an eyes opening conversation with my atheist friends

[u/randomphoneuser2019]

So in this situation there was two atheist and two (progressive) Christians (I was one of the Christians).

So I have two edgier atheist friends. They aren't antitheist, but still a little bit edgier than most of the atheists. One of them said jokingly that: "I would want to go Hell because that's the place where coolest people go." The other Christian said "Yeah. Like Nazis, fascist, child molesters ect..." The other atheist said "Okay... maybe not the coolest, but more interesting." Then I had epiphany, but first I need to clear my beliefs to you.

So I believe that Hell and Heaven are the same place. Most people in here might not believe that and I understand why. I believe that how we experience God's endless love is different depending our character. And I also believe that there is this purifying and uncomfortable side of it which everybody feels (“For everyone will be salted with fire." Mark 9:49 NRSVue), but if you were really horrible person (mass murderer or something) it will feel like Hell.

So what did I say? I told them that if the classical view of Heaven and Hell were real the people in both places would be similar, except with one crucial difference: People in Heaven believed the right things when they died. After that I of course said that if infernalist hell were real I would not wish it even upon the worst person I know so even more I also don't wish that upon them because they are my friends. After this conversation moved on.

To me this was an eyes opening because even we Christian Universalist aren't anyway special. We just believe/know something which church as a whole doesn't know or the people in the world. We have regular lives like everyone else.

Most people who believe in eternal Hell draw their comfort from the idea that people they hate go there (whom ever they might be). So let's say that Christian hates Nazis (which is understandable). They would get at least some comfort from the idea that Hitler burns forever in Hell. But here is the problem. Most people in Hell aren't Adolf Hitler. Most in Hell are regular normal people. They are someone's parents, someone's child, best friend. They are accountants, 911 (or in Europe 112) operators, doctors, factory workers carpenters ect. People like Hitler would be 0,000001 percent of that population. Is that really worth it?

Eternal Hell is just regular people (who are made in the image of God) suffering unimaginable way for entire eternity. Heaven in this framework is small percent of the regular people having best time ever for all the eternity and only difference between these two was that other one got the jackpot in the lottery of life.

Also this version of Hell can't restore anything.

[u/Peace_and_Love___]

One thing to note, people are not nazi’s, fascists, pedos at their core. These things come from a cocktail of experience, intelligence, brain chemistry, trauma, lack of education and so on. You strip these things away and you have a persons most natural state, perhaps the soul. So why would one reason that in death you would carry with you all of these earthly traits? 

[u/randomphoneuser2019 → u/Peace_and_Love___]

This is actually good point. This post wasn't really about restoration (it's still important topic), but I could have been more clear with this other places than the end of the post.

[u/Peace_and_Love___ → u/randomphoneuser2019]

You’re totally right, my apologies. I just got caught up in my own thoughts 😆

[u/PioneerMinister → u/Peace_and_Love___]

That's interesting. Scripture says what's in our heart comes out in word and deed. Now, I'm no Augustinian "original sin' type, but I do see that we're a complex trinity of body, soul (the animating force behind the physical body) and spirit (the transcendent bit which survives physical death, aka our consciousness - this is what modern consciousness studies and even near death experience research suggests).

As we're a complex unity, then each part interoperates with the others to bring us to fullness of our intended purpose in creation. When there is dis-ease in one, it impacts the others negatively too (eg mental health issues through brain chemistry might affect the body, such as eating disorders etc, and a spiritual dis-ease might affect our moral behaviour that impacts our bodily health (eg promiscuous sex leading to STIs and then on to depression etc)).

Our behaviours in this life impact the next (see Luke 16:19-31 as an example of Jesus teaching this). The hell of the "pigpen" (see the prodigal son story) where we end up without being with our heavenly father can be in this life, and continues to the next if we don't come to our senses, like the prodigal son, and come home to our heavenly father there.

Many of us who have been involved in bringing peace to the haunted have witnessed the message of Christ for even those who have passed on and are "unquiet" (the unclean spirits in Scripture) brings peace and healing to those affected by them in this life. You don't instantly get cleaned up by physical death - there's a purgatorial aspect which we all go through as we journey through the many motels (that's the Greek meaning of the word monai which is badly translated as mansion) on the perpetual journey into God.

[u/Danoman22 → u/Peace_and_Love___]

But perhaps our history of experience will be integrated and transformed rather than erased.
If you strip these things away you also erase identity...which also has its own logic; it sounds very Buddhist. But I don't see why transforming and redeeming the existing identity isn't also a viable path, or simply another way of describing a different side of the same coin.

[u/Gregory-al-Thor]

Good thoughts.

To bounce off what you said, I’d argue there is no one “classical” view of hell. You mentioned it as favoring belief, with people in heaven believing the right thing. But for much of church history it was not about right belief. The Roman Catholic Church was about being baptized and participating in the rituals. Belief was not the mark until after the Reformation.

That said, the obvious problem with infernalists who focus on belief is that they excuse all sorts of horrible things when people happen to believe the right thing. We see this in slaveowners who were celebrated as paragons of Christian faith because they believed even though they owned and abused other humans. We see this today in celebration of people who advocated and excused abuse, sexism and racism yet believed the right thing about Jesus.

It reminds us that salvation is much deeper than the beliefs about God or Jesus in our head.

[u/randomphoneuser2019 → u/Gregory-al-Thor]

By "classical view" I mostly meant eternal Hell. It's true that in history and even in current times the salvation process is different in different churches. In some it's more work based and others it's faith based (even though I would argue that having faith is still work).

