Introduction, and question about the idea of hell

[pita]

Hello everyone, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Carmen, and I was raised in a Roman Catholic home. I'm 18 and I've also been going to church on a regular basis. When I was around 16 I started to question the Bible and its validity. I also studied science courses and now I am interested in biology. I therefore do accept evolution and I don't really believe humans are any more special than other animals. To make long story short, I am skeptical about most religious claims, but I still wonder about hell, and here is why:

I have researched many Near Death Experiences, and to my knowledge, about 1 in 5 near death Experiencers experience a hellish NDE. I have read the accounts (they are all over the internet and easy to find) and what I find weird is that all the experiences sound so similar. For example, usually, a person first encounters total darkness, then they see these demonic creatures who torture them and laugh at their pain. Then, they hear others in hell screaming, and they claim it is a sad, lonely place because everyone is in so much pain they can't talk to one another. Then they call out for help or to Jesus, and one of two things occurs: either a white light appears which is sometimes Jesus, and they get rescued. It is also sometimes a hand that swoops down and picks them up, brings them out of hell.

My question is, do these hellish consistencies give credence to the whole concept of hell? There are even NDEs you can find where Muslims were rescued by Jesus. Does this prove that afterlife and he'll exists? It just seems so consistent to me, that it seems hard to pass it off as a hallucination.

[Kate]

No.

[Smellyoldgit]

Hello.
Did your research sample include anybody who had never heard of the christian concept of hell?

[pita]

I'm not sure. I saw a few videos of Muslims having the same hellish experience, and meeting Jesus, but there were only 5-6 of those, which is still small. I'm just wondering where all the similarities come from. The Christian concept of hell is not exactly like hell reported in NDEs, yet the NDE hell seems so consistent.

[Sinfidel]

[Sinfidel]

[Sinfidel]

[Kinich Ahau]

For me, Jesus's giant hand plucking a person out of hell validates the meat puppet theory.

[Davin]

pita wrote

My question is, do these hellish consistencies give credence to the whole concept of hell? There are even NDEs you can find where Muslims were rescued by Jesus. Does this prove that afterlife and he'll exists? It just seems so consistent to me, that it seems hard to pass it off as a hallucination.

Alien abduction stories are consistent, I suppose that means that aliens must be real.

[Sinfidel]

pita wrote

I'm not sure. I saw a few videos of Muslims having the same hellish experience, and meeting Jesus, but there were only 5-6 of those, which is still small. I'm just wondering where all the similarities come from. The Christian concept of hell is not exactly like hell reported in NDEs, yet the NDE hell seems so consistent.

You do realize that there is only one way to research this that will definitively answer your question. Make sure to leave instructions regarding funeral arrangements. It may also prove difficult to communicate your finding back to us.
Good luck!

[HarveyDent777]

I had an experience when I overdosed on ecstasy before and there are a lot of euphoric feelinvs that feel more spiritual than organic. It's hard in question to know what is truly out there. But I don't discount people's stories, a lot of them are not made up and I try to listen as best as I can.

[Sinfidel]

HarveyDent777 wrote

I had an experience when I overdosed on ecstasy before and there are a lot of euphoric feelinvs that feel more spiritual than organic. It's hard in question to know what is truly out there. But I don't discount people's stories, a lot of them are not made up and I try to listen as best as I can.

A lot of Dodd's Kidney Pills, and Carter's Little Liver Pills were sold on the basis of Testimonials. Ask your Doctor/Pharmacist about them!

[Sinfidel]

HarveyDent777 wrote

I had an experience when I overdosed on ecstasy before and there are a lot of euphoric feelinvs that feel more spiritual than organic. It's hard in question to know what is truly out there. But I don't discount people's stories, a lot of them are not made up and I try to listen as best as I can.

Maybe they should serve Ecstasy pills in church instead of those wafers!

