Hell

P: Mark Twain said: "Heaven for climate and Hell for company. If you want to meet interesting people, you don't go to Heaven, you go to Dante's Hell."

Dante's Hell

P: Jesus spoke far more about Hell than Jesus spoke about Heaven.

Satan / the Devil is later claimed to be the serpent in the Garden Of Eden.

In the Hebrew Bible, the snake in the Garden of Eden is simply a snake.

Garden Of Eden

P: Much that is believed and described about Satan is not from the Bible. Artists, clergy and writers have embellished the "evil" and scary character over the centuries.

Gary (G): Aligheri Dante and John Milton are largely responsible for how Satan and Hell are perceived today - much more so than the Bible's weak description of Satan and Hell.

Aligheri Dante John Milton

P: Hell is where much dogma places your sinful soul - which is believed to be alive and painfully tormented beyond imagination. God constantly heals your torn soul so that it can constantly endure fresh pain - for eternity. 　

G: But why? Doesn't your Biblical God Love you? So, this is what your loving God and Jesus Christ have in store for you -if you are not selected to serve God and Jesus in Heaven for eternity? There must be a definition of love that I'm not familiar with.

P: Death is the great equalizer.

G: Agreed! Kings and peasants, the rich and poor all have the same fate in death - which is nonexistence.

P: To be in league with God equals Heaven. To be in league with the Devil equals Hell.

G: I disagree. Other than man's poetic myths and artistic license, there is no scientific evidence of either fictional character, God or Satan, nor of either fictional place, Heaven or Hell.

Throughout history, these murderous and destructive "characters" and their abodes were created by and enhanced by imperialistic, authoritative men to manipulate, control and discipline the gullible through raw, ignorant fear and psychological intimidation.

Below is an interesting link to Satan - The Devil:

http://www.solarnavigator.net/mythology/satan_the_devil_lucifer.htm

P: Ann Graham Lotz (Reverend Billy Graham’s daughter): Hell is a real place that God sends the Devil and his Angels and a place where Jesus Christ said that those who reject Him will one day live.

G: Perspective: Jesus Christ (real or not) obviously has an ego that just can not take rejection. Jesus operates here with the attitude of an entitled slave owner, that holds life, death and the sentence of "Eternal Torment" over His slaves. What an insane, jealous and possessive model Jesus Christ proves to be for Humanity!

P: Christian dogma: Your afterlife is eternal whether you live in Heaven or in Hell.

Afterlife? Heaven Or Hell?

G: The old Hebrew dogma "dust to dust" is much more logical and realistic. To be put to death due to some imperialistic authority's disapproval of you was intimidation enough for the living. To further be threatened "Eternal Torment" multiplies the fear factor among the gullible.

Death = Dust To Dust?

P: Catholic Priest - Father Thomas Rausch: "Hell is, of course, a metaphor. Hell is a mythological concept. What it means is to live without any relationship to God, which is the great gift of Human life."

Father Thomas Rausch

G: If properly quoted, did Father Thomas Rausch, a Catholic Priest, confess on public television that Hell is a metaphor, a mythological concept?

Dictionary: Metaphor: Something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance.

Dictionary: Mythological: The term "myth" is often used to refer to a false story. So, this Catholic Priest confesses that Hell is a Metaphor - literally not real - and is mythological - a false story. If this be the case, what does the belief in Hell consist of?

Furthermore, to live without a relationship with a monstrous God, a God, who would create a place that provides Eternal Torture for His children, is certainly a milder consequence of Hell than suffering "Eternal Torment".

Do you realize that both Jesus Christ and the Biblical God will send you into Eternal Torment should you reject Them? What a nightmare the Biblical God is depicted to be! 　

P: The Devil draws us towards evil and watches over Hell. The Devil grasps human freedom and corrupts people’s ability to choose good. Over the past 2000 years, Satan has been depicted as God’s great adversary who could lead us to Eternal Damnation. The Devil is to test and tempt us and to get us to curse God. The Biblical God demands for us to choose to obey, to serve and to love Him - or to face Eternal Torment in Hell.

Is The Devil The Deceiver - The Father Of All Lies?

G: Titus 1:2 God never lies. Let's Biblically test this statement. Who does the Bible document C&V to be a liar - God or Satan?

II Chronicles 18:22 the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of thy prophets.

God put a lying spirit in the mouths of His prophets? What? Wouldn't only evil would do that?

Jeremiah 20:7 Oh Lord, Thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived.

Jeremiah confessed that God deceived him! Can you define contradiction?

Faith is the shallowest and the most nonsense answer to the most meaningful questions.

Sigmund Freud: "Religion belonged to the infancy of humanity. Now that humanity has become of age, it should be left behind."

Sigmund Freud Humanists Put Humanity First

G: II Thessalonians 2:11 God sends upon them a strong delusion, to make them believe what is false.

How could the Bible be "God's Word" when it admits, chapter and verse, that God was a deceiver and a swindler of people? By these Bible documented acts, God is the perfect model of a liar, which teaches followers to lie in direct violation of His Own 9th commandment. Maybe that is the sacred model and the insane permission for a Government's lying to its people.

Ancient Hell

P: Artists and writers have produced our darkest imaginings of Hell.

G: This is an example of man's artistic license to project evil and pain on mankind that I referred to.

P: The ancient Egyptians believed in immortality. They mummified / preserved human bodies and built giant pyramid tombs to discriminatingly protect the valued body and soul in the afterlife.

