how can Hell have fire?

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fire is a physical thing. Hell is not physical. therefore Hell can't have fire.

If Hell is a metaphor, it can have whatever metaphorical (indeed metaphysical) properties you desire.

If Hell is in the core of the earth, it could very well have fire.

It's friggin' hot down there!

Fire is real. Hell is not.

QED.

What I don't is, it's supposed to be a place of total darkness, full of fire. Fire is bright.

During a period of time that my ex-wife and her Jehovah Witnesses buddies were aggressively trying to convert me, i made some insightful research into scholars historical take on the stories from the bible.

During my research,

I found out that the original meaning of the biblical hell in the old testament was a real place called Gehenna.
Gehenna was a valley just outside historical Jerusalem where sulphur pits burnt white and red hot day and night and which were used to burn/get rid of rubbish including, i speculate, human remains.

I guess during this time, Gehenna entered the common vocabulary of the time for the people who lived in the area which included the threat that if you are bad, you would burn on the fire of Gehenna. Perhaps, this saying was said in jest or perhaps it was developed as a serious threat. But still, the context does give the concept meaning, if not literal and not metaphor.

It was not until later that the concept of the burning fires of hell, being a place diametrically opposed to heaven started to be used. I believe the Devil also was reinvented around this time, who apparently got to live in this new version of Hell. Funny, humans. The way things get changed from one era to another.

(I assume that it's just idle speculation. I am not being dogmatic, over tea, while it is so gray outside, my legs have been exercised to the point of failure, and I'm keeping my earaches, indoors.)

The philosophical elements are supposed to be irreducibly-simple concepts, or abstractions.

If you mean to be technical, and not just take the issue on faith, there is an issue of time.

How does fire act, in a physical dimension, without entropy -- hypothetically speaking.

We are perhaps just as entitled to an opinion as the theoretical, quantum physicists, calculating the number of angels, which can dance on the head of a pen, with scientific certainty, if Sagan was entitled to wax so poetically, about Shiva.

Its a place of eternal torment.

So fire is the best metaphor they could come up with. That and pitchforks.

As best I can tell, it has been the strategy of atheists, to acknowledge all the myths and superstitions, but give it a materialistic explanation -- a backdoor route to converting Christians.

So, I should like to hear the atheists give a materialistic reason.

P.S. I thank God (if there is one) that i did this research (see my other post above) as if i had not. I may still be at the Jehovah Witness Hall, talking their talk, walking their walk.

A life that i personally would not wish upon no one (no offense, just an opinion. I do not have a problem with people following the JW's, if they so wish to).

I just remember sitting in the "Hall" one day, surrounded by all these dogmatic people, all dressed in cheap suits, listening to really old out of date bad church music while being married to this crazy sociopathic woman who was extremely two faced, sadistic, dishonest and abusive.

Thinking to myself. Hell, if this is a taste of heaven on earth, which is going to last 1000 years, then please count me out. I will take my chances on Hell... As for me, living their life is hell. and personally speaking, i am not sure if the Devil could do any worse.... 1000 years of being bullied by religious nuts, abused and restricted. isnt my idea of heaven.

I also thought that if the JW's vision were true, and God did give them heaven on earth.
Most the JWitnesses wouldn't know what to do with themselves, as they spent all their lives moaning at how crap life is, and trying to convert all that walk and moveth on the face of the planet earth (while at the same time neglected people who needed other types of non-religious non-preaching help).

Ho hum. Their choice i guess. But rather them than me.
And my pocket money now gets kept in my jar, rather than getting put into their donations tin and being sent to HQ of the "invisible" rulers....

Nevermind. If there is a Gehenna....

in the danger of appearing to be a bible nut....
here are some new testament quotes that use the word...Gehenna.....



Matthew 5:22: "....whoever shall say, "You fool," shall be guilty enough to go into Gehenna."
Matthew 5:29: "....it is better for you that one of the parts of your body perish, than for your whole body to be thrown into Gehenna."
Matthew 5:30: "....better for you that one of the parts of your body perish, than for your whole body to go into Gehenna."
Matthew 10:28: "....rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna."
Matthew 18:9: "It is better for you to enter life with one eye, than with two eyes to be thrown into the Gehenna."
Matthew 23:15: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you... make one proselyte...twice as much a child of Gehenna as yourselves."
Matthew 23:33, to the Pharisees: "You serpents, you brood of vipers, how shall you to escape the sentence of Gehenna?"
Mark 9:43: "It is better for you to enter life crippled, than having your two hands, to go into Gehenna into the unquenchable fire."
Mark 9:45: "It is better for you to enter life lame, than having your two feet, to be cast into Gehenna."
Mark 9:47: "It is better for you to enter the Kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes, to be cast into Gehenna."
Luke 12:5: "....fear the One who, after He has killed has authority to cast into Gehenna; yes, I tell you, fear Him."
James 3:6: "And the tongue is a fire,...and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by Gehenna."

I thought that Smith's sayings were interesting, in terms of seeing stones, polygamy, the Jews who became natives, Jesus speaking to all races, and Mid East artifacts, being located in the North American continent.

I don't consider myself a xenophobe, if that helps.

But, as best I can tell, he has borrowed symbols from Freemasonry and allegories from the doctrine of Lucifer, for instance, positing that he is a brother of Christ and enlightening influence, if I have watched correctly.

Some theologians say that hell is frozen and is actually a lake of ice, and that the Devil is blue, rather than red.

There are many types of hell,some are hot,some cold,others just as unpleasant.

A prison dimension, with a hard, outer surface and no volume.

A color, associated with cognition, ego, and will.