My wife has been reading All You Want to Know About Hell: Three Christian Views of God's Final Solution to the Problem of Sin by Steve Gregg and it got me wondering what everyone's views were.  The book goes over the various views of Hell that many Christians hold, where there originated from, and the scriptures that support each.
The following descriptions are ones I grabbed off a website, but they seem to match well enough.

TRADITIONAL
• Some people (perhaps even a majority of the human race) will not be saved. Each person is judged once and for all at death and given either eternal life or eternal condemnation.
• Hell is a place of endless, conscious punishment for sin. This punishment is sometimes interpreted literally (physical torment) and sometimes metaphorically (a state of being, spiritual suffering, separation from God).
• Once a person is in hell, there is no exit.
• The Roman Catholic view distinguishes between hell and purgatory, a place of temporary purification for those who are destined for heaven.

CONDITIONAL IMMORTALITY OR ANNIHILATIONISM
Some people will not be saved.
• The human soul is not naturally immortal. Eternal existence is a gift of God to the redeemed.
• The unrepentant will be punished, but this period of conscious punishment will be temporary.
• At the final resurrection, the unrepentant will be destroyed and cease to exist. The biblical “fire” of hell is a consuming, rather than tormenting, fire.
• Some conditionalists believe that after death a person will receive a second chance to accept or reject God.

RESTORATIONISM
All people will eventually be saved, and God will restore the creation to perfect harmony.
• Eternal punishment contradicts the love of God, since God wills the salvation of all and has the power to overcome sin and evil. God’s love is stronger than human resistance.
• If there is a hell, it is not eternal. Punishment is temporary and remedial, leading the sinner towards repentance and union with God.
• Even the devil can ultimately repent and be saved.

Didn't Somebody say something about a "lake of fire" and "wailing and gnashing of teeth"?

Why does the poll not include "None"?

Other would work I guess..

John of Patmos wrote about the lake of fire IIRC

if you accept Christ as your savior and do your best to be like him, you're promised a path to heaven..

if you don't your going to hell..

besides, it's predetermined already..

I voted other

 

I'm intrigued by the strong showing of "other".

You can have a religious construct without the "heaven or hell" dichotomy.

Judaism does not have a binary "heaven or hell." It really has no "hell" at all (or a singular heaven). The Christian construct of Hell is a Greek idea, not a Jewish one.  It is probably the best (and bluntest) answer to why do Jews reject Christianity? Salvation from hell and eternity in heaven is a solution to a problem the Jews never had. It makes no sense to Judaism. If you don't believe in heaven or hell, you are in no need of a mechanism to help you with it.

aren't there references to "the Pit" in the Old Testament?

Thank you.

I am an absolute and total unbeliever, but have always been fascinated by the things people alow themselves to believe.

Most references are to the literal grave or a physical location in ancient Israel that was a trash dump. And Judaism has a concept of a place of accountability after death but it is temporary and not a "hell."

In traditional Judaism, there are many mechanisms for the soul to atone for wrongs or finish things unaccomplished in life. Such as reincarnation or transmigration to different spiritual levels but there is no "heaven forever or hell forever."  

Pretty close.

• SomeMost people will not be saved.
• The human soul life is not naturally immortal. Eternal existence life is a gift of God to the redeemed.
• TheThose responsible to the judgment seat yet remain unrepentant will be punished rejected at the judgment seat, but this period of conscious punishment will be temporary
• At the final resurrection, the unrepentant will be destroyed and cease to exist die and never rise again. Whether their death is an active act by God or God simply lets them die is TBD. The biblical “fire” of hell is a consuming, rather than tormenting, fire.
• Some conditionalists believe that after death a person will receive a second chance to accept or reject God.

+1 to most of this.

I have heard that a lot of the tormenting Hell views originated from St. Augustine.  Many of his views on the subject came from before he converted to Christianity.

That could be, it seems like something worth reading up on.

From a traditional Jewish standpoint, the Jesus narrative and the subsequent books of the New Testament and not very Jewish. To paint with a broad brush, it is a Hellenistic story told in a Jewish setting, by someone without a full understanding of Jewish things, but admittedly some understanding. The subsequent books are mostly alien to traditional Judaism.