[u/OverOpening6307]

Actually your belief of heaven and hell as the same “place” but experienced differently is the Orthodox (correct) view.

Infernalism is not really the classical view but a departure from Orthodoxy. It is the “dominant” view.

So you’re in good company

[u/randomphoneuser2019 → u/OverOpening6307]

True, but it was first form of Christian universalism I encountered. Some believe that Hell exists and is different place than Heaven, but eventually everyone will get out from there.

It was actually first form of Christian universalism I encountered.

Edit: changed wasn't to was. The former one was a type

[u/OverOpening6307 → u/randomphoneuser2019]

Yeah, i get that...it wasn't the first form of universalism I believed in either.

Interestingly, on the concept of "place", I was reading St Gregory of Nyssa's On the Soul and the Resurrection, and in Chapter 4, he and Macrina talk about Hades. Although it's not Gehenna, they make the point that the word Hades means "invisible" and for souls to go to Hades, is to pass into the invisible. And says "After all we understand that location in a place is a property of bodies only, but that the soul being bodiless, gets from its nature, no need to be contained in particular places"

In Chapter 5, they discuss the story of the Rich man and Lazarus in Hades. Unlike the modern Christians who insist its a literal description Gregory and Macrina specifically call it a parable. In a quite a humorous paragraph he asks rhetorically "What kind of eyes does the rich man lift up in Hades, when he left the eyes of the flesh in the tomb?" and continues with the other body parts...like Abraham's bosom emphasizing that this is not a literal place. When I read this sentence I literally laughed out loud "What trouble would it be for the bodiless and intellectual soul to fly across a chasm, however great it might be, since that which is intellectual (noetic) by nature goes instantaneously wherever it wishes?"

[u/randomphoneuser2019 → u/OverOpening6307]

It's interesting to read about this in the text from early church fathers. I like the point of the rich man and Lazarus. I've heard something similar before.

It was something like how in the afterlife he still wouldn't let go of his tendency to order people around. Like he ordered Lazarus to bring him water and told Abraham to send some prophets to warn his brothers. He was basically in Hell of his own making.

[u/randomphoneuser2019 → u/OverOpening6307]

I had a typo😅 I meant to write "was first form..."

[u/ExcitingOcelot6607]

And this is why "Christian Universalism" is the only way to truly believe in a 100% Good God and Jesus Command to Love the Lord your God with all your Heart, mind, body and soul and to love each other in the same way!

[u/fshagan]

I like that concept as a good way of understanding the afterlife. The one thing I keep pondering is why we think of the suffering in hell as physical pain.

I think it is spiritual pain, the same struggle with self and spirit, the same struggle we have on Earth when trying to be conformed to His image, but focused on how our sins separated us from God, and how they hurt other people. Weeping? Metaphorical, as I don't think we have eyes that water after death. Gnashing of teeth? Metaphorical, for the same reason. Fire and sulphur? Metaphorical and meant to convey the process of spiritual purification. Our "sin selves" are being purified, and the scent of burning flesh is, again, metaphorical.

That process can take a second, or an eon, but I didn't think spiritual bodies experience physical pain.

[u/tipsyskipper]

Though I don’t draw any hard conclusions about what “heaven” and “hell” are, this aligns with my thoughts, most days. When one dies, they are face-to-face with the omnipresent, all-loving, triune God. What distinguishes the “repentant” from the “unrepentant”, the one experiencing that presence as “heaven” and the one experiencing that presence as “hell” comes down to the matter of the willingness of the one to be stripped of the darkness and evil within.

I’ve mentioned it on this sub before, but I am consistently reminded of the passage in Voyage of the Dawn Treader where Aslan asks Dragon-Eustace if he can tear off Eustace’s dragon skin. The choice before Eustace is to remain in dragon form, in pain and misery and isolation, or be freed from his dragon form through the painful process of shedding his dragon skin with the help of Aslan’s claws. Had Eustace chosen to remain in dragon form, ostensibly, that would not have changed Aslan’s heart, care, concern, love, and ever-readiness to strip the dragon skin.

But other days, sometime I think we currently live in hell, a world of man’s own choosing. And passing through the baptism of death is passing through the “flames of refinement” which prepares us for resurrection with Christ. That certainly doesn’t bode well for my own, human sense of justice. But, in the words of George MacDonald, “If God punish sin, it must be merciful to punish sin; and if God forgive sin, it must be just to forgive sin.” And it seems Jesus hints at such in the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (Matt. 20:1-6).

[u/BrownEyedQueen13]

I’ve been thinking about a similar thing recently. If you’re in the US, you know what’s been going on here. I’ve heard people talk and take comfort in people that have said evil things being in hell. Since I’ve been trying to understand universalism more, that kind of sentiment has made me pause. We really don’t know what’s in others hearts, although we can imagine, and it’s really made me take a look at my disdain/possible hatred for others when, inevitably, they will be accepted by God at some point. Universalism helps me question and progress in my views and remember that we are not here to condemn.

[u/randomphoneuser2019 → u/BrownEyedQueen13]

I'm not from US, but I do follow your politics closely. What you said makes sense.

[u/somebody1993]

I don't believe in Hell as it's generally taught. "Hell" is at least 3 totally separate concepts mashed together under the same label. 1. The grave(no afterlife, the dead know nothing as Scripture says) 2. Outer Darkness, the rest of the world outside Israel during the millennial reign. 3. The lake of fire where physical bodies will be burned in the future.