Why would a person want someone to go to hell?

[Evointrinsic]

With fundamentalism comes some massive issues that are deeply disturbing at any level and applied to any theological perspective (including atheism).

One thing that bothers me the most is the people who are seemingly glad to know that someone (like a homosexual person) is going to hell for their sins. Or any person for that matter and to whatever sin they have committed or evil act they have put forth (for an extreme example, Hitler).

The concept of non-stop torture for the an infinite amount of time is mind boggling. Our brains are not capable of conceiving infinity. View your entire life, imagine every single day burning and it never ending but the pain only gets worse and worse. Imagine that there is no hope at all because there is no saviour in hell there is no rest there is no peace. Imagine that just in your short life that you have lived in comparison to hundred years, then a thousand, then a hundred thousand, then a million, billion, trillion and so on.

If that is too difficult, attempt to imagine how it would feel for the unimaginably unfortunate individual who was abducted when they were a child and kept in a cellar for 14 years, being raped, beaten, starved and forced to bare the children of your rapist. Imagine 14 years never ended. Imagine that it continued for ever. Infinitely.

Now imagine the worst psychological pain you could ever experience, and the worst physical pain you could ever experience. Imagine, if you can, that that child who was raped, beaten, starved and torn from her family at a young age of 8 has barely experienced the amount of physical and psychological pain you face daily in hell.

These are deeply depressing thoughts, and i apologize for having to put these things this way for you to read. But, the point is. How can anyone possibly enjoy the thought of this happening to even the most sickest of individuals? How can anyone stand the possibility of this happening to anyone they care about or even just a random stranger? How can anyone stand the thought of this happening to billions of people right this second?

The worst, however, is that some people believe that if you have not yet accepted Jesus as your savior, you will burn in hell. How can you possibly live your life without a mental breakdown when a hurricane rolls through killing thousands of non-christian men, women, children and babies who are then automatically placed in hell because they do not believe?

I have a very difficult time grasping this concept. Can someone here please explain how this line of debilitatingly depressing thought does not render someone insane?

Who here believes this?

[Thatguy]

It's a fundamental question. Try as I might, I cannot imagine a heaven in which a normal person could know peace, let alone joy, knowing that simultaneously, and equally for the rest of time, people they loved are suffering such torment.

I could almost picture Hell as a permanent "time out" where the person does not suffer torment but doesn't get to celebrate. But even then it's hard to picture the point of a permanent punishment for a temporary infraction.

As with most religious issues, there are many who can work out philosophical abstractions that could somehow justify a torture filled Hell. To me, the need to justify such obvious, unspeakable horror as "good" is one of the real harms that religion often does.

[connermt]

With fundamentalism comes some massive issues that are deeply disturbing at any level and applied to any theological perspective (including atheism).

One thing that bothers me the most is the people who are seemingly glad to know that someone (like a homosexual person) is going to hell for their sins. Or any person for that matter and to whatever sin they have committed or evil act they have put forth (for an extreme example, Hitler).

The concept of non-stop torture for the an infinite amount of time is mind boggling. Our brains are not capable of conceiving infinity. View your entire life, imagine every single day burning and it never ending but the pain only gets worse and worse. Imagine that there is no hope at all because there is no saviour in hell there is no rest there is no peace. Imagine that just in your short life that you have lived in comparison to hundred years, then a thousand, then a hundred thousand, then a million, billion, trillion and so on.

If that is too difficult, attempt to imagine how it would feel for the unimaginably unfortunate individual who was abducted when they were a child and kept in a cellar for 14 years, being raped, beaten, starved and forced to bare the children of your rapist. Imagine 14 years never ended. Imagine that it continued for ever. Infinitely.

Now imagine the worst psychological pain you could ever experience, and the worst physical pain you could ever experience. Imagine, if you can, that that child who was raped, beaten, starved and torn from her family at a young age of 8 has barely experienced the amount of physical and psychological pain you face daily in hell.

These are deeply depressing thoughts, and i apologize for having to put these things this way for you to read. But, the point is. How can anyone possibly enjoy the thought of this happening to even the most sickest of individuals? How can anyone stand the possibility of this happening to anyone they care about or even just a random stranger? How can anyone stand the thought of this happening to billions of people right this second?

The worst, however, is that some people believe that if you have not yet accepted Jesus as your savior, you will burn in hell. How can you possibly live your life without a mental breakdown when a hurricane rolls through killing thousands of non-christian men, women, children and babies who are then automatically placed in hell because they do not believe?

I have a very difficult time grasping this concept. Can someone here please explain how this line of debilitatingly depressing thought does not render someone insane?

Who here believes this?

From my experience and research, in the days of "the early church", few (if any) cared about who went to heaven or hell. Likely, few even believed as such. It was all about control. What better way to control than feeding the thought of "if you don't do as I say you will burn in hell forever!"
Some modern christians don't believe in, or accept, this concept. Some have a different view on it altogether. They all have their reasoning behind their beliefs.