The Egyptian “Book of the Dead” states: The deceased had to go through 7 different gates of terror just to get to the afterlife. The Egyptians were the first to believe that souls were to be judged after death. They were to be judged by King Osiris. The "just" were granted "Eternal-Life" while the unworthy were savagely eaten by a gruesome creature - "Ammut", a Hell-Mouth - who devoured the damned.

Book Of The Dead Ammut

G: From this, artists later depicted monsters eating Human Souls in Hell. Artists visually introduced to gullible imaginations the concept of Hell. The gullible, in turn, believed it, committed to it and swore that it was true. This is a logical explanation of the creation of "The God Virus".

P: The 6^th century BC prophet Zoroaster promoted salvation and Hell. It was dwarfed by the Hell-fire teachings of Jesus Christ. Christ defined and promoted the Hell of Eternal Damnation.

Zoroaster Zoroaster Hell

P: For most people (Christians) the concept of Hell is based on one book, the Bible. 　

Ann Graham Lotz: If you reject Jesus Christ, you will go to Hell for eternity.

G: Ann certainly proves to be a cheerleader for her fictional God's monstrous team.

P: Biblical conceptions of Hell evolved over the course of the Bible.

G: This program proves to believe in evolution to use the term "evolved".

P: The Old Testament contains only fleeting and indirect references to Hell.

Isaiah 38:18-19 The common destiny of the dead was Sheol, the grave.

Sheol = The Grave

The grave and death simply described what happened when you die.

Shoel is not mentioned in the New Testament. In Greek mythology, Hades is the word for the ruler of the netherworld and his domain, commonly considered the Devil and Hell.

Matthew 16:18 Jesus said: And on this rock I will build my Church and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.

Scholars assign the meaning of Shoel and Hades simply as the realm of the dead and not a place of punishment / torment.

Daniel 12:2 Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the Earth will awake, some to everlasting life others to shame and everlasting contempt.

The Earth Will Awake Everlasting Contempt

Pastor Arnold Murray (on his TV program) projected: Nebuchadnezzar was the King of Babylon (today's Iraq) who attacked and killed many of God's "chosen" Jews in Jerusalem. The "evil" King actually did God's will by killing and capturing the Jews that he took back to Babylon. In the 4 chapter of Daniel King Nebuchadnezzar actually wrote a prayer that ended up in the Bible. King Nebuchadnezzar, the enemy of the Biblical God's Jews, was a servant of the Biblical God. Can the words "hypocrisy" and "disloyalty" properly describe this God?

King Nebuchadnezzar

Jeremiah 27:6 God said: I now gave all these lands to Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon, My servant.

Murray points out that God is in control and had King Nebuchadnezzar kill and capture His "chosen" Jews to teach them a lesson. One lesson the Jews learned in captivity in Babylon was the Zoroastrian religion from which the Jews adopted Heaven / Hell as Satan as part of the Zoroastrian faith.

G: The Book of Daniel produced the first Old Testament Jewish reference to after life punishment. Did Daniel experience the Zoroastrian indoctrination of the Jews in Babylon?

The Zoroastrian teaching to the Jews in Babylonian captivity started about 586 BC. This Heaven / Hell - Salvation / Eternal Torment indoctrination is probably what mostly influenced, the book of Daniel and later Jewish dogma. Before 600 BC - God was credited with doing it all - in the Jewish tradition.

Is "God's Pleasure" Hell's Eternal Torment?

G: Jesus Christ later put Hell into overdrive. After selling Hell to be a reality, Jesus then could claim to be the savior from Hell. What a brilliant religious agenda for human behavioral control - power and profit over people! Some would say that uncivilized and murderous mankind needed such a threat to control the masses. The numbers of war casualties, and murders recorded in the past 200 years of history proves that this religious model does not work. War results when one tyrant's army tries to control or destroy other people - just as God tries to control or destroy all who do not obey Him. Except, your loving God adds "Eternal Torment" to those who dare disobey Him. That is another dimension of punishment that the Jews never came up with until Daniel.

P: Outside a Jerusalem gate was “Gehenna”, a 24-hour burning trash dump. Jesus Christ spoke of Gehenna as a metaphor for the tormenting fires of Eternal Hell.

G: This was another step of Jesus psychologically bringing Hell into reality for the gullible. Jesus Christ proved to be the greatest salesman of all time. He actually died on the cross (for you) to close the deal.

P: Matthew 13:41-42 Jesus said: They (Jesus’ Angels) will throw them (you) into the fiery furnace where there will be weeping and the gnashing of teeth.

P: Matthew 25:41: Jesus said: Depart from Me, ye cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angeles.

Is Hell All For God's Pleasure?

G: If we are not saved, Jesus Christ is telling us in Matthew 13:41-42 and 25:41, to depart from Him because His Angeles will throw us, you and me, into the fires of Hell.

P: II Thessalonians 8-9 In flaming fire God takes vengeance on those who don't know Him and who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ shall be punished with everlasting destruction.

G: That says it all about being punished with everlasting destruction - except - let's continue to: II Thessalonians 2:9-13 Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power, signs and working wonders with all deceit of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved. 11: And for this cause, God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but has pleasure in unrighteousness. But, we give thanks to God because God has, from the beginning, chosen you to salvation...

Can any Christian explain this with a straight face - especially where God sends delusion so that you and I would believe His lie and how "salvation" is for the Biblical God's predestined chosen?

Blind Faith And Belief?

G: Concerning my separation from the insane Biblical God? Personally, I can live with that.

P: Revelation 20:10 And the Devil, Beast and false prophet were thrown into the lake of burning sulfur. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

G: That is your Biblical C&V documentation of "Eternal Torment".

P: Jesus tells us that Hell is located in the middle of the Earth.

Is Hell Located In The Middle Of The Earth?

