Priest says Hell is an invention of the church to control people with fear

The Tibetan book of the dead may differ from you.

I am missing your point. Are you saying that the TBD refers to Hell? Feel free to explain...thanks

How dare you, OP - Religious people love that place. They navigate by the dim light of its very fires . .why would you try and take it away from them?!

the priest is correct that no hell exists as described in the bible

hell is a state of being which can be experienced in human life

another form of hell is when physical (human) consciousness cannot reunite with singular spirit consciousness after death, the duration of which is hell. some people can't reunite due to material attachments with loved ones and objects but it's not too bad. others due to the atrocities that they have committed and/or experienced, they have to face and acknowledge what they have done and/or experienced in order to reunite.

great post!!! thanks!

interesting...thanks for sharing

thank you for building the bridges :)

The Tibean book of the dead's title is actually "The Great Liberation upon Hearing in the Intermediate State" or "Bardo Thodol"

This description pretty much sums up that text:

"The Bardo Thodol teaches that once awareness is freed from the body, it creates its own reality as one would experience in a dream. This dream occurs in various phases (bardos) in ways both wonderful and terrifying. Overwhelming peaceful and wrathful visions and deities appear. Since the deceased's awareness is in confusion of no longer being connected to a physical body, it needs help and guidance in order that enlightenment and liberation occurs. The Bardo Thodol teaches how we can attain Nirvana by recognizing the heavenly realms instead of entering into the lower realms"

(from [link to www.near-death.com] )


I bolded the key point.. Any "hell" or "heaven" is self-created and not an underlying basic structure of reality eh

So essentially, the text instructs you to create a specific dream to resolve things in a structured manner, so that the followers of that sect of buddhism have a common experience to work with.

Last Edited by nomind on 08/16/2011 10:45 PM

That's what Luther said too. Hell is not when we die it is at the end of the world. (Matthew 13:24)

Dont believe any priest about anything. Read it for yourself. That's why often the priest will tell you to not read the Bible yourself.

He is a priest in title only, and is leading many astray. Jesus said that those who lead his little ones astray, would be better off if they had never been born, or should have a millstone tied around their necks, and thrown in the depths of the sea.

EXACTLY!

Our dreams are 4thD realities that we create during periods of unconsciousness. In life the world around us is what we create.

Think about it. Are you a paranoid type? In this world everyone is out to get you. The Taxi driver, government, trash collector? Life sucks.

Are you a trusting type? Everyone in the world is your friend! That smile across the shopping counter, the compliment from that customer at Starbucks, the perfect parking spot every time. Life is good!

There is a balance (for me anyways) in the center.

In the closer to spirit state we create in the 4thD more freely. After death we have no choice but to exist in this state.

If your a person that thinks everyone is after you then welcome to own hell. The only escape is a return to this world.

If your a person that believes everyone is your friend welcome to the state of blissful heaven and complete escape from the animal world of 3rdD.

Heaven and Hell has all the markings of a conspiracy.

Who benefits? Priests, Kings and the Clergy TPTB back in the day.



Just my $.02

"Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus

19 Jesus said, “There was a certain rich man who was splendidly clothed in purple and fine linen and who lived each day in luxury. 20 At his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus who was covered with sores. 21 As Lazarus lay there longing for scraps from the rich man’s table, the dogs would come and lick his open sores.
22 “Finally, the poor man died and was carried by the angels to be with Abraham.[e] The rich man also died and was buried, 23 and his soul went to the place of the dead.[f] There, in torment, he saw Abraham in the far distance with Lazarus at his side.

24 “The rich man shouted, ‘Father Abraham, have some pity! Send Lazarus over here to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue. I am in anguish in these flames.’

25 “But Abraham said to him, ‘Son, remember that during your lifetime you had everything you wanted, and Lazarus had nothing. So now he is here being comforted, and you are in anguish. 26 And besides, there is a great chasm separating us. No one can cross over to you from here, and no one can cross over to us from there.’

27 “Then the rich man said, ‘Please, Father Abraham, at least send him to my father’s home. 28 For I have five brothers, and I want him to warn them so they don’t end up in this place of torment.’ 29 “But Abraham said, ‘Moses and the prophets have warned them. Your brothers can read what they wrote.’

30 “The rich man replied, ‘No, Father Abraham! But if someone is sent to them from the dead, then they will repent of their sins and turn to God.’

31 “But Abraham said, ‘If they won’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they won’t listen even if someone rises from the dead.’”

[link to www.biblegateway.com]

TRUE! Have NO fear!


Pope John Paul II
"Hell, is not a punishment imposed by God, despite what everyone has always said. No, it's just an unwise choice that humans make. The images of hell in scripture, he suggested, are taken too literally. Actually, hell is the condition of those who separate themselves from God, "the pain, frustration and emptiness of life without God."

