I was in my creative writing class today, and one of the people wrote a little
essay thing where he tried to prove hell didn't exist. I just wanted to know
what you thought about it. Does hell exist? I'm an Eckist, and don't know a lot
about the teachings of the church and stuff, but from what I do understand, this
sounds pretty good.
Okay, here's his paper.
Hell, by definition, is the total absence of God. We are told by the church that
if we commit Mortal Sins, we are sent to Hell by God.
Now, Hell came to be because of an angelic revolt, in which the angel known as
Lucifer (seeing as ‘Lucifer’ is Latin, it is highly unlikely
this angel, who hates humans so much, would have a human name) and one third of
the angels became angry with God because he created humans in his image, which
made the angels jealous. So they were cast into Hell.
Here the first anomaly occurs. If God is indeed everywhere, then where would
these outcasts go? For Hell to exist, there must be an absence of God. God
created everything. Therefore, there is no possible way for Hell to be a
place.
But say there is. For arguments sake, pretend God, for whatever reason, created
some sort of vacuum where He and His Love does not exist. Now, it is taught by
the church that God is love, that unconditional love for each of us is
God’s love, which is God himself. We have love, God is love, we have God
in us.
So God, who loves us no matter what the circumstances, condemns us to Hell for
eternity if we commit a Mortal Sin. This is impossible. Either his love for us
is indeed conditional, and he has lied to us and the angels, or we do not go to
Hell, for when we die, we are pardoned by his infinite forgiveness.
Again, lets pretend Hell was not disproven a second time. So, we are sent to
Hell. However, the instant we go to Hell, Hell ceases to exist, for where God
exists, there can be no Hell. If God is love, and God is inside us all, wherever
we go, Hell disappears. God is love, Hell is the absence of God, God loves us
unconditionally, we have his love, Hell cannot exist in conjunction with
God’s presence, there is no Hell.
Not a specialist of the domain but here is the answers to some of your
questions.
-Definition is wrong.Hell is creation from God to punish Satan and the ones who
follows it, including certains humans, unfortunately.
-Not one third just one.jealous is not really the world it is more like
arrogance.
-God is not love.God is God.Love exist because of God but no significant depency
between Love and God exists.
-Forgiviness exists of course but only God is judge and decide.
It is that simple
I would never have thougth I'd discuss Spiritual subjects in an anime forum
Actually, that is the best syllogism I've read on this site yet. For those who
don't know: a syllogism contains a major and minor premise (or multiple
premises) that lead to a conclusion. If either of the premises can be proven
false then the conclusion is false and un-trustworthy. Basic logic.
Here's the syllogism:
1. If God is omnipresent (everywhere at once)
2. And hell is where God is not
3. Then hell cannot exist.
Makes perfect since. It appears that you have proven that hell doesn't exist. Of
course, the ramifications of that would ultimately disprove God Himself since He
claimed there to be a hell.
There has not been one single post on this site that I was not able to
immediately type a rebuttal - until now. I know it's false, but I have to
formulate my thoughts first. This will be fun.
I will post later with a full rebuttal to your classmates false syllogism.
Personaly I think hell does exist, first as a prison to contain Satan and his
followers for leading a rebellionagainst him, but now as penalty for humans for
rejecting God's Love and Laws.
this thread is enteresting ^^ ok then from my point of view i defenitly think
that hell exist to punish the ones who commits SINS and certains humans therefor
i DON'T KNOW who told u that God's love ?(`_`)*just a question*
cuz God created everything in this whole world and ordered us to pray and do
things like that but , whoever do otherwise well be punished *of course who
dosen't join a certain religion (i won't say it's name^_^") well too be
punished*
-Forgiviness exists of course but only God is judge and decide.
I AGREE here with dragonv12
Nice perspective in things there, I dont know what to believe in necessarily but
i gotta admit that a good analogy. Cuase god must exist in Hell in order to be
everywhere at once. But who knows God may or not be in Hell. As the old saying
goes, In order to determine evil, you must think evily and coutneract it with a
good. HArd to explain but meh.
