Pope Francis and hell

[guillaumeb]

From the article:

Social media has been going crazy with reports that Pope Francis has denied the existence of hell. Even some mainstream media have picked up the story supposedly based on an interview by an Italian journalist.
Anyone who has followed the pope’s talks and sermons would immediately know that something does not smell right here. The pope has in fact spoken of hell in the past in a way that clearly indicates that he believes in it.

To read more:

https://religionnews.com/2018/04/02/pope-francis-and-hell/

To the Norse, Hel was a frozen place.
To Africans, hell was very hot.
To Jean-Paul Sartre, hell is other people.

Hell, as I see it, is a state of being deeply unhappy.

[yallerdawg]

1. The Pope describes Hell:

“This is hell,” explained the pope. “It is telling God, ‘You take care of yourself because I’ll take care of myself.’ They don’t send you to hell, you go there because you choose to be there. Hell is wanting to be distant from God because I do not want God’s love. This is hell.”

[guillaumeb]

2. And it is a disconnect.

To me, the idiocy of Ayn Rand and other such types is that humans, unlike reptiles, require a high level of connection in our lives. Solitary confinement can literally drive people to insanity.

[yallerdawg]

5. Yes, one thing is quite clear and indisputable.

We can make this Heaven on Earth -- or Hell on Earth.

Religion, quite often, points out how our human nature leans one way rather than the other, on and on.

[Voltaire2]

10. Rand wasnt against people connecting with

each other. That is not what right wing libertarianism or her “objectivist” philosophy are about. During her life she formed objectivist groups to discuss and promote her nonsense. Libertarians have a political party.

[mia]

3. I don't believe in Hell either.

There is more than enough Hell for people living on Earth

[guillaumeb]

4. I believe in "being in hell",

but not in a literal place for suffering.

[mia]

6. If there is Hell, after life, for anyone, then

There is no God. Simply what I believe.

[guillaumeb]

7. I agree.

To understand all is to forgive all.

[Mariana]

31. If there is Hell, after life, for anyone, then

There may be a God, but it's malevolent and unworthy of worship. I don't believe there is any such thing, though.

[Mariana]

8. The Religion Group must be hell.

You seem to be in a state of being deeply unhappy about the fact that people who disagree with you are permitted to post here.

[mia]

9. That's one way to think of it, Mariana.

Then again, this could be Heaven. It's a place where everyone can can come together and, at least, communicate. I'm glad to have had the pleasure of reading that you exist. Thank you for the times that you have responded to posts.

[Mariana]

32. You're welcome, and thank you, too. nt.

[trotsky]

12. Perfect. n/t

[guillaumeb]

15. You seem to be confused about my posts.

[Act_of_Reparation]

11. Christo-centrism.

The Norse "Hel" is not analogous to the Christian "Hell", and neither is it a "frozen place". They are cognates, sharing a common linguistic root. Modern Scandinavian languages call the Christian concept of hell "Helvete" (Norwegian, Swedish), "Helviti" (Icelandic), or "Helvede" (Danish). These words combine the word "Hel" with the suffix "-víti", specifying "punishment". This is because Hel was neither a place nor a person necessarily associated with torment. It was not an inherently bad place to go. Valhalla was for those who died in battle, and Hel was for people who did not. Simple as that.

And no, Hel wasn't frozen. Hel was a hall located in Niflheim, "The World of Mist".

[trotsky]

13. Remember, this is the same guy who said that chromosomal notation using English letters...

could be argued to support his creation myth. He's not interested in linguistic details, only bits and pieces that can be thrown together to confirm his pre-existing beliefs.

[guillaumeb]

17. See #16.

Knowledge is a good thing, is it not? Incomplete knowledge can lead to error.

[trotsky]

21. "Incomplete knowledge can lead to error."

Yes, you prove that a lot.

[guillaumeb]

16. And speaking of Niflheim,

Niflheim was primarily a realm of primordial ice and cold, with the frozen rivers of Élivágar and the well of Hvergelmir, from which come all the rivers.[2] According to Gylfaginning, Niflheim was one of the two primordial realms, the other one being Muspelheim, the realm of fire. Between these two realms of cold and heat, creation began when its waters mixed with the heat of Muspelheim to form a "creating steam". Later, it became the abode of Hel, a goddess daughter of Loki, and the afterlife for her subjects, those who did not die a heroic or notable death.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niflheim

I am happy to add to your knowledge.

