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Bruce Collins's avatar

As always, 🔥!

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Joy Vetterlein's avatar

Except not literally anymore 🔥

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Bruce Collins's avatar

Lol. My feeble attempt at a pun ☺️

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Deb's avatar

Even if you do still believe in the accuracy of the Bible (I personally don't) the concept of hell makes no sense. One of the best books on it I've read was Raising Hell - Christianity's Most Controversial Doctrine Under Fire by Julie Ferwerda. She takes a deep dive into all the words translated as "hell" and what they actually meant. It was one of the first books I read a few years ago when I began stepping away from it all. It had a huge impact on me.

Can't wait to hear what you have to say about "the rapture!" Thank you for what you're doing. I look forward to reading it every Sunday and love that you put it out on Sundays!

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Joy Vetterlein's avatar

Yes I used her book in my research!!! Very helpful in deconstructing the Bible part of it.

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Joanna Henry's avatar

I remember as a child and teen being so sad thinking that so many of many family members and friends would be going to hell 😣 so thankful that I don’t have that weighing on me anymore

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Christine Greenwald's avatar

Thanks for the concise and interesting brief history of the evolution of hell! I wrote a series about hell a couple months ago but didn't get into the stuff about Augustine and Tertullian and Jerome and the Vulgate Bible -- that's new info and since I'm nerdy it's also really interesting 🤓 !

The thing about humans' desire for justice (and vengeance?) is, I suppose, a powerful draw about hell, but like you point out, ECT hell is not just... and can we imagine a just-ish version of the future where the truly horrible human actors get some kind of punishment? If that's a thing that will happen? The psychological mechanisms at play here are perhaps the most interesting to me!

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Joy Vetterlein's avatar

It’s truly wild. And how we are so desperate for safety that we will somehow cling to something so unsafe just because it feels certain.

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