Debunking Annihilationism

I've heard arguments from several Christians that Hell is not mentioned as an actual place of torment in the Bible, and that it is merely symbolic of the grave. Whoever believes this has clearly not read the Bible.In Luke 16, a greedy rich man is sent to Hell, and the chapter explicitly describes it as a place of eternal torment. No amount of symbolism arguments can disprove this.I have heard a horrifying testimony of Hell from one of my friends, who used to be an atheist. He nearly died from a bacterial infection in the brain in 1997. He had a near-death experience in which he experienced massive agony, unquenchable thirst, and the desire to scream for help. But he could not scream, for his mouth has been melted shut by the intense heat. After he recovered from the infection, he became a Christian. It could have been a hallucination, but you never know.Who else has had testimonies of experiences like these?-----Added by edit by Adminnemooseus:Luke 16:22-24 -

quote:

---

22 The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

---

Source

quote:

---

Annihilationism (also known as extinctionism or destructionism[1]) is a Christian belief that apart from salvation the final punishment of human beings results in their total destruction (annihilation) rather than their everlasting torment. It is directly related to the doctrine of conditional immortality, the idea that a human soul is not immortal unless it is given eternal life. Annihilationism asserts that God will eventually destroy or annihilate the wicked, leaving only the righteous to live on in immortality.

---

SourceEnd of added by edit.Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Added by edit: 2 quotations from outside sources.

Thread copied here from the Debunking Annihilationism thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.

I'm not sure that there are no good symbolism arguments. Luke 16 is, after all, a parable. And the alternate to going to the place of eternal torment is to go to "Abraham's bosom". Quite obviously, that is not literal.For the purposes of the lesson Jesus is teaching, do the details you are insisting on really matter, or does it matter what his intended audience, and the immediate audience was Jewish, believed? Uh, you did say that the man had a brain fever. Is this really the story with which you want to lead off.

Speaking as a Christian I was pretty much with you until you mentioned your friend had been an atheist and then tried to connect that to Jesus teaching.Again, as a Christian I am quite sure there will be far more Atheists, Buddhist, Agnostics, Ignostics, Jews, Pagans, Wiccans, followers of the Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Norse, German gods, anamists, followers of Confucius, Mencius, Li, Coyote and Muslims and Hindus in Heaven than Christians and far more Christians in Hell than in Heaven.Remember, Jesus was born, lived and died as a Jew. He was never a Christian and his teachings always deal with what a person does. What better description of Televangelist and many, many Christian (particularly Bible pounding Evangelist) Pastors is there than "Greedy rich man"?Edited by jar, : and no 8 in is

Hello Creation Pigeon and welcome.I heard it said that Hell was the place where God was not.
That Hell could be here on Earth. And that the separation from God was the ultimate punishment. But I do not believe in a literal Hell.I like this quote from a movie Jacob's Ladder from a character named Louis.

quote:

---

Louis: Eckhart saw Hell too. He said: The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of life, your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they're not punishing you, he said. They're freeing your soul. So, if you're frightened of dying and... and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth.

---

Maybe they just don't agree with your proof text.Annihilation would certainly be more humane than eternal torment. I suppose it's possible to read the Bible and find a humane God in there.

The concept of hell is actually borrowed from other religions, primarily Greek paganism. The 'hell' that existed there was the Pit of Tartarus which ironically, is mentioned by name in the Bible in the earlier versions. (It has since been renamed hell)
But from the standpoint of Greek mythology, it was a place of eternal torment and damnation, where the wicked and the corrupt would spend eternity. You never know. But then again, as I mentioned in my previous paragraph, how does your friend know he wasn't in Tartarus and that what he should have done is to begin praying to Zeus?

Most, maybe all, cultures have some version of Hell as a place of punishment for the wicked after death, some have many Hells. The word "Hell" is the English word for it, which is of course why it is in the English Bible [except where silly revisionists impose their own interpretation on the word by substituting the Greek or Hebrew terms which don't have the same connotations]. Jesus' picture of Hell should be regarded by Bible believers as definitive and in that parable about the rich man and Lazarus He shows it to be a place of suffering.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Sure. It's wishful thinking. We all want to see the bad guys punished and we know it doesn't always happen in this life.

I suspect the wishful thinking is your wishful thinking that Hell doesn't exist.

I think any decent person would wish Hell didn't exist. I don't know why anybody would be glad if it did. And I don't know why anybody would respect its proprietor.Edited by ringo, : Splling.

Indeed. Says a lot about how some Christian's interpret their god when they give him cosmic license to invoke the types of punishments that us mere mortals would consider inhumane and sadistic.

But didn't you just say that we all wish to see the wicked punished? Isn't that because that would be justice? So why then do you think it a superior position to let them off the hook?

I of course have no doubt that whatever punishment God sees fit to levy will be perfectly matched to the crime.Give a little thought to some we know will be on the receiving end before you find fault with the Judge, the mass murdering tyrants for instance, you know, the Hitlers, the Stalins, the Pol Pots etc., and your garden variety mass murderers too. That's just for starters.

No, that would be vengeance - sadistic vengeance. Justice would be ameliorating the effects of the offense and rehabilitating the offender. I think anything is superior to eternal torment. A more sensible position for a god to take would be for karma to work in this lifetime.