The uncertainty of what lies ahead after we die has captured the human psych for ages and many forms of beliefs have been implemented throughout time and religions. Starting with the ancient religions in Mesopotamia, modern day Iraq, where there exists seven different levels of heaven and hell where individuals who died would be able to have a fair judgement of whether or not they deserved to be in a place of wondrous pleasures or torturous torment. Each level of heaven or hell designates the level of pleasure or torment an individual will encounter. This can also be said in most of the other major religions in the world, whether ancient, modern or future ones. The ancient Greek religion had different levels of heaven and hell with the exception …show more content…
There should not be a way for individuals to be tortured in many endless and continuous scatological depictions of hell. If it is immoral and sub-ethical in the living world to perform such heinous acts upon an individual, the idea of hell should be scant. This is not to say that there shouldn’t be any form of punishment for individuals who committed horrible crimes, quite the contrary, however, no matter how outrageous the crime might be, it does not justify an eternity or a temporary burning, being dipped in boiling oil, mauled, and many more form in hell. For those individuals who see these torturous descriptions of hell as metaphorical, it should also be sub-ethical since one, no one should wish badness upon someone else, and two, there are many recorded evidence of actual living human beings being tortured like the descriptions provided of hell. If these individuals now see those acts as horrifying and shameful to human history, then so should the idea that in hell this is what will happen to an individual. Also, it is just more comforting knowing that no matter what you might end up in hell and be punished in some lean way than to know you will be mauled and butchered in
The fear of the unknown is one of the most crucial issues about life after death. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind, 2 Timothy 1:7. The scripture is our surety that those who accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior then we will receive the gift of everlasting life according to John 3:16. The Abrahamic teaching of the resurrection is the foundation of the Christianity; And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith, I Corinthians 15:14.
In my mind I see hell as this place of immense torment bestowed on sinners. My faith has taught me that those who sin go to hell to be punished. Dante's adventure clearly shows that the souls of hell are punished, as I thought. Punishments range from living in filth to painful tortures.
...cape her judgment nor argument with her edicts will sway her. Hell is an absolute, and all the more forbidding because of it. Though the violence depicted in these myths varies, the overall story remains unchanged. Disobeying the laws and strictures set forth by the government and religious doctrines will exact a hefty price, perhaps eternally.
In the first bolgia of circle eight Dante describes one of the most provocative punishments, which is being beaten with lashes. The souls who reside here deceived women for their own advantage. Because of this they are stuck in a place where they have no advantage. Either way they turn they meet the same terrible fate. More provocative than lashes in The Inferno is being exposed to burning rain in the third round of the seventh circle of hell. In the third zone the usuers must sit under the fire rain with purses around their necks. These purses contain the family emblems that they stole while they were living. Burning constantly would be a terrible, painful punishment. In bolgia five of the eight circle yet another provocative punishment, being plunged into boiling pitch and tormented by black devils, is seen by Dante and Virgil. The demons take chunks out of their skin, much like the grafters too chunks of money from other people while they were alive. This punishment is appropriate when considering the sin, but the thought of enduring something so painful is what is what makes it provocative. After reading this poem it is obvious that it had an intended audience. Dante was trying to set people straight and put them on the right path. The fear of hell is a good way to do that because fear is what motivates people above all else. Dante was provocative at times, but it was only in order to reach his intended
Each religion has its own idea of what will happen in the afterlife. In Buddhism, they believe that dying is apart of an ongoing cycle until the dead receive enlightenment. This cycle is called Samsara and by definition means an ongoing cycle of life and death until that person reaches enlightenment (heaven). There is a three stage cycle that occurs from the moment you die until you are reincarnated; This process is called The Three Bardo's. The first bardo is when the soul goes into a trance and often doesn't realize that they have passed away. People recall seeing a bright light once in this trance and if that person welcomes the light then they will not be reincarnated, but most people flee from this light. The second bardo begins when the person realizes they are dead. The deceased will see everything that they have done or throughout their life. The third bardo and final stage contains a longing for possessing someone. When they do posses someone the rebirth occurs and they are reincarnated as a living
On the other hand, the punishments that are borrowed from medieval torture techniques and imprisonment inflicts a physical and bodily pain upon the sufferer that is supposed to be taken literally. In the Medieval Era, their prisons were more like dungeons in the way that they were usually dark rooms with naked and ragged men that were chained to the stone floors. These prisoners were not allowed to move so they had to live in their own excrements, blood, and vomit which ended up filling the room with an odor that was so pungent it could have been a form of torture within itself. Dante used this idea of darkness and awful smells throughout the Inferno as the overall atmosphere of Hell. Also, the idea of the fiery and icy environments that Dante incorporates comes from the medieval prisons where the room would get so hot the prisoners would feel like they were on fire, and during the winter it would be extremely frigid. These ideas of extreme temperatures and darkness are only a few of the torture devices that Dante uses throughout his novel.
In the play No Exit, by Jean Sartre, the author attempts to describe his vision of what Hell is, a subject that many have pondered, but none really know. Sartre was under the impression that Hell had nothing to do with the fire and brimstone, as many people before him believed. He instead voiced his thoughts through the characters of No Exit. “Obviously there aren’t any physical torments…and yet we’re in hell. And no one else will come here. We’ll stay in this room together, the three of us, forever and ever…in short there’s someone absent here, the official torturer…each of us shall act as the torturer of the two others.” (No Exit, p. 22) The three main characters in this play, Inez, Garcin, and Estelle create the hell they were banished to, but not by using the “racks and red-hot pincers” of the past, but by hurting each other in a disturbed form of a “love triangle”, where the love really doesn’t exist.
