/lit/ - Literature

>>14987557
U r in hell

>>14987557
Hell doesn't exist. Hell is here on earth.

hell is a state of mind

>>14987557
>Loves you
>Deprives you of his presence & lets you suffer for literally an infinite amount of time
I was only raised nominally Christian. Can someone explain how this isn't contradictory?
>You send yourself to hell
If a toddler falls into the bath and drowns, we don't say the child sent themself to the grave, we charge the parent for negligence.

>>14987627
thats why the toddler who fell and drowned would goto heaven retard ass nigga. and also people have to live for themselves, once a child hops off da porch as they say lmfao. like bro idk im not even christian or anything just saying.

>>14987627
A parent punishing their children doesn't mean they love them less. God is not only loving, he is also just.

as long as you've gave an onion you'll be fine

>>14987679
A child is punished so that they may learn. A punishment cannot be just if it never ends.

>>14987627
>Loves you
God only loves those who worship him, the point of life is to worship God , if you do so you go to heaven and if you don't you go to hell
t.muslim

>>14987675
>the toddler who fell and drowned would goto heaven
Only if they'd be baptized. Hell is full of unbaptized children.

>>14987557
Hell and heaven are both in the living waking world, how you live your life determines which you’re living in. We’re already living under the will of God.

>>14987703
It is unjust by your standards but not by God's. Humanity willingly plunged itself into wickedness and it ought to either repent or be punished appropriately.

>>14987683
what does this mean?

>>14987723
think about it

People tend to be really blasé about hell. I know what you mean though, op. Religious people get their kicks imagining people they dislike being tortured forever. I think anyone who has known true, prolonged pain knows that the idea of hell is profoundly fucked up. We can only hope there is no hell, and if so, perhaps it is empty.

>>14987627
It's downright false that anyone sends themselves to hell. In the Bible the entire point of hell is that God will assert his sovereignty in the final judgement and punish all the wicked people and demons. Jesus explicitly says that God will send people to Gehenna, a fiery place of punishment usually translated as "hell"

Luke 12:5
>I shall show you whom to fear. Be afraid of the one who after killing has the power to cast into Gehenna; yes, I tell you, be afraid of that one.

>>14987557
Hell is reincarnation

>>14987738
>Religious people get their kicks imagining people they dislike being tortured forever.

This has been my experience interacting with many e-caths and I suspect half the time when they write about hell that they are typing it with their erect penis. Baptists be really hell-happy too but in an almost manic kind of way that makes it hard to take personally unlike the e-caths who come across as seething and venomous.

If Hell is eternal but God loves us, why isn't he then more active in the world? If he saw you going on the path to eternal suffering he would atleast make one undeniable plea and intervention I would think. Instead he remains aloof and distant which contradicts the urgency of a lover to prevent harm to their beloved

>>14987760
Everything twitter touches turns to shit.

>>14987774
He does. If what you are doing doesn't fulfill you, it is a bad sign.

>>14987679
Infinite torment for finite sin is just? Thank god there is no God.

>>14987788
People find fulfillment in things like being a professor or an artist and almost never think about religion. Neither of these are godly or will save you from hell

>>14987774
If God intervened whenever someone was on the path to hell then there would be no point to our lives on earth he might as well have popped us into heaven.
Your life on Earth is a test to see who believes in God and who doesn't , you don't get the answers to a test.

>>14987795
Thinking that you are fulfilled and being fulfilled are two different things.

>>14987557
I think hell is a very useful concept. If you view religion as a sort of add-on for a tribe, in a social Darwinism kind of sense, hell serves a very strong purpose. Religion, assuming it is not actually true, persists because it encourages pro social, or at least, pro your tribe behavior. That’s why most religions encourage marriage, procreation, not killing your neighbor, our divine right to rule over all others etc. Enforcement is problematic, and the implementation of these rules is aided immensely by the addition of an afterlife, where you will be treated based on your adherence to the rules

>>14987798
Why not just pop usinto heaven then? Sure makes for far fewer souls being tortured forever

>>14987557
Hell is atemporal. It's not "forever" nor "finite" in time, because Hell, like Heaven, does not exist in time.

>>14987811
You 're not as smart as you think you are.

>>14987819
Semantic cope.

>>14987811
Religion becomes very convenient for the powerful, yes, but so does everything else. The mere fact of power doesn't explain religion. As for the afterlife, it's more likely that's down to a basic inability to conceive of one's life actually ending. And since that's what it's about, the afterlife goes on forever (in some fashion). Heaven and hell just demonstrate a recognition that we don't live in a just world, so justice is displaced to another world.

