What The Hell is Up With Hell?

What the hell is up with Hell?  Goodness gracious.  For heaven's sake, what is up with this whole hell thing?  Does it really exist?  Hell if I know.  Do you believe in a physical place called Hell?  If you deny there is a hell, isn't that believing there is a hell to deny?

I was told to get the hell out of here.  OK, where the hell am I supposed to go?  Shut the hell up!.  Huh?  I have a friend in the UK.  He uses the phrase "Bloody Hell".  I don't know what the hell is going on.  What the hell do I know?  And that's a hell of a question.
I'm not writing this to argue if you or anyone believes in hell.  It is simply my opinion and what I see or believe.  I've said before I have questioned my faith and belief in a God, heaven or hell.  I have doubted what there might be or what might not be.  In a previous BLOG POST I spoke about what heaven is to me and or you.  But I am more inclined at this point to question hell's existence.

Fire, brimstone and eternal suffering are the images that nearly everyone has of what you will experience in hell.  It's a place where sinners are cast to suffer for all eternity for not repenting and believing in God's existence and His dominion over everything.  But the worst of the worst sin to commit is to deny the existence of God and it will guarantee you a place in hell.  But if you have to deny the existence of God, then aren't you admitting there is a God to deny the existence of?  So therefore you really aren't denying the existence of God.  Makes sense to me.  I think!?!?

I've argued before that if God were an all loving and compassionate God why would He condemn anyone to hell?  He is compassionate and caring and gives grace.  So why cast out your servants and believers to hell??

I know many people who are intelligent, well educated, well versed and somewhat normal who do not believe in a hell.  As for the rest of the ones I know, they seem to believe in both heaven and hell or nothing at all.  I also believe that intelligence can make you stupid.  But that's another blog I have to write.

Why can't I wrap my head around there being a hell?  Why won't I just accept it as being the truth and move on?  It's because I doubt everything.  I have this uncontrollable thing going on in my head that refuses to let me just accept things as they may be, may not be or as they might really be.  I'm a doubter of sorts.

The Hell which the bible talks about may not necessarily be what Christians believe it is.  The hell they believe in exists because evangelists scream at us from the pulpit and tell us it does exist.  They wag their finger at us and tell us we will burn in hell.  Hell exists because we have a fear that tells us to believe there is a hell.  It is that fear with which most religions use to make us believe.  We are raised to believe that there is a place we will go if we are not good Christians and believe in God and all there is in that God.  You will burn in hell if you don't believe.

What it seems to come down to is that believing is all there is to making sure you don't visit the place they call hell.  Just read your bible and do what it tells you.  Believe all there is in that bible and be a good person.  Pretty simple really.  Or is it?  How difficult is it to be a good and faithful Christian?  Not any easier or more difficult than being a non-believer.  How's that for matter of fact?

I'm not going to give a sermon on what hell is.  In my life I believe I have lived in many hells.  It was either a hell of a beating, a hell of a cold night on the street, one hell of a rain storm to hide from, one hell of a terrifying night or two in jail, or a hell of a week starving without food.  My hell was the reality of the day's existence.  My hell was the pain I suffered.  My hell was not finding a place to get out of the cold or rain.  My hell was being a child and trying to hide from another beating.  Hell doesn't have to be an imaginary place or scriptural threat to make us be good people.  Hell can be someone's reality.  And in my life it most definitely was real.

But what about that place?  Where is it? Is it out there?