Of course the child will subscribe to the fear of Hell, but as the child grows and reaches adulthood he/she should be able to apply reasoning to break away from the poor upbringing
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yes, i think how you were raised effects how you think when you grow up. although growing up Muslim, we were thought to be afraid of Allah and hell. I now know that hell is just something you use when you donât have a better explanation. this makes allah angry so he will throw you in hell.
thatâs a good enough argument.
One would think that would be the case, huh? But, again, I can tell you from VERY PERSONAL experience, that is most often definitely NOT the case. As I have already said, by the time I was around 8 years old, most everything I was taught in church about the bible and god RARELY made any sense to me. Way too many inconsistencies and contradictions. (Even though I wasnât really aware of those terms at such a young age.) Oh, and donât even get me started on all the hypocrisy I noticed almost daily. Basically, I always knew/felt something was âoffâ about the whole thing, but I did not have the knowledge or experience to explain WHY it felt wrong. Therefore, I naturally had to rely on the âguidanceâ of the adults I trusted, who loved and cared about me. Moreover, Christianity totally dominated the entire community in which I lived. Friends, teachers, store owners, and so on and so on were most ALL âwashed in the blood of our wonderful Lord and Saviorâ. (AMEN, brothers and sisters!) And those VERY RARE few who did not âfollow the faithâ⊠well⊠letâs just say they were not looked upon favorably by the general public. Outcasts, to say the least. In other words, if you wanted to have any friends, maintain good family relations, and be a functioning and accepted member of society, it was always in your best interest to be seen in church every now and then. As such, the tiny developing mind of a young child gets FULLY SATURATED with all the religious dogma, day in and day out over the course of many years. And the most damaging concept of that dogma is the fear of hell. It is so damningly accepted as fact by everybody around you, it becomes as real as being told the Earth is round and water is wet. AND YOU ARE NEVER EVER ALLOWED TO QUESTION THAT âFACTâ. To question such a thing would be an express ticket to the very hell you fear.
Yes, the child gradually grows up, learns more about science, has more and more life experiences outside the tiny âreligious ecosystemâ in which he was raised, and travels abroad and gets a glimpse at other cultures. As may be expected, those questions and doubts from childhood become more and more consuming. The reality observed, along with the scientific and personal knowledge that has been gained over the years, starts to conflict more and more with the religion that was forced upon the childhood mind. Even so, the brain is STILL deeply conditioned to NEVER QUESTION OR DOUBT. âSatan is just trying to trick you into hell.â Bottom line is, if you have never experienced this, there is truly no way I can fully explain it to you so that you can understand it. But let me try it like this: NO MATTER how much rational thinking, critical thinking, or logic you have/use, that fear of Satan/hell so deeply embedded into your psyche will override it and stop the questions every time. Took me over forty years of my life to finally break away from my Christian indoctrination, with the BIGGEST challenge of that breakaway being getting past that fear of hell. Trust me, it is not even remotely as simple as you seem to think it is.
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Iâm much more scared of falling into the Grand Canyon than going to hell. For starters: the Grand Canyon is real.
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The Christiansâ imaginary friend isnât a god at all. Heâs a fictional monster with homicidal anger problems.
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Me too! And I live in Korea.
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Been to Hell, not worried about it.
(I would expand on the âHellâ Iâm talking about but some of you would throw up on your keyboard.)
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Riiiiiight⊠
Stop teasing. Twenty years patrolling the streets of a large crime-infested city. Seventeen years in the Army Guard with three combat deployments, with one of those deployments as a Combat Medic. So, take your best shot, Gawdzilla. 
Oh, and pretty much most of the others here have likely seen as bad as (or WORSE than) I have.
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Luckily i was raised without indoctrination, nor any education of religion⊠so the notion of a âhellâ is pretty fucking stupid in my humble opinion.
You also have to laugh at a god that creates absolutely everything and knows everything, whilst being all loving and forgiving⊠yet has a hell.
That said, i have been to Tottenham in London, so not far offâŠ
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Just for the record, Iâve known this guy for some time. Thereâs a reason he doesnât talk much about this issue. DM will follow.
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Hey there, Cali. No worries, friend. Please know my post to Gawd was meant only in the spirit of good-natured âpoking funâ. In all fairness, though, having read back over it, I can see how that could have been interpreted otherwise. (Maybe I should have added a couple of more laughing emojis. 
) My sincere apologies if that post appeared âconfrontationalâ in any way. I promise I meant no disrespect by it. Sometimes (Okay, OFTEN) my warped sense of humor gets the better of me, and it tends to become hard to detect in written form. Basically, as most here already know, sometimes itâs best to just ignore me whenever I go off the reservation like that. (Although, slapping me in the face with a rotten fish has also been known to work from time to time.) 
@Gawdzilla_Sama Hey, bro, feel free to roast me. Besides, Iâve already heard everything Cog and Old Man have to send. Maybe you could at least help them with some new material⊠(chuckle)âŠ
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Okay then. A GI was caught by the Cong and put in a cage where the paths to three villages met. The villagers were told that anything happened to the Yankee all the villages and villagers would be burned. So the dude was in that cage for almost three months, eating only what crawled, slithered, hopped or dropped into the cage.
The SEALS got word of him and busted him out. They took turns carrying him for ~8 clicks. âWasnât much of a load.â
He died on the way to our boat unit.
But he died a free man.
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Yep. Pretty sure that qualifies as hell. Heard many stories during my younger years from family and fathers of friends who were over there. None of the stories were good. For those who have never experienced such things, there is simply no way for them to truly understand what it is like. I suspect you saw even worse than that at times. (No need to elaborate.) Definitely no need to be worried about some imaginary pit of fire anymore. Glad you made it back okay. Thank you for your service. And welcome to our little âfamilyâ here.
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I replied to their hell with my own. Browning M2 .50 cal. Heavy Machine Gun fires a two ounce bullet at SUPERSONIC speed. The impact will fold a full grown man and knock him backwards. And it kills at TWO MILES. Once the boys were under my umbrella they started thinking theyâd survived this mission. I did my best to make that happen.
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There is no totem pole of value for a personâs hell. One is not worse than another. It is completely subjective. The pain Iâve experienced is no greater nor less than the pain perceived by anyone else. You just cannot know the depth of someone elseâs suffering.
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Fairly familiar with the Ma Deuce, along with her sniper cousin. Hope you were able to exact a bit of payback.
Precisely. Every individual handles adversity/abuse/trauma in his/her own unique way. While a given âtraumaticâ incident may drive some people âover the edgeâ, another person experiencing the same incident might brush it off without any concern or ill effects. Many different factors involved in how a person handles (or doesnât handle) any given situation. One personâs hell might even be another personâs playground. (Spider/fly analogy comes to mind.)
Evals forwarded to me at Balboa Naval Hospital, San Diego, CA., include the line "there is no good way to estimate the number of EKIA PO J. has contributed to the war effort.
EKIA: Enemy Killed in Action. (We didnât collect scalps.)
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Not to belittle the stated experiences, but isnât Hell supposed to be an experience bestowed upon the âsoulâ and not that of a living being? I have a much greater fear of experinces such as those descriibed than I do of any Hell. Burning in the fires of Hell never made sense to me since death removes all elements of the physical body. Without the physical body there is no sense of feeling.
Hell was in session on August 24, 79 AD.
â«Hell is for Childrenâ«