>>14987557

The point is to reject the threat of hell, even and especially under the threat and idea that one is powerless to avoid it unless one accepts the tyrant's demands. Only here is true morality.

You reading through Portrait of the Artist as well? I need to go to confession ASAP

>>14987827
It's not semantics, it's the state of the matter. Hell is being in the presence of God when you do not accept God. There is no created place of divine absence, nor is hell an ontological separation from God, therefore Hell does not exist in time. Hell is merely a relation to God. For one who hates God and by extension hates himself as God's image-bearer, so to be encompassed by the divine presence could only result in unspeakable anguish.

The concept of Hell is horrifying to me. I'm not horrified because there will be demons and fire or an intricately laid out metaphor for sin and being rude to an Italian poet. The fear of Hell in me is more of an overarching fear of my life regarding rejection and being totally thorough.
Rereading the Old Testament there's something I've never seen brought up before: bats are not only counted as birds, but they are forbidden from being eaten because they are an unclean bird. The common understanding here is that most dietary restrictions were hygienic restrictions and that they don't really apply today. Obviously we can learn why this is important from current events, but what if I'm doing something at some moment unintentionally that is forbidden. Say it got lost in translation or I just never heard about it. Say I die and it turns out the street preacher was right about whatever he was saying when I wasn't listening.
Another thing: I've read before that you don't go to Hell if you've simply never heard of Jesus. That leads me to wonder why I should tell anybody about Jesus. If they reject my message because I made a poor sale than do they go to Hell? They weren't swayed by the Holy Spirit and as such should they be punished, when the actual case might be that I was nervous and bungled things up or I smelled bad or my looks introduced some off-putting idea of me in the listeners head? And if I just accidentally condemned someone to Hell due to my inability shouldn't I also be punished in some way?
The final bothersome problem I have with Hell is that it represents to ultimate rejection. The creator of everything known and unknown is telling you that you didn't accept him and as such he banishes your soul to a realm where he does not exist. I would rather cease to be than experience that. The problem then is that I find it nearly impossibly to follow any rules, or feel sorry for even that slight mishaps I have. This leads me to continuously spiral because why should I feel bad for something egregious if something that seems minor could result in my absolute rejection? Example: I commit a minor sin and feel no remorse over my actions. Why is this worse than killing someone but repenting? And if I killed someone, why on Earth would I apologise to God? He already knew that I would do it, and feeling sorry for myself wouldn't bring that person back to life. It would just be melancholy put on to try to convince myself that I feel sorry for what I did and not that I'm just trying to avoid being rejected.

In short I think that the mere idea of Hell is terrifying. The first time I asked out a girl it took me a month to work up the courage (talking to women is not courageous, but I can't think of a better word) and during this time I vomited multiple times a day from the stressful possibility of rejection in my head. The idea, then, that I could possibly be forever rejected and cast away by God is a deep, pathological fear.

>>14987819
Total bullshit, we live in a temporal world and at a certain point in time we will die and go to heaven or hell. If you were correct, everyone alive would simultaneously exist atemporally in the afterlife, which is absurd and against Christian teaching.

>>14987819
>>14987853
According to who ?
>>14987816
If you worship God you go to heaven , if you don't you go to hell.
Simple as.

>>14987865
>If they reject my message because I made a poor sale than do they go to Hell?
This should be then instead of than. Sorry for phone posting.

>>14987868
>we live in a temporal world therefore nothing can exist outside time
When you die your soul leaves the cosmos and returns to an eternal/atemporal mode of being in the direct presence of God. This can either be a blessing or a curse, depending on your relation with God.

Lots of semitism going on in this thread.

>>14987865
>The common understanding here is that most dietary restrictions were hygienic restrictions
Wrong, wrong, wrong. They are unclean in a ritual sense, as in you will be ritually polluted if you eat these things and thus can't worship in the congregation or approach the tabernacle. The Torah laws are not hygene-based in the slightest, for example there is nothing about avoiding contact with feces, one of the main routes of parasite transmission. Trying to read modern science into the laws will always fail.

>>14987874
>According to who ?
According to the Holy Spirit speaking through the Church over the ages.

>>14987865
I relate to some of these points but as a Muslim.

>>14987853
It is semantics because this thread is clearly a discussion on the doctrine of eternal damnation and the best contribution you have is "Akshully, forever isn't correct term to use because god exists in super special god not-time".

