"Hell is an invention of the church" - Rev. Spong

[Sosa]

SF6I5VSZVqc

[ComradeMan]

He's right.

[Rafiq]

pretty interesting...

[malthusela]

That seems to me like a rather convenient way of a man trying to support his own beliefs, rather than anything of value. Sure, Heaven and Hell is a creation of an authoritarian group. Isn't this obvious?

[Black Sheep]

Interesting comments on the 'born-agains'.

However,i can't avoid facepalming, when while he recognizes the obvious truth about religion controlling people, inventing hell, being man-made and flawed, the bible being just texts people wrote in the past, he STILL yaps on about jesus saving your souls etc.

If you used your logic to shed away some filth, the do yourself a favor and use it to shed away ALL of it.

[The Fighting_Crusnik]

While I'm a non-theistic Buddhist now, I know from reading the Bible, the Torah and the Quran that the concept of hell has been there for much longer than the church has been around. The problem is though, is that there are technically three words that all got lumped together under the word "hell" when the texts were translated to English... but... while these words are all considered "hell", only Gehenna is considered the place of fiery damnation. Sheol and the other word that I can't remember because it's the binding place of a few hundred angels are not considered hell... but nevertheless, the concept of a fiery place of burning damnation has been there for a long time...

But, I don't believe in any of that crap now and to me, the Abrahamic religions are just remnants of Bronze-age reality and morality... And we all know that when members of these religions go fundamental, things burn and people suffer...

[FreeFocus]

I think the concept of hell predates the Church by many millenia - perhaps not the specific Christian conception of it, but the idea didn't just spring up out of nowhere. It was built on existing mythology.

[Kaze no Kae]

I saw
"Hell is an invention of the church" on the latest posts board and thought whaddaya know, bears do shit in the woods! lol, then I opened the thread and saw 'says a Rev' :)

Obviously the concept of hell is older than Christianity, and probably older than Judaism, but so is organised religion and therefore so is organised religion as an organ of power.