James Kirk Wall, author of Agnosticism: The Battle Against Shameless Ignorance, seems to think he has come up with a clever line of agnostic apologetics to pursue in getting rid of Hell:
Pastor Rob Bell is arguing that there may be no Hell. Would Christianity still be able to sell without Hell, or would membership plummet?
Heaven and Hell make up the greatest marketing campaign ever created by man. If you buy what we’re selling, you will live forever in happiness. If you don’t, fire and brimstone for all eternity!
Uh, yeah, that's a perfect to way to put it—if you're into flippant, theologically-challenged, and historically-illiterate snarkiness. Which I'm sure is appealing to many people. Personally, I've never had a problem with belief in Hell; my issue, as a Fundamentalist, was with purgatory. But once I read what the Catholic Church actually teaches about purgatory, as opposed to the all of the Jack Chick-type silliness I was fed growing up, it made sense. (In fact, the fact that so many Catholics dismiss purgatory as superfluous or silly shows just how rotten catechesis has been generally since the 1960s.)
My experience is that people (some of them avowed atheists) who are dismissive of Hell have both a faulty understanding of what it is and isn't, but also a warped understanding of who God is and is not (or what orthodox Christianity says about God). This is understandable to a certain degree, as some Christians do indeed portray God as something of angry old man who can't wait to shoot sinners out of his celestial cannon into the fires of damnation. But if there only heaven, or no afterlife at all, it does beg the question: can we really speak meaningfully about good and evil, as well as justice? The short answer is, "No" (as I touched on a bit in this post yesterday). Ross Douthat, in his April 24th column, "A Case for Hell", writes:
Atheists have license to scoff at damnation, but to believe in God and not in hell is ultimately to disbelieve in the reality of human choices. If there’s no possibility of saying no to paradise then none of our no’s have any real meaning either. They’re like home runs or strikeouts in a children’s game where nobody’s keeping score.
In this sense, a doctrine of universal salvation turns out to be as deterministic as the more strident forms of scientific materialism. Instead of making us prisoners of our glands and genes, it makes us prisoners of God himself. We can check out any time we want, but we can never really leave.
The doctrine of hell, by contrast, assumes that our choices are real, and, indeed, that we are the choices that we make. The miser can become his greed, the murderer can lose himself inside his violence, and their freedom to turn and be forgiven is inseparable from their freedom not to do so.
As Anthony Esolen writes, in the introduction to his translation of Dante’s “Inferno,” the idea of hell is crucial to Western humanism. It’s a way of asserting that “things have meaning” — that earthly life is more than just a series of unimportant events, and that “the use of one man’s free will, at one moment, can mean life or death ... salvation or damnation.”
Hell make perfect sense if we have a sense of perfection desired, a hope for justice fulfilled, and a recognition of free will granted. To quote, once again, from Benedict XVI's Spe Salvi:
To protest against God in the name of justice is not helpful. A world without God is a world without hope (cf. Eph 2:12). Only God can create justice. And faith gives us the certainty that he does so. The image of the Last Judgement is not primarily an image of terror, but an image of hope; for us it may even be the decisive image of hope. Is it not also a frightening image? I would say: it is an image that evokes responsibility, an image, therefore, of that fear of which Saint Hilary spoke when he said that all our fear has its place in love. (par. 44)
Returning to Wall's question, I think that much of the evidence is in: those churches and Christian groups that deny the existence of Hell—that is, the real possibility of being able to freely reject God to live with that choice for eternity—don't have much long-standing appeal. Mainline Protestant denominations that have abandoned belief in Hell (along with other basic doctrines) are dying or dead. Why? There is the matter of Jesus and the New Testament writers making plenty of references to Hell; there is also the nagging suspicion (confirmed, upon thought and investigation) that promising heaven without the need to freely choose love, life, and goodness is a cop-out, a con job, and a contradition. It fails to make sense of sin and it fails to provide real hope:
From the earliest times, the prospect of the Judgement has influenced Christians in their daily living as a criterion by which to order their present life, as a summons to their conscience, and at the same time as hope in God's justice. Faith in Christ has never looked merely backwards or merely upwards, but always also forwards to the hour of justice that the Lord repeatedly proclaimed. ...
