←back to thread

Pope Francis has died

(www.reuters.com)
916 points phillipharris | 4 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
fleabitdev ◴[] No.43750020[source]
Last year, an interviewer asked Francis how he envisages hell. His response stayed with me: “It’s difficult to imagine it. What I would say is not a dogma of faith, but my personal thought: I like to think hell is empty; I hope it is.”
replies(5): >>43750050 #>>43750085 #>>43751071 #>>43751387 #>>43751606 #
fastball ◴[] No.43750085[source]
Nothing from the Bible indicates that hell is empty, so that is indeed an interesting response from the Pope.
replies(8): >>43750183 #>>43750184 #>>43750571 #>>43750579 #>>43750720 #>>43750887 #>>43750925 #>>43753639 #
andybak ◴[] No.43750925[source]
The bible only has sparse and often contradictory references to hell - so it's very difficult to state "what the Bible says about hell" as if there's a unified picture laid out.
replies(2): >>43751817 #>>43757533 #
1. hylaride ◴[] No.43751817[source]
I've heard descriptions of hell of everything from the classic "fire and torture" we all know, to it being a total and complete detachment from god (in a disappointed and kicked out of the house by your parents kind of way). It's similar to descriptions of Satin. Everything from the horns and pitchfork all the way down to a "beautiful fallen angel" that he technically was explained to be in the bible.

I've always just assumed the descriptions that work to keep people fearful of leaving the religion as whatever is used at the time (saying this as somebody who is agnostic).

replies(2): >>43752434 #>>43757126 #
2. packetlost ◴[] No.43752434[source]
The modern concept of hell came from Dante's The Devine Comedy which was, ironically, a criticism of the contemporary church.
replies(1): >>43758658 #
3. Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe ◴[] No.43757126[source]
I highly recommend the youtube channel hochelaga. He's the one behind "biblically accurate" stuff
4. o11c ◴[] No.43758658[source]
That's not exactly true. The main thing that is popularized by Dante is "demons are performing the punishment" (rather than being punished as in scripture ... but the general idea goes back to Gnosticism) ... and I guess "hell has circles" if we count those as significant.

"Hell is a place of fire and torment" is explicitly Biblical (Luke 16), even if there are also mentions of Hell without that (and some mentions of fire and torment without calling it "Hell").

Annihilationism vs Eternal Conscious Torment is the main point that isn't given a perfectly clear answer in scripture; there are verses that hint toward each.

Limbo and Purgatory are not in the Bible, but predate Dante. "Deal with the Devil" predates Dante and is only weakly founded in scripture. "Devils" (plural, as opposed to "the Devil") being distinct from "Demons" is a translation artifact, popularized by Dungeons & Dragons. There being various types of demons long precedes Dante. Variants of Universalism (including "Nobody goes to Hell" and "it's possible to escape Hell") are explicitly rejected in scripture.

Those are all the aspects of "modern concept of hell" that I can think of (let me know if you can think of more), and the connection to Dante seems pretty weak.