For any readers who are evangelical Christians, or progressive Christians, or recovering Christians, or even if you’re not Christian at all but are interested in people’s finding new ways of thinking about the subject of hell, here’s a great opportunity.
New Testament scholar and P.OST blogger Andrew Perriman has collected a series of his thoughtful posts into book form, Hell and Heaven in Narrative Perspective, which is now available for well under $4 on Kindle. (No Nook yet, though he’s looking into it; but Kindle can be read on any computer.) Definitely worth a look. Heck, at this price, just buy it and read at your leisure.
The only thing I am proselytizing for is openness to new ideas! See Perriman’s quote below.
Perriman says:
Being a collection of blog posts the book is academically lightweight, far from comprehensive, and suffers from many of the characteristic vices of the medium. Maybe that’s all to the good. In any case, I think it puts forward a pretty coherent case for reading the texts as interpretations of historical outcomes rather than as data for general theories about a personal afterlife.
In counseling my boys on surviving arguments with girlfriends I gave them these tools.
Girl…… Go to Hell! Boy…..Yuh mean this isn’t it?
Girl…….Go to Hell! Boy……Well, now that I’ve arrived, can you show me around?
There is a new free ebook reader / editor that may help the conversion from Kindle to Nook format.
http://calibre-ebook.com/
Thanks, Sonja, I’ll look that up. Hope all’s well.
Since some NDE’ers are bigger proselytizers for the literal reality of hell than many standard conservative evangelical Christians I know, this might be a good book to share with them as well. Many Buddhists also believe in a literal hell (though more akin to Christian purgatory). Buddha taught extensively on this in the Majjhima Nikaya. Buddhist hell is particularly gruesome and painful – moreso than most other conceptions, and it is hard to deny the literal intent of Buddha’s teachings here at first glance. There the skin of hell’s inhabitants freezes and cracks, covering them in frozen blood and puss, and at some levels, their bodies split open leaving them raw as their internal organs crack. For any readers who are literalist/traditional Buddhists, allegorical Buddhists, or recovering Buddhists, they might find comfort in Bimala Charan Law’s “Heaven and Hell in Buddhist Perspective”.
To me, all of the Hells mentioned by Alex, sound like the coercive tactics used by the major religions to intimidate people. To be blunt, what in the Hell do they know.
In the universe, there’s supposed to be light matter and dark matter. Perhaps both are necessary for the process of creation in to function. Perhaps positive energy versus negative energy is a necessary part of the evolving equation. One thing for sure, they make things happen, make them change, and the only constant factor in existence is change.
If this is so, both are necessary. We reap what we sow right here right now on this plane of existence.. Negative actions beget negative results. Hitler blew his brains out in a bunker.
If this is truly the case, there’s no need for a trumpet up “Hell” that we all will suffer for eternity in………….IF… we don’t do what we’re told.
On the contrary, the hell I mentioned comes straight from the discourses of the Buddha himself, who was also one of the greatest teachers of peace and harmony the world has known. I think we need to be cautious before we dismiss the great traditions so hastily, especially when we do have so many NDEs that confirm at least the broad outlines of extremely negative regions of an afterlife, and we know that this very existence right here that we are in, provides its own brand of hellish experience (torture, starvation, debilitating disease, natural disaster, rape, murder, etc.). If NDEs have implications for a metaphysical topography, then surely there is enough to indicate the existence of undesirable regions, usually based on our own use of free will, as there is to indicate the opposite.
If we’re talking physics, there are several constants in physics. But I’m really hesitant when it comes to alot of these new agey attempts to equate metaphysical subjects like good and evil, with scientific concepts like energy, light, darkness, etc. I understand that the metaphor of “energy” is almost inescapable when it comes to talking metaphysics – particularly dualistic conceptions, but I don’t venture out beyond that.
The old stereotype about major religions intimidating people with hell is beginning to fade. Religion, like any other social group that seeks to increase adherents, will use whatever works. As hell is less and less in favor within the wider population, you’ll probably hear about it less from the pulpit. My own experience in 100’s of different churches all over the country has borne this out.
Dave Woods wrote: “Negative actions beget negative results. Hitler blew his brains out in a bunker.”
I don’t believe in absolute karma in any sense, and I think its obvious that karma is not absolute on this plane (part of the reason the doctrine of reincarnation was invented was to account for the fact that karmic justice is so often obviously not doled out on earth). The example you give of Hitler shows the opposite of one reaping what they sow. Hitler experienced a painless form of death. Is this his just desserts for the massive scale of horrendous evil that rippled out from his actions? Clearly not. If there ever were a reason to invent a hell, Hitler would be it. In fact though, I doubt any amount of suffering could really balance the karmic scales for Hitler.
If the scales could be balanced, I will tell you what I think would come closest — for Hitler to have a life review in which he simultaneously experienced – in the first-person perspective – the actual suffering he inflicted on all the other people, while at the same time being aware of the fact that he was responsible for it. He should be made to experience both the pain of it, and the pain of the guilt that an enlightened conscience ought to acknowledge and suffer for committing such acts. And indeed, this is what many NDE’ers have experienced during their life reviews.
For those interested, here is one popular evangelical Christian bloggers perspective on “hellish NDEs”, with reference to Nancy’s work:
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2011/05/hellish-near-death-experiences.html
Yea! Alex!!
This blog is coming alive!!
This is great food for thought.
I will say this the churches have quit pushing hell on the people because they’ve reconciled themselves to the fact that the ploy isn’t working anymore.
When the people won’t go for the oky doke anymore the religions change up. Who’s leading who here.