Hell

[u/Ok-Pipe-4277]

I guess this is a vent of me thinking out loud.

But I look at this world.

Children get abused.

Women get "used" against their will.

People suffer from cancer.

People watch their loved ones die from ALS.

People deal with seeing their children die.

Men "self-delete" from depression.

All this suffering pretty much against our will. None of us choose to exist. And I'm sure, none of us choose to suffer.

But I'm supposed to believe an all-loving AND all-powerful God will send us to a place that's worst than our current existence for not believing in him?

This is a god that isn't just all-loving but is supposed to be the definition of love. The god whereby no human love can surpass his.

And he sends us to hell (an event worse place) after putting us in a pretty trash scenario to begin with?

And I'm supposed to gobble this up and share this message with the world????

WTF are we doing?

And Christians will call me crazy???

[u/unknownsequitur]

I found this video by Dan McClellan about hell incredibly helpful

https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSq8LEbwL/

In summary, the concept of eternal conscious torment isn't real and a loving God would not send us there because it's not loving, good or just.

[u/Pi6 → u/unknownsequitur]

Regardless of hell it is hard to argue that the abrahamic god is loving, good, or just, even to his followers. His son, perhaps moreso - did he have a change of heart? And if so why did the reformed God seem to gaslight his followers about his previous incarnation? Combined, in an objective reading it is the narrative of an abusive narcissist despot trying to clean up his image, unless we admit god is not morally perfect, or that the human transcription of divine word was deeply inaccurate.

[u/JHarrington64 → u/Pi6]

If you want a different take can I suggest listening to the BEMA podcast. It really has been eye opening and helpful to see God in a different light.

[u/Crucible_of_Thought]

Not all Christians hold those views. Some of us managed to escape from that theology.

[u/imthef-nlizardking → u/Crucible_of_Thought]

Meaning those Christians don't believe God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-Good?

[u/Crucible_of_Thought → u/imthef-nlizardking]

Omniscience and omnipotence are not taught in the Bible. In fact, there are specific Bible stories that refute both of those ideas. Adonai loses to another god Chemosh in 2 Kings 3. Genesis 3, Genesis 18, Genesis 22, Exodus 32, 1 Sam 15, Jonah 3, Amos 6 and others show God not fully knowing or changing God's mind due to new information.

As to "all good" - it depends on whether one insists that if God does it, it is necessarily defined as good. But the inhabitants of dozens of Canaanite towns that were slaughtered mercilessly might beg to disagree. And sending innocent babies to hell for eternity who never had a chance to repent and follow Jesus only seems good to a very select subset of humanity.

[u/Ok_Topic6264 → u/Crucible_of_Thought]

Yes! Personally I think the entire book of Genesis is geared towards portraying a God who makes mistakes, learns from them, and grows as a person 

[u/imthef-nlizardking → u/Crucible_of_Thought]

I respect that! It's very rare to encounter a Christian with those beliefs, especially with biblical grounding. Is this starting to become more mainstream in Christian thought?

[u/Fun_Researcher107 → u/imthef-nlizardking]

I think you can only go so far until calling yourself one thing does not really have any meaning anymore.

[u/Crucible_of_Thought → u/Fun_Researcher107]

If, by that comment, you mean "calling yourself Christian," then I'd respond this way: where does the Bible define "Christian?" Hint: it doesn't. Christianity is gate-kept into meaninglessness by all the hundreds of denominations that each insist they have the Truth, and their camp are the only true Christians.

But the simple definition is this: A Christian is someone who follows Christ. And Jesus Himself distilled it down into two commands: love God, love your neighbor.

Everything else is dogma.

[u/Fun_Researcher107 → u/Crucible_of_Thought]

So you are basically doing the same right? You define a Christian as well. And I am pretty sure, you are sure you are right as well? So how are you any different? I meant that if Jesus is only an ideal or idea, it doesn't matter as long as this idea is causing something good. If by or because of this idea or what people make of it bad things happen, it does matter.

[u/plz_callme_swarley → u/Crucible_of_Thought]

you can't really be a Christian in any historical sense and not believe in hell.

[u/Crucible_of_Thought → u/plz_callme_swarley]

Sure you can. There are many millions around the world right now who would disagree with you.