[link to www.robertfulford.com]

For discussion.

Of course that is true like all religion is bs.. Created by the elites and the sheep follow..And back in the day if people didn't believe they were slaughtered..They worked on fear and still do in dividing religions to help create war for profit..Worlds ran by evil and its quite obvious with anyone with half a brain...

Of course. That's the oldest trick in the religious world. Remember people were isolated back in the day. They had no way to realize how absurd stuff was.

Imagination is truth.

And a parable it is. If this were a literal account of afterlife, the most obvious question is why is the Rich Man having a conversation instead of screaming uncontrollably? He's on fire. Secondly, why does he request a mere fingertip of water? And for his tongue? If his tongue is the first thing he wants extinguished, how is he even speaking? How does he even have a tongue? If he's dead, his inanimate body is lying motionless in some kind of grave.

What were his sins? Jesus never tells us, so it doesn't make for a very legitimate warning. He merely says the guy was well-dressed and well-fed, criteria which actually apply to most American christians.

Our rich guy here is Judah, with five brothers. The whole chapter is about stewardship - the accountability of the priesthood for what they did with what they were given. They failed severely, setting themselves up a nice little racket instead of blessing the people.

Meanwhile, some say that the Lazarus of the story is actually a reference to Abraham's steward Eliezar, who faithfully worked himself out of Abe's inheritance by obtaining a bride for Isaac. He chose obedience to his master over personal gain - a major contrast with the Pharisees.

But, if it were somehow the same Lazarus who Jesus raised from the dead, why does the story show him as a beggar? His sister was apparently rich. . .she's the one who anointed Jesus with the ointment that cost something like a year's wages. Was she holding out on him?

This story is a *parable*. Matthew 13 and Mark 4 both tell us that Jesus didn't teach without parables.

WHY HELL is INTEGRAL to THE GOSPEL
-by Greg Gilbert.

For some, the horror of the Christian doctrine of hell-that it is a
place of eternal, conscious torment where God's enemies are
punished-has led them not just to avert their eyes and minds,
but to deny it entirely. "Surely," they say, "hell is a fictional
construct used to oppress people with fear; a God of love would
never allow such a place to really exist." There's an emotional
power to this argument, to be sure. No one, certainly no Christian,
likes the idea of hell.

At the same time, this doctrine isn't just drapery on the side of the
Christian worldview, something with no relevance to the structure
of the faith itself. Nor is the doctrine of hell an embarrassing,
unnecessary, primitive wart that we believe just because we're
told we have to.

On the contrary, the doctrine and reality of hell actually throws the
glory of the gospel into sharp relief for us. It helps us to understand
just how great God really is, how sinfully wretched we really are,
and how unutterably amazing it is that he would show us grace at
all. Moreover, the reality of hell-if we don't push it out of our
minds-will focus us, above all, on the task of proclaiming the
gospel to those who are in danger of spending eternity there.

With that in mind, here are five biblical statements about hell which,
taken as a whole, demonstrate why hell is integral to the gospel.

WHY HELL is INTEGRAL to THE GOSPEL

1. Scripture teaches that there is a real place called hell.
I won't belabor this point. Others have made this case with crystal
clarity. Suffice it to say that medieval bishops didn't invent the
doctrine of hell as a way to scare the serfs; they got it from the
apostles. And the apostles didn't invent it to scare the pagans;
they got it from Jesus... At the most basic level, therefore, if we
claim to be Christians and to believe that the Bible is the word of
God, we have to recognize that the Bible teaches the reality of
hell. But there's more.

2. Hell shows us how heinous our sin really is.
Have you ever heard someone make the argument that no human
sin could possibly deserve eternal torment in hell? It's an interesting
argument, one that reveals a lot about the human heart. Why is it
that when people think about hell, they always conclude that God
must be at fault and not themselves? You can see how the doctrine
reveals our hearts: when we consider our own sin, our first
inclination is always to minimize it, to protest that it's not that bad
and that God is wrong to say it deserves punishment.

The reality of hell stands as a massive refutation of that self-
justification. Non-Christians will always see the horrors of hell as
an indictment of God, but as Christians who know God to be
perfectly just and righteous, we must understand that the horrors
of hell are actually an indictment of us. We may want to minimize
our sin, or excuse it, or try to argue our consciences down. But
the fact that God has declared that we deserve eternal torment
for those sins should remind us that they are not small at all.
They are enormously evil.

3. Hell shows us how immovably and unimpeachably just God really
is. People have been tempted throughout history to think of God
as a corrupt judge, one who sets aside the demands of justice
simply because he likes the defendant. "We are all God's children,"
the argument goes. "How could God hand down such a horrible
sentence on some of his children?" The answer to that question
is simple: God is not a corrupt judge. He is an absolutely just and
righteous one.

