Hell
Nowadays a very few people can be scare with hell. The days of religious illiteracy of person have passed. But, nevertheless, there are those who care about this issue. Thus, there is a hell or not? In fact, this issue is not a secret.
The teaching of hell, shows God not with the best hand. Many people do not want to know anything about God, if he invented hell. And in fact, the feelings of these people are understandable. Why to torture people forever, if they have lived, a few decades, and have sinned even less? If to call things by their own names, only the sadists can do so. Who will watch the agony of his creations, and furthermore forever? If it was a man, no one would want to meet him closely, and to have a friendship with him. All these ideas of God, do not agree with what God teaches people. How can God call us to love even our enemies, and at the same time torturing his enemies in hell?
Those who support the teaching about hell, lead God's known law: "An eye for an eye". But, not everything converges here. If a person living on the Earth, cau sing torment to another person, it does not last forever. So, he should not be tormented forever in hell if it exists. It turns out that a hellish punishment will always be too harsh, even if a person committed a crime from the first day of his birth, until his last day.
For many people it will be interested to know that the Bible does not confirm the teaching about the hell torments. There is the word " hell" in Bible, but it does not have the significance which he is credited. This was confirmed by many linguists and biblical scholars.
To describe the punishment for man for his sins, the Bible uses the greek words "apollumi" and "apoleia." Literally they are translated as "destroy" and "destruction." These words have never translated as "torments".
However, the phrase "lake of fire" can be found in the Bible. Probably this phrase finally caused in many people the association with suffering. We always associate fire with pain, so people finally concluded that this is due to torments. But the fire has another destination, about which for some reasons do not remember. This is that everything, what falls into the fire, disappears forever. We have a landfills behind every city, where the fire is constantly maintained. And everything that got there, disappears not only literally, but also from our memory. Applying this value of fire, it becomes more clear in what context, fire is used in the Scripture.
Here is one of the examples, the book of Revelation, chapter 14, verses from 9 to 11: "tormented in fire and sulfur, and the smoke of their torment will ascends forever and ever...". At first glance it seems that we are talking about eternal hell torments. But the phrase " forever and ever" applies only to smoke, and not to those who are in the fire. And the fact that the smoke rises forever, says that the fire performed, that function for which it was intended - it destroyed for ever.
Here's another place where the fire is mentioned: "in the lake of fire and sulfur... they will be tormented day and night forever and ever", this is also recorded in Revelation, chapter 20. If we pay our attention on the whole context, we will see that here is talking about the false prophet, death, hell, and the beast. All these are symbolic images. Even hell itself in the list of tortured! So, tortures are also not literal - they are symbolic. I you do not need even think out here, just look what the Bible itself says about this: "lake of Fire - is the second death" - Revelation, chapter 20, verse 14.
It is evident that God has never planned such punishment for sins. The worst punishment, which man got for the sins - is death. And also, the death was not originally the part of the plan of our Creator, people became mortal rather than God made them such. But that's another story.