Seasons

Actually, a lot of Revelations is symbolic. How could death be thrown literally into a lake of fire? What could fire do to death? Exactly. Death will be destroyed forever, is what that scripture is actually saying. The lake of fire is what is called "the second death" which means no resurrection. Period. IN other words, they're not coming back. And hell? What is the actual word that is being translated "hell"? It is actually the common grave of mankind. "Sheol" is another Bible word for it. Have you ever heard of "helling potatoes"? It means to put them in a cellar, underground. It doesn't mean make potato chips out of them.

no, don't stop...I love to discuss this info, it's encouraging I think. wouldn't we all want an end to our age old enemy, death? There ain't nobody he ain't touched. Man, if Adam and Eve, believe the story or not, if they hadn't eaten that fruit, they'd still be here.

a lot of things are just based on our own experience. Take time for example. It is not nessarly eternal as it is just a measurement. Time can be warped in space. and time measurements are based on phyics. what happens if you are in a different universe? the concept of time won't nessarly be the same there. In theory anything is possible. To limit our understanding to what we think is right is being ignorante of the fact that we really do know so little about this universe.

nowadays the only thing most scientists agree on as far as space goes is that almost every theory they have ever had about what's all possible is being thrown out the window.

Ya, I find the relativity theory really cool, cause time is really relative. In fact, if we had the technology, and could go faster than the speed of light, we could speed off to some distant planet, turn a super powered telescope toward the earth, and see what we did yesterday.

Theoretically possible. cool to talk about.

The concept of Hell is definitely in the New Testament. You don't have to look in Revelation. You can find it in the teachings of Jesus.

I agree that physics (as well as many other areas of science) opens up some interesting questions about the nature of our reality and the limits of science. I don't know that much about physics, but I remember something about a "EPS Paradox" (forgive me if I have the letter wrong-it stands for Einstein and two other physicists) that showed that if there was a observed change in one part of a subatomic system, there is an _instant_ change in another part of that system. The change is faster than light. Also I believe there were some experiments showing that certain types of light can, in fact, move "faster than light" (the constant c as observed in a vacuume)but that no information could be sent faster than light.

Now I confess that when my new age friends start talking about "quantum vibrations" I have to leave the room because I understand enough to know people twist this theory in illogical ways. All the same, when you take the idea of particle/waves so light they may have no matter, and that and small selection of these "electro-magenetic" whatevers may form our understanding of the physical world and couple that with information psychologists have gathered about how we sense, perceive and construct our memories, it can lead to some strange specualtion.

My personal view (at the moment) is that I try to cultivate compassion and release my attchment to the outcome. This is real and meaningful within my experience--and if I am wrong, then at least my fanatsy was a good one. At a human level, people seem to respond to kindness just as if it was real,and that is good enough for me.

In the teachings of Jesus? You've got to be kidding. Where did he talk about a fiery hell? If you're talking about the Parable of the Rich man and Lazarus, that's just an illustration of how the rich religious leaders were suffering from the mental torment caused by the teachings of Jesus and his disciples, whereas the previous spiritually poor common people now had an elevated spiritual standing with God. i.e. why would the rich man ask for a drop of water to cool his torment? In a literal fiery hell, a drop of water would evaporate before it got to him. Another reason...Abraham was not and is not in heaven, as far as Christianity is concerned, because according to Christian teachings, Jesus' death is what opened up the way for salvation, and for people to go to heaven to rule as kings and priests with him. So Abraham could not have been in heaven. Again, it is symbolic. I have done much research into it, and I've never read anywhere that Jesus supported the philosophy of a fiery hell.

Charles, my Bible study is rusty, but I think Eugene is correct. The first example I found on a simple google search was "But whoever says, "You fool!" shall be in danger of hell fire (Matt 5:22). There are more.

How can Jesus threaten hell fire if there is no hell in his teachings?

Well, according to religioustolerance.org, there are 162 passages in the NT which mention hell, and 70 are attributed to Jesus. Reference:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/hel_bibl.htm

This particular page is only looking at biblical passages about hell, but there are other pages on the site that compare different ways that the passages have been interpreted.

There is only one god: me.

I AM CROAK! THE TOAD GOD!!!

*And he rose its paws in the air and waits for a miracle to happen... while croaking over the evidence.*

*kiss's Croak and then I turn into a frog.* Hey that was not suppose to happen. I wanted him to turn into a human so I could prove that he is fake.

as for theory of relativity, I heard that as you get farther from the point of the creation of the universe (the big bang), time speeds up. if you want to talk theoretically, you can send a ship full of people out away from the point of creation at over the speed of light, and in a few days, they will have become a super advanced race of people, having advanced hundreds of thousands of years while we on earth experience a few days. A Jewish Rabbi once told me that this is how god created the world in "7 days" when it took millions of years for the dinosaurs to live and die before humans evolved. Interesting theory, but I personally don't know the technical details to discuss it