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?

[Laura70]

For discussion purposes, I do not believe in a literal Hell.

When there's a reference of "Hell," we all view it as a place of badness and pain. But what makes this place bad and/or painful? If indeed there was someone who controlled this place called Hell, would it be similar to a stereotypical fiery Hell or would it be designed to fit the most pain of that individual? For a human, this concept is often not considered and the magnitude of infinite time is underestimated.

[Dantalion]

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.

when christians agree the OT is terrible on a moral level, aren't they using the exact same concept of 'morality' that atheist use ?

it seems strange christians speak out against the subjectiveness of morality with atheists, but a lot of them use that same notion of morality to judge what they think in the bible is 'wrong' or 'right'

[Kyrani99]

Hell as I understand it is forever but only evil people end up there. A homosexual is not evil. Even a person who commits a murder, say as a crime of passion is still not evil. Evil people end up in Hell because of the choices that they have made, which is to form a common mind set and networks and to systematically over many years in most instances to take other people apart, destroy their lives and harm them in any and all ways in which they may succeed. (you can see on my blog two posts under toxic people - and the entire blog outlines their general methods of operations) They prey on unsuspecting people and use deceit and intimidation to try and overcome the other person's free will.

Their collective actions create conditions in the substratum of nature, at the information level that bind them to an eternity of suffering. Being evil is complete stupidity for that reason, if not for any other.
Kyrani Eade

[Kyrani99]

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?

I don't see it as a form of punishment. Evil people bring this on themselves. If a person hates and has no empathy then they have severed the connectivity to the whole of existence, which is spiritual. The spirit is eternal and imperishable so there are two conditions, either eternal life or eternal existence in some darkened state. Evil people spend an eternity in aloneness, darkness burning in the fires of their own hate and rage. This is hell.

The notion that there is only 1 psychopath in 100 is claimed by psychiatrists and they also try to make the case that these people are simply sick. Evil people are psychopathic and they are not sick but criminal.

IMO there is more like 15 to 20 people per hundred that are psychopathic in societies all across the world, including America. The evidence is chiefly seen in disease. Disease is not "a malfunction nor damage in the machine" but the way that an unsuspecting person has reacted to adverse conditions in their life that are the result of foul game play. These people not only have no empathy, they are extremely exploitative and seek to do harm to gain pleasure from seeing the other person's suffering. They are extremely harmful when a person is unaware of the problems they face and in addition are misinformed by a medical industry that sees fit to cover over the foul game play in order to profit from the damage. Once you understand what it is all about you can easily overcome the problems.

An evil person carries a disadvantage both in this life and in the afterlife. If you notice how they operate you will find that they use intimidation and /or deceit. if they had the ability to act they wouldn't need to go down this road. This Universe is one in which there is choice and free will but these cannot be used willy nilly. There are supernatural laws just as there are natural laws. The law of Justice cannot be violated. So it means that only a humane person is able to exercise their free will and make choices. The evil person has lost this position due to their desire to violate Justice. This basically means they cross an abyss and there is no way back. They are doomed.

[ttruscott]

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.

IF people are created as eternally aware and
IF everyone's evil is self chosen by their free will after fully understanding the nature of the two paths, for YHWH or against HIM, and in the face of all the suggested consequences that their evil would be eternal and thus
IF they became eternally evil in HIS sight by their free will, not their creation, and
IF it is true that a little leaven (sin) leavens (corrupts) all the lump (created reality),

THEN it is imperative that these eternally evil people be banished to outside of our created reality to save it from becoming corrupt, no matter what forewarned consequences they ignored to become that way.

If this is all true then the horror of hell does not need to be justified, it is justified as a prima facie logical necessity, and the ultimate good of those whom are thereby saved from corruption.

One can argue against these premises all they want but IF these premises are accepted, there is no other logical conclusion about the necessity of the fate of those who chose to be eternally evil in HIS sight if it turned out to be true that HE was our creator GOD...

[ttruscott]

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.

This would be true in any system that believes in a hell but I consider that the evil of those sent to hell, no matter how thick the patina of social grace and human goodness covers them, is the evil on the order of being a demonic angel. In other words, it is not a matter of making a little mistake (or they would not be there) but a matter of a self imposed eternal nature of evil.

IF it is true that a little leaven (sin) leavens (corrupts) the whole lump, then when applied to an individual, would mean that no matter how good they seem to be, if left to themselves in ordinary polite society, their innate evil would slowly grow until they were taken completely over by their inner demonic nature.

That is why they must be sequestered from the holy people of GOD's reality.

[ttruscott]

For discussion purposes, I do not believe in a literal Hell.

When there's a reference of "Hell," we all view it as a place of badness and pain. But what makes this place bad and/or painful? If indeed there was someone who controlled this place called Hell, would it be similar to a stereotypical fiery Hell or would it be designed to fit the most pain of that individual? For a human, this concept is often not considered and the magnitude of infinite time is underestimated.

I can't conceive of a loving and holy GOD going out of HIS way creating extra pain for anyone since it is clearly written Ezekiel 18:32 For I take no pleasure in the death/damnation of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live! I do not think HE spent any effort creating hell nor its pain at all but Jesus called hell the outer darkness. This implied to me that it is possible that if our reality is not infinite then it has an edge and the outer darkness may be waaay out past that edge, not within our reality at all, not created and not physical but rather painful to a spirit there nonetheless.

[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.

This would be true in any system that believes in a hell but I consider that the evil of those sent to hell, no matter how thick the patina of social grace and human goodness covers them, is the evil on the order of being a demonic angel. In other words, it is not a matter of making a little mistake (or they would not be there) but a matter of a self imposed eternal nature of evil.

IF it is true that a little leaven (sin) leavens (corrupts) the whole lump, then when applied to an individual, would mean that no matter how good they seem to be, if left to themselves in ordinary polite society, their innate evil would slowly grow until they were taken completely over by their inner demonic nature.

That is why they must be sequestered from the holy people of GOD's reality.

There is a difference between a sin and an accumulation of sins on the one hand and evil on the other.

A person who sins is really doing some action which is wrong but which is due to a lack of understanding or knowledge. Evil is doing something wrong deliberately, knowingly. It is done for a number of reasons, such as to gain power over another in order to manipulate and control them, in order to punish or to take revenge, but one reason that is always present is to get pleasure from seeing and feeling another person's suffering.

A humane person, no matter how many sins and for how long, never becomes evil. And an evil person, no matter how much time may pass and no matter how many measures are taken to reform them, never becomes humane. They will always be inhumane or evil.

There is no such a thing as "human nature" and it is false to say that human nature contains some corruption or can become corrupted.
Humans are of two groups, humane and inhumane. They do no share a common nature. Humane will never become inhumane and inhumane never become humane.