>>14987627
>If a toddler falls into the bath and drowns, we don't say the child sent themself to the grave, we charge the parent for negligence.
who said anything about children?

>>14987882
You can't be temporarily absent from an atemporal place. It's a direct contradiction.

>>14987898
The doctrine of eternal damnation understood as a temporally infinite punishment is heretical. Eternal = outside time.

>>14987820
I never said this was truth, it’s a pretty common way of thinking about it though

>>14987774
God has done plenty in the world. You just choose to ignore it.
>‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

Romans 2
James 2

>>14987883
yeah if only we engage in half-assed Jungian esotericism while telling ourselves that's what my ancestors would've wanted we could restore evropa AND sleep in on Sunday

>>14987886
>The Torah laws are not hygene-based in the slightest, for example there is nothing about avoiding contact with feces
You're wrong about this.
Deuteronomy 23:12-13
>You shall have a place outside the camp, and you shall go out to it. And you shall have a trowel with your tools, and when you sit down outside, you shall dig a hole with it and turn back and cover up your excrement.
Feces are removed from living spaces and covered up so that they can't be smelled. For a long time in medical history it was thought that vapors were what caused sickness. Unless you're suggesting that Jews developed germ theory and later forgot about it I'm going to go with the hygienic option here.

>>14987882
>>we live in a temporal world therefore nothing can exist outside time
That's not what I said. The scenario you propose is that at a certain point in time, one's soul becomes atemporal by entering the afterlife. But something can't begin to be atemporal, that doesn't make sense, so while someone is alive their soul is both in their temporal body AND exists atemporally in the afterlife. That contradicts Christian teachings, especially about the final judgement which will occur at a specific point in time and results in souls reuniting with bodies and being resurrected, to live in the new Earth or to be punished.

>>14987906
It's only a contradiction in your head because you mistakenly assume the passage of time in an atemporal realm. "Temporarily" is nonsensical here.

>>14987627
>Deprives you of his presenc
That is not what hell is. It's exactly the full presence of God that can make you "burn" if your soul is not properly prepared for it.

>>14987914
>Dude check out this quote from a book written by tripping ancient jews. Why is this book more correct than other books by ancient tripping people, well because this book says so lol

>>14987929
Time=Change. A place without time is unchanging.

>>14987925
You're correct, I was wrong about that. Sorry.

>>14987926
See
>>14987929

You're implicitly assuming a timelike structure to the atemporal. Simultaneity makes no sense in this context. You're just confused.

>>14987908
When a regular person asks about hell being forever, or lasting for "all time" etc everyone except autists like you know what they really mean. There is literally no need for you to get anal about the infinite-eternal distinction here just because you watched some youtube theology videos.

>>14987933
A place without time is neither changing nor unchanging. Change makes no sense without time, so speaking of change in this context makes n sense.

>>14987936
sorry I was snarky about germ theory

>>14987938
I'm merely correcting OP's misconception.

>>14987865

It's simple, the law which Jesus binds us is the golden rule, "do unto others, as you would have them do unto you". If you don't want to go to hell, don't inflict hell upon another person. Do not return an eye for an eye, but instead turn the other cheek. Do not return evil for evil, forgive those who do you wrong and you will be forgiven for your shortcomings. Nobody is perfect, but we can choose not to use violence against another person

>>14987941
Something that is neither changing or unchanging is not something at all. It is made up.

>>14987948
>I am an atheist
I should have known.

>>14987945
No, you are being the neil degrasse tyson of this thread.

>>14987935
You haven't addressed my specific theological objections, you just keep repeating that we supposedly don't get it.

Hell is for those who live in unforgiveness towards their brother, the only way to be freed from this cycle of sin is to forgive radically, that's the entire message of Jesus. Hell is eternal because unforgiveness is eternal, to forgive is to be forgiven which is how sins are dissolved

>>14987955
>>14987956
I disagree.

Hell is the separation of the self from God. Hell is not eternal. We all shall be eventually reconciled through the benevolence of God. For we have never truly left.
The Kingdom of Heaven is Within.

>>14987675
>thats why the toddler who fell and drowned would goto heaven
I don't really understand this doctrine. Of course, it is what we would like to believe but it completely undermines the argument of free will and implies absurd imperatives. It would be in the Church's best interest then, to murder infants and guarantee them a place in heaven.
Clearly this cannot be the case, but the only option is then to believe that infants killed before they can accept Christ will not go to heaven which again is clearly unjust.