Yes I believe that hell exists and that it is also very personal. For example
when you kill yourself you go to a type of hell that really isn't hell at all
rather you are returned to the same life you took yourself out of prematurely
with no memory save the feelings in your gut of ever being there...a sort of
hell but one that isn't punishing because you can get out of it.
Quote by kellyoActually, that is the best
syllogism I've read on this site yet. For those who don't know: a syllogism
contains a major and minor premise (or multiple premises) that lead to a
conclusion. If either of the premises can be proven false then the conclusion is
false and un-trustworthy. Basic logic.
Here's the syllogism:
1. If God is omnipresent (everywhere at once)
2. And hell is where God is not
3. Then hell cannot exist.
That is quite interesting. (Thanks for summing it up in an organized fashion,
kellyo.) I have a tendancy not to think about such things or ponder at all. I
just accept things as how they are here and now, afterward? Does anyone really know? It's a belief system that people
have built up to protect themselves, whether it's real or not becomes secondary
due to a person's need to feel that they are in this world for a reason. If they had nothing to fear I think
there would be quite a bit more chaos in the world. Which is hard to imagne due
to all the wars that have ever been fought over religion.
This brings to mind an episode on "Red Dwarf" (British sci/fi comedy)
where a missing page had been found from the bible that read, "everything
in this book is completly ficitonal, any resemblance to any real
life.....etc." and you could hear the audience laugh, only to stifle their
laughter after realizing what they were laughing at. The reasoning your
classmate posed is interesting and it does make one ponder, but I try not to.
Thanks for all your input everyone people! I really appreciate it.
Random tangent... the syllogism thing kellyo mentioned reminds me of one like it
we did in my Speech and Debate class. My teacher assigned us a persuasion
speech, and he said that using this meathod is one of the best ways to convince
someone you're right. If you can prove that one is right, and that a second is
also right, then people will tend to draw their own conclusion about the third.
Take this one:
God is Love.
Love is Blind.
God is Blind.
That was more on the serious note. I liked this one better:
God is Love.
Love is Blind.
Ray Charles is Blind.
God is Ray Charles.
That one gave me the giggles.
Oh, and the movie Elves mentioned, Red Dwarf.... I wouldn't be surprised if he's
seen it. He's Brittish.
Anyway, you've all helped clear up a lot I didn't understand about Hell in
general. Like I said, I don't know squat about it. My religion believes in
reincarnation and karma. I like JenosydesWhisperMatrix's interpretation of hell,
though. Almost like a second chance that's not weighted by our previous choices
and actions. At least, it sounds better than the whole inescapable, fire and
brimstone thing by grandparents tried to teach me about.
The syllogism that I "created" from the first argument mentioned does
in fact have a flaw.
It assumes that God's presense is more powerful than His power. You see, God is
omnipresent on earth. You cannot escape Him - from the highest mountain to the
lowest depths of the sea but God can remove Himself - He has the power to do so.
The Bible is very clear that God in fact removes Himself from the destination of
those who don't believe. And, being omnipotent, He'd be able to do that very
thing.
So, the correct syllogism would be:
1. God is omnipotent (all-powerfull)
2. God has the power to remove Himself (or turn His back)
3. Therefore, God can remove Himself from hell.
If He can do it, and He says He does do it, then He is NOT there. The fruits of
the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, and self control. Imagine, not one of those traits will exist
because God is not there. Imagine if even one was removed from our world today.
God is here because those exist but for those who say "My will be
done" God will say "Thy will be done" and they will be removed
from Him forever. Very sad.
merged: 02-07-2006 ~ 09:00am
Also, love isn't blind. It sees but it is long suffering. Point number two in
your syllogism is the point that is false therefore proving your conclusion
false as well.
Yeah, I agree with what you said regarding the "love is blind" thing.
I was just explaining what our teacher explained. If you can prove that God is love, and then prove that love is blind, most people will
subconsciously make the mental jump to connecting the two, that God is blind. It
isn't necessarily true, it's just a form of messing with people's brains to get
them to agree with your ideas, or, in the case of my debate class, prove that
you're right and they're wrong.
I had to argue that conformity was better than individuality, so I stated that
the definition of conformity was "to be in accordance, agreement and/or
harmony", then I proved (using about half a dozen tangents, examples, and a
dash of my own strange logic )
that harmony and agreement was the key to peace. Therefore, according to my
evidence, conformity was the key to peace.