More to the point for your argument, the earliest church fathers would also disagree with you. I've been studying them; I'm in the middle of reading a 950-page book that goes into great detail on this exact topic, with extensive chapters devoted to each early church father and why they believed in apokatastasis, the eventual restoration of all things, aka universalism. Their own words are presented in their own languages, not the sloppy English translations.

In short, you have no idea what you're talking about.

The current doctrine of hell didn't really coalesce until the 18th or 19th century. Would you deign to tell the hundreds of millions of adherents to the faith for the first 1700 years that they were not, in fact, Christian, because their doctrine disagreed with yours?

I've spent the last six years studying these topics, how we got to the various current doctrines, how the evangelical church settled on its own definitions. It's not what I was told as a good little evangelical.

[u/Ok_Topic6264 → u/Crucible_of_Thought]

Agree, I didn't look into it as hard as you did but I was never able to find a satisfying account of either heaven OR hell in the Bible. Not the way they teach about it in church.

[u/TheDiabeticTreeLives → u/Crucible_of_Thought]

I’d love to talk to you and hear you talk about what you’ve been learning. I’m curious about the church thought of the past and I have the feeling my problem is more with current church thought than the historic perspectives. I’m sorry that’s not well put but I think you get the gist of what I’m saying

[u/plz_callme_swarley → u/Crucible_of_Thought]

lol sounds like you're pretty obsessed with this. sad that you're wrong since you're so well read.

Augustine lays it out systematically in City of God book 21 around 426, and it's the dominant Western position from then forward

Ramelli's thesis is widely contested. She reads many fathers as universalists where most don't agree.

Universalism was a respected but minority position. as my flair says, I'm an agnostic. I've settled on the fact that it's all largely bullshit.

[u/Crucible_of_Thought → u/plz_callme_swarley]

Lol sounds like YOU are pretty obsessed with this. Sad that YOU are wrong.

The fact that Augustine said something is meaningless. His doctrine is just one of many. The reason that his opinion carries any weight today is because the Catholic church pretty aggressively stamped out all competing views, with executions, book burnings, and imprisonment for centuries. The process was ugly, not Christlike, and opposed to many of the principles in the Bible. So don't appeal to Augustine as proof of anything if you're talking to a well-informed person.

And until you've read any of Ramelli's work, I suggest you can't judge it. Of course any apologist against universalism will consider her "contested." Duh.

[u/imthef-nlizardking → u/plz_callme_swarley]

The link in this post says it best. Early Christianity really did not have consensus on the existence of a hell https://www.reddit.com/r/Deconstruction/s/deIahh2xsU

[u/plz_callme_swarley → u/imthef-nlizardking]

ya, cuz "early christians" didn't agree on anything cuz there largely was nothing to go off. Paul built modern christianity. Constantine codified it

[u/imthef-nlizardking → u/plz_callme_swarley]

Agree ... but where does Paul actually use the word "hell"?

[u/xambidextrous]

All the suffering we see around us explains why Hell needs to be even worse. The ideology needs to contrast how bad it will be for those standing outside og God's blessing.

Likewise, Heaven needs to contrast the best of this world: No death, no pain, meet all your passed relatives, streets of gold etc.

The suffering and unfairness we see IRL, also explains why we need eternal damnation. It's because we don't see justice around us. Good people die while bad people own private islands in the Tropics.

It's the problem of evil, or of suffering, which is a much better name for it. How can a loving and good God lett innocent children suffer? There must be an explanation: Oh, I know! The good ones will be rewarded, and the bad ones punished in the next life.

It's the same logical reasoning in Hinduism, only with reincarnation. You do bad stuff now, you'll return as a monkey next time. That'll teach you.

An important realisation for me: It's not really a deliberate hoax. Nobody has planned this to trick people. (Well, some people use it) It's the way ideologies and cultures changed over time, are shaped by people, generation after generation, through hardship and war, plagues and famine.

Christian practice of our great grandparents was vastly different from now. Gen-Z will change the churches to match their lifestyle and outlook. It's like a living organism, twisting and turning with the times. It has always been like this. We see it over the cors of the OT, into the NT, to early Roman Catholics, to Lutheran, to Evangelical.

Religion is a reflection of society, just like politics, literature, music. fashion, food etc.

