Super FZL Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 I had to go to church today because I am still at home with my family for the holiday break and I have yet to tell them I'm an atheist. The guest preacher preached an absolutely terrifying message today. Or at least, it would have been terrifying to me had I been a believer. To me, the only fear I felt was that of the kind that I feel when watching a horror movie with unconvincing CGI and a contrived plot line (read: Nightmare on Elm Street remake). He preached about Hell – and how horrible it would be for people to go there. However, I don’t think he fully gave people the picture of this place. Allow me to elaborate. Below is an extremely graphic depiction of Hell. If you are a Christian, or a freshly deconverted Christian who still fears Hell, or simply get scared by reading scary stuff - do not read this. It's extremely disturbing. Hell is a torture so infinite and so incredible that the smallest fraction of true comprehension of its horror would leave a normal human asphyxiating in unadulterated panic. I'm not a doctor, nor do I have a particularly impressive amount of medical knowledge, so I can only make guesses about Hell's "symptoms." The fire would be so consuming and its exposure so long, that it would have a number of terrifying and blood-curdling physical effects on the human body. For example, marrow would likely start to boil inside the bone – rapidly expanding, and causing the bone to shatter from the inside. Jagged fragments of bone would pierce through muscle, skin, and nerves. Blood would begin to evaporate inside the body, bursting arteries, veins, and capillaries and causing excruciating pain from not only the ruptured tissues, but the hemorrhagic swelling that follows. Fat would begin to sublimate in the body, destroying any insulation from the tormenting inferno. Visceral organs would begin to percolate and leak from the open wounds borne of ruptured skin lesions. All of this would produce a terrifying cacophony of your friends’, coworkers’, and loved ones’ bones snapping, muscles tearing, skin rupturing, fluids boiling, and screaming through a rapidly disintegrating trachea. Crushing darkness would cause psychological anguish as people begin to define their existences by insurmountable pain, disgusting sounds, the taste of bitterly burning brimstone ashes, and unfathomable odors. The worst part of all: the concept of time has been erased, annihilated, and completely forgotten as the infinite torture continues forever – never ceasing, always growing worse. This imagery that I, a limited, fairly unremarkable teenager have composed is enough to make any normal believer shit brick houses. I think (and I am aware this is a false trichotomy) that if anyone in the “flock” really understood what Hell meant, they would be in a mental asylum, or in incredible psychological anguish, or they would be questioning the morality and very existence of God. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest riverrunner Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 that is f-d up. you should come out now and ask your family if they really believe these twisted fantasies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super FZL Posted January 9, 2011 Author Share Posted January 9, 2011 that is f-d up. you should come out now and ask your family if they really believe these twisted fantasies. As much as I would love to completely level with them, it just would not be practical since I live away from home most of the time. My mother's been dealing with a cascade of terrible events such as the death of her 40-year-old brother/best friend, and religion lets her get by. My dad's mother is terminally ill and clinging on to life with not much more than a pinky finger's grip on a loose thread. Religion probably helps him too. I'm just going to shut up; live and let live. Regarding my original post, I should mention that it's not so much the concept of Hell that bothers me, but how little people really think about its meaning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cobrakai Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 that is f-d up. you should come out now and ask your family if they really believe these twisted fantasies. As much as I would love to completely level with them, it just would not be practical since I live away from home most of the time. My mother's been dealing with a cascade of terrible events such as the death of her 40-year-old brother/best friend, and religion lets her get by. My dad's mother is terminally ill and clinging on to life with not much more than a pinky finger's grip on a loose thread. Religion probably helps him too. I'm just going to shut up; live and let live. Regarding my original post, I should mention that it's not so much the concept of Hell that bothers me, but how little people really think about its meaning. Great post! I just wrote a post in ExChristian life called "Very few really believe". This is very much in that same vein. Again I don't think Christians take the time to really think deeply about what they are truly believing in. They don't realize they have to believe in demons, and angels, and some sort of nether realm. Hell is the biggest one to me. I often pondered hell when I was a Christian often waking up with panic attacks when the thought of death and hell hit my mind. The fact that a "loving" god CREATED such a place is beyond me. To think that it never existed and Gawd put it together for the sole purpose of torturing his creation. Sick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest riverrunner Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 and religion lets her get by. Religion probably helps him too. I can't see how worrying about hell for yourself or others helps anyone. In fact I would argue just the opposite. its effectively torture to threaten people like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OpheliaGinger Posted January 10, 2011 Share Posted January 10, 2011 Hell is a torture so infinite and so incredible that the smallest fraction of true comprehension of its horror would leave a normal human asphyxiating in unadulterated panic. Sounds like a line right out of H.P. Lovecraft. I don't think the boiling of marrow would cause bone to burst; it would be the expansion of gases that cause the burst (but there should be very little to begin with). But before any of those happen, the brain would have boiled/fried, causing instant death. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