>>14988016
Just make sure to drown them in holy water, then seek absolution yourself. Really the only two things worth doing under Christian dogma.

Why didn't God grant us free will and assured salvation? An all-powerful being could surely manipulate logic so that this wouldn't be a contradiction.

>>14988030
In your idea, if the end is predetermined, how is free will distinct from predetermination? Even if God "manipulates logic" to accommodate both this would be indistinct from predetermination.

>>14988009
based Lutherian

>>14988009
>>14988094

I was raised Lutheran and even though I'm not practicing this is what I intuitively believe

>>14988044
So?

>>14987557
Some Christians believe that when the last judgement ends Christ will empty Hell like he did when he was in Hell for 3 days and so everyone will get to experience Heaven on Earth

>>14988119
So just say you believe in predetermination and universal reconciliation. It seems disingenuous to me, for you to say you wish to believe in free will when it does not seem like you do.

>>14988125
God could have made a world where the two weren't at odds. That's what I'm saying.

>>14987557
nothing is forever

>>14987557
Heaven and Hell are the same place. If you love God, it'll be like Heaven. If you hate God, it'll be like Hell.

>>14987557
Hell is eternal punishment:

"1033 We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves: "He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him." Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren. To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called "hell."

1034 Jesus often speaks of "Gehenna" of "the unquenchable fire" reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost. Jesus solemnly proclaims that he "will send his angels, and they will gather . . . all evil doers, and throw them into the furnace of fire," and that he will pronounce the condemnation: "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire!"

1035 The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, "eternal fire." The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs."

>>14987627
>distance yourself from God
>God doesn't forcefully drag you back
>Why would God do this

i invite everyone itt to read this small book

>>14987557
Hell is other people.

>>14987562
>>14987627
>Another infidel will ask: How can God justly punish with eternal torments a sin that lasts but a moment? I answer, that the grievousness of a crime is measured not by its duration, but by the enormity of its malice. The malice of mortal sin is, as St. Thomas says, infinite. (1, 2, q. 87, art. 4.) Hence, the damned deserve infinite punishment; and, because a creature is not capable of suffering pains infinite in point of intensity, God, as the holy doctor says, renders the punishment of the damned infinite in extension by making it eternal.

>Moreover, it is just, that as long as the sinner remains in his sin, the punishment which he deserves should continue. And, therefore, as the virtue of the saints is rewarded in Heaven, because it lasts for ever, so also the guilt of the damned in Hell, because it is everlasting, shall be chastised with everlasting torments. ”Quia non recipit causæ remedium,” says Eusebius Emissenus, “carebit fine supplicium.” The cause of their perverse will continues: therefore, their chastisement will never have an end. The damned are so obstinate in their sins, that even if God offered pardon, their hatred for him would make them refuse it.
St. Alphonsus Ligouri, DR. OF THE CHURCH.

>>14987868
We do not live in a temporal world. Time is a structure of the human mind, it is not somewhere outside of us but within us. Heaven and Hell and God are all ineffable precisely because they necessarily exist outside of all the structures of human experience and cannot be defined spatio-temporally.

>>14987557
There are two spirals, one towards God and one away from God. They are infinite and you are infinite.

>>14988329
yes but eternal is the proper word

>>14987865
absolutely, undeniably, and entirely based.

>>14988166
>>14987819
>>14988324
These anons are right.

>>14987627
What father would send snakes when his children begged for water?

>>14987610
This
Damnation is dishonest action/inaction

>>14987557
There is no worse fate than there not being a hell provided god exists. The ruin of sin lasts a lifetime and inflicts irreparable damage to those it tarnishes. Its only fair that they should have to suffer forever because finite punishment ends and in the scheme of eternity is scarcely a punishment which if retrospective would be like thinking back on a nightmare. It's nothing.

These are the worst fates:

1. Reincarnation (shows god wants to torment souls for no good reason)
2. Universal salvation (shows God is not just and that our sufferings on earth have all been for nothing)

Better
3. No afterlife.

Best
4. Massa damnata

The only possible source of consolation is eternal hell. Even if you could torture everyone for their crimes here on earth, it wouldn't be sufficient to repair both the damage they've done and their corrupt wills and any change induced wouldn't be at the core but superficially in the sense you can condition a mouse to avoid a shock because it doesn't like it.

>>14987774
Because he doesn't fucking exist

>>14989336
Talk about seeing the world backwards

>>14989367
Compelling argument, brainlet.

>>14987774
God holds the unrepentant sinner in hatred.

