The incredible belief in the myth of eternal hell suffering.

Originally Posted by mickiel

Well I think most of it is true, but these concepts of eternal hell punishment that have crept into many bibles, ( because some newer versions have deleted hell complettely) I don't believe in eternal hell punishment and consider the scriptures on them to be either mistranslated or incerted by the translastors.

Yes Mickiel, this is one of those areas that many question, mistranslations, edits and insertions into scripture I believe is very possible. It speaks to how man is imperfect and that even in writing things down, mistakes and errors will occur.

[sound]

Originally Posted by mickiel

Well you need to shake your comprehension of what people out there are believing. And they have been believing it for years. And their teachers and preachers pound their congregations with it at will. And they, like sheep, just go along with it.

Even unreligious people are affected by this arcane belief. And its concept has worked its way into the very language of the people. How many times have you heard one person tell another; " To go to hell."
The concept is a deeply ingrained one.

It is just a belief though and is not 'known' ... that's why they can still live without frightening themselves to death ... it is only 'partly' believed ... it is conditioned and not innate ...

I think there is something, a state of consciousness, which some people would call hell. I believe that it is formed by what we believe and for some it is fire, for others it is arctic cold, for others it is total darkness, whatever is believed to be fit punishment. NDE stories are interesting in this regard.

This concept does not frighten me. It is not eternal, it is of my own making, I am responsible.

Below are some descriptions of 'hell' as described by Joan Grant.

Here all is grey, and no light shines unto this place where people expiate those crimes which are too manifold to be freed on Earth. Many times they have been taught, by reaping the bitter harvest they have sown, that their actions were against the Laws of the Gods. Yet they listened no; and now, chained in the shackles they have forged for themselves, they suffer in all intensity and in one time what they once did to others upon Earth.

He could not know Lucia still lodged at his inn. She was no longer in pain, but she was in the dark; crying for Bernard and hearing only the silence. She did not know she had done it over and over again, she thought it was happening for the first time.

I know I have tried to go to her, but always someone held me back and told me that her time for release had not yet come. Yet she is free now...

[...]
For her, time would not be measured as we know it. I heard her voice, "Bernard! Bernard!" the words following each other in the sweeping rythm of the scythe, for I was outside her hell. I knew that time passed, but for her it stood still. She could not see the hand that turned the hour-glass, she could only see the sand, the sand of the present.
[...]
She was bound into the present, cut off not only from time but from her own spirit, so that when the water from her journey as Lucia returns into the jar of her experience, with it will go a memory so strong that she will never again seek the same way of escape: the escape that is no escape.

The Hell of the OT by whatever name, I think was used as a tool to frighten people into following the laws of Jehovah.
It is still being used by many Christians.

Interpretation of what hell is reminds me once again of the Cathars of south-western France in the 12th and 13th centuries.They believed that hell was this physical life we are leading now,not some burning pit of fire.If you lived a good life you would pass on to God's heavenly kingdom,if not you would be reincarnated here on Earth again...the Cathar's own interpretation of hell.

Originally Posted by hawkmoth65

Interpretation of what hell is reminds me once again of the Cathars of south-western France in the 12th and 13th centuries.They believed that hell was this physical life we are leading now,not some burning pit of fire.If you lived a good life you would pass on to God's heavenly kingdom,if not you would be reincarnated here on Earth again...the Cathar's own interpretation of hell.

ah the Cathar's they are an interesting group...

Indeed they were Nightowl....sadly they were more or less wiped out by mainstream Catholic France and very little documentation of Catharism is left.

Originally Posted by Bluegreen

The Hell of the OT by whatever name, I think was used as a tool to frighten people into following the laws of Jehovah.
It is still being used by many Christians.

It is interesting you would share this Bluegreen because the Christian hell is not in the Old Testament or Jewish text. Judaism does not believe in hell. What has been translated from the OT, the word Sheol, just means grave;

quick reference from wiki;

Sheol (play /ˈʃiːoʊl/ shee-ohl or /ˈʃiːəl/ shee-əl; Hebrew שְׁאוֹל Šʾôl) is the "grave", "pit", or "abyss" in Hebrew.[1][2] She'ol[3] is the earliest conception of the afterlife in the Jewish scriptures. It is a place of darkness to which all dead go, regardless of the moral choices made in life, and where they are "removed from the light of God" (see the Book of Job). In the Tanakh sheol is the common destination of both the righteous and the unrighteous flesh, as recounted in Ecclesiastes and Job.

In Judaism as it was explained to me all men will stand before God, and all will receive mercy...not torment.

[mickiel]

Originally Posted by nightowl

Yes Mickiel, this is one of those areas that many question, mistranslations, edits and insertions into scripture I believe is very possible. It speaks to how man is imperfect and that even in writing things down, mistakes and errors will occur.

Well yes, I believe it possible myself. I think the people who committed the errors, " thought they were right"; I don't think they intentionally incerted errors and mistranslations; its just what they believed at the time.

[mickiel]

Originally Posted by sound

It is just a belief though and is not 'known' ... that's why they can still live without frightening themselves to death ... it is only 'partly' believed ... it is conditioned and not innate ...

well I truly believe it to be both conditioning and inate in some; by that I believe certain beliefs are literally passed down from generation to generation, family to family, group to group, until its literally " Inately bred belief." Its just bred into familys as if there is no other way of thinking.

Many religions, and religious beliefs have been manufactored in this manner.