Afterlife

"He who deceived the first man ... persuades some to suspect there is no hell, that he may thrust them into hell. As God on the other hand threatens hell, and made hell ready, that by coming to know of it you might so live as not to fall into hell."

"There are many men, who form good hopes not by abstaining from their sins, but by thinking that hell is not so terrible as it is said to be, but milder than what is threatened, and temporary, not eternal; and about this they philosophize much."

"What can be more grievous than hell? Yet nothing is more profitable than the fear of it; for the fear of hell will bring us the crown of the kingdom. Where fear is, there is no envy; where fear is, the love of money does not disturb; where fear is, wrath is quenched, evil concupiscence is repressed, and every unreasonable passion is exterminated."

"Hell is when we look back during that fraction of a second and know that we wasted an opportunity to dignify the miracle of life. Paradise is being able to say at that moment: “I made some mistakes, but I wasn’t a coward. I lived my life and did what I had to do.” However, there’s no need to anticipate my particular hell and keep going over and over the fact that I can make no further progress in what I understand to be my “Spiritual Quest.” It’s enough that I keep trying. Even those who didn’t do all they could have done have already been forgiven; they had their punishment while they were alive by being unhappy when they could have been living in peace and harmony. We are all redeemed and free to follow the path that has no beginning and will have no end."

"Hell is that state where one has ceased to hope."

"While the wish of many individuals is to arrive at heaven, we daily behold them on the way to hell."

"What is hell? Hell is oneself, Hell is alone, the other figures in it Merely projections."

"There are special tortures destined for particular souls. These are the torments of the senses. Each soul undergoes terrible and indescribable sufferings, related to the manner in which it has sinned. There are caverns and pits of torture where one form of agony differs from another. I would have died at the very sight of these tortures if the omnipotence of God had not supported me. Let the sinner know that he will be tortured throughout eternity, in those senses which he made use of to sin."

"[S]he asked if I believed in hell. At first I said no. Then I said, "Honestly, I think it's possible. Though I don't think you get sent there. I don't think God would have to send people there. I think they would go there by themselves."She asked, "Why do you think that?"I said, "Look at how people act. They walk right into horrible things all the time. They actually go out of their way.""

"The function of the lawyer is to preserve a sceptical relativism in a society hell-bent for absolutes. The worse the society, the more law there will be. In Hell there will be nothing but law and due process will be meticulously observed."

"I was suddenly arrested by what seemed to be an awful voice proclaiming the words, "Eternity! Eternity! Eternity!" It reached my very soul — my whole man shook — it brought me like Saul to the ground. The great depravity and sinfulness of my heart were set before me, and the gulf of everlasting destruction to which I was verging. I was made to bitterly cry out, "If there is no God — doubtless there is a hell." I found myself in the midst of it."

"You see, Mr. Simpson—a man, well, he'll walk right into Hell with both eyes open. But even the Devil can't fool a dog!"

"The whole image is that eternal suffering awaits anyone who questions God's infinite love. That's the message we're brought up with, isn't it? Believe or die! Thank you, forgiving Lord, for all those options."

"Who dares think one thing, and another tell, My heart detests him as the gates of hell."

"I cannot believe that there is any being in this universe who has created a human soul for eternal pain. I would rather that every god would destroy himself; I would rather that we all should go to eternal chaos, to black and starless night, than that just one soul should suffer eternal agony."

"In the estimation of good orthodox Christians I am a criminal, because I am trying to take from loving mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, and lovers the consolations naturally arising from a belief in an eternity of grief and pain. I want to tear, break, and scatter to the winds the God that priests erected in the fields of innocent pleasure — a God made of sticks called creeds, and of old clothes called myths. I shall endeavor to take from the coffin its horror, from the cradle its curse, and put out the fires of revenge kindled by an infinite fiend. Is it necessary that Heaven should borrow its light from the glare of Hell? Infinite punishment is infinite cruelty, endless injustice, immortal meanness. To worship an eternal gaoler hardens, debases, and pollutes even the vilest soul. While there is one sad and breaking heart in the universe, no good being can be perfectly happy."

"The God of Hell should be held in loathing, contempt and scorn. A God who threatens eternal pain should be hated, not loved — cursed, not worshiped. A heaven presided over by such a God must be below the lowest hell. I want no part in any heaven in which the saved, the ransomed and redeemed will drown with shouts of joy the cries and sobs of hell — in which happiness will forget misery, where the tears of the lost only increase laughter and double bliss."

"The idea of hell was born of ignorance, brutality, fear, cowardice, and revenge. This idea testifies that our remote ancestors were the lowest beasts. Only from dens, lairs, and caves, only from mouths filled with cruel fangs, only from hearts of fear and hatred, only from the conscience of hunger and lust, only from the lowest and most debased could come this most cruel, heartless and bestial of all dogmas."

