What is the concept of hell?

In religion and folklore, hell is a location in the afterlife in which evil souls are subjected to punitive suffering, most often through torture, as eternal punishment after death.

Who believes in the concepts of heaven and hell?

Traditionally, Christians believed that Heaven and Hell are physical places. Nowadays, some Christians believe that Heaven and Hell could be states of mind – for example, Heaven might be a place of unending happiness. Additionally, Roman Catholics believe in a place called Purgatory .

What religion believes in hell on earth?

Among other non-Christians, however, beliefs that there are places of eternal reward and punishment after death are not as widely held. Roughly half or fewer of Hindus, Buddhists and Jews believe in heaven. And roughly a third or less of Buddhists, Hindus, and Jews believe in the concept of hell.

What did Jesus say about hell?

Jesus Christ says in Matthew 25:41, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into EVERLASTING FIRE, prepared for the devil and his angels.” In Matthew 13:42, Jesus says: “And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” HELL IS FOREVER! All who enter hell — abandon all hope!

How did the concept of hell evolve?

Our ancestors developed their ideas of Hell by drawing on the pains and the deprivations that they knew on earth. Those imaginings shaped our understanding of life before death, too. They still do. The afterlife is an old room in the house of the human imagination, and the ancients loved to offer the tour.

Where did the concept of hell come from?

The concept of an infernal ‘hell’ developed in Israel only during the Hellenistic period” (beginning in the fourth century B.C.E.). Greek religious and philosophical ideas, including those of Aristotle and Plato, became influential throughout the region during that time.

Can only human beings perform evil actions?

Since the narrow concept of evil involves moral condemnation, it is appropriately ascribed only to moral agents and their actions. For example, if only human beings are moral agents, then only human beings can perform evil actions.

Does the concept of evil have a place in moral thinking?

By contrast, evil-revivalists believe that the concept of evil has a place in our moral and political thinking and discourse. On this view, the concept of evil should be revived, not abandoned (see Russell 2006 and 2007). Someone who believes that we should do away with moral discourse altogether could be called a moral-skeptic or a moral nihilist.

Is the concept of Evil a derivative concept?

These theorists consider the concept of evil action to be a derivative concept, i.e., they define an evil action as the sort of action that an evil person performs. But just as many theorists, or more, believe that the concept of evil action is the root concept of evil (See, e.g., Garrard 1998, 44; Russell 2014,…