In the modern era, the idea of the Last Judgement has faded into the background: Christian faith has been individualized and primarily oriented towards the salvation of the believer's own soul, while reflection on world history is largely dominated by the idea of progress. The fundamental content of awaiting a final Judgement, however, has not disappeared: it has simply taken on a totally different form. The atheism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is—in its origins and aims—a type of moralism: a protest against the injustices of the world and of world history. A world marked by so much injustice, innocent suffering, and cynicism of power cannot be the work of a good God. A God with responsibility for such a world would not be a just God, much less a good God. It is for the sake of morality that this God has to be contested. Since there is no God to create justice, it seems man himself is now called to establish justice. If in the face of this world's suffering, protest against God is understandable, the claim that humanity can and must do what no God actually does or is able to do is both presumptuous and intrinsically false. It is no accident that this idea has led to the greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice; rather, it is grounded in the intrinsic falsity of the claim. A world which has to create its own justice is a world without hope. (Spe Salvi, 41, 42)
Related IgnatiusInsight.com Links:
• Hell and the Bible | Piers Paul Read | An excerpt from "Hell" in Hell and Other Destinations
• The Brighter Side of Hell | James V. Schall, S.J.
• Socrates Meets Sartre: In Hell? | Peter Kreeft
• Are God's Ways Fair? | Ralph Martin
Friends,
Read this by St. Alphonsus Liguori:
What Will Hell Be Like?
Posted by: Blind Willie McTell | Tuesday, April 26, 2011 at 01:17 PM
If Hell does not really exist, then to hell with it.
Posted by: Ed Peters | Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 06:55 AM
See, this is what perplexed me about some of Bl. John Paul II's writings. In some places, if you boil down what he says, it seems to go something like this: "Well, I can't say that nobody will ever go to hell, but, for all intents and purposes... *wink wink* *nudge nudge*"
And no, I'm not trying to defame our previous pontiff, but I am very confused now about it.
I have even heard some rather public Catholic apologists speak about how, perhaps, we can even hope that hell will be empty, including of the fallen angels.
Yes, I know that there is nothing that tells us who is in Hell forever. That is knowledge no one has. I also wouldn't wish hell on anyone. Period. But it seems that there are plenty of Catholics as well who come very close to Bell's position. The only difference in the cases I've seen is the degree of imprecision they use in their statements, in an almost CYA fashion.
Posted by: Mike in KC, MO | Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 07:04 AM
Mike, the following writings on the fewness of the saved might help allay your confusion:
St. Leonard of Port Maurice:
http://www.olrl.org/snt_docs/fewness.shtml
Blessed John Henry Newman:
http://www.newmanreader.org/works/parochial/volume5/sermon18.html
Bishop Massillon:
http://cathom.blogspot.com/2008/09/on-small-number-of-saved.html
St. Louis de Montfort:
http://www.montfort.org/content/uploads/pdf/PDF_EN_28_1.pdf
From the latter:
"My dear brothers and sisters, there are two companies that appear before you each day: the followers of Christ and the followers of the world.
"Our dear Saviour's company is on the right, climbing up a narrow road, made all the narrower by the world's immorality. Our Master leads the way, barefooted, crowned with thorns, covered with blood, and laden with a heavy cross. Those who follow him, though most valiant, are only a handful, either because his quiet voice is not heard amid the tumult of the world, or because people lack the courage to follow him in his poverty, sufferings, humiliations and other crosses which his servants must carry all the days of their life....Their number is so small that we would be dumbfounded if we knew it. It is so small that there is scarcely one in ten thousand, as has been revealed to several saints, including St. Simon Stylites (as is related by Abbot Nilus), St. Basil, St. Ephrem and others. It is so small that, should it please God to gather them together, he would have to call them one by one as he did of old through his prophet, 'You will be gathered one by one;' one from this country, one from that province.
"On the left hand is the company of the world or of the devil. This is far more numerous, more imposing and more illustrious, at least in appearance. Most of the fashionable people run to join it, all crowded together, although the road is wide and is continually being made wider than ever by the crowds that pour along it like a torrent. It is strewn with flowers, bordered with all kinds of amusements and attractions, and paved with gold and silver."
If you read these in conjunction with Romano Amerio's great book, Iota Unum, your confusion will certainly dissipate.
Pax Dominum sit sempter vobiscum.
