Belief in Hell and Heaven
Does anyone believe in heaven and hell and is afraid of living? Has restricted their lives because of this fear of dying and going to the devil? Has not enjoyed anything in life due to religious fear or any other kind of fear?
What is the way out of this?
What is the way out of this?
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Nyota1 on -
Christianity is not about getting absolutely everything that you want in life. That is not what Christianity is about. What exactly is it that you want that you didn't get? If I know that, I can comment about it.
Christianity is mainly about eternity. That is what it is mainly all about. That is the most important thing, because life on this earth is short, and fleeting. The real reality of life is eternity.
The second most important thing about Christianity is helping other people, and living life based on the 10 commandments. You say you want to live a better life. You are already living in the greatest and most rich, prosperous country in the world. What more do you want? Why don't you look at how people live in other countries. Billions of people around the world live on less than $1 a day. They sometimes go days and days without food. Just living in the USA itself is already a luxury.
-
Permalink Reply by che on -
I guess for starter i'd like to be able to think clearly and not be stressed/depressed or worried and sleep peacefully at night and wake up the morning with wonder and exitement while going through life in a fun exiting way.
-
Permalink Reply by Leslie Braun on -
Actually, if you do some historical research, the old testament of the bible was commisioned, most likely, by Nimrod of Babylon, and written by Levite priests. I don't mean to try to disrupt anyones beliefs, much, but I'm a firm believer myself in actually KNOWING. Faith is great, it's one of the most amazing things in the universe. But I apply to myself, my family, my friends, and my world. Not to an invisible man who created the entire universe out of nothing. God, to me is conciousness. The universal conciousness that we are all a part of, and as said before, we are all God, all divine beings, because you have that spark of conciousness, should you chose to utilize it in a beneficial way. The real miracle is that "God", the original conciousness, is not eternal, it arose from the big bang, just like every single atom and waveform of energy in the Universe. Conciousness originated from nothing. We are all one, in matter and energy, and yes Love is the only way we are going to be saved from the world that we've created. Christianity, is a form of control used by the church leaders to generate MASSIVE profits, and keep the people in the dark as to their true nature. I have no problem with the TRUE teachings of Jesus, but he wasnt the son of god, didnt perorm miracles, and stayed dead when he died. As to how blessed we are by existing where we do, if we could truly All learn to harness are real potential, there wouldn't be a person on Earth who didnt live in a paradise. Sorry if I offended anyone, I don't mean to but the truth needs to be told.
-
Permalink Reply by Deni on -
AMEN Leslie!
And,
CHRIST is not a man, Christ is indeed, a conciousness. Yes, We are all divine, and knowing it, or believing it will not change the fact)!
There is a huge awakening on this earth, for the good of all. Light always shines over darkness. Organized religion is just one of the many organizations now crumbling.
It is true, everybody has the right to believe what they want. We ALL will awaken, sooner or later.
If we don't awaken in our physical life experience, we will for sure, awaken, after transition...We are all, following our life 'plan' (or reason for being here) and, ALL, is indeed, well.
So nobody should be 'offended'..
-
Permalink Reply by Philip Andrew Scott on -
OK. Robin did you mean a demonic possession ? So you have to take your own accountability for what it is that you allow to control inside your head. I mean lets look at this in a simple fashion. GOD IS LOVE. Forgiveness is unconditional. What ever you want to call hell might be very enjoyable for someone else.
WHAT ??? What did I say ? How can something like hell not be an absolute. Example; going to work and doing what I do might be hell for someone else, but for me I love it, even though I don't make nearly as much as i should. So how I look at It, (ie), the world/ universe gives a perspective, and that is all. I ask the question, How does one measure darkness ??? Feel free to respond
You each have the power between your ears to make each moment a living PARADISE, or a living HELL.
No single person, group, sect, or religion has a monopoly on the kingdom of heaven, and I have seen plenty of christians living a life of sin on saturday night only to go to church on sunday, ask for forgiveness/ absolution. Only to turn around and repeat themselves.
Now to the question. Remember that you are a bio-mechanical, electro-chemical MACHINE, that is a combination of BODY, MIND AND SPIRIT. and if you carry a fear of dying the your connection with source ( GOD) may need strengthening. The way out is to know that you have never been disconnected from god, because you are a part of its creation, and therefore part of it yourself.
Stand up and look forward ... now turn around and look behind you, the only thing that changed was your perspective. When you cease to exist on this physical plane, then you have simply changed your perspective. NO FEAR except what we choose to fear.