It's no logical for an all loving knowing deity to allow his creation to burn in hell forever. No amount of philosophical diatribe can convince a logical person of such an ideal.
Therefore, the only logical conclusion, which can be shown by the teachings in many current/modern christian churches, is that guilt and fear are tools of terror, not love.
Wrap all of that up and you have a logical fallacy based on a loving god.
IMO, of course, which won't be shared with many...

[Wootah]

Are you asking who believes in hell or are you asking who here wants someone to go to hell?

'Go to hell' seems to be the most common thread in most human interaction. So it seems to me that you struggle believing in the concept, not accepting that that is how we relate to each other.

[Thatguy]

Are you asking who believes in hell or are you asking who here wants someone to go to hell?

'Go to hell' seems to be the most common thread in most human interaction. So it seems to me that you struggle believing in the concept, not accepting that that is how we relate to each other.

Do people mean it literally when they say it so casually? It would seem that the people who take Hell literally as a punishment ordained by the Lord would be bordering on blasphemy if they used the phrase as a literal command that a person not worship God and thus merit eternal damnation.

[Evointrinsic]

Are you asking who believes in hell or are you asking who here wants someone to go to hell?

'Go to hell' seems to be the most common thread in most human interaction. So it seems to me that you struggle believing in the concept, not accepting that that is how we relate to each other.

I am asking both, essentially. Who believes in the concept of hell described in my first post? as well as, how could someone possibly wish this upon someone or not be moved at all when they know someone is going to hell (such as the westborrowbaptist church with all gay people, or people in general for that matter)?

I understand that the term "go to hell" is not meant to be taken literally (in most cases at least).

[Quath]

I remember a discussion with a Christian friend about morality as presented by the Old and New Testament. We both agreed that the OT morality was horrible. He saw it as a reporting error where people wrote about what they thought happened.

But I claimed that the OT had the worst morality rules, the NT had the worst morality philosophy in the concept of Hell. To show this, all I needed to do was show some comments from web forums or news articles where some Christian claims they will be laughing in heaven at the people they disagree with burning in hell.

My grandmother really wanted to re-convert me to Christianity because she worried I would go to hell. I asked her if she was going to be happy in heaven no matter what? She said that happiness is guaranteed. So I asked her if she would be happy in heaven while I am burning in hell? She saw the conundrum, but she saw no way out and said she would be. Then I told her that there was no need to worry then because it won't matter if I am burning in hell or not since she will be happy either way.

[Thatguy]

But I claimed that the OT had the worst morality rules, the NT had the worst morality philosophy in the concept of Hell. To show this, all I needed to do was show some comments from web forums or news articles where some Christian claims they will be laughing in heaven at the people they disagree with burning in hell.

I agree about the worse morality philosophy. There are some bad rules in the OT. But the general thrust, at least for modern Jews, is how to live a just, fair life. The moral rules of the OT are summed up by Jews in the NT as the golden rule. Just about anyone would agree that the Golden Rule's a good moral framework. Much of OT morality, or at least the Jewish morality arising out of it, is focused on how to lead a just, good, fair life contributing to the community, helping neighbors, dispensing justice, etc. The focus of the NT and much of the Christianity based thereon shifts from being a person doing good works here in this life to believing sufficiently to earn your place in the next life. That strikes me as a decline in morality, not an advance.

[Kyrani99]

I believe only evil people end up in hell and I have to say I believe they deserve it and loose no sleep in the knowledge that they go to hell or are in hell.

However I don't see hell in the way it is described in Christianity. I see hell as eternal spiritual night/ darkness and aloneness. And I don't think anyone, God included puts people in hell. They essentially choose hell.

Evil people are not simply people that have done some crimes. Evil people are those that do the most serious crimes/ injustices for pleasure and as a way of life. They systematically and in groups destroy the lives of others around them, while the chief offender in any particular case poses as the targeted person's friends/ or are a relative / work associate etc.

Evil people are not disbelievers in God, even though they publically claim themselves to be everything from theist, to atheist and everything in between.

Evil people are haters of God and thus haters of Justice. By being haters of God and doing crimes that ongoingly violate Justice they end up with the conditions that give them nothing in the spiritual realm. They end up in aloneness with their rage in a spiritual night which is eternal.

[Evointrinsic]

However I don't see hell in the way it is described in Christianity. I see hell as eternal spiritual night/ darkness and aloneness. And I don't think anyone, God included puts people in hell. They essentially choose hell.

This is an interesting concept. Do you consider this a punishment of some sorts or more so just choosing to be excluded from others.

An interesting statistic I've come across is that to 100 people (in north america at least) there is one psychopath. Not so much a murderous monstrosity, no, not to that extent. But, one who has no empathy, possesses an anti-social personality disorder, and usually other traits such as narcissism, ego centrism, a god complex and so on. The strength in one trait to another is largely varied. So, to some of this individuals who obtained a strong sense of anti-social interaction, I would argue this would be a beneficial result in an afterlife rather than a negative impact.

Out of curiosity, would this - in this individuals circumstance - essentially go against what is meant to be a sort of punishment or negative result?