Posted by: Nettie Moore | Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 12:04 PM
I agree with you Mike, and I get an uneasy feeling when Catholics mince around the issue of Hell, whoever they are and whatever their reasons. Sometimes it seems that the position "there is no Hell" and "Hell may be empty for all we know" are virtually one and the same. Personally, I can't overlook the words of Jesus himself in Matthew 7:13 -
“Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. “
Of course we don't know who they are and it is a waste of time to speculate who is in Hell. But I think Jesus pretty much definitively states that it will have its occupants, so the existence of Hell and its vacancy rate are settled issues from where I sit.
You mentioned purgatory in passing Carl. On that point I have been recently working my way through Fr. Thomas Dubay's excellent book (from Ignatius Press of course!) called "Fire Within" regarding St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross and the Gospel, on prayer. Let me say this, the more I understand what it means to be purified and transformed by God into union with him in this life, the more and more I am convinced that purgatory is a place of mercy for many, if not most of us in the next life, and I thank God for it.
Without that purification, I am so lost, and knowing what it took for Saint Teresa and Saint John to reach that kind of holiness here on earth, I am counting on purgatory. Would that I could come close to their experience of God here, but it is a great comfort in the love of God to know he will finish the job there.
Posted by: LJ | Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 01:18 PM
While one might have a legitimate argument regarding the existence or nonexistence of heaven, even the most militant atheist must concede the existence of hell as a matter of simple logic.
Hell is, according to the best understanding, separation from God (whereas heaven is eternally being one with God).
Thus, even if God does not exist -- especially if God does not exist -- then, being necessarily apart from Him (because He does not exist), one is also necessarily in a state of hell.
If God does exist, then to be apart from Him would be hell, and if He were to violate His loving nature and force you to be with Him in heaven, because you do not want to be with Him and are their against your will, that too would be a type of hell.
When one considers every possible alternative, the existence of hell is undeniable.
Posted by: Bender | Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 01:36 PM
"If God does exist, then to be apart from Him would be hell, and if He were to violate His loving nature and force you to be with Him in heaven, because you do not want to be with Him and are their against your will, that too would be a type of hell."
Overall an interesting argument Bender. There is a school of thought that takes the very nature of God, ie., existence itself (I AM), and argues from there that nothing can exist, not even Hell without the sustaining presence of God, so therefore, there can be no Hell.
However, the other argument is that Hell is by definition, the burning torment of God's presence for those who hate him, which you have touched on. I still think one of the best descriptions of this is from the Eastern Orthodox theologian Dr. Kalomiros in a talk given in 1980, called River of Fire.
http://www.orthodoxpress.org/parish/river_of_fire.htm
(Warning: He is quite critical and harsh on the Catholic Church and her philosophical tradition. But once you get past the anti-Catholic diatribe his description of Hell is interesting, and to my mind, despite his bias, is not incompatible with Catholic faith)
Posted by: LJ | Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 02:18 PM
I thank you all for the links.
I know what the Catholic Church teaches about Hell in the catechism. I also accept it 100%. I guess what I'm looking for is someone to take the very plain language of Church's teaching on Hell and explain just what Bl. JPII was talking about, as on its face, his statements seem rather... at odds. No offense meant to him, of course. I just simply don't see how they mesh. Then again, I'm a layman, I may be missing some very deep meaning that would explain it, I'll honestly not deny that.
I mean, if it is possible that everyone in hell could eventually be in heaven, ie that there is no eternal punishment for final rejection of the Love of God, then there is no point in anything. Why bother suffering? Why bother offering your flesh to be torn by the animals in the arena when, if you'll go to heaven anyway regardless, you could just avoid that unpleasantness and apostatize and live as a complete hedonist? It DOESN'T MATTER in that scenario.
And if some apologists really believe that every being in hell really will get to heaven, including the fallen angels, then they should stop trying to tell protestants that 'once saved, always saved' is wrong, as in that case they have had a better grasp on the Truth than we Catholics do.
You see my problem here? I am NOT, I repeat NOT doubting what the Church teaches. I accept it fully. I simply would like some one with the teaching authority in the Church today to say something besides *wink wink* *nudge nudge* on this.
If this has been done, I haven't found it. If it does exist out there and any of you know of a link to it, I would be VERY greatfull if you would share.
Thanks!