Then of course, I had to prove that individuality was a main component of war
and death. That part was fun. Especially went we got to get up in each other's
faces and argue.
.... Did I mention that the whole time I was doing this speech, I was dressed as
Hitler?
ChosenEntity - I have to admit that I have told many people the "Ray
Charles" syllogism. I think that is funny. I knew you didn't hold the
"love" on to be true but I at the same was just showing how the
syllogism works. Great post by the way.
Anyway,If you are in any religious group such as Y.F.C (Youth For Christ) or
whichever, you'd hear them saying that God is Love.
I have no idea why I just said that...It's far from my point actually.
Continuing. We cannot really conclude that hell exists nor that it doesn't. For
neither of us really knows. I mean, for one thing, there's the
"appearances" of a "demon" believed to be
"Lucifer". There are spirits and people have proven them through the
"gifted ones" by communicating in the other "world". If
these things exist, then Hell MIGHT exist too,right? They just can't be floating
around.
Next, Yes, God has created the world. But "Satan" might also have the
power to "create" a place where he and he's followers or fellow demons
can be. Just because it is said that we will "go down" to hell doesn't
mean that "hell" is literally down there in our world. Like how we say
that we will "go up" to heaven doesn't mean that it's up in the
skies.
Like I said. Nobody really knows.Even if the government knows all the secrets of
the world in their files, it's impossible to find the answer to this thread
inside them. It's all about faith. I think.
okok... try this.... i say that god is satan and satan is god.... why? coz god
kills and he taught not to commit sins and if he is commiting sins then is he
good or bad... also dont give me the "god is sinless and cannot commit
sins" stuff coz killing is sin and if its not... we can kill without
commiting sins either.... and he can control hell and heaven... ruler of
heaven=god ruler of hell=satan?
and also i agree about Satan can have the power ot create a place for all the
demons or his believers... it may be heaven and hell of another sort... but who
knows... the Christian god may not know all... all i know is that the bible is
making decisions for us on how we live and a path...and i am not one to follow
it
well, all I can say on the topic is that the name HELL was taken from Norse
mithology, It was one of the 9 worlds that rested in the sacred tree Ygdrassil,
and it was the place destined for the people who didn't die in battle. Contrary
to the Catholic belief though, it was not a place for punishing but rather a
resting place, for the ruler of that place, the goddess HEL, would have parties
and feasts for those who would dwell there.
I guess the fact that it was the world below midgard(our world) is the reason
why the common belief is that the Catholic Satan lives somewhere below the
ground.
I think hell is not a specific place
Instead it is a state of suffering, which can be different for different
people
Hell can be right here on earth...
Actually I think the Christian Hell was icy too. At least I know Dante depicted
the ninth circle of hell as the icy lake Cocytus. I think the idea was that the
lowest levels of hell would be furthest from the warmth of god and, therefore,
cold and frozen. Of course, I don't actually believe in such concepts, so to
answer your question, hell does not exist.
lol.... one very interesting thing to add.... a question..... how do you picture
the devil?
like the Christian god.... they dont really have a picture for him except
someone in white robes look old and wise and good... or watever the !@# ppl
think about....
but actually in the bible... i dont think there is a physical description of
him/her/it/where....lol....
... My mom when she's angry.
So... bushy-haired, green-eyed, and red faced.
Scary...
Seriously though... I'm not really sure. I don't think I could honestly come up
with my own description without it having been affected by the views of others.
Don't really believe in him/her/it, but I've always thought that the devil was
more of a presence than a person, and lacks a true form. Not really there, but
affecting us all the same. Maybe the essence of evil? Or the devil appears as
our greatist fear?
Good question!
.... Hey! Another syllogism thingy to go off my tangent!
The Devil appears as the thing we fear most.
A Boggart appears as the thing we fear most.
The Devil is a Boggart.
Now there's just the tiny problem of a Boggart not existing.... Not even
going to go into whether the Devil exists or not. Makes my brain hurt just
thinking about it...
