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Diogenes
Nervous Wreck (II) Inmate

From: Right behind you.
Insane since: May 2005

posted posted 06-05-2005 18:22

http://www.tentmaker.org/books/TheBibleHell.html

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.
Isaac Asimov
US science fiction novelist & scholar (1920 - 1992)

Gideon
Bipolar (III) Inmate

From: rooted on planet Mars, *I mean Earth*
Insane since: May 2004

posted posted 06-05-2005 21:08

Wow, I only did a cursory look, but it sounds like this guy did his homework.

I have often noted, as well, the different views of Hell. I have only really been exposed to a few, but those few are quite different. They range from eternal torment, to a non-chalant place with a few mansions, to Earth itself. Quite interesting what something can turn into, if so many different thoughts and philosophies claim it.

I personally have always viewed the Lake of Fire as the eternal resting place of rebellious peoples (including Satan and his angels), death, and Hell. I could be wrong, but that's what I get from reading The Book of the Revelation.

"For reason is a property of God's...moreover, there is nothing He does not wish to be investigated and understood by reason." ~Tertullian de paenitentia Carthaginian Historian 2nd century AD

Xpirex
Paranoid (IV) Inmate

From: Still looking..
Insane since: Mar 2003

posted posted 06-20-2005 06:51

If I do my homework will I too be able to decipher and resolve the questions that have been troubling and confusing man for a few thousand years? Hold on let me try.. (be right back)
Dam! nope it did not work. Maybe I went to the wrong school.

QUOTATION: "If you're too open minded, your brains will fall out."

Skaarjj
Maniac (V) Mad Scientist

From: :morF
Insane since: May 2000

posted posted 06-20-2005 07:23

"Since the beginning of time man has yearned to destroy the sun!"


Justice 4 Pat Richard

NoJive
Maniac (V) Inmate

From: The Land of one Headlight on.
Insane since: May 2001

posted posted 06-20-2005 14:29

Followed a link from that page and landed here. http://www.what-the-hell-is-hell.com/AncientHell.htm where I found the following. It's the hi-lited bit in 4. that has pretty much been my position since about age eight. That being it (the church/religion ) was just another bunch of people telling me what to do and by age eight I'd already had my fill of school.

quote:
The Inventors of Hell

1. Polybius, the ancient historian, says: "Since the multitude is ever
fickle, full of lawless desires, irrational passions and violence, there is
no other way to keep them in order but by the fear and terror of the
invisible world; on which account our ancestors seem to me to have acted
judiciously, when they contrived to bring into the popular belief these
notions of the gods, and of the infernal regions." B. vi 56.

2. Dionysius Halicarnassus treats the whole matter as useful, but not as
true. Antiq. Rom., B. ii

3. Livy, the celebrated historian, speaks of it in the same spirit; and he
praises the wisdom of Numa, because he invented the fear of the gods, as "a
most efficacious means of governing an ignorant and barbarous populace."
Hist., I 19.

4. Strabo, the geographer, says: "The multitude are restrained from vice by
the punishments the gods are said to inflict upon offenders, and by those
terrors and threatenings which certain dreadful words and monstrous forms
imprint upon their minds...For it is impossible to govern the crowd of
women, and all the common rabble, by philosophical reasoning, and lead
them to piety, holiness and virtue - but this must be done by superstition,
or the fear of the gods, by means of fables and wonders; for the thunder,
the aegis, the trident, the torches (of the Furies), the dragons, &c., are all fables,
as is also all the ancient theology. These things the legislators used as
scarecrows to terrify the childish multitude."
Geog., B. I



Just trying to keep you 'in place' when you weren't 'out of place'... in the first place.
I knew my place and it wasn't at their place. =)

Diogenes
Bipolar (III) Inmate

From: Right behind you.
Insane since: May 2005

posted posted 06-20-2005 16:52

I don't know what is sillier, those who promote these lies or those who believe them.

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.
Isaac Asimov
US science fiction novelist & scholar (1920 - 1992)

Moon Shadow
Paranoid (IV) Inmate

From: Rouen, France
Insane since: Jan 2003

posted posted 06-20-2005 19:40

Original translation of History Book 6 (Polybius) :

quote:
But among all the useful institutions, that demonstrate the superior excellence of the Roman government, the most considerable perhaps is the opinion which the people are taught to hold concerning the gods: and that, which other men regard as an object of disgrace, appears in my judgment to be the very thing by which this republic chiefly is sustained.