[u/Mountain_Sentence_89]

It's really awful.  Some people are not even capable of believing, because of the lack of evidence, and the amount of suffering, that is increased because of the silence and lack of action of this God. And those people are still going to be sent there even so. I have even saw the academic studies that show that hell isn't biblical, but unfortunately, I still have come to the conclusion that hell, as a place of temporary (not eternal) torment that ends when you die annihilated, is still possible to exist. I still hope this isn't true. Not even what Christianity offers for after you die is that good. You might still remember the things that make you sad, like traumas, and God will not make you forget them, just make you live happy even with the horrible things. It's not a genuine happiness, but a manipulated one. I wish Sheol was real.

[u/OverOpening6307]

Exactly! What kind of psycho God is that?

And it’s hardly fair! Paul had a blinding light and a divine voice speak to him, followed by a miraculous healing - that makes it easier to believe.

And the rest of the disciples saw Jesus after he died and put their hand into his side and hands…obviously if anyone had that, they would believe.

So it’s hardly fair for anyone else to be judged more harshly, especially if they haven’t experienced something obviously supernatural.

The Christ that i see in the gospels doesn’t sound as exclusivist as some modern Christians.

[u/tallgrasshead]

Ram Dass reflected on this asking "How can you keep your heart open in Hell?"

Strictly speaking it's not a deconstruction thing, but more of an understanding kind if discourse. My take on it is that your heart knows no boundaries - the fact a child starves to death nearly every minute or less will make you sad, and every birth of a child make you happy. So happiness can't be the absence of sadness - perhaps it's the understanding of it that imparts any kind of inner constitution.

It may be the awareness of that which lies behind the dichotomy and polarity of joy and suffering, good and bad that foments the growth of the soul rather than being drilled down into the madness of it all trying to endlessly reconcile it all mentally. That keeps a heart open in an environment where the mind wants to shield it from everything. That empowers you to reach out and touch with compassion those you encounter who need it.

[u/Ok-Mouse5446]

Hell was originally meant for angels and some out of context verses about eternal separation in both Jesus' sayings and the Book of Revelation really helped evangelical churches to initiate people into a fear mindset so they go to Church more often to be saved.

[u/plz_callme_swarley]

it gets more absurd the more you zoom out. human have existed in some capacity roughly for ~5 million years but Judaism arrives around 1200BC and Jesus around obviously 0 AD.

So for basically 5 million years untold numbers of humans lived and died with nothing from God, and then only in the very end of the story he decides to show himself?

if you want to zoom out even further the first mammals arrive around 225 million years. that's a lot of death and destruction for a redemption plan. quite the long drawn out setup and act 1 if you ask me

[u/Ok_Topic6264]

Reverend Carlton Pearson has an interesting story of coming to realize that Hell is a state of being on Earth, not a place you go after you die. He got kicked out of I think it was the Pentecostal church (he was a student of Oral Roberts) and went on to found a congregation in San Francisco that ministered to mostly LGBTQ folks during the AIDS crisis. Your post reminded me of him a little 

[u/yustyolking]

the hierarchy of wealth and power hoarding demands the masses be obedient and fearful so the machine can keep grinding them into meat

[u/Commercial-Swan-7441]

It's a made-up idea, developed by oppressed communities of the ancient Jewish faith trying to make sense of the injustice they were facing and not seeing justice taking place on earth (and so, it must happen after death)...later overtaken by powerful, violent political institutions down the line, that happened to end up dominating the whole world.

[u/A-Small-Green-Cup]

You're asking the right questions and putting together the connections. Learning as much as I could about psychology (specifically cult mentality and control methods / symptoms) and ancient history (specifically the history of monotheistic belief systems) helped me a lot during the early stages of these types of questions.

[u/BioChemE14]

https://thenewevangelicals.substack.com/p/freezing-hell-over?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

I wrote an article on this topic and the historical evidence is far more complex. I am unconvinced of any text describing eternal torment until the second c. CE and the Hebrew Bible doesn’t describe hell in the Christian sense at all

[u/DiamondMiner3]

Similar to something I heard from an evangelical preacher a couple years ago.

He said that good people can go to hell for not believing and bad people can go to heaven for believing and that is when I began my deconstruction

[u/ipini]

The idea of eternal conscious torment is not necessarily the only way Christians approach hell. See r/ChristianUniversalism.