Won't all Jews go to hell according to the rules of Christianity?

You have to accept Jesus as your savior right?

Yes, that is generally the primary tenant of Christianity. If you accept Jesus as your savior you spend eternity in "Heaven" and if you don't accept Jesus, you will spend eternity in "Hell."  Again, the problem with that is the Jews do not believe in a "heaven" and "hell" system. So Christianity offers us something that we never needed. It is an answer to a problem we never had. As I said, while the Jesus narrative is told in a Jewish setting, it is not a Jewish story. It is a Greek (Hellenistic) story.  It follows the constructs of the Hellenistic traditions much more closely than it does a Jewish construct. (The Dionysus stories are a good place to start on that) while the early church was clearly influenced by Roman constructs (Mithras would be a good place to start on that)

I have trouble believing that God's chosen people are all going to hell. But since they haven't accepted Christ as their savior they will not be saved. I just can't buy that

Are we just going to ignore this?

Ignore what?  The title of the book?  Just because someone with a shitty mustache used it, it can never be used again?

Plenty of OT references of Jews who were non believers who went to hell.

Being a part of a particular ethnic group has never been a golden ticket to heaven.

Uncle of mine had a near death experience in which he claims he witnessed heaven and hell. Hell sounded pretty bad...claimed he saw people with their flesh melting off their bones and growing back as well as worms and whatnot in their bodies.

You know combine this with some of what I found out about Judaism when I was doing some light research months back has me really questioning my Baptist upbringing. Their text is older, and depending on how you look at it, much more valid. Both the Christian and Muslim books are based off of it at the start and then go their own way. Which I heard a Rabbi explained that to a level that made good sense... basically if I came up to a Jewish person and had this fantastic story not grounded on anything, would you believe me? No, of course not, but if you grounded it in something they already believed and just gradually worked away from it into something else... Makes me wonder...

What did he say he saw in heaven?

Christianity arguably has as much Zoroastrianism (where did those magi come from) and Greek mythology in it as Judaism. All of this can make sense from a Christ-centric perspective, but gets troublesome from a literal Old Testament perspective.

I think a lot of the literal Old Testament Christian types could stand to spend some time talking to (or reading) literal Old Testament Jewish types and have their mind blown about how differently two people can interpret the same scriptures when taking ostensibly the same approach.

As for the heaven/hell dichotomy - it really is a presupposition that is required for the primary focus os so much protestant theology, and that whole image of Hell is based far more on the Greek pagan view of Hades than anything in Judaism. Not that such a view is wrong, necessarily, but it is useful to understand where the view comes from.

People reporting near death experiences generally state things that resemble their cultural/religious beliefs.  For example, while it might be common for Christians to see Jesus, that does not happen to Hindus.

The word "Hell" is not found in the Hebrew Bible, even if some of Christianity translates, very wrongly, Hebrew words that have nothing to do with the Christian idea of Hell as "Hell."

There is no "Hell" in Judaism. There are esoteric concepts of transmigration of the soul through various levels but there is no place that even remotely resembles the Christian "Hell"

There is also no singular and forever "Heaven" that the Jews are trying to gain entrance to. That is simply not how it works in Judaism.  

I don't recall as well, but I remember something about tree's and a stream/river that had clear looking stone like objects in it that somehow he knew were gold. And just a large sense of peace/calm, there was more but I can't recall.

I think perhaps the most interesting thing I have heard between Judaism and Christianity was when a Pastor asked a Rabbi about Jesus. And the Rabbi told a story about how there was a King who lets say had many sons, and for whatever reason the people loved one son more than the rest, and everywhere the King went with this son the people flocked to him and adored him and would greet him and then the King…How do you think the King felt?

Now how the King "felt" I don't think is really so much the question,  Or what I get from that story, in fact it's hard to put it into words, esp. at 0346 in the morning after being up since about 0640 the other morning. But it doesn't seem to make sense at all does it.

Agreed that the Christian concept of hell is predominately Greek, but I'd caution to avoid getting too wrapped around semantics, as there is hardly one Christian concept of "hell." A large amount of English protestant-unique theology - esp. about Hell - is rooted in semantics, and seems to forget or ignore realities of language. But in Christian theology, English is a late comer (the word Hell itself is a word with Germanic roots whose theological relevance historically is about as relevant as the word "God" here).

