How Does Going to Hell Look Like?

How did this turn into a debate over whose version of religion is best?
Any mention of afterlife and it turns into a religious pissing contest and textual interpretation argument.

reply to post by OneManArmy


You gotta be careful when you're talking about hell, or how people might avoid it.

At least we moved the discussion from continual, obsessive contemplation of what it would be like to be IN hell, that's a start isn't it, to move the point of attention, heavenwards..?

reply to post by NewAgeMan

You did not engineer your own salvation.

Dying is a pretty wretched thing to go through and I didn't choose that for myself, so I think that you are missing something in your little equation that you are trying to fit me into.
Where I ended up was exactly where I deserved to be considering the belief system that I had adopted.
It took me a lot of years to figure out where the flaw was and it was being a little too uncritical of other people's teaching of what I now understand to be mere theory making.
So I never thought that I was somehow "saving" myself, and I think it is not all said and done until you meet your final judgment.

Jesus is like a portal of forgiveness which works two ways, where it demands as much as it gives out.

reply to post by NewAgeMan

Wow! I'm impressed. Good luck with that! But if you see me crawling up, face down, and in tears, will you lend me a hand and help me to stand up? If Jesus will not and cannot do it, maybe you can help me, because I almost compulsively fall short of God's glory and righteousness, although his life and spirit is in me, however much I manage to cause it to grieve. And no my sins are not THAT great, but I am an addictive type of personality, all or nothing with a tendency toward self gratification. Forgive me because I have sinned, and I will be in dire need of friends like you when the time comes. May you serve as a model for my increasing righteousness.

Romans 3:23
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
(2011 NIV)
Paul says that to point out that even people who have the Law of Moses fall short because that law does not by itself have the power to make a person better.
But, he goes on, the Law and Prophets do have another value (besides identifying us all as falling short), which is that it pointed ahead to a "law of faith" that we now understand through Jesus.
This new law of faith does have the power to make us righteous, which is the accurate way to define what Paul means there when he says there is a way of justification, which is making us straight and right according to a godly standard.
My point is in these posts, that once you realize that you really have to stand judgment for who you are, and there is no avoiding it, then your reaction should be to have an increased desire to be actually righteous.
If you don't have that reaction, and feel that it is safe to hide behind misinterpretations of scripture, then you will not be able to stand before God and will be down in a hole somewhere very deep down and safe from the sight of God.

reply to post by FlowThruSpace


Being in hell would be painful, complete control by those who love power.

Judgmental people who likes to criticize, put people down, and bully. ..

Oh wait, nevermind, that's EARTH.

reply to post by jmdewey60


Agree. Agree. With both your posts, but let us not forget that it's a journey of the soul towards true relationship with God. It's not all about outward appearances or even who we take ourselves to be, but who and what we REALLY are as spiritual beings. In other words, where the soul goes, the mind and body will begin to follow or "where the heart is, there will our treasure be also", so it's all a question of what object our innermost heart's desire is attached, and that's the direction we'll end up following where goodness is it's own reward.

It's not for the faint of heart though or the cowardly, and you're right that it's not just some formula like a magic wand. Works must follow faith for faith to be perfected and the sinner to become a saint where it may be said that every sinner has a future, and every saint, a past. (Oscar Wilde).

So there's still joy and humor there, along the way. We cannot take ourselves TOO seriously, while taking our eternal soul and God much more seriously.

These are spiritual things, requiring a certain spiritual disposition and attitude, which in seeking after union with God, although it (the soul) may be led through a "dark night of the soul" it will find the joy of the morning dawn in the increased faith, hope and trust in God's salvation and deliverance.

This whole notion though of trying to be righteous to earn merit, must be discarded lest we succumb to the final temptation and the last lie of the evil one, namely that it was solely by our own doing that we were made righteous where pride always goes before the fall, that's the only thing to watch out for in attempting to be righteous, and after all, it can only be in the sight of God, so there's never anything to brag about.

Belief itself, or by saying the "sinners prayer" does not make a person "saved", you're right, and as we've seen that can have taken place without any real change of heart, mind, and soul even amid a total mastery of the scripture. A person could even end up going to Divinity School and getting their PhD, and still not be in love with God or a real instrument of God's love.

But oh what disappointment there would be for anyone who presumes themselves to be saved, but who's heart was never in it, and who never sought the love of God, can you imagine?!

I am not the most righteous person, yet, but I do have a love for God, just need to bring my heart's desire into better alignment with His perfect will, which is the will to love.

