I must admit I was a little offended by your comments, but I'm glad you gave this explanation.

I think that the answer, in the context of the question, is "yes, it is cruel". Because it is not true. In the New Testament, Jesus uses the word "Gehennah" eleven times, which has been translated as "Hell", but was intended as meaning "national judgement", as follows:

These Jews knew what Gehenna was, and Jesus and John had foretold the unquenchable fiery judgment awaiting them there. He told these Jews that they were headed for it, and the people they taught were as well. It is the same national judgment he's been speaking of thus far.

Mt. 23.33
Jesus used gehenna for the eleventh time. Continuing in the same address, he said:

Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers, how shall ye escape the judgment of hell [Gehenna]? A few verses later, Jesus said, in Mt. 23.36: Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation. Also, Jesus said in Mt. 24.34: Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all these things be accomplished. Thus, Jesus gave the time element when this fiery destruction on the land would be carried out: in that generation, i.e., in the time of his dealing with the then present generation of Jews. To sum up, Jesus threatened the Jews in the environs of Jerusalem that they were headed for the valley named Gehenna where there would be unquenchable fire (Mk. 9.43) upon his generation (Mt. 23.36) in his generation (Mt. 24.34), when God destroys the souls of those of Jesus' generation after killing their bodies (Lk. 12.5, Mt. 10.28). We cannot make it more precise! If hell is what Jesus said it was, hell was the unstoppable fiery destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.
Also, in Islam, "As for the disbelievers, they know at the moment of death that they are destined for Hell. The angels beat them up on the faces and rear ends (8:50 & 47:27), order them to evict their souls (6:93), then "snatch their souls" (79:1). The Quran teaches that the disbelievers go through 2 deaths (2:28 & 40:11). They will be put to death - a state of nothingness during which they see Hell day and night in a continuous nightmare that lasts until the Day of Judgment (40:46). Hell is not yet in existence (40:46, 89:23)."

Nothing about eternal torment, pits of fire, etc. We can find none of this language of red-hot floors, dungeons, red-hot ovens, vessels of hot oil, being able to see the throne of God, brick-kilns, torture racks, chains, or great furnaces anywhere in the twelve passages that deal with the subject of Gehenna in the New testement. However, they are easily found in Milton's Paradise Lost and Dante's Inferno.

This goes along with my belief that we make our own hell when we die. It is an illusion created by us, until we realize that it doesn't exist, and we move on in our spiritual development. The same goes for those who believe in Heaven. We will create the illusion of Heaven, based on our individual beliefs, until we also realize that it doesn't exist, and we move on in our spiritual development. Which is more cruel? To realize that Hell doesn't exist, or that Heaven doesn't exist?

If the doctrine of hell is true there is nothing to be gained from railing against it. However, when the biblical story is properly understood, especially the pronouncements attributed to Jesus Christ, it is clear that this nothing of a hell that exists contemporaneously with a "heaven" is not taught in the bible. The idea of heaven and hell is based on the false belief that the human race can be divided into parts. That is the only way to put some people in hell while others go to heaven.

I think teaching about Hell as I came to understand it as a child -- a physical place where you went to burn throughout eternity -- is not so much cruel as it misses the point and I think perhaps, it this point in human evolution, doesn't contribute to real transformation. We repent because we are afraid of punishment; we avoid sin because we are afraid of getting caught, not because we understand the gravity of our behavior.

As a Baha'i I believe that Hell is a metaphor for the condition of being distanced or alienated from God and one's own spirit. And that Heaven is a metaphor for being in touch with those things. The Baha'i writings stress obedience to God in terms of love for Him and for others and for ourselves. But I think in the past it may not have been possible to motivate people positively.

Let's look at it in terms of something I touched on in another post. Christ says to His disciples that if they want to stay connected to Him, they will obey His commandment, then He commands that they love one another. In that same context He says if they don't stay connected they are like branches that are cut from the True Vine and wither and die to be thrown into the fire.

The fire He's talking about isn't a physical fire. It's what Baha'u'llah refers to as the "fire of separation" from God and from the intimate knowledge of our own spiritual reality -- what Krishna called the Atman. We can be in Hell right here on earth, no waiting is required.

The Baha'i scriptures also speak of a future time in our evolution when we will be spiritually developed to the point that committing a sin -- harming someone, lying, whatever -- or even contemplating it, will be its own punishment. I can vouch for the fact that in my own quest for transformation, I experience moments when some unworthy thought I've had causes me a moment of sheer hell. I believe many of us -- perhaps all of us -- have experienced something like that.

I wrote a novelette (it was published in INTERZONE and is in an anthology of Catholic fiction called INFINITE SPACE, INFINITE GOD) that posits that enlightenment is the cruelest of punishments because when one is enlightened one recognizes the consequences and negative effects of one's actions.

Is having to pay for our errors cruel? Maybe, but if we do it to ourselves, who else do we have to blame? I love the word "Karma" because I think it sums up the idea so concisely that "as ye sow, so also shall ye reap."

__________________
Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff
www.mysticfig.com

"Love is the light that guideth in darkness, the living link that uniteth God with man, that assureth the progress of every illumined soul." -- Abdu'l-Bahá

I couldn't have put it better myself.

Peace, Love, & Light

__________________
"An object is perceived, or not perceived, according as the mind is, or is not, tinged with the colour of the object. "
Patanjali - Sutra 4:17

Although this doesn't directly respond to evangelicalhumanist's original point, he has prompted an interesting discussion on the nature of the teaching of the reward and punishment notion within conventional religion. I recall many years ago, as a young man, clearly rejecting my RC upbringing through remarks such as, "If you die in a state of mortal sin, you will automatically go to hell", followed by, on another occasion, "If you die whilst saving someone else's life you will AUTOMATICALLY go to heaven." Aha! So what if you die saving someone else's life, but you are in a state of what the Church calls mortal sin? What then? Of course, no priest could answer that one.

It is "certainties" such as this (and there are so many others) which drove me to leave the Church, or any form of conventional religion, and commence a search for a wider perspective. This search has ultimately led me to become an Interfaith Minister, serving people of any religious tradition, or of none. (Indeed I'm soon to conduct a Humanist baby-naming ceremony.)

I once heard someone say that in her opinion religion was "spirituality in formaldehyde". I absolutely concur with that viewpoint.

Brian

I don't know why they couldn't answer it. That's just salvation by works, which most elements within Christianity clearly reject. If that were true that you earn your way into heaven by your works, then what purpose does the sacrifice of Christ have in one's life? It is of no effect. However, if Calgary is what redeems you, then without it how can one be redeemed?

But if one believes that Calvary may redeem one, what difference does it make if one acts morally or immorally? And why did Paul write that between faith, hope, and love, the greatest is love-- not faith?

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"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."-- Einstein

I respect your views, Harvey1, but for me the operative word is the "IF" in your last sentence.

Brian

Maybe an analogy works better here. Let's suppose in the next decade or so medical science provides a cure for cancer, except that it doesn't make anyone well--rather people keep showing the same symptoms and eventually dying. That wouldn't be a very celebrated treatment to say the least.

Now, Christ in one's life is like having a real cure of a deadly disease, except symptoms alone do not determine if the cure is a success. If that were so, then someone who just happened to go into remission would be seen as having the cure, but that would be incorrect since remission and having the cure don't have an isomorphic relation to each other. You can go into remission without the cure, and you can have the cure and still show symptoms of the disease (assuming that eventually the symptoms dissipate).

Having love in one's life is a key indicator of having Christ in one's life. But, that indicator is not part of one's "works" that if one has a high enough amount that they can claim Christ in one's life (or without enough of it they can't claim having Christ in one's life).