not 5 minutes after they die?

      And of course I am speculating, I understand that. ALL christians have to speculate because the Bible isnt clear on ALOT of things.

      The difference for me, is that when I speculate, I will admit it and I wont use my specualtions to harm other people.

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