G: What scientific evidence is there of a torturous Hell as described by religion?

P: Miriam Van Scott, author of “The Encyclopedia of Hell”: Saint Augustine believed that all human beings were born with original sin from Adam and until they were baptized, that sin could not be washed away. 　

For the first 1,000 years of Christianity, Hell was rarely mentioned from the pulpit. With the dark ages, holy men latched onto St. Augustine’s teachings, sometimes to further their own agendas.

G: This statement discloses the hidden purposes of religion. Religion creates power and control for an evil intimidator over the gullible intimidated. Through forms of fear-based blackmail and extortion, the powerful then fleeced profit from the intimidated flock. Throughout the "Dark Ages" unscrupulous Popes built their Catholic religion to govern Europe. Torture, murder and the threat of Eternal Torment were the tools and weapons of this insane, imperialistic religion. Historically, millions were brutally tortured and murdered during their "Holy Inquisitions".

P: Clergy practiced: To convince people to obey you, Hell became a place more and more real. With (G: inquisitions) famine, plague and war, people had no problem visualizing the savage horrors of Hell. Due to the plague, half of Europe’s population died in 4 years.

The Black Plague (Bubonic) Killing About 50% of Europe's Population

                                           The Path To Hell

P: Saint Augustine, a 4th century, Christ follower, was a major influence who established Christian codes of conduct. He thought up, formulated and decided who goes to Hell.

Alice Turner: Saint Augustine felt to appreciate the grace of being saved you had to know that the majority of the people you knew were probably going to be damned.

G: And the insane clergy claimed: "I know that it is true because I heard it come of out of my own mouth!"

P: St. Augustine spent his early years in drunken debauchery.

G: I wonder if that included a lot of great sex!

P: Disparaging over his misspent youth, he yearned to find meaning in his life. His reason could not make the jump to religious belief.

After Augustine was converted by God, he wrote down rules for how we (you and I) should live our lives. He became "mad" (insane) trying to overcome his lack of religious faith.

Augustine was convinced by his dying mother to convert to Christianity.

St. Augustine felt that due to his drunken debauchery and sins, he deserved Hell and separation from God for all eternity.

What Really Made St. Augustine's Life Memorable?

P: God, with grace and love, converted Augustine.　

G: Why did the program say that it was God, through His grace and love, and not Jesus Christ, Who converted Augustine?

P: Augustine wrote strict codes for salvation and damnation.

G: St. Augustine served as a model for manipulative clergy. Secret: If you want to become a manipulative clergy, learn what Augustine did - and do it.

P: St. Augustine made sex a signpost sin to the road to Hell.

Saint Augustine "City of God": "Lust requires for all its consummation, darkness and secrecy not only when unlawful intercourse is desired but even such fornication that Earthly cities have legalized."

G: How many millions of perfectly good, pleasurable and healthy sex-lives did St. Augustine ruin by making sex a signpost for Hell?

P: Clergy used the fear of Hell to scare souls into their pews.

People came more to hear about the horrors of Hell. They wanted to be grossed-out and terrified. Preachers realized that Hell was becoming the attraction. Hell-fire sermons became the truth incarnate. The sense of Hell became very real. The Church became the gateway to salvation and whatever was said in that Church the truth.

G: Just like the sense of a programmed, fictitious God became real to the gullible and the authoritative.

P: Church art and architecture displayed images of Hell.

Whatever you see or hear in Church, your mind should and will accept as truth.

G: Major religions like Christianity and Islam project the horrors of the doomed.

According to Darrel Ray's eye-opening book "The God Virus", once your feelings are infected and your ego is attached, you become a staunch God / Hell infected believer and you then automatically desire and take action to infect others.

A Virus

P: Artists made images of “the saved” sitting in Heaven looking down smug and superior at those doomed and suffering in Hell's torment.

G: Egos always think that they are the value, the authority, more important, entitled, and special - just like God. The God-game is simply the ego-game.

P: Holy men, artists and authors elevated God’s Satan, the host of Hell, to awesome power. Satan bids us to join him in Hell.

Ann Graham Lotz: The quickest path to Hell is doing Satan’s bidding here on Earth. The choice boils down that the Devil’s temptation gives you and me a choice to do right or to do wrong - to give in to Satan’s temptation or to be obedient to God.

P: Our current (fictitious) Satan is assisted by many (fictitious) ghosts, spirits, angels and goblins. Fantasy and faith created those entities - not reality. The Egyptian god "Set" and the Greek god "Pan" were (pretend) ancestors of Satan.

The Old Testament Devil was a minor figure and no evil master-mind.

G: The New Testament - thanks to Jesus Christ - made Satan and Hell real to the potentially insane.

Insanity is a legal term that means that an individual does not

have the capacity to know right from wrong. The “God-Virus”

produces mental-emotional insanity in human beings.

“The God Virus” is an easy-read, descriptive book by Psychologist, Dr. Darrel Ray.

He Read "The God Virus"?

Early Christians, in order to obtain paralyzing, fear-based power and profit over people, used the new, improved, modern Satan to their advantage to get naive, impressionable, gullible, insecure and frightened converts to claim salvation through Jesus Christ. In the United States, wealthy Clergy continue to do that today on television and in mega-churches. Statistically, the people of Europe have dropped off on the faith / belief charts. Governments lose power and profit over their people when those people stop fearing and worshipping God. That is why Governments pay churches and clergy billions of dollars - through tax breaks - to keep the believers obedient.

Billy Graham Jerry Falwell Jimmy Swaggart Pat Robertson Jim Bakker

P: Satan, as described in Revelation, is Lucifer, the light bearer. Satan is the most beautiful but he evolves to challenge God.