Posted by: Mike in KC, MO | Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 02:30 PM
Father Schall's article reminds me of one of the more chilling expressions used by Adrienne von Speyr, which goes something like this:
"those who are able to assimilate and act upon uncongenial truths"
Posted by: Charles E Flynn | Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 05:01 PM
Mike in KC, MO,
Have you read Father Schall's article, for which Carl provided a link above? Father Schall is not a member of what we might call the "Confraternity of *Wink Wink Nudge Nudge*".
Posted by: Charles E Flynn | Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 05:27 PM
Mike, given your troubles here, have you considered the possiblity that you have grossly misread Blessed John Paul II? That he did not say, much less mean, the "wink, wink, nudge, nudge," that you attribute to him, which would be not only intellectually dishonest, but bordering on heretical? That is, that your problem is with you and your reading, and not with His Holiness?
Posted by: Bender | Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 08:27 PM
Bender, as I said above: "No offense meant to him, of course. I just simply don't see how they mesh. Then again, I'm a layman, I may be missing some very deep meaning that would explain it, I'll honestly not deny that."
And no, I don't think that Bl JPII is heretical in the least, just to be clear. What really brought about the confusion for me was, afterword, apologists coming out and basically say, like I mentioned above: "I have even heard some rather public Catholic apologists speak about how, perhaps, we can even hope that hell will be empty, including of the fallen angels."
I suppose I should have been more clear, as my main request was for official clarification on this, as I know that the Church, not random joe apologists, speaks for Christ.
Thanks
Posted by: Mike in KC, MO | Thursday, April 28, 2011 at 05:44 AM
We do have to create our own justice. That's reality. What justice has come from the Catholic Church? 600 years of the Inquisition? I stand by my assertion that heaven and hell are marketing tools. I find no reason to believe words by men who claim to be speaking for God and more than other men claiming to be speaking for God. Its humbug I tell you! There is good and there is evil in the Bible. What is taken from it depends on the people who are reading. True, communism hardly has a history of peace and love either. Perhaps Machiavelli was right about humanity. Whether by religion or not, mankind needs good arms and good laws in order to behave ethically.
Posted by: James Kirk Wall | Saturday, April 30, 2011 at 10:01 AM
James: I wrote, in my post, of "flippant, theologically-challenged, and historically-illiterate snarkiness." You've simply reinforced the observation:
• "We do have to create our own justice. ... I stand by my assertion that heaven and hell are marketing tools." Theologically-challenged
• "That's reality." Flippant.
• "What justice has come from the Catholic Church? 600 years of the Inquisition?" Historically-illiterate snarkiness.
I hesitate to employ numbers, but for what it is worth (at least to give pause, I hope): the Inquisition, over the course of 300 years or so, was responsible for the deaths of about 10,000 people, according to scholars across the board. Communism, during the 20th century, murdered around 100 million people. So, yes, it's true, as you say, that "communism hardly has a history of peace and love either."
The fact is, Aristotle was thinking far beyond where you are now, and he lived over 2300 years ago. Aquinas was even further beyond your line of thinking, and he was a hell-believing scholastic. You're headed in the wrong direction on all counts: intellectually, theologically, morally.
Posted by: Carl E. Olson | Saturday, April 30, 2011 at 11:09 AM
Interesting article and interesting comments. I've come by my doubt of there being any human souls in hell (Please note that I do not doubt the existence of hell.) by coming into contact with Calvinists and their doctrines of predestination, double predestination, and the total depravity of man. It seems to me that if God knows the past, present, and future He would know that some people would choose eternal and everlasting punishment. But why would a loving God, the Christian and Jewish God, create someone who would suffer eternally? Doesn't make sense.
My doubt of there being human souls in hell comes from my acquaintance with the Calvinists and their, to my mind, extraordinarily mangled and cruel version of Christianity. Purgatory seems more probable.
But very interesting article and comments all the same.
Posted by: Dan Deeny | Saturday, April 30, 2011 at 01:17 PM
Carl, in dealing with people like you, I need to remember the wisdom of Lao Tzu
“Respond intelligently even to unintelligent treatment.”
I’m not theologically challenged according to the Eastern Religions. Do you know anything about them?
Yes, 600 years of the Inquisition, 1231 to 1860.
