CNN on Religious blogs

In addition, Christianity also preyed (prayed??) on our human and societal tendency towards altruism. So not only did you want to 'save' yourself from hellfire, you wanted to save those you cared about. It was an absolutely brilliant marketing ploy and worked quite effectively.Nowadays, while sects of Christianity focus on hell in different ways, the notion of hell is still a strong archetype in Christian doctrine. But even if hell itself is de-emphasized, most if not all Christians believe in some form of divine judgement in the afterlife. So even if they claim their beliefs are not dictated by the threat of damnation, they are cognizant of some level of judgement after they die.

I would actually argue that 'Dante's Inferno' is probably the best overall description of hell. It went into extreme detail when explaining how the damned would exist in the various planes of hell, as he envisioned them.Much of the notions of hell that exist in Christianity today actually have their origins in some of the early Greek and Egyptian mythologies. The concept of the afterlife in Greek mythology for example had Hades ruling the underworld, but within that place, the most 'damned' would be thrown into the pit of Tartarus, which was the baseline for the concept of suffering for past transgressions.
Tartarus is actually mentioned by name in the Bible as well, demonstrating the cross-over of various religious beliefs:

quote:

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Peter 2:4. "God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into Tartarus and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment"

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What is fascinating is it shows the origin of the 'fallen angel' myth in Christianity as being actually attributed to the fall of the Titans in Greek mythology, as they were the ones cast into the pit, along with various other ancient deities referenced in Greek lore.

And you are welcome to that viewpoint. My contention as a non-believer is that these are merely compendiums of different stories being cobbled together from various sources. My suspicion is that the direct reference was removed in later writings. The original bible was actually written in Greek, so it should not be at all surprising that a Greek word and reference to their pagan lore would be discovered.