"It makes man an eternal victim and God an eternal fiend. It is the one infinite horror. Every church in which it is taught is a public curse. Every preacher who teaches it is an enemy of mankind. Below this Christian dogma, savagery can not go. It is the infinite of malice, hatred and revenge. Nothing could add to the horror of Hell, except the presence of its creator, God. While I have life, as long as I draw breath, I shall deny with all my strength, and hate with every drop of my blood, this infinite lie.Nothing gives me greater joy than to know that this belief in eternal pain is growing weaker every day—that thousands of ministers are ashamed of it. It gives me joy to know that Christians are becoming merciful, so merciful that the fires of Hell are burning low—flickering, choked with ashes, destined in a few years to die out forever."

"The stresses the ideal of the , who out of boundless compassion dedicates oneself to helping others. A Zen master, when asked where he would go after he died, replied, "To hell, for that's where help is needed most.""

"Oh, threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise! One thing at least is certain: This life flies. One thing is certain and the rest is lies; the flower that once has blown forever dies."

"The notions of hell and purgatory, of paradise and resurrections are all caricatured, distorted echoes of the primeval one Truth, taught humanity in the infancy of its races by every First Messenger—the Planetary Spirit mentioned on the reverse of page the third—and whose remembrance lingered in the memory of man, as Elu of the Chaldees, Osiris the Egyptian, Vishnu, the first Buddahs and so on. The lower world of effects is the sphere of such distorted thoughts; of the most sensual conceptions, and pictures; of anthropomorphic deities, the out-creations of their creators, the sensual human minds of people who have never out-grown their brutehood on earth. p. 48"

"Most people leave Earth not realizing that they will have to return again. If they could remember at least something of the past, and learn to think about the future, they would save themselves from many errors. It is not a fear of hell but a desire for perfection that will lead people to the betterment of life."

"You show signs of levity, and that is the one thing not permitted here. This place is for serious persons only. If you are not serious now, by hell you'll get serious pretty quick!"

"This petty place cannot be Hell, Roadstrum? Ah, but it is my friend. That, you see, is the hell of it."

"Instead of consigning some men to heaven and some to hell, as modem theology does, it would be more true to say that every man must pass through both the states which are typified by those names. Every man must pass through the astral plane on his way to the heaven world. Every man at the end of his astral life will attain that heaven world, unless he be a person so entirely elementary, so entirely degraded as never yet to have had any unselfish thought or feeling. If that be so, there can indeed be no heaven world for him, because all these selfish desires and feelings belong exclusively to the astral plane, and they will find their result on that plane."

"Our religious friends argue much about heaven and hell and are terribly afraid of the latter indeed it would sometimes almost seem as though they were afraid of the former as well, from the manner in which they exert themselves to avoid going there. In the future no questions or disputes about these conditions will be possible, because man will see for himself that there is no hell, though he will also see very clearly that those who live an evil life are by that fact storing up for themselves very undesirable results and a very unpleasant time in the astral life. The glories of the heaven world will also be open to his sight, and he will realize that man needs only a development of faculty in order to place him at once, here and now, in the midst of all the bliss that that wondrous life can give."

"Imagine there's no heaven It's easy if you try. No hell below us Above us only sky."

"There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.'"

"Wer anders lehret, denn ich hierinn gelehret hab, oder mich darinn verdammt, der verdamt Gott, und muß ein Kind der Höllen bleiben."

"Why should I spend half my Sunday hearing about how I'm going to Hell?"

"A dungeon horrible, on all sides round, As one great furnace, flamed; yet from those flames No light, but rather darkness visible Serv'd only to discover sights of woe, Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace And rest can never dwell, hope never comes That comes to all; but torture without end."

"Infernal world! and thou, profoundest Hell, Receive thy new possessor, one who brings A mind not to be changed by place or time. The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven. What matter where if I be still the same"

"Long is the way And hard, that out of hell leads up to light."

"So frowned the mighty combatants that Hell Grew darker at their frown."

"On a sudden open fly With impetuous recoil and jarring sound Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate Harsh thunder."

"The Hell within him; for within him Hell He brings, and round about him, nor from Hell One step, no more than from himself, can fly By change of place."

"Myself am Hell; And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep, Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide; To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven."

"All hell broke loose."

"The gates that now Stood open wide, belching outrageous flame Far into Chaos, since the fiend pass'd through."

"He [Jesus] would never have said, "Until thou payest the uttermost farthing," (Matthew 5:26) unless it had been possible for us to be freed from our sins through having atoned for them by paying the penalty; neither would He have said, "he shall be beaten with many stripes," or "he shall be beaten with few stripes," (Luke 12:47-48) unless it were that the penalties, being meted out according to the sins, should finally come to an end."