How do you measure darkness ? By the lack of LIGHT.
-
Permalink Reply by Nat on -
My thoughts: We are in hell-this is Zatans world right now. I am afraid of living in this world, but I am not afraid of dying.
-
Permalink Reply by Abela on -
This is a bit long, it is something that I have read and I wanted to share it. Not everyone will believe in this, but it is just what I have read and understood and made sense to me.
..WHAT image does the word "hell" conjure up in your mind? Do you see hell as a literal place of fire and brimstone, of unending torment and anguish? Or is hell perhaps a symbolic description of a condition, a state?
For centuries, a fiery hell of excruciating torments has been envisioned by religious leaders of Christendom as the certain destiny for sinners. This idea is still popular among many other religious groups. "Christianity may have made hell a household word," says U.S.News & World Report, "but it doesn't hold a monopoly on the doctrine. The threat of painful retribution in the afterlife has counterparts in nearly every major world religion and in some minor ones as well." Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Jains, and Taoists believe in a hell of one sort or another.
Hell, though, has acquired another image in modern thinking. "While the traditional infernal imagery still attracts a following," states the aforementioned magazine, "modern visions of eternal perdition as a particularly unpleasant solitary confinement are beginning to emerge, suggesting that hell may not be so hot after all."
The Jesuit journal La Civiltà Cattolicaobserved: "It is misleading . . . to think that God, by means of demons, inflicts fearful torments on the damned like that of fire." It added: "Hell exists, not as a place but as a state, a way of being of the person who suffers the pain of the deprivation of God." Pope John Paul II said in 1999: "Rather than a place, hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy." As to the images of hell as a fiery place, he said: "They show the complete frustration and emptiness of life without God." Had the pope described hell in terms of "flames and a red-suited devil with a pitchfork," church historian Martin Marty said, "people wouldn't take it seriously."
Similar changes are taking place in other denominations. A report by the doctrine commission of the Church of England said: "Hell is not eternal torment, but it is the final and irrevocable choosing of that which is opposed to God so completely and so absolutely that the only end is total non-being."
The catechism of the United States Episcopal Church defines hell as "eternal death in our rejection of God." A growing number of people, says U.S.News & World Report, are promoting the idea that "the end of the wicked is destruction, not eternal suffering. . . . [They] contend that those who ultimately reject God will simply be put out of existence in the 'consuming fire' of hell."
Although the modern-day trend is to get away from the fire and brimstone mentality, many continue to adhere to the belief that hell is a literal place of torment. "Scripture clearly speaks of hell as a physical place of fiery torment," says Albert Mohler of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.A. And the reportThe Nature of Hell, prepared by the Evangelical Alliance Commission, states: "Hell is a conscious experience of rejection and torment." It adds: "There are degrees of punishment and suffering in hell related to the severity of sins committed on earth.
"WHATEVER image the word "hell" brings to your mind, hell is generally thought of as a place of punishment for sin. Concerning sin and its effect, the Bible says: "Through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because they had all sinned." (Romans 5:12) The Scriptures also state: "The wages sin pays is death." (Romans 6:23) Since the punishment for sin is death, the fundamental question in determining the true nature of hell is: What happens to us when we die?
Does life of some kind, in some form, continue after death? What is hell, and what kind of people go there? Is there any hope for those in hell? The Bible gives truthful and satisfying answers to these questions.
Life After Death?
Does something inside us, like a soul or a spirit, survive the death of the body? Consider how the first man, Adam, came to have life. The Bible states: " "God proceeded to form the man out of dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life." (Genesis 2:7) Though breathing sustained his life, putting "the breath of life" into his nostrils involved much more than simply blowing air into his lungs. It meant that God put into Adam's lifeless body the spark of life—"the force of life," which is active in all earthly creatures. (Genesis 6:17; 7:22) The Bible refers to this animating force as "spirit." (James 2:26) That spirit can be compared to the electric current that activates a machine or an appliance and enables it to perform its function. Just as the current never takes on the features of the equipment it activates, the life-force does not take on any of the characteristics of the creatures it animates. It has no personality and no thinking ability.
What happens to the spirit when a person dies? Psalm 146:4 says: "His spirit goes out, he goes back to his ground; in that day his thoughts do perish." When a person dies, his impersonal spirit does not go on existing in another realm as a spirit creature. It "returns to the true God who gave it." (Ecclesiastes 12:7) This means that any hope of future life for that person now rests entirely with God.
