Michael Burch, a poet, creator of The HyperTexts and reformed fundamentalist Christian, has written the most detailed exposition I have ever seen on the issue of whether “hell” is a concept that should be accepted by Christians. The exposition has a mercifully short and clear introductory section that covers the key points – and then, for those who want to consider every possible aspect, continues at length.
Hell, as imagined by Hieronymus Bosch
Personally, as a skeptic, I find the idea of hell simply ludicrous. As Omar Khayyam says scornfully to God (in FitzGerald’s translation):
Oh Thou, who didst with pitfall and with gin
Beset the Road I was to wander in,
Thou will not with Predestin’d Evil round
Enmesh me, and impute my Fall to Sin?
(“Gin” meaning “noose of hair or wire for snaring wild birds alive”… which might be the origin of the drink’s name, I suppose.)
Hell is hardly a logical product of an all-powerful Creator, unless that Creator is by nature a sadist. Rather the word that has been so often translated as “hell” is “sheol”, meaning “a grave” or “the place where all dead people go”… which is why, in Psalm 139:8, King David could say that if he made his bed in Sheol, God would be there with him.
Forget hell. It’s a stupid idea.
The Gospel According to the Romans 
I always enjoy your posts, Robin. Nice to see you back.
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Mostly working on poetry these days, Greta: editing chapbooks for Sampson Low in the UK. (No money, of course!) See: formalverse.com
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Might I say that God created us for union with Him. He endowed us with free will to choose between good and evil. Therefore it is ourselves who choose to go to hell for “Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?” Ezekiel 18:23
If we don’t have free will then we’re all robots with no moral responsibility.
God made hell only for Satan and his rebel angels, He does not wish for a single soul to go there. If he is a sadist, then he is not God, for sadism is a human imperfection and can have no share in God’s perfection. Anthropomorphising God doesn’t really make sense. Only if you’re a skeptic I guess.
More philosophically, if evil doesn’t exist, than neither does good. Therefore if hell doesn’t exist or should be forgotten about, than neither does heaven. If one doesn’t believe in any of that, then why be good at all? Why live if doing good has no meaning? It’s an unfortunate mystery that God permits evil to exist. But He uses that do draw out goodness. Life is suffering. But without suffering, you’d shoot yourself from the boredom. Or at least, discover a more bitter form of suffering, that of realizing that you didn’t really live at all.
If there is no hell, there is no justice. If there is no heaven, there is no mercy.
True, there is no ‘hell’ in the bible. But Christ talks about ‘eternal fire’ and ‘judgement’ more than anyone else in Scripture… Honestly He says some craaazy things.
Yes, bit of a mess given I’ve tried to fit in a lot of ideas in a short post. That’s the internet I guess.
It’s also 8 years late lol
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