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| Metaphor | 46% | 1018 votes | Total: 2218 votes | |
| Real | 54% | 1200 votes |
Metaphor
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Add to FavoritesHell is real? Prove it. I can't prove that it isn't real, but then again I also can't prove that Narnia isn't real. To quote the arrogant but witty Christopher Hitchens, "What can be asserted without evidence, can also be dismissed without evidence."
If you think Hell is real, you might claim that your proof is simple: it says so in the Bible. But, that's not a logical proof. Here's why. This common version of circular reasoning is often referred to as "begging the question." In order for it to be true, the skeptic must hold the same previously conceived notions on the topic as the believer does. If you say "Hell is real because it says so in the Bible," you assume that I must also believe the Bible to be unarguably true. I don't.
If you think Hell is real, you also might claim that you have seen it yourself! Perhaps you choked on a chicken bone and were declared legally dead for forty-two seconds, and while dead you saw not a glorious white light but an immense red demon sitting on a pillar of fire and brimstone. To that I'd say that you were probably having what many people who suffer from near-death experiences have: a hallucination.
If you think Hell is real, you might say "Hell is other people," to quote Sartre, or "This is Hell because men are cruel," or some other equally pseudo-deep existentialist saying. To that I'd say, if this IS Hell, due to all of its murder and crime, deeply evil men and women, poverty, hunger, death and destruction, could not it also be Heaven? Could it not also, conversely, be Heaven, either to some evil person who loves raping and pillaging, or to someone who sees the benevolence, the kindness, the hope and the love? In other words, you cannot claim that this is Hell, because Earth definitely does not align with the biblical depiction of Hell, so you must be speaking figuratively, and if you are, then Hell is different things to different people, is it not? As Emerson once said, "To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven."
Hell is obviously a man-made concept constructed as a means to keep all of humanity from venturing too far from that which was considered good and decent. Your children misbehaving? Threaten them with hell! Husband have a wandering eye? Remind him of that commandment about adultery and how he could spend eternity in Hell! Hell is the unavoidable unjust punishment. Even if you hold unshakable belief in the Bible, wouldn't you agree that the Jesus depicted in the Bible is a stark contrast from the incongruent description of "Hell"? Jesus opted for justice; remember "turn the other cheek" and "let he who is without sin cast the first stone"? And isn't the definition of justice that the punishment fit the crime? What crime could warrant an eternity of fire and brimstone at the hands of some fierce demon? No, hell is not even a biblical creation; it is a biblical concoction, and most definitely a metaphor.
Learn more about this author, Andrea Nostramo.
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Real
Whether it was "Outer Darkness" as described in the New Testament, or whether it was "Sokar" in Egyptian mythology, or whether it was "Hades" in Greek mythology, or "Dis" or "Pluto" in Roman mythology, or even "Hell" in Christianity, Hell does exist.
Some people use the phrase, "hell on earth," to describe what they believe is an infinitely, intolerable situation.
It is described as a place that torments the accused by their guilt. In Egyptian mythology, when you made the walk of the afterlife, you were procured by Osiris, led to Anubis, and should your heart be balanced toward evil in the ways of Seth, you were sent to Sokar, the Egyptian underworld, or "hell."
If hell did not exist, then why would there be any fear of torment, tribulation, or guilt, or suffering?
The answer is that the premise must be wrong.
Even the United States Federal Government, through its Postal Service, has guaranteed that there is a Hell.
It is located in Michigan.
Every year, thousands of people travel to that Michigan post office in order to, by April 15, get their tax returns stamped with the source address being Hell.
It might be what they think of the taxes they've paid or are paying to the federal government, but it is, without doubt, an acknowledgment, of the existence of Hell.
Learn more about this author, Kenneth Boser II.
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