Hel was also the goddess who ruled there.

[Act_of_Reparation]

20. One of us has read the Gylfaginning. I'm guessing it wasn't you.

Niflheim is the primordial world of darkness and cold. Hel is a complex of halls located in Niflheim. The point is you are confusing the former with the latter. I have a house in Michigan. It is freezing in Michigan, but that doesn't mean my fucking house is frozen, too.

You can stop appropriating the Norse religion now. Considering the circumstances of their "conversion", your attempts to steal their ancient culture is doubly insulting.

[guillaumeb]

22. You erred. That is what happened.

I understand. I too make mistakes. But this one is yours.

[Act_of_Reparation]

23. Well, who am I to argue with the expert?

I look forward to your next exciting pretension.

[guillaumeb]

27. And I to your definitive pronouncement.

[yallerdawg]

14. Andrew Brown on hell.

No wonder the pope has caused confusion. Heaven and hell are a state of mind

*****

Arguing about the existence of hell, or even the existence of God, is a little like arguing about the existence of the number zero. The use of the concept is obvious and irresistible. As soon as you use it you see that it works, but why it should work is an entirely different question, and whether it needs to exist to work is an argument about the meaning of the verb “exist”, not about the reality of zero, or of God, or hell.

The person who put this most clearly is actually Death, in Terry Pratchett’s book "Hogfather." He tells his daughter: “Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape … Take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy … and yet you act as if there is some ideal order in the world, as if there is … some rightness in the universe by which it may be judged.”

If we start thinking of hell as a concept that deals with the same sort of problems as the concepts of justice and mercy do, it’s easy to see that all our thoughts about it are in some sense figurative. This doesn’t mean they’re unreal. Hell is clearly something experienced, which can’t be escaped, if you’re there, by wanting to escape it, even with all your heart. The real difficulty for Christians is the idea that hell entails eternal conscious torment, which is the jargon for something almost unthinkable. That seems to have been what Francis was actually discussing.

*****


Eternity.

[nil desperandum]

18. For a lot of

young men their parish priest provided them a hell on right here on earth...and their church compounded that hell by ignoring them for a long, long time.

It's what people in power do, ruin the lives of others for a dollar, to maintain power, for a number of reasons none of which are very noble.

Our own government made a military Camp (Lejuene) a hell by poisoning the water for 35 years from 1952 to 1987 and then lying about it for another 30 years...

Governments and churches have that in common. Ignoring the damage they do to innocents to maintain the illusion of normalcy.

[guillaumeb]

19. True.

But those are individual crimes. Individuals choose to take actions.

[trotsky]

25. And sometimes they choose to take actions based on religious beliefs.

Beliefs that they may have been taught uncritically at a young age.

Go figure.

[nil desperandum]

30. You are

correct about the individual parish priests, where it comes off the rails for me is that the practice of relocating some of the predators to other communities where they could continue preying on young people was systemic throughout the church.

That was not an individual act, it was an organized effort to hide crimes by people who felt the organization would be lessened by the revelations.

The church could have, and should have, turned these men in for prosecution and told their parishioners that they will not tolerate crimes by the very people they entrust with caring for their believers. Instead they made it far worse by telling their believers that they will conspire to hide crimes that might embarrass them.

None of that very good. Having met some of those who were victimized as children and hearing their stories, it confounds me to this day that any sort of supposedly decent person could hide the perpetrators. There is nothing in the law or the bible that condones that act.

[guillaumeb]

35. Agreed.

This was indeed an organized action, even if not sanctioned by the RCC.

[MineralMan]

24. "Hell, as I see it, is a state of being deeply unhappy."

Well, I guess that's it and all about it, then. You have spoken. Have you a scriptural reference for this?

[guillaumeb]

28. An opinion.

My own in this case.

[guillaumeb]

29. Jesus talked of forgiveness.

[Mariana]

33. Yes he did, if the stories are to be believed

but that isn't an answer to the poster's question.

[Mariana]

34. Maybe so, but most Christians reject those texts.

Anyway, the Pope obviously does believe hell exists, however he defines it or describes it.

[The Genealogist]

36. I guess I could tell you what I think would be Hell

I don't believe in any Hell, I am an atheist. But, I can certainly imagine what one would be like. It would be spending eternity in "Heaven" with people like Pat Robertson and other self-righteous hate-mongering religious nuts like him.

[guillaumeb]

37. On every channel, or live?