I mean, superstition: which is impressed with all it terrors; and influences both the private actions of the citizens, and the public administration also of the state, in a degree that can scarcely be exceeded. This may appear astonishing to many. To me it is evident, that this contrivance was at first adopted for the sake of the multitude. For if it were possible that a state could be composed of wise men only, there would be no need, perhaps, of any such invention. But as the people universally are fickle and inconstant, filled with irregular desires, too precipitate in their passions, and prone to violence; there is no way left to restrain them, but by the dread of things unseen, and by the pageantry of terrifying fiction.

The ancients, therefore, acted not absurdedly, nor without good reason, when they inculcated the notions concerning the gods, and the belief of infernal punishments; but much more those of the present age are to be charged with rashness and absurdity, in endeavoring to extirpate these opinions.



Full text

----
If wishes were fishes, we'd all cast nets.

Diogenes
Bipolar (III) Inmate

From: Right behind you.
Insane since: May 2005

posted posted 06-20-2005 23:38

Good stuff that!

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.
Isaac Asimov
US science fiction novelist & scholar (1920 - 1992)

Tao
Maniac (V) Inmate

From: The Pool Of Life
Insane since: Nov 2003

posted posted 06-21-2005 02:11

That's a good looking link Moon Shadow it's bookmarked for further study. Merci mon ami.

::tao:::: ::cell::

WebShaman
Maniac (V) Mad Scientist

From: Happy Hunting Grounds...
Insane since: Mar 2001

posted posted 06-21-2005 12:38

Yup, thanks for the link, MS.

Belladonna
Obsessive-Compulsive (I) Inmate

From:
Insane since: Jun 2005

posted posted 06-21-2005 19:59

Great link, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that I found 90% of it to be boring and dry.

I think it's also interesting to note , to me anyway, that even the Bible shows that Hell is a manmade concept used to instill fear. (ducks the bible-believer's blows)

God said, "from dust thou art, to dust ye shall return". He didn't say anything about Hell. Then Enoch (well, suposedly Enoch) introduces the place of fire where the renegade angels were imprisoned. Then the next thing you know, hey, that's where the "bad people" go when they die too.

It's looks pretty obvious that eternal punishment/eternal reward was instilled to subdue and control behavior, but where did the concepts come from? Heaven and hell are both the evolutionary offshoots of the idea of immortality, with the idea of Heaven coming first. Then followed by the idea of Hell. But where did the idea of immortality come from in the first place?

Is it that when primitive man first began to understand what it meant to die that he created an afterlife because he feared the unknown? I don't buy that. What may happen tomorrow is unknown to me, but I don't make up some story of what may happen so that I won't fear going to sleep and waking up tomorrow.

Or could it be that man made up the afterlife to help himself through the grieving process of the death of loved ones? It's easier to move on if you believe you will see your beloved Mother or Father or Husband or Wife again one day, right? I don't buy that either. Many people to this day don't believe in a heaven or hell, or maybe don't know what they believe of an "afterlife" and get through the grief process just fine. Also, I would think that primitive man, being much closer to nature than we oursleves in modern times are, would have a much more grounded thought process about life and death, seeing it everyday in life as he must have, and faced it everyday in much more perilous ways than we do, it (death) would be viewed as a natural and inevitable end.

So where did the idea of immortality come from? Seeing death all around, and knowing that all things experience death, why would man even get the idea that he can be immortal in the first place? In my mind, that's the same thing as saying that a child, born of Chinese parents, hearing only the Chinese language from the moment of his birth, all of a sudden one day began speaking French.

The only explanation in my mind is that man was taught the fact of immortality by someone or something. Sometime, way back before recorded history, there was something that gave man the idea of immortality. Or maybe I shouldn't say taught, because I don't really believe we were taught it so much as it is instilled in our very being. That we observed it and realized it was possible I guess is what I'm trying to say.

I'm new here at this site, and reading through some of the posts in the forums, I've been impressed with the intelligence and varience of opinions, and I'd really like to hear some of your ideas on this.

*****
In the web that is my own, I begin again...

(Edited by Belladonna on 06-21-2005 20:08)

WebShaman
Maniac (V) Mad Scientist

From: Happy Hunting Grounds...
Insane since: Mar 2001

posted posted 06-22-2005 08:11

Man got the idea of immortality, in order to escape the reality of death. It is the only way, obviously.