[The Judge]

pita wrote

Hello everyone, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Carmen, and I was raised in a Roman Catholic home. I'm 18 and I've also been going to church on a regular basis. When I was around 16 I started to question the Bible and its validity. I also studied science courses and now I am interested in biology. I therefore do accept evolution and I don't really believe humans are any more special than other animals. To make long story short, I am skeptical about most religious claims, but I still wonder about hell, and here is why:

I have researched many Near Death Experiences, and to my knowledge, about 1 in 5 near death Experiencers experience a hellish NDE. I have read the accounts (they are all over the internet and easy to find) and what I find weird is that all the experiences sound so similar. For example, usually, a person first encounters total darkness, then they see these demonic creatures who torture them and laugh at their pain. Then, they hear others in hell screaming, and they claim it is a sad, lonely place because everyone is in so much pain they can't talk to one another. Then they call out for help or to Jesus, and one of two things occurs: either a white light appears which is sometimes Jesus, and they get rescued. It is also sometimes a hand that swoops down and picks them up, brings them out of hell.

My question is, do these hellish consistencies give credence to the whole concept of hell? There are even NDEs you can find where Muslims were rescued by Jesus. Does this prove that afterlife and he'll exists? It just seems so consistent to me, that it seems hard to pass it off as a hallucination.

Hi Pita / Carmen,

I noticed that I think I responded to an other post of yours when feeling particularly aggrieved without having seen this one.

I'd like to start over if I may:
I am encouraged to hear that you are developing a scientific mind and consequently doubting the fantastical and far-reached claims without evidence that typify much of religious doctrine (and not just the one you were raised in).

My immediate thought here is that since you are developing your scientific intellectual muscle, lets give it a bit of a work out.

Although you are having doubts, some of your mind is still stongly attached to religious thoughts, concepts and imagery.

In science we must guard against bias.

Your background may therefore be biasing your initial...let's call it a research question: "is there a hell?"

This question develops a hypothesis and a null hypothesis:
Hypothesis: The is a hell.
Null hypothesis: There is no hell.

Now the type of data you are searching for is actually highly complex and unreliable.
Essentially there are two types of data: quantitative and qualitative (forgive me if you heard this before but bear with me).

Quantitative data is essentially data in the form of numbers where we have measured something objectively that we can then process using various, appropriate statistical methods to answer with a degree of high probilitiy whether we can reject our null hypothesis or not.

However qualitative data is the kind that you've gone looking for. Now there are various ways of collecting reliable qualitative data but simply reading what (literally anyone) has posted in some internet forum for literally any reason is not a good start if you want reliable qualitative data.

The kind of data you've collected so far from these fora is infused with all sorts of bias and has no provable source and the author's motivations and mental state / mental illness history are unknown.
The only way to collect a reliable version of this data would be to do so in a structured / semi-structured interview having screened for mental illness and controlled for religious bias at the outset. You'd have to record them too so that you could then deconstruct the recordings of these conversations using thematic analysis and go from there.

The final thing I'd say is that when you see patterns emerging in data that is interesting (human brains are VERY good at spotting patterns...sometimes too good and we see patterns in things that aren't really there).

I mean it could be that even if the accounts you've been reading were true, there's still the fact that the common denominator amongst them is that they are all human and this just may be part and parcel of how the human brain experiences dying, but these people no doubt also had a religious world view / framework through which they have remembered / integrated / related their accounts rendering them all susceptible to significant bias.

In short there is no way to reliably answer your question, but when that's the case sometimes it's better to take a step back, look at the problem from another angle and attack it from there.

E.g. this "hell" thing hasn't always been a concept for humans, some tribes have never heard of it and actually it's very good at instilling fear. Fear helps to control a populace and some humans will do anything to take and maintain control.
Maybe there's something in the origins and organisation of the church that is involved with the development of the notion of the "devil" and "hell." By chipping away at another facade of the monolith of religion, you may find that, amongst other things hell was merely an inveted scare tactic by powerful white men in dresses and nothing more...who knows.

Good luck

[dogpet]

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