Augustine predates the KJV, as does Dante.

The translators of the Septuagint used the existing Greek worldview's concept of Hades each time Sheol was mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures. It was even used in cases when the word Sheol was not used. "Gehenna" was transliterated for the most part, as far as I can tell.

You thus have the beginnings of a Christian theology pretty succinctly summed up on this site, while offering a pretty solid (in my opinion) Christian perspective: http://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionaries/bakers-evangelical-dictionary/hades.html. The combination of the Greek perception of Hades and the Hebrew Scriptures either polluted (which may be a modern Jewish view) or created a more enlightened or complete (a more Christian view) understanding of references to Sheol in Hebrew Scriptures. Interestingly, Jesus Christ's references to Hades in the Gospels weren't spoken in Greek, but we don't have original Aramaic references. There may be room for a fascinating Dan Brown type book digging into this one. The Greek Septuagint keeps a distinction, though, between Sheol and Gehenna, a distinction that was kept in the Vulgate. Thus, the Binary concept is not so Binary, with punishment and suffering not necessarily the same thing as the abode of the dead.

The Hebrew terms Sheol and Gehenna, and Greek term Hades remain both translated as Hell in many English language Bibles. I'm pretty sure the KJV pretty well solidified this in English (Interestingly, though, "Sheol" is inconsistently translated in the KJV, as a mere "pit" in at least one instance, and as "Hell" in others - some scholar on the translation sources might be able to offer more perspective, or this may have been the natural product of existing theology influencing word choice). In many cases, this leads to semantic issues as English-only types create a theology based on their choses translation without a grounded perspective on where it came from - this is where a lot of the "eternal hellfire" stuff seems to come from. But it's hardly the source of the very different worldviews you identify.

What's interesting to me, is the Greek Pagan worldview of Hades also had a term for the part of Hades where bad people were being punished, and it was used but once in the Septuagint, in 2 Peter 2:4, and also preserved in the Vulgate, but now just used as "Hell" in most English translations.

The Rabbi seems to have a week understanding of Trinitarian theology, and an odd need to Anthropomorphize a concept such as God.

Jews are forbidden from recruiting. We also believe that everyone has a path to G-d.  We also have no need to martyr ourselves. The result of that is Jews have been telling Christians whatever they want to hear to reduce the violence they visit upon us. One of the by products of that today is most Jews, who have little in the way of traditional Jewish learning, also believe those things.   Details aside, most people have been led to believe that Judaism is fairly similar to Christianity just without Jesus.  That is simply not true. Traditional Judaism looks a lot more like Buddhism with a legal system. As I have said. the events of the Jesus narrative are not a Jewish story. They much more resemble a Greek story told in a Jewish setting, that the subsequent books transform into a Roman story.

There are certainly plenty of details but my point is the Christian concept of salvation from a place and entrance to a place is alien to Judaism.  

Utter, complete, and eternal separation from God, and therefore anything we can consider the slightest bit "good".

A lake of fire would be a cakewalk by comparison.



Save me, Lord, lest I perish!

I share that opinion. I am also aware that Jew's and Rabbi are SUPPOSED to try to sway you from becoming Jewish. I found that very interesting. Seems like a test if you will, to see if you REALLY want to and are sure of your choice. Vs confused. I found this out doing some light research because I have issues with my own Southern Baptist upbringing. I have to say I sure respect a devout Jew.

Yep, in traditional Judaism, a Rabbi will go out of his way to convince you not to convert, even be a dick to you. Of course, there comes a point when he might accept your sincerity and help.  Part of that is also, if you are not Jewish, you dont need to be.

Most people are programmed to believe that they are either "seeking the truth" and/or "must follow a path."  The Jewish view does not really work like that. If someone comes to have problems with their path, then comes to believe in another path, people generally then start to follow that path as the "truth." If you come to believe Judaism is the correct path, there is no need to follow it. All people have a path to the divine. The Jewish path is for Jews. Our faith weighs a persons actions, not the club they join or what they profess.