Ann Graham Lotz: Lucifer wanted to be like God and to be God and to ascend to the throne.

Revelation 12:7-9 And, there was war in Heaven. Lucifer, with 1/3^rd of the Angels engaged God whose Angeles were led by the Archangel, Michael. Lucifer was called The Great Dragon, Satan, the Devil, the serpent. Satan was hurled, along with his Angeles, into the Earth.

G: “And, there was war in Heaven?” What? How much control do you really give this fictitious “know-it-all God? Faith can only be so blind! Just how great a place is this Heaven that Christians claim to want to spend eternity? If God does not change, then Heaven can not change. How great is the Biblical God’s Heaven that is documented to have war?

War In Heaven?

P: Christians claim that it is Satan who leads the whole world astray.

G: According to the Old Testament, Bible, I’d lean toward the ancient Jews claim that God does it all.

P: God granted Satan dominion over Hell.

G: Well, this "good" Biblical God’s generosity to this "evil" Satan is probably responsible for the destruction of a few billion human souls. Concerning human salvation, it is obvious that God knows not what He does.

P; Miriam Van Scott: Satan knows he cannot hurt God so he kicks God’s dogs (us). When Satan goes after human souls, he is trying to get even with God.

G: And Human Beings have to pay the price of Eternal Torment for God's and Satan's insane competition? My Gawd!

P: In the 6^th century Pope Gregory enhanced Satan’s powers with "The 7 Deadly Sins". None of these "sins" are in listed the Bible. Insane, power-crazy religious zealots identified these new "sins" with human behavior - what people liked doing most.

G: Their behavior did not meet with Pope Gregory's approval. So, this Pope branded them sinners - subject to Eternal Torment in Hell. Well, Pope Gregory and any like him, my behavior does not require your or your God's approval.

P: Christian teaching points:

Everything worldly is the work of Satan.

Everything unworldly is the work of God.　

G: This is an extreme example of how Christianity hates humanity and just makes up its insane nonsense as it goes. I, an Atheist, am so far from the fanatical obedience that insane Christianity requires.

P: As Satan’s biography developed, the evil beast’s portraits were displayed throughout Church carvings, stone and glass, in books, novels, and paintings. Radio, TV, horror movies and comic books round out the target audience.

G: Some serial killers may have adopted the programmed Satan persona. Imposing the fear of God on a child may one day take itstoll on his fellow human beings. Contrary to feel-good denials, Hitler was a Catholic. Stalin had attended a religious seminary. They both had received insane religious programming. They both were responsible for the killing of millions of human beings. President George W. Bush, a practicing Christian, lied the United States into an illegal war that killed or damaged over a million Human Beings. I view that all those insane leaders can take their insane God / religion and shove it.

Great Leaders?

Adolf Hitler George W. Bush Joseph Stalin

P: By the 10^th century, Satan had dominated religious art.

The Devil was depicted and illustrated as red-hot and later ice-cold blue. There is no consistency in the image of God, Jesus or Satan.

G: God, Jesus and Satan - all being fictitious and imaginary - that makes sense.

P: Satan began to take on the characteristics of the Catholic Church’s rivals. Anyone who opposed the Church was aligned with Satan. Satan became the Jews with long, hooked noses.

The Jews were symbols of people who doubted the truth of Christianity and the Catholic Church proclaimed that they had to be demonized and punished.

The Church claimed that the plague came about due to trading with the evil Jews.

In the year 1236 Pope Gregory IX condemned the Talmud, the Jewish holy text, as being Satanically inspired.

Christians puzzled by the Muslim habit of frequent bathing, dubbed Islamic bath houses “Temples To The Devil”.

G: It is the old religious outrage: “Be like me or else!” “If you are not with us - you are against us.” “If you are not a Christian - you are a servant of the Devil.”

How about the authoritarian demand: “I want you to live by my values in your life with me being the center of those values.” Does that sound like Judeo-Christian-Islamic religious indoctrination? Religious Governments, wives, husbands, parents and employers do that to their victims all the time. We will always be considered slaves as long as these religions are in tact. Solution: For humanity to evolve into decent beings, these dark-age religions have to go.

Redundantly, how many of us are religiously programmed to be like that? "Serve me on my terms!" "Live by my values in your life"! "Obey me or suffer punishment"! Who does not do that to their spouse and kids? What employer does not do that to his employees. What Army Sergeant does not do that to his privates?

P: During the renaissance, two poets (Aligheri Dante and John Milton) overcame their personal demons to create a new vision of Hell.

The Bible does not say all that much about Heaven and Hell. The details come from our poets (and artists) - not our prophets.

P: Dante’s Inferno shaped, from his own life, our views of Hell more than any other source. Aligheri Dante lived in the 1300s. Dante, a Catholic, thought the iron-fist Catholic Church should share power with civil authorities. They threw Dante in jail on bogus charges like hostility against the Pope. The Pope / Church threatened his life, confiscated his property and banished him, never to return. Dante responded by composing “The Inferno”. Dante’s portrait of Hell is much more detailed than Biblical descriptions.

Aligheri Dante described 9 descending levels of suffering in Hell. His psychological message was - how you suffer in your afterlife is prompted by how you lived your life.

G: That became a concept for authoritarian human egos to impose on others in the name of religion. Every sin now had a specific punishment.

P: You are supposed to only love God. The human sin is to love the wrong things. That is what gets you sent to Hell.

G: I sadly shake my head. What a sick, insane God model it is that insane Christians worship. If Christians want to be like God, no wonder so many end up in prison and on death row. Ego and God are synonymous.

