To be clear here: hell is not a fiery place of eternal torment. What is commonly referred to as "hell" in Hebrew is Sheol literally translated as "the grave". The eternal damnation and suffering crap is from centuries of Catholic scaremongering.
The place in biblical times, "gehenna" was a giant burning trash pit that was hot enough to obliterate anything dumped into it. Gehenna was not referring to a fiery place of eternal torment. It was referring to eternal destruction with no hope of being remembered or salvaged. Telling someone they were going to be pitched into gehenna was telling them that they are no better than common trash and deserve to be treated as such.
The word "hell" is derived from the old Germanic word hellur which meant "flat stone". When Leif Erickkson came upon the North American Continent, he called it Hellurland, or "Land of the Flat Stones". Hmmm. Land of the Flat Stones. Sounds more like a graveyard than Satans House.
The short and ugly version for those who have not been paying attention, Hell = a grave plot.
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*More posts than Bionca*
[QUOTE=God(from Futurama)]Right and wrong are just words; what matters is what you do... If you do too much, people get dependent on you. And if you do nothing, they lose hope... When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
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