The ancient Greek philosophers Socrates and Plato held that a soul inside a person survives death and never dies. What does the Bible teach about the soul? Adam "came to be a living soul," says Genesis 2:7. He did not receive a soul; he was a soul—a whole person. The Scriptures speak of a soul's doing work, craving food, being kidnapped, experiencing sleeplessness, and so forth. (Leviticus 23:30; Deuteronomy 12:20; 24:7; Psalm 119:28) Yes, man himself is a soul. When a person dies, that soul dies.—Ezekiel 18:4.
What, then, is the condition of the dead? When pronouncing sentence upon Adam, God stated: "Dust you are and to dust you will return." (Genesis 3:19) Where was Adam before God formed him from the dust of the ground and gave him life? Why, he simply did not exist! When he died, Adam returned to that state of complete absence of life. The condition of the dead is made clear at Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10, where we read: "The dead know nothing . . . In the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom." (New International Version) Scripturally, death is a state of nonexistence. The dead have no awareness, no feelings, no thoughts.
Unending Torment or Common Grave?
Since the dead have no conscious existence, hell cannot be a fiery place of torment where the wicked suffer after death. What, then, is hell? Examining what happened to Jesus after he died helps to answer that question. The Bible writer Luke recounts: "Neither was [Jesus] forsaken in Hades [hell, King James Version] nor did his flesh see corruption."* (Acts 2:31) Where was the hell to which even Jesus went? The apostle Paul wrote: "I handed on to you . . .that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried, yes, that he has been raised up the third day according to the Scriptures." (1 Corinthians 15:3, 4) So Jesus was in hell, the grave, but he was not abandoned there, for he was raised up, or resurrected.
Job prayed for protection in hell
Consider also the case of the righteous man Job, who suffered much. Wishing to escape his plight, he pleaded: "Who will grant me this, that thou mayest protect me in hell [Sheol], and hide me till thy wrath pass?"# (Job 14:13, Douay Version) How unreasonable to think that Job desired to go to a fiery-hot place for protection! To Job, "hell" was simply the grave, where his suffering would end. The Bible hell, then, is the common grave of mankind where good people as well as bad ones go.
Hellfire—All-Consuming?
Could it be that the fire of hell is symbolic of all-consuming, or thorough, destruction? Separating fire from Hades, or hell, the Scriptures say: "Death and Hades were hurled into the lake of fire." "The lake" mentioned here is symbolic, since death and hell (Hades) that are thrown into it cannot literally be burned. "This [lake of fire] means the second death"—death from which there is no hope of coming back to life.—Revelation 20:14.
Fiery Gehenna—a symbol of eternal destruction
The lake of fire has a meaning similar to that of "the fiery Gehenna [hell fire, King James Version]" that Jesus spoke of. (Matthew 5:22; Mark 9:47, 48) Gehenna occurs 12 times in the Christian Greek Scriptures, and it refers to the valley of Hinnom, outside the walls of Jerusalem. When Jesus was on earth, this valley was used as a garbage dump, "where the dead bodies of criminals, and the carcasses of animals, and every other kind of filth was cast." (Smith's Dictionary of the Bible) The fires were kept burning by adding sulfur to burn up the refuse. Jesus used that valley as a proper symbol of everlasting destruction.
As does Gehenna, the lake of fire symbolizes eternal destruction. Death and Hades are "hurled into" it in that they will be done away with when mankind is freed from sin and the condemnation of death. Willful, unrepentant sinners will also have their "portion" in that lake. (Revelation 21:8) They too will be annihilated forever. On the other hand, those in God's memory who are in hell—the common grave of mankind—have a marvelous future.
Hell Emptied!
Revelation 20:13 states: "The sea gave up those dead in it, and death and Hades gave up those dead in them." Yes, the Bible hell will be emptied. As Jesus promised, "the hour is coming in which all those in the memorial tombs will hear [Jesus'] voice and come out." (John 5:28, 29) Although no longer presently existing in any form, millions of dead ones who are in God's memory will be resurrected, or brought back to life, in a restored earthly paradise.—Luke 23:43; Acts 24:15.
In the new world of God's making, resurrected humans who comply with his righteous laws will never need to die again. (Isaiah 25:8) God "will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore." In fact, "the former things [will] have passed away." (Revelation 21:4) What a blessing is in store for those in hell—"the memorial tombs"! This blessing indeed is reason enough for us to take in more knowledge of Jehovah God and his Son, Jesus Christ.—John 17:3.
