A peek into the abyss
Is hell more than a state of mind?
By Google search, there are 365 million references to "hell" versus only 24.1 million for "heaven." That makes hell 15 times more popular than heaven — at least among Internet users. An AARP Magazine survey of Americans age 50 and older in 2007 revealed that 86 percent of those polled believe in heaven while only 70 percent believe in a hell. Of those, 42 percent believe it is a place, while 43 percent see it as a state of mind.
So what's it supposed to be like down there?
Traditional Christian belief centers on notions of torment and punishment for the wicked or unworthy — the Jonathan Edwards image of a spider dangling precariously over a bonfire.
The Italian poet Dante pictured hell as a deep, funnel-shaped cavity with round sides. On the sides were terraces with steep drop-offs that contained four rivers leading to the burning and bottomless pit of the devil.
Jean Paul Sarte, the existential, famously said, "Hell is other people."
The Rev. Tom Goldsmith of Salt Lake's First Unitarian Church said hell is not literally a place. He referred to a Unitarian belief from past ages where "hell is an absence of hope."
"We need to balance hell and hope continually," the Rev. Goldsmith said. "It (hell) is not a geographic location but a matter of one's spirit when they've lost hope or reason for living."
When a person enters this kind of hell, the danger is they can terminate their life, he said.
The Rev. Steve Goodier, pastor of Salt Lake's Christ United Methodist Church, said you'll receive a full spectrum of different answers when you ask United Methodists about hell.
"It goes from a metaphor to it's what you make it," he said. "United Methodists tend to be more metaphorical, though some churches use hell as a fear tactic. We tend not to be heavy-handed."
"You could call 10 Presbyterian ministers, and you'd probably get 10 different views of hell," the Rev. Marvin Goote, executive director of the Presbytery of Utah, told the Deseret News several years ago.
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, "Hell (infernus) in theological usage is a place of punishment after death. Theologians distinguish four meanings of the term hell:
• Hell in the strict sense, or the place of punishment for the damned, be they demons or men.
• The limbo of infants (limbus parvulorum), where those who die in original sin alone, and without personal mortal sin, are confined and undergo some kind of punishment.
Recent comments
I would rather go to hell then be in heaven with people I didn't…
Anonymous | Sept. 7, 2008 at 7:08 p.m.
So it is OK to judge others who are judging others for being judgmental…
Anonymous | Sept. 6, 2008 at 12:22 p.m.
I love these rants, spewing venom and judging others in the harshest…
Amen and Amen? | Sept. 4, 2008 at 9:22 a.m.
