I Respond Online To Someone's Vision Of Hell...

Someone posted online in an atheists' forum a scary picture of a skeleton on its knees in a pool of fire begging for forgiveness with the caption "HELL HAS NO EXIT DOORS! THERE'S NO GETTING OUT OF HELL! ONCE YOU'RE THERE, YOU'RE THERE FOR ETERNITY!!" I replied, that's just how the ancient Greeks saw it.

That it was eternal, since none returned. But they were wrong. The ancient Greeks thought the Ploutonion at Hierapolis in modern Turkey was the opening to Hades. It must be the bode of no return, because people who walked in that cave never emerged. Actually people who entered simply succumbed to the carbon dioxide of the volcanic gases there. (If you enter that cave now wearing an air mask, you might even still find some skeletons dating back to ancient times.)

No, the ancient Jews simply believed that death was a shadowy continuation of living in Sheol under the earth and below the firmament, where there'd be no judgment nor reward. But influenced by the Greeks (and Persians) they adopted the idea of Hades, AKA hell and its view that death was a place of judgement and punishment.

Hades (or hell) is also where you will find Persephone. She was the Greek vegetation goddess. When she failed to emerge from Hades, her mother Demeter demanded she be returned. But the god of Hades (also known as Hades) claimed her as his wife. And since she ate six pomegranate seeds there, they compromised agreeing she'd stay there half the year. Leading logically, it was believed, to our six months of winter.

 

Ah, yes. Ancient fairy tales. Amazing how they've evolved over millenia. And they're still used to control adults!

 

My favorite parable of heaven and hell is where we all sit around one of two identical cauldrons of exquisitely delicious stew...with 4' spoons.
One group is starving, perpetually lamenting their tortuous misfortune of being unable to feed themselves with 4' spoons.
The other group is festive and joyful, reveling in one another's company as they reach over the cauldron to feed each other with their 4' spoons.

 

I was also going to comment on atheists and hell. (My post above wasn't about atheists and hell BTW, at least not per se.) When I was in Catholic high school my religion teacher said something profound. He said God would never punish someone for just being atheist. He'd more likely punish a Christian for being hypocritical and lying to himself about his beliefs, and twisting them to his selfish motives. I don't know if that is the official Catholic view on atheism. I do know the Catholic view is more open-minded than other ultra-conservative type faiths. (The Catholic church for example recognizes homosexuality is not a choice. And therefore says if they remain celibate, there should be no problem there.) I also know Pope Francis once said atheists can and do get to heaven. He also said nature could be people's church.

As to what happens to it after death, I don't know for sure. Probably nothing. By 1988 or so, I thought that maybe the soul (which is just the mind) rejoined the collective unconscious, or maybe its energy rejoined the whole. I doubt things like that now. I don't think the human mind is anything less amazing or that human psyches are just delusions or illusions created by matter. But the human mind is just an emergent property of the brain, kind of like a flame is an emergent property of a candle. Or in other words an exothermic chemical reaction caused by the release of energy as heat and light. What happens to the flame when it is blown out? Nothing as far as we know. It's just gone at that point. It really never existed separately from the candle.

 

In Judaism, the concept of the afterlife is not as sharply defined as in Christianity or Islam, and it varies between different Jewish traditions and historical periods. A few key points:

• No single "Hell": Traditional Jewish texts don’t describe a permanent fiery hell where souls are tortured forever. Instead, there’s the idea of Gehinnom (sometimes translated as “hell”), but it’s usually described more like a temporary place of purification where most souls spend up to 12 months before moving on to Olam Ha-Ba (“the World to Come”). Only the truly wicked might be stuck there indefinitely, but even that isn’t always framed as eternal torment.
  
  
• Life here matters most: Judaism is very focused on this life, not the next. The Torah has little to say about heaven or hell, and Jewish law (halakha) emphasizes ethical living, justice, and repairing the world (tikkun olam). That’s where the idea you mentioned comes from — that we should strive to “create heaven on earth” through our actions.
  
  
• Different Jewish perspectives:
  
  • Reform and secular Jews often lean toward the idea that heaven and hell are metaphors for life on earth — our choices create suffering or harmony in this world.
    
    
  • Orthodox Judaism usually holds to a belief in Olam Ha-Ba (a spiritual afterlife or messianic future), with Gehinnom as a stage of cleansing rather than punishment.
    
    
  • Mystical traditions (Kabbalah, Hasidism) add richer ideas about the soul’s journey, reincarnation (gilgul), and spiritual repair.
    

In many Jewish teachings, this world is the arena that matters, and "hell" is not really a dominant idea. Your phrasing reflects a modern, humanistic interpretation that aligns with a lot of Jewish thought: the idea that suffering is here and now, and it’s our job to build something better.