Thanks for all your responses so far! You guys are great! *passes out
cookies*
merged: 02-19-2006 ~ 02:24am
Hmmm... if the devil exists, is it a he or a she? Maybe neither, or a mixture of
both? A she-him?
I was in my creative writing class today, and one of the people wrote a little essay thing where he tried to prove hell didn't exist. I just wanted to know what you thought about it. Does hell exist? I'm an Eckist, and don't know a lot about the teachings of the church and stuff, but from what I do understand, this sounds pretty good.
Okay, here's his paper.
Hell, by definition, is the total absence of God. We are told by the church that if we commit Mortal Sins, we are sent to Hell by God.
Now, Hell came to be because of an angelic revolt, in which the angel known as Lucifer (seeing as ‘Lucifer’ is Latin, it is highly unlikely this angel, who hates humans so much, would have a human name) and one third of the angels became angry with God because he created humans in his image, which made the angels jealous. So they were cast into Hell.
Here the first anomaly occurs. If God is indeed everywhere, then where would these outcasts go? For Hell to exist, there must be an absence of God. God created everything. Therefore, there is no possible way for Hell to be a place.
But say there is. For arguments sake, pretend God, for whatever reason, created some sort of vacuum where He and His Love does not exist. Now, it is taught by the church that God is love, that unconditional love for each of us is God’s love, which is God himself. We have love, God is love, we have God in us.
So God, who loves us no matter what the circumstances, condemns us to Hell for eternity if we commit a Mortal Sin. This is impossible. Either his love for us is indeed conditional, and he has lied to us and the angels, or we do not go to Hell, for when we die, we are pardoned by his infinite forgiveness.
Again, lets pretend Hell was not disproven a second time. So, we are sent to Hell. However, the instant we go to Hell, Hell ceases to exist, for where God exists, there can be no Hell. If God is love, and God is inside us all, wherever we go, Hell disappears. God is love, Hell is the absence of God, God loves us unconditionally, we have his love, Hell cannot exist in conjunction with God’s presence, there is no Hell.
.... Thoughts? Comments?
Not a specialist of the domain but here is the answers to some of your questions.
-Definition is wrong.Hell is creation from God to punish Satan and the ones who follows it, including certains humans, unfortunately.
-Not one third just one.jealous is not really the world it is more like arrogance.
-God is not love.God is God.Love exist because of God but no significant depency between Love and God exists.
-Forgiviness exists of course but only God is judge and decide.
It is that simple
I would never have thougth I'd discuss Spiritual subjects in an anime forum
Actually, that is the best syllogism I've read on this site yet. For those who don't know: a syllogism contains a major and minor premise (or multiple premises) that lead to a conclusion. If either of the premises can be proven false then the conclusion is false and un-trustworthy. Basic logic.
Here's the syllogism:
1. If God is omnipresent (everywhere at once)
2. And hell is where God is not
3. Then hell cannot exist.
Makes perfect since. It appears that you have proven that hell doesn't exist. Of course, the ramifications of that would ultimately disprove God Himself since He claimed there to be a hell.
There has not been one single post on this site that I was not able to immediately type a rebuttal - until now. I know it's false, but I have to formulate my thoughts first. This will be fun.
I will post later with a full rebuttal to your classmates false syllogism.
Personaly I think hell does exist, first as a prison to contain Satan and his followers for leading a rebellionagainst him, but now as penalty for humans for rejecting God's Love and Laws.
this thread is enteresting ^^ ok then from my point of view i defenitly think that hell exist to punish the ones who commits SINS and certains humans therefor i DON'T KNOW who told u that God's love ?(`_`)*just a question*
cuz God created everything in this whole world and ordered us to pray and do things like that but , whoever do otherwise well be punished *of course who dosen't join a certain religion (i won't say it's name^_^") well too be punished*
-Forgiviness exists of course but only God is judge and decide.
I AGREE here with dragonv12
Nice perspective in things there, I dont know what to believe in necessarily but i gotta admit that a good analogy. Cuase god must exist in Hell in order to be everywhere at once. But who knows God may or not be in Hell. As the old saying goes, In order to determine evil, you must think evily and coutneract it with a good. HArd to explain but meh.
