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Stasi wrote:

Shinizo wrote:

Stasi wrote:

I never was either. A lot of frightening imagery has been used throughout history to depict Hell as a place full of monsters, fire, and so on. Even the Catholic Church came out and said that Satan is not some horned monstrosity, he is a man. When I was religious, it was taught that the torment of being in out of Heaven is more about the guilt of what one did in life and the knowledge of what could have been should better choices have been made. Then again, I was LDS and we believed that Hell (or the Outer Darkness) itself was reserved for those who committed the ultimate betrayal - being given the knowledge (not just faith or belief, but the kind of knowledge someone like Moses would possess) of God's Truth and making the concious decision to work against it - not a place that would be heavily populated.... Being outside of Heaven would typically mean being in either the Telestial Kingdom (the lowest of the three levels of glory), which is where murderers, etc. go, or being in the Terrestrial Kingdom - otherwise good people who upon being given the necessary teachings of the gospel decided not to accept it. The thing I like about the LDS church that most others don't preach is that one can be offered salvation after they die - which means that someone who never heard of Jesus will be given the fair opportunity to accept the gospel in death, rather than go to Hell out of an unjust technicality like so many other Christians preach. It also means that Christ, in His ultimate mercy and just character can tell whether or not individual A had as fair a chance to accept the gospel as individual B, and mete out justice and opportunity accordingly. An individual, in addition to accept Christ as their Saviour would have to make a strong effort to live by Christ's teachings (and those of the Prophets) in order to achieve Celestial glory. In the LDS church, accepting Christ as the Saviour and living in a decent manner, in accordance with Christ's teachings are essentially one in the same.

I've always thought of Heaven and Hell generally close to the same. However, hell would have demons (which would be angels in hell) and Satan and have somewhat the same layout as heaven, except it wouldn't be the same as heaven. Sort of like a torment thing Satan will do to you to let you know what heaven would look like, but how you can't have it? Who knows.


I always thought heaven to be a place where you are surrounded by the people you know and the people who want to make their precense known to you, also. But everyone knows you're there and such. Doesn't make much sense, but I don't see hell has a fire-ridden dark, damp empty place and heaven as a shiney light thing, even though the bible describes it as such, I think God just did that to blind the people from what heaven really was.


I think heaven to be something the same as Hell, since Satan wanted to be God, basically. So he copies God, except does it his own way.


Twisted way of thinking it, I guess.

Interesting way of looking at it. I've always viewed Heaven as a place like earth, in that there are objects, trees, rivers, etc., just that the eco system and society operates without contention - where everyone who's made it there remembers from their earthly life, and learns from what the Lord teaches in Heaven, isn't 'good' because they can't be evil, but rather the trueness of goodness is made so clear that whether or not a person can choose to be evil in Heaven is moot - no one there would want to.

Stasi wrote:

Reaper wrote:

Stasi wrote:
I never was either.  A lot of frightening imagery has been used throughout history to depict Hell as a place full of monsters, fire, and so on.  Even the Catholic Church came out and said that Satan is not some horned monstrosity, he is a man.  When I was religious, it was taught that the torment of being in out of Heaven is more about the guilt of what one did in life and the knowledge of what could have been should better choices have been made. 

Yes, I either read somewhere or heard on the radio (or both) that when the word "fire" is used in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, it is almost always depicting guilt or torment, not a real fire.

Yes. And if you look at it all from a historical perspective, only recently in Christianity's history have so many people been literate. Therefore, where written words were useless, graphic depictions of certain concepts made more sense - and the prevailing images were those that were the most effective at eliciting fear of evil and a desire to be good.

Shinizo wrote: I've also always thought of heaven to be a place YOU make it, just God rules over it completely. It doesn't quite make sense, but I'm guessing hell would be similar to the same way. You can have paradise in Hell, but Satan resides inside it, so you will never fully enjoy it completely, where as the people in heaven will be enjoying their paradise with God as the ruler over their spiritual lives. Which is why the people in Hell can still sin, because they will be jealous of the people in heaven.

I've also heard that if a person gets sent to hell, and they were, say your brother or sister, and you went to heave.. that you forget about them. It's so that they won't hinder any decision in heaven. I've always had mixed feelings of a "sinless body" even though it may just be possible. I don't think the people in Hell suffer all the way to the end, even though the bible says it. It could have been something God told the apostles to write to make people believe, since we are human after all. And fear rules over us mostly. I think, even though you do go to hell, you can be saved at the end of time itself. As heaven becomes an eternal earth at the end of time, I think Hell turns into an what earth is today.


So, we go to a spiritual earth, a cleansed new earth. And God casts the devil and the angels that were with the devil to roam the current earth. Maybe the people who apparently didn't want to be saved.

Reaper wrote:

Shinizo wrote: I've also always thought of heaven to be a place YOU make it, just God rules over it completely. It doesn't quite make sense, but I'm guessing hell would be similar to the same way. You can have paradise in Hell, but Satan resides inside it, so you will never fully enjoy it completely, where as the people in heaven will be enjoying their paradise with God as the ruler over their spiritual lives. Which is why the people in Hell can still sin, because they will be jealous of the people in heaven.

I've also heard that if a person gets sent to hell, and they were, say your brother or sister, and you went to heave.. that you forget about them. It's so that they won't hinder any decision in heaven. I've always had mixed feelings of a "sinless body" even though it may just be possible. I don't think the people in Hell suffer all the way to the end, even though the bible says it. It could have been something God told the apostles to write to make people believe, since we are human after all. And fear rules over us mostly. I think, even though you do go to hell, you can be saved at the end of time itself. As heaven becomes an eternal earth at the end of time, I think Hell turns into an what earth is today.


So, we go to a spiritual earth, a cleansed new earth. And God casts the devil and the angels that were with the devil to roam the current earth. Maybe the people who apparently didn't want to be saved.

Not to be intrusive or anything, but are you non-denominational? Or something else?

I feel really bad for asking this.

Shinizo wrote:
I'm Methodist, but I'm really open about religious point of views. Makes learning things about it more interesting.

Reaper wrote:

Shinizo wrote:
I'm Methodist, but I'm really open about religious point of views. Makes learning things about it more interesting.

Oh. Well then ok. I don't know too much about Methodists because I'm PCA Presbyterian.

Shinizo wrote: I'm Methodist, but I'm really open about religious point of views. Makes learning things about it more interesting.

Reaper wrote: Not to be intrusive or anything, but are you non-denominational? Or something else? 

I feel really bad for asking this.

Stasi wrote:

Shinizo wrote: I'm Methodist, but I'm really open about religious point of views. Makes learning things about it more interesting.

Out of curiousity, are you a pacifist?

TheSpaceAgeDude wrote: I hate that, I truely do, saying that if you're not a christian...you go straight to hell..that is what my R.E teacher said recently and I got annoyed, because I personally believe and swear to it that you go to the afterlife if you haven't murdered, burgled, raped etc.
I feel that by saying non-christians will go to hell is a tactic to scare people to becoming christians, I honestly dislike the whole thing.

TheSpaceAgeDude wrote: Yeah I'm sorry, I just feel very frustrated about that sort of stuff, mainly because how a christian who is supposed a believer of God could quite possibly say non-christians will burn in hell...and believe me, some christians do say this sort of stuff, I find it quite ridiculous. Only that part of it.

TheSpaceAgeDude wrote: Ah right, you're a christian...hmmm..well I guess some of them go too far, eh?