Is there a hell?

[Guest guest]

I always have believed there is no hell at all. It is only being made

up by human mind. A similar thought has been expressed by the Pope -

John Paul II:

 

Robert Fulford's column about Pope John Paul II

(The National Post, December 21, 1999)

 

There's never been anyone like Pope John Paul II, that fierce

intellectual with the charisma of a rock star. Old and infirm, slow

in speech and step, he nevertheless remains unstoppable. Even his

schedule seems superhuman: In the first 17 days of December he gave

25 speeches, long and short, to crowds large and small. But while

this public side of him remains astonishing, there's another side,

just as surprising, that emerges from his written works. To read a

thick sheaf of papal encyclicals and speeches, as I've been doing

lately, is to expand and alter one's view of him. (...)

 

A week after the talk about heaven, he had more striking news. Hell,

he said, is not a punishment imposed by God, despite what everyone

has always said. No, it's just an unwise choice that humans make. The

images of hell in scripture, he suggested, are taken too literally.

Actually, hell is the condition of those who separate themselves from

God, " the pain, frustration and emptiness of life without God. "

Artists trying to follow scripture have depicted hell as a world of

fire controlled by devils with pitchforks. The Pope thinks those are

metaphors, every one of them.