My old man used to tell me When theres No More Room in Hell, The Dead Will Walk the Earth
Yes I believe that hell exists and that it is also very personal. For example when you kill yourself you go to a type of hell that really isn't hell at all rather you are returned to the same life you took yourself out of prematurely with no memory save the feelings in your gut of ever being there...a sort of hell but one that isn't punishing because you can get out of it.
That is quite interesting. (Thanks for summing it up in an organized fashion, kellyo.) I have a tendancy not to think about such things or ponder at all. I just accept things as how they are here and now, afterward? Does anyone really know? It's a belief system that people have built up to protect themselves, whether it's real or not becomes secondary due to a person's need to feel that they are in this world for a reason. If they had nothing to fear I think there would be quite a bit more chaos in the world. Which is hard to imagne due to all the wars that have ever been fought over religion.
This brings to mind an episode on "Red Dwarf" (British sci/fi comedy) where a missing page had been found from the bible that read, "everything in this book is completly ficitonal, any resemblance to any real life.....etc." and you could hear the audience laugh, only to stifle their laughter after realizing what they were laughing at. The reasoning your classmate posed is interesting and it does make one ponder, but I try not to.
Thanks for all your input everyone people! I really appreciate it.
Random tangent... the syllogism thing kellyo mentioned reminds me of one like it we did in my Speech and Debate class. My teacher assigned us a persuasion speech, and he said that using this meathod is one of the best ways to convince someone you're right. If you can prove that one is right, and that a second is also right, then people will tend to draw their own conclusion about the third. Take this one:
God is Love.
Love is Blind.
God is Blind.
That was more on the serious note. I liked this one better:
God is Love.
Love is Blind.
Ray Charles is Blind.
God is Ray Charles.
Oh, and the movie Elves mentioned, Red Dwarf.... I wouldn't be surprised if he's seen it. He's Brittish.
Anyway, you've all helped clear up a lot I didn't understand about Hell in general. Like I said, I don't know squat about it. My religion believes in reincarnation and karma. I like JenosydesWhisperMatrix's interpretation of hell, though. Almost like a second chance that's not weighted by our previous choices and actions. At least, it sounds better than the whole inescapable, fire and brimstone thing by grandparents tried to teach me about.
The syllogism that I "created" from the first argument mentioned does in fact have a flaw.
It assumes that God's presense is more powerful than His power. You see, God is omnipresent on earth. You cannot escape Him - from the highest mountain to the lowest depths of the sea but God can remove Himself - He has the power to do so. The Bible is very clear that God in fact removes Himself from the destination of those who don't believe. And, being omnipotent, He'd be able to do that very thing.
So, the correct syllogism would be:
1. God is omnipotent (all-powerfull)
2. God has the power to remove Himself (or turn His back)
3. Therefore, God can remove Himself from hell.
If He can do it, and He says He does do it, then He is NOT there. The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. Imagine, not one of those traits will exist because God is not there. Imagine if even one was removed from our world today. God is here because those exist but for those who say "My will be done" God will say "Thy will be done" and they will be removed from Him forever. Very sad.
merged: 02-07-2006 ~ 09:00am
Also, love isn't blind. It sees but it is long suffering. Point number two in your syllogism is the point that is false therefore proving your conclusion false as well.
Yeah, I agree with what you said regarding the "love is blind" thing. I was just explaining what our teacher explained. If you can prove that God is love, and then prove that love is blind, most people will subconsciously make the mental jump to connecting the two, that God is blind. It isn't necessarily true, it's just a form of messing with people's brains to get them to agree with your ideas, or, in the case of my debate class, prove that you're right and they're wrong.
I had to argue that conformity was better than individuality, so I stated that the definition of conformity was "to be in accordance, agreement and/or harmony", then I proved (using about half a dozen tangents, examples, and a dash of my own strange logic
)
that harmony and agreement was the key to peace. Therefore, according to my
evidence, conformity was the key to peace.
Then of course, I had to prove that individuality was a main component of war and death.
That part was fun. Especially went we got to get up in each other's
faces and argue.
.... Did I mention that the whole time I was doing this speech, I was dressed as Hitler?