-
Permalink Reply by Nyota1 on
-
Yes, I believe in heaven and hell but I am not afraid of living. We, as humans, can speculate about the existence of heaven or hell all we want, and if someone doesn't believe in it, that will not change reality, for the simple reason that humans did not create the Universe.
So, the question is, what does God, the creator of the Universe, say about heaven and hell? God gave mankind very clear answers about heaven and hell. The Bible is God's word, and it clearly explains heaven and hell.
The problem is that no one reads the Bible anymore, and all kinds of people are making decisions about religion and what to believe without even knowing what the Bible states. They would rather believe some author from a book at Borders that they don't even know, over God, who created the Universe and everything in it.
If I have a choice to believe someone (which I do), and it is a choice between God and some author of some books at Borders, I will take God. What is your choice? Who are you going to believe? God, the creator of the Universe, or some person you don't even know who is selling a book at Borders?
A person cannot make intelligent decisions about faith and religion if they don't even know anything about it. They become influenced by what someone, a friend, an author, someone selling them something, someone who doesn't know anything about religion, told them to believe. The Bible states very clearly that there is a heaven and a hell. The only way to gain entrance to heaven is to accept the free gift of salvation from God, through his son, Jesus Christ. That is the only way to gain entrance into heaven. Good works or being a good person is great, but it doesn't gain someone admittance into heaven.
This is the way that God ordained, and nothing a human being says, thinks, or wishes for is going to change it. When you accept Jesus Christ as your savior, you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are saved, and all fear vanishes. Jesus said himself, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.
Does that help you figure it out?
-
Permalink Reply by T.Bower on -
Yes, I believe in heaven and hell, what exactly they are or what either is like (if you know what I'm trying to say here) I can't imagine. Am I afraid of living, no. The way I see it is that I believe in God, I believe in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, do I understand all of it? No, but I am just beginning to understand the importance of that relationship in my own life though.
The way I see it is, the way out is to decide what you want out of your life, what do you want to look back and see at the end. Happiness has lots of different meanings to everyone, so think about what makes you happy right now and be honest with yourself, does going out 4 nights a week and drinking really fill that void? (I'm not implying anything about anyone but myself). For me, I needed more and although I'm still miserable in alot of ways, I know I don't want to be like this for ever and I don't have to be, I just have to change myself (you can't change anyone else - and you know, I've heard that my whole life and then one day it just hit me-it's true) and surround myself with people that love me and that have the same beliefs that I do.
Faith is amazing - you don't have to be afraid of anything really if you just have faith.
-
Permalink Reply by Robyn on -
Interesting discussion. I guess I'm still on the literal Hell thing. God loves us more than we love our own children. Would you throw your children in a pit of fire to burn for eternity no matter how bad they were? God is a creator, not a destroyer. The two cannot exist together. He only withdraws his mercy in the end and allows us to self-destruct. God offers the "gift" of salvation. He cannot force you to accept. It is a choice, that each of us will eventually make. I believe only God knows a persons heart, and only he knows who has hardened their heart and cannot be saved. We all need to be loved. That is the missing ingredient to true happiness and peace. That is what God offers. I like the way this author describes it.http://bible.org/seriespage/god-love
Roy, where you asking the question for yourself or out of curiosity about what other people thought? I think if you know God is love, you can't fear him, dying or living. I always think of it as the feeling an innocent child has in the security of his parents love and protection. We have to have free will and if you follow any religion out of fear, it's not free will and therefore can't be the truth.
Andrew: I understand about perspective changing. I agree to a certain point. But my view point comes from believing in a literal God and Satan. Yes, I believe a persons mind can be overtaken with evil, demonic if you will. But, what constitutes a Christian? Belief in who Jesus Christ said he was? Most Christians believe in the Trinity and most churches tell you if you don't you are not a Christian. I don't believe in that, so I don't fit. I think we( as people) put to much emphasis on putting people into a category.
-
Permalink Reply by roy on -
Dear Robyn,
The question was to understand what others think about this.
The answer is that it is really a belief or conditioning we are lead to believe. Just as a child is taught good or bad. We believe what we are taught. Really it is dualistic thinking coming from our mind. There is no such place unless we create it with our thoughts.
Love
Roy
© 2009 Created by naturalcures