In short I agree with your take on it, that it's to make us into better people, disciples, even to the very likeness of Jesus, and then there's the sanctification capable of leading us to heaven whereby justification alone via a mere profession of faith and belief doesn't really win the prize or the promise and the reward, which is a reunion with God and nothing less than a type of marriage with God.

I think we're both in agreement and good on you for achieving any real degree of righteousness. You'll look good in heaven, well adorned I'm sure, and you know of course that your robe will have been washed clean in the blood of the lamb and that you did not knit it yourself, since it is given to us by the father, in the glory of the son.

reply to post by NewAgeMan

These are spiritual things, requiring a certain spiritual disposition and attitude . . .

I didn't go through a "dark night of the soul".
I was always upbeat due to my believing in so much happy-talk about being "saved".
It wasn't until I was being drug out of my bed by five demons that I realized something was wrong.
That was when the falling started that resulted in my ending up in this "hell" place.
I did have what probably amounts to PTSD for so many years afterwards because it was really horrible even if there wasn't flames and screaming involved.

reply to post by jmdewey60


Ah humor, even in spite of it (good for you), and that's as dark as a dark night of the soul can get and beats the crap out of what St. John of the Cross went though!

Yes, when a bunch of demons drag you out of bed to hell, then at that point you know something might have been a little "off" as to the status of your salvation say according to have said aloud the sinners prayer or some such thing.

HOWEVER, don't forget that when someone's on their way to God, even as a real possibility, that that's when the attack comes, yours being just a little more um, terrifying, than the normal ordeal.

In the overall pattern of the story or unfolding of events, did you notice any parallels with any scenarios from the Bible, like say those three guys in a furnace, a death and resurrection, baptism, swallowed by Leviathon or anything like that? because I've come to think, looking back on such events what I call a "dark night of the soul" or DNOTS, that they always contain powerful allegorical archetypes meant to help bring the soul through some peril or another, to the point of deliverance or salvation. It has a pattern, in other words, and if such experiences can serve to teach others, or provide some valuable insight, then that's a real boon to one's fellow man.

So can you elaborate on your experience, while retaining your mirth and charm, and what it taught you and as a result what we might be able to learn from it?

After all, you are the only or one of the only people, participating in this thread, who's actually been taken there or attempted to be dragged there to that place called "hell".

Please share, and while you're at it, please help us, so that we might avoid a similar such experience no matter who we are or what we might presume about our spiritual condition ie: saved, justified, sanctified, etc. Thanks! NAM.

reply to post by NewAgeMan

At least we moved the discussion from continual, obsessive contemplation of what it would be like to be IN hell, that's a start isn't it, to move the point of attention, heavenwards..?

Neither of which we know anything about.

AfterInfinity
reply to post by NewAgeMan

 

At least we moved the discussion from continual, obsessive contemplation of what it would be like to be IN hell, that's a start isn't it, to move the point of attention, heavenwards..?

Neither of which we know anything about.

That's only half true.

There is no Hell to know anything about, except as a work of fiction/404.

On the other hand, Jesus had a lot to say: "The Kingdom of Heaven is like..."

Denial and unsupported statements do not make any difference.

NewAgeMan
reply to post by OneManArmy

 

You gotta be careful when you're talking about hell, or how people might avoid it.

At least we moved the discussion from continual, obsessive contemplation of what it would be like to be IN hell, that's a start isn't it, to move the point of attention, heavenwards..?

No not really, being as thats the whole subject of this thread.
Any diversion away from that would be steering the thread off topic.
There are plenty of other threads debating whose interpretation of written religious texts is the "truth".
I would rather this wasnt one of them.

Im sure if the OP wasnt interested in the circular and never ending debates about whose version of religion is "best".
Other wise the thread title would have been "whose religion or denomination thereof is best?".

OneManArmy

NewAgeMan
reply to post by OneManArmy

 

You gotta be careful when you're talking about hell, or how people might avoid it.

At least we moved the discussion from continual, obsessive contemplation of what it would be like to be IN hell, that's a start isn't it, to move the point of attention, heavenwards..?

No not really, being as thats the whole subject of this thread.
Any diversion away from that would be steering the thread off topic.
There are plenty of other threads debating whose interpretation of written religious texts is the "truth".
I would rather this wasnt one of them.

Im sure if the OP wasnt interested in the circular and never ending debates about whose version of religion is "best".
Other wise the thread title would have been "whose religion or denomination thereof is best?".

Yes, you're right, it seems we've veered off-topic. It's bound to happen. Oh well. At least the debate emerged instead.

jmdewey60
reply to post by NewAgeMan

 

These are spiritual things, requiring a certain spiritual disposition and attitude . . .