I dont even think most people or even the ones that invented hell even think about how fucked up "eternal suffering" is.
And there are even Christiams out there who think people "deserve it" to go to hell.
Fucking eternal. Do you know how long this is? Very long. Very fucking long.
Even the though of just eternity but without pain should make you anxious.
But hell...

>>14989443
It isn't fucked up. It is just.

>>14989443
yes, very long. as long as the duration of every single soul which transcends the existence of the cosmos and will transcend history. but do you think God changes His mind? once you're dead your judgement will be set once and for all. you either accept or reject God in life.

>>14990141
>>14990077
>It is just because based on your rational observed facts and your god given intelligence you made a wrong decision in what to believe in

>>14990471
...

>>14987853
>>14987819
If it's atemporal it is eternal.

>>14987557
Why Faith though? Why would God force us into faith entirely dependent on regional, cogntive and social conditions? Why would he let us become too reliant on material thought to simply accept religion? Why would he put us in locations where we could never hear the word of God? Why would he place us in communities that outright deny him, letting us be influenced by our family and peers. Lots of people here saying tbat “you” bring this unto yourself like>>14988131 and >>14987679 but you didn’t choose any of that, you were born into it. You didn’t chose a secular culture and a physical world explainable by mechanical logic. The bible was written by humans who could be lying to you, the word is preached by humans who could be lying to you, God didnt provide any more of a valid reason to trust Christianity over Islam or Buddhism or anything else.

>>14987798
Yeah, except if you were born in Judea 2000 years ago, when god literally walked the earth. Isnt that kinda unfair?

Hell sounds better than 70-80 years of wage slaving

>>14987720
>It is unjust by your standards but not by God's
According to what?

>>14987720
Welly golly, I guess we can justify anything if it's forever beyond human standards!

>>14991204
ummmmmmm yeah

>>14989336
Reincarnation is not a bad fate. Your perception of it being terrible is based on your perception of the world around you and your specific experiences. If your life sucks, you wouldn't want to experience something similar, but if you had an amazing life, were chad, enjoyed the company of friends and family, etc etc., then having the possibility of "living life again" would get you very excited.

>sin does irrepairable damage

Yeah things like murder, acts of terror, etc., can do that, but I doubt "coveting" the neighbors belongings/wife is causing irrepairable damage to any individual.

Anything else besides murder can be resolved and overcome and your gay, faggot hot take is retarded.

"There exists, for everyone, a sentence - a series of words - that has the power to destroy you. Another sentence exists, another series of words, that could heal you."

Life is awesome and just because it sucks for you doesnt mean it sucks for the rest of us. Improve your life because I, and no one else for that matter, is going to care enough to do it for you.

>>14987557
I wouldn't worry about it.

I just want to go to heaven why tf would God want me to earn it

>>14990566
>Why would he put us in locations where we could never hear the word of God?

847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:
Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.

848 "Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."

Everyone, through the capacity of reason in investigating the natural world and himself, and through the inspired and authoritative teachings of the One, Holy, Apostolic, and Catholic Church can come to a knowledge of God with certainty:

36 "Our holy mother, the Church, holds and teaches that God, the first principle and last end of all things, can be known with certainty from the created world by the natural light of human reason." Without this capacity, man would not be able to welcome God's revelation. Man has this capacity because he is created "in the image of God".

31 Created in God's image and called to know and love him, the person who seeks God discovers certain ways of coming to know him. These are also called proofs for the existence of God, not in the sense of proofs in the natural sciences, but rather in the sense of "converging and convincing arguments", which allow us to attain certainty about the truth. These "ways" of approaching God from creation have a twofold point of departure: the physical world, and the human person.

32 The world: starting from movement, becoming, contingency, and the world's order and beauty, one can come to a knowledge of God as the origin and the end of the universe.

As St. Paul says of the Gentiles: For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.

33 The human person: with his openness to truth and beauty, his sense of moral goodness, his freedom and the voice of his conscience, with his longings for the infinite and for happiness, man questions himself about God's existence. In all this he discerns signs of his spiritual soul. The soul, the "seed of eternity we bear in ourselves, irreducible to the merely material", can have its origin only in God.

>>14987931
>discuss theology
>use the book the theology is based on
>no bro don't do that
ok retard

>>14987557
I don't know about y'all, but is god feller sounds a teeny tiny like humans made him.

>>14987562
>>14987557
hell is what you make it, if you think this is hell maybe reflect on what you did to end up in hell, might do you some good :)

>>14987946
>>14987936
c: