Then vs. Now: The Problem with Hell

[Red Ryder]

There's a fundamental problem with the idea of humans going to hell. It is that of whom you'll be there with.

In biblical times: it was ok to stone homosexuals to death. It was not ok to eat a hamburger on the sabbath.

Today: the Orlando gay club shooter is going to hell. How many Christians around the world are BBQ'ing today?

Joseph Smiths day: living righteously? Take another wife or two, three, or 34!

Today: excommunication and you're cut off from the celestial kingdom.

September 1993: excommunication of six including Quinn. No heaven for you!

Today: we have Gospel Topic essays! Read the essays!

[Corsair]

I suppose it might be awkward to have Florida homosexuals meet up with the Orlando shooter in hell. This is especially true with the deep irony of knowing about the devout Hebrews that stoned the gays all enjoying the Celestial kingdom.

But the correct answer, as usual, is the follow the divine whims of the current, living prophet.

[Hagoth]

The afterlife is kind of like Colorado. One man makes donations to his church with money earned by selling legal marijuana while another sits in prison doing 15 to life for the same thing a couple of years too early. The universe is funny that way.

[deacon blues]

I sometimes picture heaven as a place where Martin Luther King and Ezra Taft Benson are sitting down and having an enlightened discussion.Hell is a place where God locks Martin Luther King and Ezra Taft Benson together in a cell until they can have an enlightened discussion.

I grew up in the Sixties.

[Corsair]

I sometimes picture heaven as a place where Martin Luther King and Ezra Taft Benson are sitting down and having an enlightened discussion.Hell is a place where God locks Martin Luther King and Ezra Taft Benson together in a cell until they can have an enlightened discussion.

The afterlife is kind of like Colorado. One man makes donations to his church with money earned by selling legal marijuana while another sits in prison doing 15 to life for the same thing a couple of years too early. The universe is funny that way.

Here's the solution: Combine these two visions of hell. Ezra Taft Benson and Martin Luther King hang out along with some Colorado marijuana. I'll bet that the enlightened discussion happens before they finish that bag of chips and the chicken McNuggets.

[Vlad the Emailer]

Yep, lots of good points can be made about the concept of hell. In fact, this is one of the extremely few areas of religion where I give Mormonism a thumbs up. I'm not a believer now, but when I was one I couldn't comprehend a God that loved his children but was going to send most of them (straight is the gate and narrow the way and few there be that find it) to an eternity of pain and anguish. The Mormon afterlife always made a heckuva lot more sense than that.

On another note, one mention of hell I thought was pretty funny came from someone on the old NOM board. Whoever it was said that if he went to hell he was going to find Joseph Smith and punch him in the head.