P: The 9^th and lowest level of Hell is filled by traitors - the biggest sinners - and that level of Hell is blue cold. The sinner is constantly chewed upon by monsters for eternity. Aligheri Dante did place some Popes he despised in the lowest circle of Hell. All of Dante’s enemies in real life - he wrote into his story of Hell. His avenging, vindictive imagination got even with them all. 　

P: Aligheri Dante's book was translated and became a hit in every European language. It brought the Devil into maturity in the minds of humanity. It started a new dogma of thinking concerning Satan and Hell. Dante transformed Hell into a story of man’s struggle to understand the world.

John Milton, around the 1620s, elevated Satan to a champion of the dark side. Satan is a warlord and all the Mafia under him pay tribute to him. Satan's ego is enormous. His individuality is huge. Years later, after losing 2 wives, 2 children and his sight. 20 years after losing his sight, Milton wrote “Paradise Lost”. “The mind itself can make it’s own Heaven and Hell". "You find Satan and God in your own psyche”.

G: Redundantly, if you go inside to your own psychic / ego / soul, that is where you find your desires or your fears - your Heaven or your Hell.

I’ve always thought and maintained that Ego and God were synonymous. Human ego is only identified by human behavior manifestations. There is no God. Concerning good or bad, right or wrong - ego is all there is.

P: Satan is depicted as a charismatic figure, a leader, a hero who insists: "It is better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven." 1/3^rd of the Angeles preferred and followed Satan over God so, right or wrong, Satan had to be a good leader.

Satan identifies with humans whereby God can not.

Satan was a powerful leader in an adversarial role.

Satan fights against both God and man.

Man (believers) would have it that man and God battle the evil one.

G: I personally do not have any Satan or any God in my personal life. I feel happy and get along fine with most of humanity. Can I know the difference? Yes, I once personally had a bad case of “The God Virus” while being a miserable, licensed-ordained Christian minister. What made me become an Atheist? I finally personally read and understood the entire Bible cover to cover. What jumped off the pages for me are documented on this "The God Murders" website. Believers would have it that in the book of Job, that God was in control - but - that God was not evil concerning the evil God allowed Satan to impose on poor Job. God did not object to nor did God prevent Job’s children and workers from getting killed to test Job’s resolve. That makes God evil by any just, law-court standard.

Every murderer on death-row had a personal agenda whereby he or she felt entitled to take another human life to fulfill his or her personal agenda. His or her "repentance" mostly consists of being sorry that they got caught. Even God repented for His errors a few times in the Bible - but not in the case of Job. God did allow Satan to entice, tempt, and move God against Job.

Famous Serial Killers

Aileen Wuornos Charles Manson

Redundantly, it is documented by Bible C&V that your perfect, know-it-all God was moved / enticed / tempted by Satan. God sends us to Hell for being tempted by Satan but is above His own law. It is evident that concerning Job, Satan successfully tempted and controlled God.

P: In the end, Job repents and pledges his full allegiance to God.

G: I can see it all now. God allows the murders of all of Job's children and servants. Job is made to suffer extremely after that. In the end, Job kisses God's ass and claims that God is the finest, greatest of all in existence - just like a cringing, fearful dog does to his punishing master. What a diabolical, God-fearing insanity!!!

Insane Angel?

Real or not, I do not much care for this God - because - "The God of the Bible is not a good God and the Bible is not a good model for humanity." GWD

P: Ann Graham Lotz: Due to the lessons of the Book of Job, I know that Satan can not touch my life without God’s permission. I know if God lifts His hand of protection and allows Satan to attack me, it’s for my own good and for a bigger purpose.

G: Ah, an example of a perfect, modern-day martyr. Concerning reality, I find some believer’s mental health to be in question.

Mrs. Ann Graham Lotz kinda reminds me of the scenario where I, a private pilot, am getting into an unfamiliar rented airplane and I see 3 men on their knees praying loudly around the engine. I ask who these 3 men are. I am informed that they are the mechanics who fix and maintain the airplane. In reality, "faith" often concerns me. A fictitious God may have lifted His hand of protection from me but I insist that my paid airplane mechanics know what they are doing. They had best be tempted to take that engine into their own hands rather than to trust what they perceive to be God. I have found no documented evidence in the Bible that God knew anything about airplane engines.

P: It is written that when Jesus was crucified, He descended into Hell and on the 3^rd day He arose again.

G: I’ll bet that confused and disappointed the thief that Jesus promised would see Him in Heaven later on the same day they were crucified.

P: During the inquisition, 100,000 women / witches were tortured and burned at the stake. They (G: along with other free-thinkers) were considered to be of the Devil and enemies of the Church.

In 1468, Pope Paul the 2nd declared that torture was acceptable in suspected cases of witchcraft.

G: In 2002, President George W. Bush, secretly declared that torture was acceptable in suspected cases or terrorism. Were not both, President George Bush the 2nd and Pope Paul the 2nd, God-fearing and publicly religious men? President Bush confessed that, in a dream, God told him to attack Iraq. Bush's illegal war cost Humanity over a million dead and damaged lives - let alone billions of dollars.

Torture

Then Now

P: Early Protestants were obsessed with the Devil and were anti-sex. They preached of an angry God and the horrors of Hell. Psychologically, people like fear and place themselves in fearful situations.

In 1692, the (religious, fanatical, authoritative) Pilgrim leaders in Salem, Massachusetts, had "The Salem Witch Hunt". The religious authorities saw devils all around them. About 20 women were tried and executed as witches over 1 year. Then, in the new US, the Devil seemed to publicly take a vacation. Legal cases involving the Devil were rarely seen in American courts.

