To Hell with you!
By Fred C. Amora
October 29, 2006 The Bohol StandardHell in our understanding is Infierno. A lake of fire where the wicked are dumped forever.
But is Hell real? Where is it?
Here’s some research I did. Browse it over while pondering on life on All Souls Day.
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In modern times the belief in physical punishment after death and the endless duration of this punishment has been rejected by many. The question about the nature of the punishment of hell is equally controversial. Opinions range from holding the pains of hell to be no more than the remorse of conscience to the traditional belief that the “pain of loss†(the consciousness of having forfeited the vision of God and the happiness of heaven) is combined with the “pain of sense†(actual physical torment).
Hell, in religion, is any place or state of punishment and privation for human souls after death. More strictly, the term is applied to the place or state of eternal punishment of the damned, whether angels or human beings. The doctrine of the existence of hell is derived from the principle of the necessity for vindication of divine justice, combined with the human experience that evildoers do not always appear to be punished adequately in their lifetime. Belief in a hell was widespread in antiquity and is found in most religions of the world today.
Among the early Teutons the term hell signified a place under the Earth to which the souls of all mortals, good or bad, were consigned after death; it thus denoted a conception similar to that of the Hebrew Sheol. Among the early Jews, as in other Semitic nations, existence in Sheol was regarded as a shadowy continuation of earthly life where all of the problems of earthly life came to an end. Later the dictum of the prophet Isaiah that the king of Babylon shall be “brought down to Sheol, to the depths of the Pit†(14:15) gave rise to the concept of various depths of Sheol, with corresponding degrees of reward and punishment.
Early Christian writers used the term hell to designate (1) the limbo of infants, where the unbaptized enjoy a natural bliss but are denied the supernatural bliss of the vision of God; (2) the limbo of the fathers, in which the souls of the just who died before the advent of Christ await their redemption, and which is mentioned in the Apostles' Creed, “He [Christ] descended into hellâ€; (3) purgatory, a place of purgation from minor offences leading inevitably to heaven and (4) the place of punishment of Satan and the other fallen angels and of all mortals who die unrepentant of serious sin. The last of these interpretations has the greatest acceptance today.
The duration of the punishments of hell has been a subject of controversy since early Christian times. The 3rd century Christian writer and theologian Origen and his school taught that the purpose of these punishments was purgatorial, and that they were proportionate to the guilt of the individual. Origen held that, in time, the purifying effect would be accomplished in all, even devils; that punishment would ultimately cease; and that everyone in hell eventually would be restored to happiness.
Islam derived its concept of hell from Judaeo-Christian and Zoraostrian sources. Hell was visualized as a pit of fire spanned by a narrow bridge leading to heaven. All dead souls must cross the bridge, and unless redeemed by Allah's mercy, the damned fall from it to suffer in the pit.
Buddhism adopted and modified the Hindu concepts of both reincarnation and hell. According to orthodox Buddhist cosmology, the six “destinies†of mortal existence include three spheres in which those burdened by particularly detrimental karma may be reincarnated: The “destiny†of hell, the “destiny†of the hungry ghosts, and the “destiny†of warring demons. As in Hinduism, the tortures suffered in these “destinies†serves to purge the soul's evil karma and free it for reincarnation on a higher plane.
Hinduism envisioned 21 hells which form part of the endless cycle of transmigration of souls. The consequences of mortal actions will lead sinners to be reincarnated in hell, where demons will torment them until their sins have been purged and they are free to be reincarnated on a higher level.
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