10,000 people tortured and killed according to “scholars across the board.” Seeing as how you don’t even know how long the Inquisition lasted, who knows if your “10,000” number is even correct. And even if it is, I wouldn’t be bragging about it. This doesn’t include the people who were oppressed. Jews marked and locked up in ghettos wasn’t invented by the Nazis, was it?
Aristotle was thinking far beyond where I am now 2,300 years ago? What did Aristotle have to do with your religion? Jesus Christ wasn’t born yet. And what about Socrates or Epicurus?
“Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.” -- Epicurus (341-271 B.C.)
“Well I am certainly wiser than this man. It is only too likely that neither of us has any knowledge to boast of; but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it seems that I am wiser than he is to this small extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know.” – Socrates (469-399 B.C.)
And yes, we do need to create our own justice based on moral reason and common sense. Or perhaps we should get it from the Book of Numbers Chapter 31? Invoking the name of God does not magically make something divine. History is full of people invoking the name of God to fuel their own arrogance.
Posted by: James Kirk Wall | Saturday, April 30, 2011 at 09:16 PM
James: I'll add "petulant" to the list. You've earned it.
I was referring to the most famous and most-cited Inquisition, the Spanish Inquisition, which lasted for 300-350 years, depending on which ending date is preferred. But you're right: I should have looked up some numbers before writing my hasty comment. In which case I could have quoted from Dr. Edward Peters book, The Inquisition, published in 1988 by that hyper-Catholic outfit, the University of California Press:
Some scholars give a higher estimate of up to 5,000. Dr. James Hannam cites the article, "Some Recent Work on the Inquisition in Spain and Italy” (Journal of Modern History 54:3 1982) by highly regarded Dr. Geoffrey Parker, in writing:
Noted British historian Henry A. Kamen arrived at similar numbers and conclusions in his influential study, The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision (Yale University Press, 1998). The Peters and Kamen books are in my personal library of seven thousand books (including two shelves of books on Buddhism, Hinduism, and other Eastern religions).
And do you really think I was bragging? If so, you can't read. If not, you can't be trusted.
What did Aristotle have to do with your religion? Jesus Christ wasn’t born yet.
You are a sharp one! I'm so embarrassed. No, actually I'm not, as my point, however poorly expressed, was that Aristotle had a far more profound understanding of morality and justice than you do, despite not having access to the wisdom of the 2300 years between his day and ours.
And yes, we do need to create our own justice based on moral reason and common sense.
Ah, yes, our "moral reason". Which comes from where? What? Who? And how does it come to us? How do you know? Is it universal in character? Objective? Subjective? If objective, then upon what basis? If subjective, then why should I agree with your sense of justice and moral reason? And so forth and so on.
I recommend you read What We Can't Not Know: A Guide (Ignatius Press, 2011), written by former atheist and brilliant philosopher, J. Budziszewski (University of Texas), who takes cliches such as, "We do need to create our own justice based on moral reason and common sense" and shreds them like tissue paper with real commonsense.
Posted by: Carl E. Olson | Saturday, April 30, 2011 at 10:23 PM
Carl is correct that Spain has been maligned through exaggerated accusations about the Inquisition. Years ago three or four secular Spanish scholars searched well into the records of the Inquisition and the picture turned out to be astonishing.
Inquisitional courts were more just and lenient than civil courts; prisoners in secular courts would blaspheme in order to be sent to the courts of the Inquisition, where conditions were better; between 3,000 and 5,000 died during the Inquisition's 350 years of history( 1.9% of all processed), which pales in comparison to 150,000 documented witch burnings elsewhere in Europe in the same centuries.
Posted by: Manuel G. Daugherty Razetto | Sunday, May 01, 2011 at 02:35 PM
Carl,
Ah, so your claim that I was “historically illiterate” was based on your own misunderstanding. Apology accepted.
It’s good to know that the Spanish Inquisitions’ “convert or die” system of justice did result in many picking the former and thereby sparing their own lives.
In your previous post, you compared 10,000 deaths to the number of deaths under Lenin, Stalin and Mao. It seemed to be a “look, not as bad as them” kind of brag. Perhaps I was mistaken.
In regards to Aristotle, you seem to be proving my point. It appears that you believe Aristotle to be a subject matter expert on morality and justice, and yet he was able to make his deductions without the New Testament concept of hell. How could that be if that concept of hell is essential? Socrates and Confucius were also great teachers of morality and ethics without Jesus Christ or the Old Testament.