In the 1980s, "Satanism" arose in the US and England as a fad.

P: Hypnosis was condemned as a recovery memory syndrome. The process (authoritative religious zealots claimed) brought up the evil of an individual's past.

The Church promoted that, like God, the Devil was everywhere - constantly trying to enter your body or to entice you into Hell. Exorcisms became popular.

G: It brought new attention to the phony power of clergy and the church. Of course, the gullible, as usual, bought it. 　

Islam's Hell

P: "Islam" means surrender to Allah's will. It contains no figure with the influence of Christianity's Satan. However, both Islam and Christianity believe in the existence of Hell. The Koran teaches that Hell is a physical and mental place. It teaches that without Hell, human life would be in disorder. God created Paradise and Hell for us to be disciplined.

G: Praise and punishment are the tools for dog training.

"Obey"

P: Koran 2:206 Hell will settle his account - an evil resting place.

After arriving in Islam's Hell, the pain is fierce.

Koran 78:21-25 Hell is home for the rebellious. Abide therein for ages. Nothing to drink but boiling water and paralyzing cold.

G: The Koran's writing: "Abide therein for ages" indicates that Hell is not eternal in the Islamic teaching.

Islam's Hell Is Not Eternal

P: Their skin will burn. God will renew their skin so that they can be tortured again and again.

G: Did you catch that? Hell will burn off your skin - but - your loving, perfect God / Allah will renew your skin so that you can suffer it being burned off again - over and over and over and over etc. etc. etc...

P: (But, surprise!) The Hell of Islam is not permanent. 　

G: Here it is confirmed that in the Islamic religion, Hell is not permanent or eternal. Do you realize that makes Islam a much kinder, gentler religion than Jesus Christ's Christianity - concerning a hell-bound soul's afterlife and eternity. Doesn't it? If you insist that Jesus Christ's documented "Eternal Torment" in Hell is better then Islam's documented "Limited Torment" in Hell, then, you definitely prove that a high percent of stupid is stubborn.

P: In Islam, the punishment may last days, weeks or years. However, all but the most evil will eventually find their way to "Paradise". The Koran implies that the majority of souls will avoid Hell entirely. Only a few people will receive God's condemnation. In God's character, He has to be angry and wrathful - but, this is only temporary. His mercy overcomes His wrath and God uses His mercy more than He uses His wrath - but, the wrath is needed for people to serve Him.

The Koran

G: Well there you have it. Do you still prefer Eternal Torment? Which religion, Islam or Christianity, do you view to be sicker and more insane?

P: The old Hebrew Bible does not emphasize an afterlife nor a physical Hell. One should attest to one's forefathers - but there is no afterlife. But, a Rabbi named Maimonades, in the 12th century, did teach a Jewish sect of reward and punishment after death.

G: Hummm. The 12th century? Maimonades must have borrowed, stolen or adopted "punishment after death" from Islam or maybe even Christianity.

P: During their burial ritual, Jews do not pray nor ask God to watch over the dead.

G: For clarification, that is because overall the Jewish religion does not believe in an afterlife.

Buddhist Afterlife

Buddhist Afterlife Condo

P: In Buddhism, Hell is not a place but a state of existence. Hell is a realm where the dead are re-born into a state of distress. They are reborn in Hell as beasts or hungry spirits. Lotus Sutra 3.

P: Reincarnation: A positive life equals a positive rebirth. Negative lives equal negative rebirths in the Hells of Buddhism. There is no divine judge to condemn one to Hell - only one's own Karma.

In Chinese Buddhism there are multiple realms of Hell, overbearing pain and torture. But, as in Islam, suffering is not eternal. They suffer until the unwholesome karma is exhausted. They are then "reincarnated" (re-born) into a better realm.

　 Letters From Earth

By Mark Twain

Letter XI

Human history in all ages is red with blood, bitter with hate and stained with cruelties. The Church is credited with having spilt more innocent blood than all the political wars put together. When The Lord God of Heaven and Earth, adored Father of man, goes to war, there is no limit. He is totally without mercy - He, who is called the Fountain of Mercy. He slays, slays, slays! All the men, beasts, boys, babies, also all the women and girls, except those that have not been deflowered. He makes no distinction between the innocent and guilty. The innocent had to suffer with the guilty. What the insane Father required was blood and misery; He was indifferent as to who furnished it.

The heaviest punishment of all was melted out to persons who could not have deserved so horrible a fate - the 32,000 virgins. Their naked privacies were probed, to make sure that they still possessed the hymen unruptured. They were then sold into the shamefulest slavery, the slavery of prostitution to satisfy any buyer with the bodies, be he a gentleman or a course and filthy ruffian.

Islam's Heaven Has 72 Rejuvenating Virgins?

It was the Father who inflicted this ferocious and undeserved punishment upon those virgins whose parents He had slaughtered before their eyes. And were they praying to Him for pity and rescue, meantime? Without a doubt of it. Would you expect this same conscienceless God, this moral bankrupt, to become a teacher of morals? (paraphrased.)

Finis

P: Mark Twain (paraphrased): "He thinks he is the creator's pet. He believes the creator is proud of him, loves him, has a passion for him, sits up nights to admire him and watches over him. Ain't it a quaint idea?"

The Devil is a powerful symbol of one who rejects God's world and objects to God's authority / obedience society.

The greatest sin is ignoring your own passions.

Religion is an art - not a science.

G: Are most religious souls spiritually dead due to their lack of identity and creativity?

I view that most fanatical religionists are afraid to die because they never allowed themselves to live their life.

