The Non-Existence of Hell (Religion)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Thursday, September 30, 2010, 11:58 (5169 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

Ok, so now we are down to haggling over the accepted definition of the word. I was refuting hell as a place of fire and brimstone were 'bad' people and nonbelievers are punished forever and ever yada yada. Purgatory or limbo was never really part of the hell myth, being its own separate entity. And the one describe in the esoteric teachings it a place of stripping away the old so that you can be reborn again, and if I am not mistaken, the same applies to the Hindu beliefs.-No we're not; Gehenna = Hell = Sheol. I just read a Psalm last night, "18:4 The sorrows of Sheol surrounded me; the snares of death confronted me." -Clearly Sheol and death are treated differently here. In the light of 1 Enoch--it becomes very clear what exactly "The Sorrows of Sheol" is meant to be. Alternatively we could alter the translation: -"The sorrows of the grave surrounded me; the snares of death confronted me." 
This still makes sense, poetically. But what then is the difference between the sorrows of the grave and the snares of death? -Or alternatively, mixed with the background of Maccabees-"The sorrows of purgatory surrounded me; the snares of death confronted me." This reading would also bring in Maccabees. -But again, Sheol had more significance than the grave--all the other references I provided reference the Talmud, and a few other deuterocanonical books such as Jubilees. You may know your Canonical works well, but you clearly haven't delved into the apocryphal works, or I do not think we would be still having this discussion. Hell, as a place of torment for souls--is Gehenna, of which Sheol is a part of. Jewish Mysticism literally took this to another plane, but those systems had to be based on scripture to have developed at all.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"