I didn't go through a "dark night of the soul".
I was always upbeat due to my believing in so much happy-talk about being "saved".
It wasn't until I was being drug out of my bed by five demons that I realized something was wrong.
That was when the falling started that resulted in my ending up in this "hell" place.
I did have what probably amounts to PTSD for so many years afterwards because it was really horrible even if there wasn't flames and screaming involved.

Dead jmdewey60,

It sounds ilke quite the experience you had. As I mentioned it would be nice to hear more about it, to understand these things better, and maybe learn from them whatever there might be to be learned, if anything.

Have you ever asked yourself the questions - Why me? and, What does it mean?

And if you have, what types of conclusions or inferences might you have arrived at or drawn in attempting to answer those questions?

Best Regards,

NAM

reply to post by Lazarus Short

There is no Hell to know anything about, except as a work of fiction/404.

On the other hand, Jesus had a lot to say: "The Kingdom of Heaven is like..."

Speaking of unsupported statements...

jmdewey60
reply to post by NewAgeMan

 

These are spiritual things, requiring a certain spiritual disposition and attitude . . .

I didn't go through a "dark night of the soul".
I was always upbeat due to my believing in so much happy-talk about being "saved".
It wasn't until I was being drug out of my bed by five demons that I realized something was wrong.
That was when the falling started that resulted in my ending up in this "hell" place.
I did have what probably amounts to PTSD for so many years afterwards because it was really horrible even if there wasn't flames and screaming involved.

edit on 23-11-2013 by jmdewey60 because: (no reason given)

Now that is a story I would like to hear more about.

reply to post by OneManArmy

Now that is a story I would like to hear more about.

That was almost thirty years ago and I showed up at the hospital barely alive, and spent the next two months in there and it wasn't really clear most of that time if I would ever make it out being still alive.
I was kind of on a death watch where they moved me to the room closest to the nurse's station where they could see me all the time.
I was on the third floor so I didn't see the demons come out of the ground exactly but up from the floor.
They took ahold of me with these claw-like hands, one on each limb, and another (the fifth) who went around behind me while explaining to me how they had been waiting for this opportunity when I was in a weakened state in order to take me.
For a second during this process I was apparently split into three parts, where the conscious me went to the ceiling above me, where I could see my body lying in bed while the demons pulled I guess a spirit body out of me and began dragging it through the floor.
Then I was inside that part that was falling through the dark tunnel, down and down.

FlowThruSpace
Yes, you're right, it seems we've veered off-topic. It's bound to happen. Oh well. At least the debate emerged instead.

a debate implies compromise... without it there is something else, closer to a dictation.

jmdewey60
reply to post by OneManArmy

 

Now that is a story I would like to hear more about.

That was almost thirty years ago and I showed up at the hospital barely alive, and spent the next two months in there and it wasn't really clear most of that time if I would ever make it out being still alive.
I was kind of on a death watch where they moved me to the room closest to the nurse's station where they could see me all the time.
I was on the third floor so I didn't see the demons come out of the ground exactly but up from the floor.
They took ahold of me with these claw-like hands, one on each limb, and another (the fifth) who went around behind me while explaining to me how they had been waiting for this opportunity when I was in a weakened state in order to take me.
For a second during this process I was apparently split into three parts, where the conscious me went to the ceiling above me, where I could see my body lying in bed while the demons pulled I guess a spirit body out of me and began dragging it through the floor.
Then I was inside that part that was falling through the dark tunnel, down and down.

Then what happened.. did it end at that point, with you snapping back into your body? Then again it has been said that hell has no bottom.. so maybe there was nothing there on the other side of the longgg dark tunnel, "down and down".

reply to post by NewAgeMan

Then what happened.. did it end at that point, with you snapping back into your body? Then again it has been said that hell has no bottom.. so maybe there was nothing there on the other side of the longgg dark tunnel, "down and down".

I suppose that you didn't read the earlier posts on this thread where I described what I found when I got to the end of the tunnel.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by jmdewey60


Thanks. Sounds rather scary and horrible. The "battlements atop the cliffs" is an interesting tid bit, as if guarded from an outside invasion, or an internal mass exodus.

How did the experience end? Was it just like waking up from a bad dream? One minute you're there and the next, back in your body? Or was there some form of intervention which pulled you out of there as many NDE's report.


Um, jmdewey60, if I told you that i might be able to offer another, alternative explanation, something that you might not have considered before, as to why and how this experience took place, would you like to hear it?

Best Regards,

NAM aka Bob