P: In the 1950s, children's comic books containing stories of the Devil, Evil and Hell. They grew so popular that Congress investigated the phenomenon.

It was said that reading these comic books was destructive to the psychic. This will cause emotionally ruptured lives who are incapable of having decent relationships or to function in society.

G: But, threatening your child with Eternal Torment for disobedience is ok - right? How sick and insane many people, who believe in religions, become.

P: Hell's Angels, in mass, use symbols and attitudes of death and evil to gain fear and power over those who happen in their path. Like clergy, it works for them.

The Church Of Satan

Anton LeVey

P: The Church Of Satan was founded by Anton LeVey in 1966. The Church is an adversary as it opposes religious belief systems that try to hamper or diminish "the good life" of a human being. This church views belief in God and Hell as delusional. They practice self-reliance, greed, lust and sex. If you are going to be a sinner - be the best sinner on the block. If you are going to do something naughty, do it and enjoy it.

Satanists proclaim love and lust to be natural in the human animal.

Many, who have held and hold religious virtue, experience their remaining days without passion, love or lust. In the end, it was as if they never lived at all.

Satanists don't believe in an afterlife so they can't be judged for their deeds.

Satanists & Hell

Pentagram with a dragon / devil ready to consume the victims offered on it

P: Satanists confront the myth of Hell by claiming to worship Satan. These rebels confront religious and conventional authority by siding with Satan, sin and evil. Hell is a place where the partiers go. Sex is free. Lust and greed are good. America was born in rebellion.

In the late 1700s, the British Hell-Fire Club mocked religions with drinking and sex parties / orgies and to mock Christianity. Benjamin Franklin, the American Ambassador to Great Britain, attended these parties.

Believers in religions that promote and believe in a Heaven or Hell afterlife, experience awesome life limitations and pressures that non-believers do not.

90% of us believe in life after death. (G: Ego can't seem to handle the idea of expiration.) Liberals tend to ignore Hell. They don't think Hell is part of afterlife. But, conservatives, evangelicals and fundamentalists believe in (and want) the reality of torment for people who are not like them.

G: Ah, Religion: Be like me - or else!

P: Catholic Priest Father Thomas Rausch: Who goes to Heaven and who goes to Hell? Nobody knows. Many hope that none go to Hell - including Satan.

Believers believe that you will go to Hell - but they won't - because you are not like them. They know the "Holy-Spirit" formula. They feel they are special, chosen and are saved.

G: Is "the good get their reward and the bad get punishment in the afterlife" just a vindictive, childish notion? "Infantilism" (feelings and emotions that never mature) is alive and well among the religious.

If we are all created for "God's pleasure", what if Adolf Hitler provided God an awesome amount of gruesome entertainment (WWII - about 50 million dead) all for God's pleasure? If true, do you think that the insane Biblical God would send Hitler to Hell?

P: Fundamentalists read and promote Jesus' words that most souls are headed for damnation. "If you do not accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior you are doomed." No one goes to God except through Jesus. On judgment day, the one Who does the Judging is Jesus Christ.

Fundamentalists?

G: Really? Jesus Christ does the Judging? What does the Bible say?

Hosea 13:4 I am The Lord, you shall know no God but Me for there is no savior beside Me. KJV

Doesn’t this Bible C&V say there is no savior beside God?

Isaiah 43:11 I am The Lord and beside Me there is no savior.

KJV (Double whammy!)

Isaiah 45:5-6 I am The Lord. There is none besides Me. Catholic (Triple ditto!)

Deuteronomy 4:35 & 39 That you might know The Lord is God and there is no other. (4X)

II Samuel 7:22 Great are You God. There is none like You and there is no God but You.

I Samuel 2:2 God judges deeds.

What? Who? God did not give Jesus the judgment?

John 5:21-22 Jesus said: Nor does God judge anyone, but He has given all judgment to His Son. Catholic

G: What? God judges no one? Jesus does all the judging? Is this true? Do you believe this?

John 8:15 & 12:47 Jesus said: I judge no man. KJV

Oops!

John 5:45 Jesus said: I will not accuse you. The one who will accuse you is Moses…

Moses? Who would have thunk it? Is there an honest, truthful Christian who truly believes Jesus?

After all this Bible C&V documentation, who do you claim judges whether you spend eternity in Heaven or Hell?

John 5:34 Jesus said: I do not accept testimony from a human being… Catholic

John 5:41 Jesus said: I do not accept human praise… Catholic

I just thought I throw the last two in. Can you explain them?

P: All major religions claim that the most wicked and evil can be pardoned by God.

Jesus & God? / One God?

P: Isaiah 55:7 Let the wicked forsake his ways and the evil man his thoughts. let him turn to the Lord and He (God) will have mercy and pardon him.

Ann Graham Lotz: It doesn't matter if you are a murderer on death row or if you've committed multiple murders. It doesn't matter if you've stolen or raped - any sin can be forgiven if you claim the death of Jesus as God's forgiveness for your sins.

Dennis Prager: All faiths hold (claim) that on your death bed you can repent and be forgiven. I am not a fan of the notion that you can torture children your whole life and can repent a minute before you die. I believe if you have done evil, you will pay the price for it.

Dennis Prager

G: It seems that Jewish Dennis Prager's thinking - which is not the belief of the early Old Testament Hebrews - is what Christianity has formulated. Vindictive, avenging thinking and feelings like Prager's are what initially invented and later formulated the concepts of Hell. God & Satan / Heaven & Hell are all inventions of man for the purpose of fearfully controlling his fellow man.

P: Dr. Robert Johnson: The logic of our mind suggest that if God is just, if there is righteousness, basic fairness in life, then there needs to be judgment as well as reward.

