The "to Hell in a hand basket" series continues. With Original Sin done and Satan half done I'm now going to look at Hell. Once again like with with Satan Post I'm ignoring the New Testament and just looking at the Old Testament.
Firstly the word "Hell" does not appear in the OT. If your Bible does have the word hell it is translating the Hebrew word Sheol. Sheol is not the fiery pit that we usually think hell to be instead Sheol is a place of the dead, what we might describe today as "the grave". It is certainly a horrible place and one to be avoided but it is not the lake of fire and demons torturing for eternity that we often think of.
In Genesis the result of leaving the garden was not the eternal torment of hell but rather plain death. I wonder if we have forgotten how bad it is simply to die. I can remember hearing an atheist being quoted as describing death as "a cold wind then nothing". As much as Dante's levels of hell sound terrible the simple "a cold wind then nothing" sounds even worse to me, at least hell is existence nothing to me would be more horrible than non existence.
Firstly the word "Hell" does not appear in the OT. If your Bible does have the word hell it is translating the Hebrew word Sheol. Sheol is not the fiery pit that we usually think hell to be instead Sheol is a place of the dead, what we might describe today as "the grave". It is certainly a horrible place and one to be avoided but it is not the lake of fire and demons torturing for eternity that we often think of.
In Genesis the result of leaving the garden was not the eternal torment of hell but rather plain death. I wonder if we have forgotten how bad it is simply to die. I can remember hearing an atheist being quoted as describing death as "a cold wind then nothing". As much as Dante's levels of hell sound terrible the simple "a cold wind then nothing" sounds even worse to me, at least hell is existence nothing to me would be more horrible than non existence.
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