Over and over the Bible makes this point. When God reveals
himself to Moses, he declares himself to be compassionate and
loving, but he also says, "Yet he does not leave the guilty
unpunished." The Psalms declare that "Righteousness and justice
are the foundation of his throne." What an amazing statement! If
God is to continue being God, he cannot simply set justice aside
and sweep sin under the rug. He must deal with it-decisively and
with exacting justice. When God finally judges, not one sin will
receive more punishment than it deserves...

The Bible tells us that on that day, when God sentences his
enemies to hell, the whole universe will recognize and acknowledge
that what he has decided is unimpeachably just and right. Isaiah 5
makes this point with bracing clarity:
"Therefore Sheol has enlarged its appetite and opens its mouth
without measure." It's a grotesque image, the grave widening its
mouth to swallow the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And yet by this
means, Isaiah declares, "The Lord of Hosts is exalted in justice,
and the Holy God shows himself holy in righteousness." Similarly,
Romans 9:22 tells us that by the torments of hell, God will "show
his wrath and make his power known," so that he might "make the
riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy."

We may not understand it fully now, but one day hell itself will
declare God's glory. It will-even in its horror-testify together with
the psalmist, "Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne."

4. Hell shows us how horrific the cross really was, and how great
God's grace really is. Romans 3 tells us that God put forth Jesus
as a sacrifice of atonement "to demonstrate his justice." He did
this "because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed
beforehand unpunished."

Why did Jesus have to die on the cross? It was because that was
the only way God could righteously not send every one of us to
hell. Jesus had to take what was due to us, and that means he
had to endure the equivalent of hell as he hung on the cross. That
doesn't mean that Jesus actually went to hell. But it does mean
that the nails and the thorns were only the beginning of Jesus'
suffering. The true height of his suffering came when God poured
out his wrath on Jesus. When the darkness fell, that wasn't just
God covering the suffering of his Son, as some have said. That was
the darkness of the curse, of God's wrath. It was the darkness of
hell, and in that moment Jesus was enduring its full fury-the fury
of the wrath of God the Almighty.

When you understand the cross in that light, you begin to understand
better just how magnificent God's grace to you is, if you are a
Christian. The mission of redemption that Jesus undertook involved
a commitment to endure God's wrath in your place, to take the hell
that you deserve. What an amazing display of love and mercy that
is! Yet you will only see and understand this display of love clearly
when you understand, accept, and shudder at the horror of hell.

5. Hell focuses our minds on the task of proclaiming the gospel.
If hell is real, and if people are truly in danger of spending eternity
there, then there is no more urgent and important task than doing
precisely what Jesus told his apostles to do before he ascended
to heaven-proclaim to the world the good news that forgiveness
of sins is offered through Jesus Christ!

I think John Piper got it exactly right in a Gospel Coalition interview:
"It's very hard to give up on the gospel if you believe there is hell,
that after this life, there is an endless suffering for those who did
not believe in the gospel." There are all kinds of good things that
Christians can do-and in fact should do! But if hell is real, it is
worth keeping in mind-no, it is imperative that we keep in mind-
that the one thing that Christians can do that no one else in the
world is ever going to do is to tell people how they can be forgiven
of their sin, how they can avoid spending an eternity in hell.

CONCLUSION

There is no doubt that the doctrine of hell is horrible. The doctrine
is horrible because the reality is horrible. But that's not a reason to
avert our eyes and ignore it, much less to reject it. There are those
who think that, by rejecting or at least ignoring the doctrine in their
preaching, they are making God more glorious and more loving.
Far from it! What they are really doing is unwittingly stealing glory
from the Savior Jesus Christ, as if what he saved us from was.
well, not so bad after all. In fact, the horrific nature of what we have
been saved from only intensifies the glory of what we have been
saved to. Not only so, but as we see ever more clearly the horror
of hell, we look with ever more love, ever more gratitude, and ever
greater worship to the One who endured that hell for us and saved us.


Article Source-

[link to www.9marks.org]

Hell is a pagan myth with no basis in the scriptures.
Stories of an afterlife of torture and misery for the wicked were around in various flavors long before the God of Israel. These beliefs were widespread in the pagan world. And then our God comes along, befriends Abram and gives Israel His counsel and His laws, but mentions *nothing* about any alleged fate of endless torment. Search the old testament - it's simply not there. And then, against His command, His people adopt the corrupt ways of the neighboring cultures, and end up incorporating the ancient fairy tales of hellfire into their beliefs. He warned them about this in Deuteronomy 12, saying "don't become like the heathen nations, who *burn* their sons and daughters for their gods, which is an abomination".
Since then, the legend of Hell has snowballed into a humongous idol that few in the church dare to examine. But when we do, we'll find that it's unscriptural and that it entirely contradicts the nature of a Person who would humble Himself to nothing and literally die for His enemies.