Î don´t believe in hell or god... Have no religion but I don´t mind cause everyone has his own opinion about things going on!^^
ChosenEntity - I have to admit that I have told many people the "Ray Charles" syllogism. I think that is funny. I knew you didn't hold the "love" on to be true but I at the same was just showing how the syllogism works. Great post by the way.
Life is hell.
erm...*sees Suicide-Demon's reply*...okay....^^;
Anyway,If you are in any religious group such as Y.F.C (Youth For Christ) or whichever, you'd hear them saying that God is Love.
I have no idea why I just said that...It's far from my point actually. Continuing. We cannot really conclude that hell exists nor that it doesn't. For neither of us really knows. I mean, for one thing, there's the "appearances" of a "demon" believed to be "Lucifer". There are spirits and people have proven them through the "gifted ones" by communicating in the other "world". If these things exist, then Hell MIGHT exist too,right? They just can't be floating around.
Next, Yes, God has created the world. But "Satan" might also have the power to "create" a place where he and he's followers or fellow demons can be. Just because it is said that we will "go down" to hell doesn't mean that "hell" is literally down there in our world. Like how we say that we will "go up" to heaven doesn't mean that it's up in the skies.
Like I said. Nobody really knows.Even if the government knows all the secrets of the world in their files, it's impossible to find the answer to this thread inside them. It's all about faith. I think.
okok... try this.... i say that god is satan and satan is god.... why? coz god kills and he taught not to commit sins and if he is commiting sins then is he good or bad... also dont give me the "god is sinless and cannot commit sins" stuff coz killing is sin and if its not... we can kill without commiting sins either.... and he can control hell and heaven... ruler of heaven=god ruler of hell=satan?
and also i agree about Satan can have the power ot create a place for all the demons or his believers... it may be heaven and hell of another sort... but who knows... the Christian god may not know all... all i know is that the bible is making decisions for us on how we live and a path...and i am not one to follow it
well, all I can say on the topic is that the name HELL was taken from Norse mithology, It was one of the 9 worlds that rested in the sacred tree Ygdrassil, and it was the place destined for the people who didn't die in battle. Contrary to the Catholic belief though, it was not a place for punishing but rather a resting place, for the ruler of that place, the goddess HEL, would have parties and feasts for those who would dwell there.
I guess the fact that it was the world below midgard(our world) is the reason why the common belief is that the Catholic Satan lives somewhere below the ground.
PD The norse "hell" was a place of ice, not fire.
Wunjo!
I think hell is not a specific place
Instead it is a state of suffering, which can be different for different people
Hell can be right here on earth...
Actually I think the Christian Hell was icy too. At least I know Dante depicted the ninth circle of hell as the icy lake Cocytus. I think the idea was that the lowest levels of hell would be furthest from the warmth of god and, therefore, cold and frozen. Of course, I don't actually believe in such concepts, so to answer your question, hell does not exist.
HELL NO! jjejejeje
No, seriously, i don't believe in that stuff, neither in satan, oyama, shaitan, the devil, el chamuco or what ever "he" is called.
lol.... one very interesting thing to add.... a question..... how do you picture the devil?
like the Christian god.... they dont really have a picture for him except someone in white robes look old and wise and good... or watever the !@# ppl think about....
but actually in the bible... i dont think there is a physical description of him/her/it/where....lol....
so how do you picture the devil?
... My mom when she's angry.
So... bushy-haired, green-eyed, and red faced. 
Scary...
Seriously though... I'm not really sure. I don't think I could honestly come up with my own description without it having been affected by the views of others. Don't really believe in him/her/it, but I've always thought that the devil was more of a presence than a person, and lacks a true form. Not really there, but affecting us all the same. Maybe the essence of evil? Or the devil appears as our greatist fear?
Good question!
.... Hey! Another syllogism thingy to go off my tangent!
The Devil appears as the thing we fear most.
A Boggart appears as the thing we fear most.
The Devil is a Boggart.
Thanks for all your responses so far! You guys are great! *passes out cookies*
merged: 02-19-2006 ~ 02:24am
Hmmm... if the devil exists, is it a he or a she? Maybe neither, or a mixture of both? A she-him?
.... A shim! The devil's a shim!
Hell is de place u will go if u dun have Christ in ur life.