Your argument is basically justice cannot come from human beings, but must come from men who claim to be speaking for the Biblical God in order to have any legitimacy. If that’s the best Budziszewski’s got, he is hardly a brilliant philosopher.
Posted by: James Kirk Wall | Sunday, May 01, 2011 at 06:38 PM
"It appears that you believe Aristotle to be a subject matter expert on morality and justice, and yet he was able to make his deductions without the New Testament concept of hell. How could that be if that concept of hell is essential?"
James, I am confused by your perception of contradiction on Carl's part. While Catholicism is grounded in the facts of Jesus Christ's life, death and resurrection, i.e., eyewitness testimony, it is also intricately tied to the western philosophic tradition beginning with Plato, then Aristotle's modification of Plato running straight through Augustine to the Scholastics. Indeed, Aquinas is known as the great synthesizer of Aristotelian views with Christianity. In his book “The Last Superstition,” philosopher Edward Feser sums up the persistent themes of this synthesis: "...that the material world points beyond itself to an eternal source; that things have immutable forms or essences; that the foundation of morality is to be found in this source and in these essences; that human beings have immaterial souls; that all of this is knowable through reason, and that knowing it is the highest end of philosophy and science." This leads me to wonder if you are using the word "essential" in the classical philosophic meaning or the modern meaning of "really important." Nevertheless, a study of justice using unaided reason leads to the plausibility of hell's existence even without reliance on Christ's words.
"In your previous post, you compared 10,000 deaths to the number of deaths under Lenin, Stalin and Mao. It seemed to be a "look, not as bad as them" kind of brag. Perhaps I was mistaken."
Let's avoid the low-hanging fruit of state-sponsored brutality so prevalent after the Enlightenment. The comparison of the Inquisition to secular tribunals within the same time frame keeps the cultural norms of the time in perspective. However, a more balanced understanding of that time period would also include an appreciation for the Church's Scholastic tradition, roughly dated from the mid 1000s to the 1500s. Scholasticism employed the method of resolving opposing positions by use of reason and authority in the sciences of theology and philosophy. The Scholastics gave us the university system, providing the framework for the scientific revolution. Spanish universities of the 16th century were developing international law including the concept of human rights, stemming from the encounters with the people of the New World. Modern scientific economics arose well before Adam Smith, again in Spanish universities of the 15-16th centuries. The hallmark of Catholicism is its integration of faith and reason but this is easily misunderstood when working from an incomplete definition of "faith" and/or the materialist's truncated version of "reason."
"Your argument is basically justice cannot come from human beings, but must come from men who claim to be speaking for the Biblical God in order to have any legitimacy. If that’s the best Budziszewski’s got, he is hardly a brilliant philosopher."
James, I'm sure you would prefer to read Budziszewski yourself than to rely on someone else's authority as to what the author says.
I'll grant that it is more comforting to sit in judgment over people who lived 500 years ago than to face the fact that we already "create our own justice based on moral reason and common sense" and it is a monumental failure. We live in a culture that proclaims the bloody "justice" of pre-emptive war abroad and the death penalty for unwanted humans at home. At least the justice of the Biblical God as understood by the Catholic Church is always accompanied by mercy.
Posted by: Jean | Monday, May 02, 2011 at 03:24 PM
"At least the justice of the Biblical God as understood by the Catholic Church is always accompanied by mercy."
But Jean, you know the history of the church has much corruption. Even recently there was corruption that I will not mention specifically. And what mercy is there for people condemned to hell for all eternity?
Socrates redefined the soul from a shadowy representation of ourselves to something greater than our physical bodies. His concept of God and the soul was closer to the Catholic concept than the concept of Greek mythology. The Bible has many influences from the Great Three and Egyptian theology as well. There are many books written by men who claim to be speaking for God. To say that the followers of all others are going to hell is intolerant and evil IMO. I know many Catholics do not feel that way. I also know many Catholics agree with modern science in regards to the age of the earth and evolution. As for hell itself, the Old Testament does not contain the New Testament concept of hell, and Eastern religions do not either. I maintain that the New Testament concept of hell was created as a marketing tool and is a direct contradiction to the tolerance and love taught by Jesus Christ.
Posted by: James Kirk Wall | Tuesday, May 03, 2011 at 05:47 PM