Hell is the "new system of things" promised by the Jehovah's Witnesses, an earth inhabited solely by Jehovah's Witnesses and carnivores converted to vegetarians, ruled by senile geezers suffering from the delusion that they are part of the 144,000.
What REALLY is Hell?
by defd 47 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Honesty
For me it would be to be without Christ. As simple as that.
Amen.
Hell is eternal separation from Jesus.
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Honesty
Or is it just the grave, as another Religion teaches?
The World Wide Church of God, Philadelphia and other WWCoG groups teach that hell is the grave, Jesus was Michael the Archangel and other doctrines that are unscriptural. Is this the religion you are referring to?
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Jeffro
Hell is a locality in Michigan west of Detroit. Zip code 48169. Patterson Lake Road.
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mrsjones5
Hell is the "new system of things" promised by the Jehovah's Witnesses, an earth inhabited solely by Jehovah's Witnesses and carnivores converted to vegetarians, ruled by senile geezers suffering from the delusion that they are part of the 144,000.
Amen bro!
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Terry
Here is my own crackpot theory.
1.People died in the past. (I'm on fairly solid ground here, I think.)
2.Their friends and relatives noticed this. (It is human nature to be curious why that fellow lay down and didn't move anymore!)
3.Animals came along and made a tidy lunch out the dead body. (An unpleasant alternative to watching soap operas; but, there was no technology back then.)
4.The practice of burial was begun. (Dig a hole and "plop" or find a cave.)
Part II
Where does the Sun go in the evening?
1.The sun rules the day. But, it "dies" in the evening by going down into the ground.
*FLASH!* (Insight!) The sun must go somwhere on a journey because, by golly, the next morning it is rip roaring up out of the ground again. But, get this...IT COMES UP OUT OF THE OTHER SIDE of the Earth than the side it went in on!!
There must be some sort of tunnel or something!?!
2.There is a river, maybe, that carries dead things on a journey from death to life again. (The ancients liked this idea because they would get to see Granny again!)
Volcano! Hot Lava!
^FLASH!* (Insight!) Under the ground there must be liquid fire. But, why?
Maybe the gods (god) uses it to purify men after they die. Maybe?!
3.Death purifies people by burning away the badness from their life; it is a kind of judgement of deeds. Maybe.
Theories Branch Off at this point.
Two smart guys standing around debating.
"Well, Vashti, I think people just go under the ground and stay there when they die, don't you?"
"No, Tutmose, they go on a journey. Their deeds in life determine their ultimate destiny."
A third fella walks up overhearing the conversation.
"Hey, you are both wrong. There are two destinations after death. One is for reward and the other is for punishment. Whomever your god may be you need to stay on his good side to guarantee which destination is yours."
And so it goes.
There has always been (and always will be) a competition for good ideas about mysterious happenings. The best guesser wins the lottery of consensus among the less imaginative.
The Egyptians took their valuables with them when they died and reused their body. Their achievements were weighed in a scale. Horus used a feather to counterbalance and judge. Bad deeds were heavy, dude.
The Greeks put coins on the eyelids of the dead as a bribe to the boatman who carried the dead on their journey on the river Styx.
Hebrews? What can I say? They were nomads and obsessive compulsive. Being rural types they buried the dead or hid them in caves and shrugged. Wide ranging mythos left open the possibility the dead might one day stand up. Who can say? Oy!
Various pagans who had regular contact in commerce with a wide range of communities picked up colorful ideas and embellished them into dazzling ideas of reward and punishment.
Ancient peoples bumped into each other's belief systems constantly.
Note: Most lands and people were highly tolerant of other religious theories and religions. Remember, there was no TV or basketball to fill their time. They sat around campfires and shot the shit with each other. The biggest mouth usually spread the best concoction of wild mythos for the others to argue over.
The Jews were the least tolerant of all ancient people. They had a real complex about "My god is bigger than your god." With the circumcision ritual marking their men different (except from Egyptians who started the crazy idea) and a horror of ritual impurity from women (especially foreign women!) they stayed insular and produced centuries of inbreeding which resulted in a genetic pool of great genius and wild-ass nonsense in the, ummm, disturbed minds who, naturally, gave them a full blown religion of rituals with no end to them.
When you think of autism, asperger's syndrome and obsessive compulsive disorders think of the inbreeding of the Jews and their mountains of details of observation of dietary, purification and religious preoccupations; not to mention their legal and social layers.
But, I digress!
Hell is where the heart is. Each ancient people developed their own theory of what life (and death) was all about according to their nature and social rituals. The most vapid people had the most vapid religion. The more intellectually lively people had, well, a more Hollywood production about their philosophy and theology.
What REALLY is hell? It is just a guess carried way too far and now entrenched in the collective consciousness of people indoctrinated from birth in the wacko belief systems of their parents and grandparents.
Oy!
T.
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jaredg
hell is a mytheological place that i don't believe in
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mrsjones5
lol omg Terry thanks for the giggle
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Jeffro
Terry,
1.People died in the past. (I'm on fairly solid ground here, I think.)
There are some who believe that physical existence, including life, death and the entire physical universe are simply perceptions experienced by non-corporeal entities. Among them you are not on solid ground for your first assertion.
(I think most of them are either institutionalised, in some kind of therapy or living in a dumpster.) -
Terry
1.People died in the past. (I'm on fairly solid ground here, I think.)
There are some who believe that physical existence, including life, death and the entire physical universe are simply perceptions experienced by non-corporeal entities. Among them you are not on solid ground for your first assertion.Curses! Foiled again!
T