One of the greatest and oldest human mysteries on Earth is death, and the fate that lies beyond it. The curious minds of human beings constantly wonder about the events that occur after death. No person truly knows what happens after a person ceases to live in the world, except for the people themselves who have passed away. As a result, over the course of history, people of various backgrounds, ethnicities, and religions have speculated and believed in numerous different possibilities for the destiny that awaits them beyond the world of the living. The great ambiguity of the afterlife is extremely ancient that many different beliefs about it have been dated back to several centuries ago. These beliefs go as far back to the beliefs of Ancient Egyptians, which outline the journey that the dead travels to the land of Osiris; and the belief of Ancient Greeks that all souls eventually find themselves in Hades’ realm, the Underworld. Throughout history, views and beliefs from emerging religions continue to develop as the human conscience persists in finding answers to this ancient, unresolved mystery. Prime examples of the various and separate beliefs regarding death and the afterlife are found in the diverse faiths of Roman Catholicism, Islam, and Buddhism.
Although most of the punishments may have been fitting and appropriate based on the sins that were committed, there are a few that the Catholic Church would disagree with, namely the fact that blasphemers against God received such a mild punishment and that souls in Purgatory and Limbo were punished at all. In conclusion, although Dante’s The Inferno does often allude to the Bible, it is not biblically accurate and was not meant to be a teaching of the Catholic Church, but a fictional story of his own vision of Hell intended for literary purposes.
There are multiple views on death and the afterlife and each view is different depending on the religion or belief that someone practices. Some religions believe in a heaven but not a hell, some believe in both and others do not believe in either. The religions that are practiced today were created by our ancient ancestors who had the ability to think beyond themselves. Practicing a religion and having an idea of death and an afterlife back in ancient times laid a foundation on how religion is seen and practiced today. Mesopotamians, Egyptians and Hindu’s created the concept of death and life after death through what they believed and practiced in ancient times.
Despite the obvious flaws of Dante himself, he does give a clear vision of how punishments will be taken forth in the afterlife. He gives reason to fear and respect the law of God lest eternal punishment be your only promise in the afterlife. These punishments are as relevant as can be, so he offers a very vivid picture of hell. The men that he puts in hell give it a realistic twist, enhancing the fear that is felt upon reading this work
What I detected, rightly or wrongly, was an animus against punishment as such. When I gingerly introduced the subject of Hell, those who had spontaneously rejected capital punishment and then had some second thoughts about life imprisonment when looked at in itself and not as an alternative to the death penalty seemed inclined toward a creative interpretation of eternal punishment. And of course there have been eminent theologians who have wondered aloud about the doctrine of Hell. Even Jacques Maritain, late in his life had written equivocally on the subject.
Death has a great impact on people's lives in such a way that they learn to value life or even live it to the fullest. But what happens to us after we die? Many religions have answered this question for us according to their faiths. Buddhism is a religion where Buddhists believe in the concept of death and reincarnation or rebirth. On the other hand, Christians believe that after you die you go into a period of dormancy and until the second coming of Jesus will you be woken up and decided your fate whether you go to heaven or hell according to how you have lived your life. Christianity teaches salvation from sin through Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Through Him, the gift of eternal life is also attained.
One way in which death can be viewed comes across the Catholic religion. The Catholic believers look life after death in a prospective of three different worlds, such as Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise according to the deeds committed during life. If a person during his or her lifetime committed any sins, this person’s next world will be the Hell. The traditional view in which people refer to hell can be found in the book written by Dante Alighieri, “La Divina Commedia”. The book states that the formation of Hell was given by the crash of Lucifer (the angel that wanted to be better than God) from the sky onto the earth. Crashing on the Earth in Jerusalem, his head formed an upside down cone inside the Earth. This is where is located the Hell. In the Hell, people pay for their sins with different penitences (12-13). For instance, a person that committed homicide will freeze in a lake frozen by the breath of Satan (XXXIV canto). If a person during his or her life commits any sins but asks for forgiveness, then he or she will go to the Purgatory. The purgatory is represented by an island with a mountain (23). One source states that “Purgatory is very similar to Hell; the main difference is that one will eventually be released from torture. The souls that go in the Purgatory are tortured with fire. These souls remain in purgatory until they become sufficiently purified to enter heaven”(2). For example, if a soul in the purgatory asks for forgiveness and pays the punition with some tests, the soul will be released and moved immediately to Heaven (2).
The Bible describes Hell as a place of darkness, a lake of fire and brimstone. Matthew 25:41, describes Hell as a pit of fire that is prepared for Satan the devil, his demonic cohorts, and the other souls that chose to serve him during the trials of life on earth. The citizens of Hell will be populated with the souls of those who died without accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. These souls will experience the nashing of teeth, endless pain from the tortureous fire, and ultimately eternal death. The citizens of Hell will not reunite with God`s presence. The Bible states in Luke 16:19-28, that souls cannot pass from Hell to Heaven or vice versa. Fire is not the only form of eternal punishment. Eternal thirst and great pain are other forms of punishment that will be experienced by the citizens of Hell. Christians believe that the souls in Hell will be able to see the souls that are in Heaven and vice versa. The souls in Hell simply chose a life of sin, non-repentance, and rebellion against God Word. Revelations 20:12-15, states the following: "And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for aeons of aeons."