decafaholic Posted January 10, 2011 Share Posted January 10, 2011 I had to go to church today because I am still at home with my family for the holiday break and I have yet to tell them I'm an atheist. lol, as I finished reading this first sentence, I thought "Boy, you could stop right there. That's hell enough for me." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super FZL Posted January 10, 2011 Author Share Posted January 10, 2011 Hell is a torture so infinite and so incredible that the smallest fraction of true comprehension of its horror would leave a normal human asphyxiating in unadulterated panic. Sounds like a line right out of H.P. Lovecraft. I don't think the boiling of marrow would cause bone to burst; it would be the expansion of gases that cause the burst (but there should be very little to begin with). But before any of those happen, the brain would have boiled/fried, causing instant death. Regarding bone marrow, what I came up with was nothing but a shoddy guess. Regarding your second statement: true, the brain would go within seconds - but you have to realize that Hell is apparently eternal pain and eternal consciousness (which isn't possible under these circumstances). Either way, it's pain that's not even fathomable. I was going for straight-up appeal to fear when I wrote this - but given the concept, nothing I made was an exaggeration. And thank you for the comparison to a prominent writer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neon Genesis Posted January 10, 2011 Share Posted January 10, 2011 How do you feel pain in hell if you're dead? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super FZL Posted January 10, 2011 Author Share Posted January 10, 2011 How do you feel pain in hell if you're dead? By the magic power of contradiction. *waves hands back and forth* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vomit Comet Posted January 10, 2011 Share Posted January 10, 2011 I've known Christians who would be demented enough to get off on that, and who would in fact try to use it to scare others into repenting/getting serious. In fact, I recall a visiting evangelist here in Las Vegas putting forward a similar rant, that was almost as graphic, though he went into more detail about the physical properties of fire itself as opposed to the process of human immolation. Maybe my old Christian circle was more bat-shit than most, but the OP wouldn't have been any kind of deterrent to any of the "on fire" believers I knew, myself included. In fact, more than a few would have been suppressing a boner while listening to some demented preacher howl about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OpheliaGinger Posted January 11, 2011 Share Posted January 11, 2011 God would be needing to invest an inordinate amount of energy just to keep up with the magic of keeping souls alive in a place of torment when the physical body would naturally melt before the brain could register any pain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deva Posted January 11, 2011 Share Posted January 11, 2011 Is this sick or what?!! Spurgeon used to preach hell with a certain gusto. Here is a hot and strong passage from his sermon on the Resurrection of the Dead:"When thou diest, thy soul will be tormented alone; that will be a hell for it; but at the day of judgment thy body will join thy soul, and then thou wilt have twin-hells, thy soul sweating drops of blood, and thy body suffused with agony. In fire exactly like that which we have on earth thy body will lie, asbestos-like, for ever unconsumed, all thy veins roads for the feet of pain to travel on, every nerve a string on which the Devil shall for ever play his diabolical tune of Hell's Unutterable Lament." http://www.ftarchive...purgeonhell.htm And this was in the 19th century. So, God goes to all the trouble of creating a new "asbestos -like" body for the damned just so they can burn forever. Is this not the most hideous doctrine ever in the history of religion? These freaks like Spurgeon and Jonathan Edwards ("Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God') enjoyed preaching about how people suffer. I am convinced of it. They wanted to make it as graphic as possible. Let's face, it, they get off on it. Disgusting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super FZL Posted January 11, 2011 Author Share Posted January 11, 2011 Is this not the most hideous doctrine ever in the history of religion? This sentence, right here, synopsizes everything which my emotionally loaded paragraphs were saying. How do the believers not realize how disgusting and downright terrifying their own doctrine is? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Overcame Faith Posted January 11, 2011 Share Posted January 11, 2011 Is this sick or what?!! Spurgeon used to preach hell with a certain gusto. Here is a hot and strong passage from his sermon on the Resurrection of the Dead:"When thou diest, thy soul will be tormented alone; that will be a hell for it; but at the day of judgment thy body will join thy soul, and then thou wilt have twin-hells, thy soul sweating drops of blood, and thy body suffused with agony. In fire exactly like that which we have on earth thy body will lie, asbestos-like, for ever unconsumed, all thy veins roads for the feet of pain to travel on, every nerve a string on which the Devil shall for ever play his diabolical tune of Hell's Unutterable Lament." http://www.ftarchive...purgeonhell.htm And this was in the 19th century. So, God goes to all the trouble of creating a new "asbestos -like" body for the damned just so they can burn forever. Is this not the most hideous doctrine ever in the history of religion? These freaks like Spurgeon and Jonathan Edwards ("Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God') enjoyed preaching about how people suffer. I am convinced of it. They wanted to make it as graphic as possible. Let's face, it, they get off on it. Disgusting. Disgusting, indeed! I sat through many fire and brimstone sermons as a child, pre-teen, and teenager. But none of it bothered me. We kids just didn't buy into any of it. It seemed so stupid to us. When church was out and we were only among each other, we would laugh at it while we smoked cigarettes, drank beer and played poker (and the occasional game of strip poker when we could convince the girls to play). I am thankful for the attitude my brothers, friends, and I had as children, pre-teens, and teens. I think it helped me not to be so bothered by the hell doctrine once I got serious about the religion as an adult and subsequently left it all behind. A little ironic that my deconversion brought me back to where I was as a teenager in terms of my religious views. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest I Love Dog Posted January 11, 2011 Share Posted January 11, 2011 Hell is a torture so infinite and so incredible that the smallest fraction of true comprehension of its horror would leave a normal human asphyxiating in unadulterated panic. Christians know exactly what all the horrors are of burning as a punishment. They invented the concept of hell and tested it extensively on heretics and non-believers for hundreds of years. The Christian way of showing mercy to those they burnt at the stake was to tie a bag of gunpowder around their victim's neck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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