u/Porphyry_Blue

The next burglar will hear: "As I walk through the valley of..." before hearing the crunch of teeth on femur.

I asked her: "Are you planning to straddle me the way you’re straddling heaven, hell and Richard Dawkins?”

While it's a common historical talking point that the Catholic Church invented the vivid, fiery tortures of Hell, the concept of eternal burning actually predates Christianity by centuries.

Instead of inventing it, early Western Christianity essentially merged pagan language with Greek philosophy to create the concept we know today.

Where it actually came from:

• Ancient Civilizations: The oldest depictions of hellish "pits of fire" for bad souls originate in Ancient Egyptian texts (like the Book of the Dead) and Babylonian mythology.

• The Language: The word "Hell" is actually a Germanic, pagan word (Hel or Helle) that originally referred to a cold, misty underworld in Norse and Anglo-Saxon mythology. When early Christian scholars translated the Greek New Testament's Gehenna tou pyros ("the Gehenna of fire") into Old English, they smashed the pagan word together with fire to coin hellefȳr (hellfire).

• The Philosophy: Early Judaism generally focused on Sheol—a neutral, shadowy grave where everyone went. However, as Christianity grew in the Greco-Roman world, early theologians blended scripture with Platonism. Plato's ideas popularized the concept that the human soul is inherently immortal and must face post-mortem retribution.

What the Church actually did:

Edit: I've updated the relevance of Gehenna

By marrying the Hebrew imagery of Gehenna (a real-world valley outside Jerusalem that had an abhorrent history associated with pagan ritual child sacrifice) with the Greek concept of an indestructible, immortal soul, the early Church formalized the doctrine of eternal conscious torment.

By the 5th century, theologians like Saint Augustine locked this into official church dogma, turning a collection of vivid ancient metaphors into a highly codified system of societal control.

TL;DR: The blueprint for a fiery afterlife belongs to ancient pagan religions, the word "Hell" belongs to Norse/Germanic pagans, and the idea of an immortal soul being tortured forever comes from Greek philosophy. The early Western Church just took those pieces, fused them together, and aggressively branded it as "hellfire."

Then I saw her face <Cue The Monkees&gt;, and now I know.

They tried to become the official carrier to Hellfire, but negotiations collapsed when they refused to budge when the handbaskets wouldn’t fit in their luggage sizers.

I was born in LUTH, Lagos to parents who were also born in Lagos.

I identify as Ọmọ Èkó but does Èkó see me as it's child?

My nigerian passport is due for renewal soon.

View Poll

I once met an atheist who didn’t know what he was talking about.

For he had no definition of the god he was ruling out.

So I diagnosed him possibly ignostic,

But even then, he was agnostic.

So we both prayed that the answer would come out.

Edit

I got suggestions for improvements which I've implemented:

1 An atheist rambled about,

With no god defined to rule out.

I deemed him ignostic,

Or almost agnostic,

So we prayed for the truth to come out.

Or:

2 An atheist rambled about,

With no god defined to rule out.

I deemed him ignostic,

Or almost agnostic,

So we prayed for clarity to be devout.

Or

3 An atheist rambled about,

With no god defined to rule out.

"Ignostic?" I cried,

"Agnostic?" he sighed,

I prayed, but he stayed in his doubt.

Otherwise, how do you explain the historical record: cul-de-sac?

There is a profound comfort in knowing that God welcomes us exactly where we stand today. Yet, true love rarely leaves us where it found us. Acceptance is a freely given gift, but staying aligned with Him is an active invitation to transform.

When we weave Matthew 6:33, Luke 13:24, and Colossians 3:23 together, they don't form a checklist—they build a mirror for our figurative soul.

1. A Realignment of Focus (Matthew 6:33)

What occupies your primary focus?

Are you actively prioritising God's standards, or is He getting the fragments of your remaining time?

2. A Refining of Effort (Luke 13:24)

Where are you directing your energy?

Are you drifting through a comfortable lifestyle, or are you actively choosing the discipline of the narrow path, even when it costs you comfort?

3. A Renewal of Action (Colossians 3:23)

If everything you do is done as an act of worship, how does that change the quality of your presence? Are you doing things half-heartedly, or is your everyday labour an offering?

Acceptance is where the journey starts; transformation is how the journey continues.

Who are you becoming on the path?

Pleasing God takes deep, focused effort and a change in our priorities, meaning we cannot stay exactly as we are. While God welcomes everyone to come to Him, staying acceptable to Him requires active transformation.

Nothing else drives man.

Last time I ate beans before going for a bike ride, I ended up pennyfarthing.

Now the month of September is soaking wet!

“Fool me once, shame on you” doesn't apply to Adam, as 1 Timothy 2:14 states that he was not deceived; Eve was. Adam knew what he was doing.

Romans 5 says sin entered through one man—Adam—who hadn't had children yet, passing on imperfection. #If he hadn't sinned, would the children have been perfect? (Immaculate conception of Mary believers, please look away now.)

Mary's birth of a sinless Jesus shows an imperfect mother isn't an obstacle to perfect children.

The Bible doesn't say Eve would have had perfect children if Adam stayed loyal, but Jesus' birth makes that question less rhetorical and abstract.

It clarifies Adam didn't just lose his perfect life by eating the fruit; he also lost the prospect of a perfect life for his future offspring.

The Bible also dismisses the centuries of blaming women, highlighting that sin entered through Adam, not Eve. She was deceived, but Adam knowingly sinned, making him more culpable; Scripture emphasises his responsibility for humanity's fall.

Adam fumbled a Hail Mary.

Reincarnated as Romaine lettuce in a guinea pig enclosure, I felt every agonizing nibble and realized plants weren't silent—we just couldn't hear them scream.

Apparently, Hellfire was made by a loving God at some point.

He didn’t warn Adam about it. Moses didn’t put it in the Law. Ezekiel says, “the soul that sins shall die,” and Paul somehow still thought “the wages of sin is death” rather than eternal conscious torture.

So, genuine question:

>When exactly did God create Hellfire as a literal place where immortal souls are tortured forever?

Genesis doesn’t mention it. The Law doesn’t explain it. The prophets don’t present it as the standard fate of the wicked. Even the phrase “the wages of sin is death” sounds remarkably straightforward if the intended punishment was actually everlasting torment.

Was Hellfire a later theological upgrade? A rest-day project? Or did God simply forget to mention the most important detail in the entire system of salvation?

Because if eternal torture is the consequence of sin, you’d think it would have been clearly explained from the beginning—not pieced together centuries later from ambiguous passages, translations, and tradition.

It still burns when I think about it.