http://www.redeemer.com/news_and_events/articles/the_importance_of_hell.html

Your last commenter isn’t actually too far off – emptiness and lack of love are very big parts of it. I find it interesting that he sees all the stuff about fire and brimstone as metaphor – a human construct too weak to define what is actually far, far worse.

But I love his closing statement:

“…it is because of the doctrine of judgment and hell that Jesus’ proclamations of grace and love are so astounding.”

Well, I’m up waaaay too late, but didn’t want to got to sleep before sending you that. I hope it’s helpful…

Anyhow… personally, I feel that it’s not that God does not care what happens to us. It’s more of like him watching us live and learn and grow and when it gets too much, we get to choose from three persons, whichever form we feel most comfy with, to whine to and get guidance from, hehe. Also, God is never about hate.

I see the world as an interplay of natural laws, that which we can not control, and universal moral laws where we have a role to play in everyday of our lives (check out CS Lewis’ “Mere Christianity”, good read for anyone)- – and also as something that I can never understand, like St. Augustine’s dilemma with the Trinity and his encounter with the boy digging a hole in the sand.

As a kid I feared Hell, the place with fire and demons. Dante could have been my next door neighbor and his trip to the inferno something I overheard him tell my mom about in hushed tones over our gate. Now at 28, I still believe that there is hell. It is anywhere where love is not. It is where one had the option to do good but chose the easier way. As for the fiery place where there is grinding of bones and grashing of teeth… it may be out there somewhere, who knows? But I am betting that it is empty.

Mike, I promise it is all still there, beauty is still around. It is all in our manner of looking. There are certain things that jolt us into seeing it, like love and success, and certain things that blind us to it, like loneliness and futility, but the world hasn’t changed, it is still the same roar of pleasure and woe it has always been. If you strain, maybe you can find the eyes to love the whole thing. and then, fuck God, cause you will have saved yourself.

I’m curious though. If hell exists what do you think it is?

Jen: I haven’t seen that kind of beauty in so long, but I do remember it. It’s funny, you’re the second person who’s described God to me that way. I wish I could see that spark again, and feel the way I used to.

Rachael: I hope you keep reading.

I’d say I just randomly found your blog, but I’m a Christian – we don’t believe in randomness a whole lot.

I’m also a fifth-generation preacher’s kid who hated God and everything to do with religion. I still remember the day I told God (who I also told myself I didn’t believe in) that He could go to Hell.

Six weeks later I knew He was real. And I eventually even learned that He actually did go to Hell, so I didn’t have to. That’s what Jesus’ life on earth, death and resurrection are all about.

That was almost 20 years ago. It’s funny. I was just talking to my husband tonight about all the things I thought I knew or thought were real when I was younger, and how almost all of them were total lies.

But the one thing I know, that I would die rather than deny, is that God is real, and that He loves me. All that Jesus was and is prove that.

And He loves you too. He loves you enough to remove all the distractions that most of the world lives in and for every day, just so that you can know for certain just how God loves you.

Thanks for asking.

I mean, technically, according to the doctrine of the trinity, there would be no way for the big God to hate you, but for Jesus to love you (which I can tell you, because I am now officially a MASTER of theological studies). They’re all the same, they all have the same will, the same hates and loves. The only way for God to hate you and Jesus to love you is if Jesus wasn’t really God, and the real God is a total dickhead. which is totally possible.

But I think the real God loves us, she affirms everything, she is love and goodness and hope itself. I’m not talking about the Christian God, though. I am just saying wherever there is a spark of beauty, that’s God, that’s the thing worth loving and seeking and worshiping. Shit, I hate how new-agey I sound.

I believe in a Creator, but my relationship to it is similar to how my own creations might feel about me. I wonder if they believe in me too.