The bible is a leavened book, haphazardly translated into English from the original Hebrew & Greek. The Word of God is a Person.

God is Love, and Love never fails. He won't have any need to dispose of anyone.

ANY FOOL who believes in hell is a scaredy cat and deserves to be involved with the fairy tales and myths pushed by the church.

Thanks Op !

How ridiculous to think that a all knowing all loving creator would set up a system where there could even be a place called hell.

What kind of justice says, "It does not matter what you do, what sins you commit and whether or not you reject God's gracious offer of salvation here and now; everyone will get off scot free"? The fact is that love already won when God so loved that He gave so that whosoever believes (in this life) will be saved.

Agreed. Fortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all punishment of infinite burning overkill. Jesus said we'll each receive due for our deeds, which lines up with the eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth, and burn-for-burn laws of Exodus.

If we reap what we sow, wouldn't someone have to burn people endlessly during life here on earth in order to earn for themselves such a punishment? That's not even possible.

The Lake of Fire is not some body of literal fire, or the sun, or anything other than what scripture defines the symbol of "fire" as:

"Our God is a consuming fire" - Hebrews 12 (an echo of Deuteronomy 4:24)

"Is not My word like fire?" - Jeremiah 23

He makes "His ministers a flame of fire" - Hebrews 1 (also Psalm 104)

fiery trials = sharing in the sufferings of Christ - 1 Peter 4

Israel's captivity in Egypt = "an iron furnace" - Deuteronomy 4:20


Note that per Revelation 14, those cast into this "lake" are "in the presence of the Lamb". He Himself is likely the fire that purifies.

The only thing that it burns up is the old, corrupt nature and its debris. . .


Fire will expose and test each person's works. . ."if it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames" - 1 Corinthians 3

"By mercy and truth iniquity is purged". . .Proverbs 16

"The wicked will see it and be vexed, He will gnash his teeth and melt away; The desire of the wicked will perish" - Psalm 112

"For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the LORD our God anymore, then we shall die" - Deuteronomy 5

The process of "fire" leaves us in ashes. . .a scriptural symbol of humility.

Sin is either covered by Jesus atoning blood, or in the case of those who reject Jesus, their sin will deliver them into eternal separation from God.(regardless of what that sin is)
The godly deeds of those who are saved by the Blood of Jesus will be rewarded. But it will be only those deeds inspired by His Spirit,done in obedience to God's Will for our life..the works done by faith that are judged as good. What we may see or judge as good deeds, could possibly be motivated by vain ambition,pride,gratification of the old man/flesh ..those deeds (for believers) will be burnt up.

As for those who have rejected Christ Jesus. How can any of their "good" deeds be seen by God as "good" since we are told that man's righteousness is as filthy rags in Gods Eyes. I believe when the book of life is open and their works are judged..all those works will be judged as unrighteous. Since works without faith are DEAD. God is going to have the White Throne judgment for those outside of Christ..so His Justice will be seen to be done. But will there be anything recorded for the unredeemed that is done by faith??? How is that possible?

The NWO's One World Religion will have Universalism(the doctrine of no hell) as it's Unifying message. Catholics and Evangelicals are embracing this doctrine..it's paving the way to what is coming.Satan is behind it.

One world government and it's religion:

The Bible teaches us that in the last days there will be a one world religious system which will be used by Satan in a great deception to ultimately war against God. Universalism could easily be used by Satan to help him accomplish this very thing.
There are a great many differences between religious systems. They cannot all be right. Because of these differences, hostilities often arise. But, if universalism were accepted by all religious systems, then it would logically greatly reduce hostilities both physical, intellectual, and spiritual. Sound good? It sure does. Except for one thing. It compromises the truth of the saving gospel of Jesus Christ who said He alone is the way the truth and the life. This means that all other systems are wrong! It means that Buddhism is not true. It means that Islam is not true. It means that only Christianity is true. There is no fellowship with darkness. Christians need to stand on God's word of truth which includes the narrow path to God of which not all will find it (Matt. 7:13-14), not man's word of "God will save everyone."

Woah, that was rather poetic AC, nice one.

Light and Darkness, life and death, right and left, are brothers of one another. They are inseparable. Because of this neither are the good good, nor evil evil, nor is life life, nor death death. For this reason each one will dissolve into its earliest origin. But those who are exalted above the world are indissoluble, eternal.

The Gospel of Philip

Hell only excists in the minds of people. Not in my mind btw.