"It is not God who decides whether a person's spirit enters heaven or hell upon his death; it is decided by the spirit himself. Humans are created so that once they reach perfection they will fully breathe the love of God. Those who committed sinful deeds while on earth become crippled spirits who are incapable of fully breathing in the love of God. They find it agonizing to stand before God, the center of true love. Of their own will, they choose to dwell in hell, far removed from the love of God."

"Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) said: A woman was punished because she had kept a cat tied until it died, and (as a punishment of this offence) she was thrown into Hell. She had not provided it with food or drink, and had not freed her so that she could eat the insects of the earth."

"Nobody, I think has actually said, “The Kingdom of hell is within you”—perhaps because it is so obviously true that it does not need saying."

"Richard Dawkins: What did they tell you about it? I mean, what happens in Hell? Jill Mytton: It's strange, isn't it? After all this time, it still has the power to affect me when you ask me that question. Hell is a fearful place. It is complete rejection by God. It is complete judgment. There is real fire. There is real torment, real torture. And it goes on forever, so there is no respite from it."

"Of all the tyrannies that afflict mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst. Every other species of tyranny is limited to the world we live in, but this attempts a stride beyond the grave, and seeks to pursue us into eternity."

"Stan: We're goin' to church. We've sinned and so we have to confess again. Butters: Uh us too. Uh we saw a picture of a naked lady. We could see her whole beaver. Clyde: Yeah. If we died right now, we'd have unclean souls and we'd burn in hell. Butters: I mean, poor Timmy's gonna go to hell! He can't confess his sins, 'cause all he can say is his name!"

"Hell Director: Hello, newcomers, and welcome. Can everybody hear me? Hello? Can everyb--? Okay. Uh, I'm the hell director. Uh, it looks like we have about 8,615 of you newbies today, and for those of you who are a little confused, uh, you are dead, and this is hell, so, abandon all hope and uh yada yada yada. Uh, we are now going to start the orientation process, which will last about-- Man 4: Hey, wait a minute, I shouldn't be here. I was a totally strict and devout Protestant! I thought we went to heaven! Hell Director: Yes, well I'm afraid you were wrong. Soldier: I was a practicing Jehovah's Witness. Hell Director: Uh, you picked the wrong religion as well. Man 5: Well, who was right? Who gets into heaven? Hell Director: I'm afraid it was the Mormons. Yes, the Mormons were the correct answer. Crowd: Awww. Hell Director: So now I'd like to quickly introduce your new ruler and master for eternity, Satan."

"More to the point, what was the lesson that the first Christians drew from the crucifixion? Today such a barbarity might galvanize people into opposing brutal regimes, or demanding that such torture never again be inflicted on a living creature. But those weren’t the lessons the early Christians drew at all. No, the execution of Jesus is The Good News, a necessary step in the most wonderful episode in history. In allowing the crucifixion to take place, God did the world an incalculable favor. Though infinitely powerful, compassionate, and wise, he could think of no other way to reprieve humanity from punishment for its sins (in particular, for the sin of being descended from a couple who had disobeyed him) than to allow an innocent man (his son no less) to be impaled through the limbs and slowly suffocate in agony. By acknowledging that this sadistic murder was a gift of divine mercy, people could earn eternal life. And if they failed to see the logic in all this, their flesh would be seared by fire for all eternity. According to this way of thinking, death by torture is not an unthinkable horror; it has a bright side. It is a route to salvation, a part of the divine plan. Like Jesus, the early Christian saints found a place next to God by being tortured to death in ingenious ways. For more than a millennium, Christian martyrologies described these torments with pornographic relish."

"The early Christians also extolled torture as just deserts for the sinful. Most people have heard of the seven deadly sins, standardized by Pope Gregory I in 590 CE. Fewer people know about the punishment in hell that was reserved for those who commit them: "Pride: Broken on the wheel. Envy: Put in freezing water. Gluttony: Force-fed rats, toads, and snakes. Lust: Smothered in fire and brimstone. Anger: Dismembered alive. Greed: Put in cauldrons of boiling oil. Sloth: Thrown in snake pits." The duration of these sentences, of course, was infinite. By sanctifying cruelty, early Christianity set a precedent for more than a millennium of systematic torture in Christian Europe. If you understand the expressions to burn at the stake, to hold his feet to the fire, to break a butterfly on the wheel, to be racked with pain, to be drawn and quartered, to disembowel, to flay, to press, the thumbscrew, the garrote, a slow burn, and the iron maiden (a hollow hinged statue lined with nails, later taken as the name of a heavy-metal rock band), you are familiar with a fraction of the ways that heretics were brutalized during the Middle Ages and early modern period."