G: Logic does not indicate that there is a God. Existing and enforceable Civil and Criminal law is designed to compensate or punish those who broke the law. Anything else is the human ego's fantasy of revenge, compensation or righteousness.

P: Dr. William Varner: If you asked me - do you want to believe in Hell, I would say no -, I don't want to believe in Hell. I want everybody to go to Heaven. But, to deny Hell is to deny God. He said it in the Bible. To deny Jesus, the one who I follow, to deny Scripture...　

Dr. William Varner

G. Sorry, Dr. Varner but, logically and reasonably, I view that you have your feet planted firmly in mid-air.

P: Fundamentalists insist that Jesus' words say that most souls are headed for damnation. They believe that anyone who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior is doomed. No one comes to God except through Jesus.

Fact: We all die. None of us knows what happens to us after death.

G: Fact: Religions invent false fear to manipulate us to serve and obey zealous and ruthless self-appointed authorities throughout our lives.

I personally do not believe. I think for myself and do not fear nor obey these life-stealing religions.

P: Miriam Van Scott: If it were not for Hell and free-will, God would say, I don't care what you want. I don't care that you hate Me - you are going to be with Me forever - so deal with it. With free-will, a soul may say to God: Look God, I'm sure that Heaven is very nice but I don't want any part of it and I don't want any part of You.

The Encyclopedia of Heaven, Miriam Van Scott, Very Good

Miriam Van Scott's Books

P: Stories of Hell and Satan seems to be re-written every generation. 　

Alice Turner: Hell is a shared construction project based on stories by some of the greatest story-tellers in the world.

The idea of God, Man and Satan is here to stay as long as there are desires and fears.

Gary DeVaney: Thank you so much "The History Channel" and to the producers of: "Hell: The Devil’s Domain".　

Clergy dogma: We are bought and paid for slaves of God. Jesus shed His blood on the cross which paid for us. God owns us so we must obey Him for His pleasure or we will suffer Eternal-Damnation in Hell. Pastor Arnold Murray contributed to this dubious wit.

Pastor Arnold Murray Points You The Way To Hell

What is Hell? How could Hell possibly affect you? If you were in the midst of Hell, felt nothing - due to lack of nerves, were immune to Hell’s effects, could Hell be considered unimportant to you?

Could Hell be seen as meaningless without the feelings of pain, fears, horrors and their intensities to you? Are bad, sad and hurt feelings the only consequences Hell consists of? Could the reality of Hell be: No feelings - no pain. No pain - no Hell?

Have you experienced Hell? If so, how do you like it? Could you explain it? Did your experience of Hell include bad or painful feelings? Don’t your thoughts, jealousies, fears and agendas cause you pain, your own Hell? Can’t you now eliminate surgical pain with anesthesia? Can’t you avoid agendas and people who tend to make your life a living Hell? Can’t you avoid irrational and fearful thoughts of an Eternal-Hell?

Outside of supernatural myth and fictitious poetry that started about 500 BC to intimidate and discipline the masses, is there any current hard evidence of any place called Hell?

Are our feelings, fantasies and irrational fears real to others? Do we want them to be real to others? If so, can we explain why?

God creating a Hell is just another example of a benevolent, kind, loving act on his part. Just think about it, if there were no Hell, you'd be forced to dwell in God's presence, to hear Christians singing and worshipping for eternity, unable to just "do your own thing".　

Ecclesiastes. 3:19-21 For that which befalls the sons of men befalls beasts; even one thing befalls them: as one dies, so dies the other; yet they all have one breath; so that man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity. All go to one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.

Epicurus: Why should I fear death? If I am - death is not. If death is - I am not. Why should I fear that which cannot exist when I do?

Epicurus

Except the fable that Elijah went to heaven, without dying, in a chariot and 2 other similar but less described events, the Old Testament insists that, in death, we return only to dust. There is no afterlife.

Ecclesiastes. 9:5 says: For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward: for the memory of them is forgotten.

Psalm 6:5 David said to God: For in death there is no remembrance of You (God) in the grave. Who shall give You (God) thanks?

Psalm 115:17 The dead do not praise the Lord, nor do any who go down into the silence.

Silence

Ecclesiastes. 9:10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol (death / grave) , to which you are going.

If there is no more reward or torment, then it is all over.

Hell Does NOT Exist

By Pastor Arnold Murray

According to the Strong’s Concordance, the word "hell" is supposed to show up, C&V, in the King James Bible 54 times. However, in some of the Old Testament, where the word "hell" is supposed to be, the word “grave” is documented and death is emphasized.

Pastor Arnold Murray: I will challenge anyone. Hell does not exist right now. The word in the manuscripts are either the grave or Ghenna. The (Ghenna) garbage pit outside of Jerusalem is translated Hell. The "Lake of Fire" does not exist until the end of the Millennium. You are making God the Devil to send people into Hell right away - right when they die - without judgment. Judgment Day is not until the end of the Millennium and no one will enter Hell until that event.

I agree with Pastor Murray's statement that Hell does not exist today - but, unlike Murray - I view that it never will exist. I view that in Biblical myth, the Biblical God is also the Biblical Devil. GWD

Prior to seeing what "HELL" amounts to in the Bible, let’s see a Biblical description of God which is documented:

Deuteronomy 4:24 For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

Deuteronomy 9:3 But be assured today that the LORD your God goes before you as a consuming fire. He shall destroy them and drive them out.

By Bible C&V description - is the Biblical God also Satan & Hell fire?

Comments? Questions? Corrections?

gary@gdevaney.com