Mankind is very ingenious in coming up ways to solve problems. Immortality solves the problem of dying, and death.

Man is also good at denial. Thus, because there was no way to obtain this immortality in reality, it was set in an imaginary afterlife-type of further existence. Now all you have to do, is believe...

Belladonna
Obsessive-Compulsive (I) Inmate

From:
Insane since: Jun 2005

posted posted 06-22-2005 17:41

That's the answer that always comes up....and the one that makes the most sense. It's very hard to argue against it.

But I just can't make myself believe it wholeheartedly, and here's why. Mankind is very good at denial. But mankind is also very good at accepting and facing up to reality when forced to. Adaptation is how we've not only survived, but reached the very top of the food chain.

But in over all the millenia that humans have existed, and have witnessed and realized that death is a proven fact, we are still facinated by immortality. Look at the history of religion. Over the years, how we attain immortality, or what we must do to reach it, has changed over and over again. Now today, even scientists are looking for scientific ways to reach longevity. But the actual goal of immortality has not changed, or ceased to exist, which I believe would have been the logical thing to happen. (That we would eventually just accept death.) It's like it (immortality) is ingrained into us, like an instinct. I don't know.

Maybe I'm just thinking too hard about it. Personally, I wouldn't want to live forever....life's too much of a bitch sometimes, and there's been a few times I'd have loved some "eternal rest" And that's another reason I don't understand why the idea of immortality hasn't died out....most people if they are really honest, say they wouldn't want to live forever. So why is it sticking around?

Anyway, here's a link that's kind of interesting....off the subject of immortality, but still on the subject of "Bible Mythos Explained"

http://www.meta-religion.com/World_Religions/Christianity/Other_Articles/sabbath_origins.htm

*****
In the web that is my own, I begin again...

Gideon
Bipolar (III) Inmate

From: rooted on planet Mars, *I mean Earth*
Insane since: May 2004

posted posted 06-22-2005 21:35

You have some deep thinkin' going on there Bell.
From my knowledge, you are right about the apparent evolution of the Heaven and Hell in the Bible. If that is the case, though, why did it happen? Control? Revelation? Someone came up with a "good idea" one day? Drunken stupor? Why did Heaven and Hell (along with the lake of fire) appear, and why did it not happen sooner? What shaped the change?
(Sorry, I didn't mean to dump all those questions on you, just some that I thought of along the subject)

I'm no expert in other religions, but I know that most of them have an afterlife attached to them. Maybe that afterlife is a relfection of observations of consquences in life? When a person does good happens usually a result is good. When a person preforms a bad act, bad consequences follow. Perhaps extrapolating that sense into the distant future, along with spiritual guidance from religion is where the afterlife was founded.

"For reason is a property of God's...moreover, there is nothing He does not wish to be investigated and understood by reason." ~Tertullian de paenitentia Carthaginian Historian 2nd century AD

Diogenes
Bipolar (III) Inmate

From: Right behind you.
Insane since: May 2005

posted posted 06-22-2005 21:42

The origin is irrelevant,except to scholars, as it is all mythology.

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.
Isaac Asimov
US science fiction novelist & scholar (1920 - 1992)

DL-44
Maniac (V) Inmate

From: under the bed
Insane since: Feb 2000

posted posted 06-23-2005 02:25

Until the time of jesus, the concept of the 'kingdom of god' was quite literal - the jews expected to reign over a very corporal kingdom here on earth, which would be their reward for the centuries of suffering.

They had no such notion of eternal reward with god in heaven.

When jesus came along, the idea took a shift to the metaphorical and metaphyscial (which then became the "real" truth....)

The messiah was supposed to lead a military conquest. But since the alleged messiah did not do that...the whole story had to change somehow - thus the kingdom that was talked about becomes an ethereal one.

Gideon
Bipolar (III) Inmate

From: rooted on planet Mars, *I mean Earth*
Insane since: May 2004

posted posted 06-23-2005 17:45

Are you certain it is metaphysical DL? From what I have gathered it is metaphyisical for a while, but then becomes very corporal, ending with the eternal reign as a corporal one on Earth. If you have found other wise, I would love to know about it. These different versions of Heaven and Hell fascinate me.

