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Originally Posted by milktoaste
I'm not what I would consider religous, I went to church every Sunday till I was about 8 and maybe 15 times in the last 20 years(not counting weddings or wakes). Yet some of the scariest movies I've seen involve Satan, demons and posession. We've learned more about Hell from poets than from prophets. Milton and Dante poured the foundation of the popular imagination of Hell today, but more and more people's opinion of Hell seem to be changing.
Being a father and having childhood friends who have been or are still in prison for atrocious crimes, I'm finding it harder and harder to believe in Hell. An omnipresent being is going to torture everyone till the end of time who didn't kiss it's ass while they were alive? If there is no Hell can there really be a Heaven? What's more grim, murderers in Heaven or no afterlife at all?
I fall into the non-believer catagory, and I'm not depressed by that at all. I could be wrong(it's happened before) but it all feels like Crowd Control and Marketing had a baby and named it Religion. What are some of your beliefs on eternal punishment, is there a hell? What is it like? How bad do you have to be to end up there?
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I personally am a non-believer on the whole bit as well. Yet I too find movies like the Exorcist and Omen creep me the hell out. I think it's partly my catholic childhood and that when I watch those movies I always do so by myself in the dark.
I do not believe, in anything religious or supernatural - I'm not scared of some Deity, I'm scared of the people who do believe - those are the ones who will put a bullet in your head, or start a war or blow something up [however, to be fair, that's because humans suck - if somehow there was no religion people would still find plenty of "reasons" to be horrible and kill people]. If there was a God in the conventional way most people believe, I'm not scared of "Him" either - I'll spend an eternity in hell if "His" insecurity is so great "He" must be worshipped. That is downright evil! Not 'beautiful and good.' Isn't anyone else creeped out when politicians mention God? That is the scariest thing ever. You know all of them, yes, every last one by definition of being a public figure are liars and whores and nothing more.
And which deity? So many religious traditions have been lost throughout the ages, that we will never know about. The ones most people believe in today, indeed are a direct result of marketing and crowd control. The KJV of the Bible is an awful translation, yet it's what so many believe in, and those many will never bother to study the Greek and Hebrew it was written in. They'll just mention a few passages that justify their actions, or help get them elected or whatever it is they need to justify.
For those that believe and are sincere, are really are deep down good people - I do understand that. It's scary, in some way we all probably need somethin.
Personally, I like to meditate with no religious trappings. Shutting up and thinking for a bit is good.
When it comes to the concept of Hell in particular, it's merely a human invention, part of mythology, nothing more. The controllers of various religions make all sorts of claims about hell, who goes there, and for what all the time - and this has changed throughout the centuries. This has nothing to do with a "God" and everything to do with evil humans trying to get groups of people under control. Also a lot of it is the situation a person might be in - for example, if you lived in the middle ages in Europe, life was harsh, violent and short. OF COURSE you want and need to believe in hell and paradise, and that you can and will get to paradise/heaven.