HELL ! WHERE IS THE HELL ?

more participants at Jenny Matlock's Alphabet Thursday
  

The last Judgement, Hell, circa 1413 by Fra Angelico


When I was a little girl, with all I had heard about the hell at school or read in my children books, I imagined the hell as a hot place full with pots where people where cooked because they had been bad on earth.



That's the only picture of the hell I found on modern Internet how I imagined hell. Of course the devils didn't look so friendly.

I don't know why I suddenly thought about hell, probably because lately I am sending more and more people to hell without knowing exactly where that is. In French you don't send people to hell but to the station, the meaning is the same, but obviously not the destination. I have nothing against the fact to be sent to the station, which I know at least, but the hell is rather unknown to me.

As I had no Google help when I was little, I thought I could learn more about the hell today, it's never to late to learn something.

And that's what I found out : Hell appears in several mythologies and religions. It is commonly inhabited by demons and the souls of dead people. Now it's quiet difficult for me to imagine a soul which doesn't sit in a body. How does a soul looks like ?

Punishment in Hell typically corresponds to sins committed during life. Sometimes these distinctions are specific, with damned souls suffering for each sin committed, but sometimes they are general, with condemned sinners relegated to one or more chamber of Hell or to a level of suffering.

That makes me think what is a sin ? Living together as an unmarried couple and having 10 kids is not a sin anymore at least in the eyes of the law. Lots of previously considered sins have changed in modern times. It's not a sin anymore not to eat fish on Fridays for example. Conclusion, there must be more people going to heaven wherever that is then going to hell. For people in the Middle Age it was easier to know. Heaven was above us in the sky and hell under our feet deep in the earth. Now we have sattelites flying where the heaven should be which guides our GPS and helps us to communicate from one continent to the other. Heaven must have moved.

The hell's location still remains a mistery people drilled as deep as they could but besides finding sometimes some oil the hell was never found at least to my knowledge.

In many religious cultures, including Christianity and Islam, Hell is traditionally depicted as fiery and painful, inflicting guilt and suffering. Despite these common depictions of Hell as a place of fire, some other traditions portray Hell as cold. Buddhist - and particularly Tibetan Buddhist - descriptions of hell feature an equal number of hot and cold hells. 

That makes it even more difficult if you are a Buddhist, you can be sent to a cold or a hot hell ! I wonder if you have the choice or if it depends on your committed sins.

Anyway wherever the hell is, I prefer a warm place. Meanwhile I continue to send people to hell when they bother me in English and if they bother me in French I send them to the station.











Now remember go easy on those bonuses !