True D-man, but as J.R.R. Tolkien once said Christianity is the "one true mythology." (emphasis mine)

"For reason is a property of God's...moreover, there is nothing He does not wish to be investigated and understood by reason." ~Tertullian de paenitentia Carthaginian Historian 2nd century AD

Belladonna
Obsessive-Compulsive (I) Inmate

From:
Insane since: Jun 2005

posted posted 06-23-2005 18:03

That sounds right DL-44, from everything I've read so far. Reading through all of Leviticus, the only thing God promises to give Isreal for their obedience is protection and prosperity. And the only thing he promises for dis-obedience is plauge and destruction. No heaven, no hell. Man lost immortality when he "sinned"

The only discrepancy is Enoch. He sees hell, the "angel's prison", and he sees paradise, which he is told is set aside for the "righteous" after the "great day of judgement". The problem is, some say Enoch was written A.D., some swear that parts were written B.C. I haven't seen difinitive proof either way, so. Those who claim the book of Enoch was written before Christ also say that Christ got his ideas for teaching from that book itself.

I tend to believe that Enoch was written before Christ, simply because Christ mentions the book and so do some of the disciples (I'm pretty sure anyway, correct me if I'm wrong). But it could also be said that Enoch was written after, because in the text, Enoch is told to tell his family all that he saw and witnessed. But if he did that, then Moses, who came way after Enoch, should have had the fact of at least "a paradise for the righteous after the judgement " in with the rewards of obedience. Leviticus proves that it is not included in the rewards. So the Bible contradicts itself big time on that one, it seems.

Gideon, have you ever read Enoch? If not, you should. It can be found online easily enough. Facinating stuff. Too dirty for the Catholics though. Priests can screw little boys all they want, but angels doing it with humans? Perrish the thought

*****
In the web that is my own, I begin again...

Gideon
Bipolar (III) Inmate

From: rooted on planet Mars, *I mean Earth*
Insane since: May 2004

posted posted 06-23-2005 18:10

^Never can trust them angels can you?
^AHH! PUN! AHH!
I have never heard of that book before. It isn't in the Bible, but is it in Jewish canon, or just an old book like the annals of the kings? If I get time I will try to look into it.

It may just be my bias speaking, but when I was reading the books of the prophets I was under the impression that the Jews were told about a paradise in the future. I could be wrong, but could it be the Jews who missinterpreted?

"For reason is a property of God's...moreover, there is nothing He does not wish to be investigated and understood by reason." ~Tertullian de paenitentia Carthaginian Historian 2nd century AD

Belladonna
Obsessive-Compulsive (I) Inmate

From:
Insane since: Jun 2005

posted posted 06-24-2005 19:12

No, I don't think Enoch was ever a part of the Jewish Canon. But it is part of the Ethiopic Canon, and always has been.

Daniel does makes the first reference to "deliverence of those written in the book" and the resurrection of the dead "some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt". But I really don't see where it says anything about being rewarded with an eternal life "in heaven".

But "when" they first show up really doesn't matter to me. The only thing that's relevent to me is that they weren't expressed from the beginning.

*****
In the web that is my own, I begin again...

DL-44
Maniac (V) Inmate

From: under the bed
Insane since: Feb 2000

posted posted 06-24-2005 19:40

On a complete sidenote, gideon -

It is interesting to note that Tertullian, though one of the most adamant supporters of the proto-orthodox view in the 2nd century, was a short time later declared a heretic by the same group he was such a large part of.

The view expressed in your quote was also soundly denounced in the 13th century, when the turn to reason became strong enough that the flaws inherent in church doctrine were being questioned.
In addition to that denouncement by the catholics, Martin Luther himself made very clear that reason was not the way to god, but rather that it got in the way.

So while it is a nice sentiment, it has been more or less condemned by christendom itself...

FWIW

WebShaman
Maniac (V) Mad Scientist

From: Happy Hunting Grounds...
Insane since: Mar 2001

posted posted 06-24-2005 21:28

And DL, the Troll does a very good job of avoiding reason, wherever he can.

Nice bit of info , though.

Diogenes
Bipolar (III) Inmate

From: Right behind you.
Insane since: May 2005

posted posted 06-24-2005 23:18

WS I fear you do Gid a justice.

He just ain't bright enough INSMHO, to be trolling.

Like the notchord some insects rely upon for brains, his 'intellect' is just reactive or perhaps a tropism?

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.
Isaac Asimov
US science fiction novelist & scholar (1920 - 1992)

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