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What good purpose is hell supposed to serve?

How is the universe made a better place by having a sealed, inescapable environment in which people are tortured forever?

It doesn't seem to make a great deal of sense to me. Is it to teach them a lesson? To rehabilitate them? Neither seems to make sense to me, since they will never be released into the population anyway.

Is it to serve as an example? If so, it doesn't seem to work very well. I've read lengthy lists of the last words of people being executed for murder. Every single one who talks about religion with their last words talks about believing they're going to heaven. Plainly, fear of hell doesn't deter such people since they believe they won't go there.

So what's the function of hell? What good purpose does it serve? How is the universe a better place for having people who were born into the wrong religion being tortured forever? How would it be worse if they were not being tortured?

I do not require, in order for me to be happy, to know that my enemies are suffering. Why can't god rise to that same moral level?

Update:

It just seems like an empty, hateful gesture of wrath and pride on the part of the christian god; hardly meritorious traits.

Update 2:

Edit: Obviously I realize there's no such thing as hell, or the christian god. I'm speaking in the hypothetical here, guys!

9 Answers

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  • 1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    Hell doesn't exist. It was a concept created to force the population of Europe to accept Christianity by means of fear.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    Actually, There is a point to "hell" IF you believe in that sort of stuff. So assuming that you do.

    You believe in "god" right?

    Well then the purpose of "hell" is very simple. The purpose is that if you have good you must have bad.

    Why?

    Because if you didn't have bad how would you know whats good? With out bad there is no good.

    Example:

    take night and day.

    now say that night is bad and day is good.

    well clearly it can't always be day time or you would start to have problems. Your animals would never sleep, thus killing your food source, your crops would suffer, from an over feeding of sunlight, and they would die thus you would be no more.

    because then day would be bad or "evil" and night would be good because your plants and animals can rest.

    But same principle if you switched it around, you can't have one with out the other.

    The Chinese yin yang represents that you have a little bad in all good and you have a little good in all bad. It brings balance to the world, the bad equals out the good and the good equals out the bad.

    That is the point of "hell" and "evil"

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    Well Satan is the fallen angel who was cast down from heaven for not bowing down before humanity . Maybe he created hell to express his anger and hatred of humanity by inflicting great pain upon them .

    That was hypothetically speaking realistically there is no such thing as hell just a horror story to tell children .

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    let's get this straight ...

    hell isn't created to serve 'a good purpose' as you think.

    hell is created for the sole purpose of punishing the wicked.

    it is a place of punishment, get it ?

    it's not to rehabilitate .. this is done on earth .. at the choice of the individual.

    rehabilitate means repent of sins, wickedness, wrongdoing, etc. The time for this is .. on earth.

    You : I do not require, in order for me to be happy, to know that my enemies are suffering.

    The wicked MUST pay for their wickedness. It's called justice.

    You : Why can't god rise to that same moral level?

    God is all about justice.

    You've shown here that you're on the side of the wicked.

    You don't wish to see the wicked punished ...

    You argue FOR them instead of against them.

    You're obviously the one w/o the moral sense of righteousness nor knowledge nor wisdom.

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  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    To punish evil. It was designed for Satan & his demons.Humans are going there & are there simply because they refuse to repent and allow God to save them.I once felt as you until I had to battle evil on a big scale in high places & have seen much horrible evil of the nightmare kind & see so much in America of the demonic acts of hundreds of reprobates doing evil deeds far beyond what you would think humans could do.& our gvt is full of them sponsoring horrible evil for $$$ & power.You do not want to know what I know & have witnessed or you will crack & throw up.Believe me! Hell really is justified.Our country & world is overflowing with wicked acts beyond ones imagination.I was unfortunate enough to uncover such & witness such.I did not realize how evil & powerful the devil was either until God let me see & take a picture of a real demon.Bro Antwan Alexis,head of many Baptists in Haiti saw & IDed it as what happens daily in VooDoo worship in his country.Thank God He is protecting us from such in America & only because of the Christian influence here.

    Source(s): Trust God! What we can not understand He knows what has to be.He would not do so if it was not necessary.That is why Jesus came to save us.Accept His salvation & know God is Just.
  • 1 decade ago

    There has to be a place for people to go if they reject God and do not want to be with him in heaven. God will not force a person to be with him if they don't want to. God respects the freedom of his creatures. Hell is the state of "self-exclusion" from communion with God for those who have turned-away from him.

  • Andrew
    Lv 6
    1 decade ago

    You're asking the wrong question here

    Hell doesn't exist

    It is a scary story told to make children behave.

    As it doesn't exist there is no function, same as heaven.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    It's a good place to roast marshmallows and BBQ.

  • 1 decade ago

    There is no Hell, shut up

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