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
Fire and brimstone, flames engulfing people, and the endless cries from the souls that are suffering are all things that are commonly associated with hell. It’s not thought of as some place of just punishment, but filled with pain and torment. The question raised is whether or not it is actually full of fire and heat, or is it something different. When we read about hell in Dante’s Inferno, he describes the place not only full of fire, but also of ice, wind, and rain. All of the elements sit on different levels that have been thoughtfully laid out by Dante himself. Carol Forman speaks of how Dante set up his hell, “Hell is structured around Dante’s concept of sin.
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.
Their punishment is not self-inflicted, it is decided by Minos. Just as careless as the sinner was with his own life, so is Minos in flinging the soul down to the seventh level, sprouting roots where it lands and becomes a tree destined to be fed on by Harpies and mangled by hounds for eternity. While many of the resemblances of the Inferno and What Dreams May Come seem mostly for cinematic effect alone, it is a testament to Dante's literary talent that his portrait of hell has been so enduring. The Inferno created by Dante indeed puts a face on hell and has influenced almost every look into the subject over the centuries since it was finished in 1321.
...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.
Hell is like a government. The bureaucracy is, of course, run by their “Father Below” who is Satan (Lewis 6). In other words, the system is a dictatorship. Additionally, the demons in Hell think that they can only “advance at the expense of another” (Schultz 368). Hell was not the intention God had when He gave His people free will, but it was rather a side effect (Hill and Smith). Hell was a consequence for what Satan and his followers tried to do. God created Hell for everlasting punishment (Matthew 25:46). In return, Satan and his followers have devoted themselves to corrupt societies so it is easier to tempt those societies (Schultz 368). This consequence had eternal effect on everyone including God and His angels (Hill and
Many religions and philosophies attempt to answer the question, what happens after a person dies? Some religions, such as Christianity and Islam, believe there is an afterlife. They believe that good and moral people enter Heaven or Paradise and that bad and immoral people go to Hell. Other religions and cultures believe that death is final, and that nothing happens after a person dies. Buddhism and Hinduism have different ideas about death.
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.
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.
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.
The two worst punishments in the Inferno is the eighth level second pouch: flatterers and the ninth level of hell with Lucifer eating Brutus, Cassius and Judas. The flatterers are buried in feces due to their lies. It turns whatever they say into excrement and forces them to stand in it no matter if they are telling the truth or not. It is symbolic to the view, as what you say as a flatterer, is nothing but pure crap and you must live with that. Then you have Lucifer who is a mindless drone, crying and chewing on three devilish men. Brutus and Cassius have their heads out of Lucifer’s mouth and Judas Iscariot is lodged head first into Lucifer’s
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 is a common topic of speculation and frequently anxiety. Death is terrifying to people for many reasons: they do not know what to anticipate from death, they fear the penalty of gods, they dread not achieving certain goals or things in life, etc. Epicurus argues that when we die we no longer exist. When it comes to death many different factors come to play, whether the person himself believes in life after death, if the person believes in a certain religion or whether a person is a nonbeliever. All these leads to different perceptions of death, many beliefs stem from what they are told as kids or what they learn later on in life, therefore depending on what certain people believe there are many people who fear death and there are those who do not. A global 2012 poll reports that 59 per cent of the worlds population is religious meaning that a large majority of the world have a view of what happens after death.
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).
I thought that, like many other religions, there was a desirable and undesirable place to go to after death. Hindus do not believe in a heaven or hell. They believe in rebirth and this happens depending on their karma. Karma is the computation of a person’s actions. An individual’s karma will decide on what they will be reincarnated as in their next life. Their goal in life is to become one with Brhaman and this happens when there is no more karma. There is no more rebirth and karma has equalized, meaning it has balanced. The person is immersed into Brahma and they are forever with the ultimate. An example of this is how a river flows into an ocean. This stage is called Moksha and that is the ultimate