Where is Hell?

By Smashwords

For thousands of years we have been warned about hell, and multiple institutions threaten hell upon those who don't follow their teachings. But where is hell? Is it underground in fiery caves as professed by some? Or is it on some other planet? Here the location and understanding of hell are considered with respect to Scripture yet without sectarian influence. PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE A REVIEW.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Smashwords
• Release date: Feb 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463274699

Book preview

Where is Hell?

By Anonymous

Where is Hell?

Anonymous

Copyright © 2020

A. Truth Publishing

[e-mail]

All rights reserved.

Publishers Cataloging in Publication Data

Anonymous

Where is Hell?

First Edition

1. Spirituality. 2. Philosophy

This Ebook is licensed only for the use of the person who downloaded it. This Ebook is given freely and may not be re-sold to others. If you would like to share this book with another person, please download an additional copy for each recipient. Furthermore, the copyright prohibits the copying any of the text contained in this book without referencing the name of this book.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter One: Can a Dead Body go to Hell?

Chapter Two: Who Goes to Hell?

Chapter Three: Does Hell Exist?

Chapter Four: Are we in Hell now?

Chapter Five: Are We Being Rehabilitated?

References and Bibliography

Introduction

Most of us have grown up with the concept that if we don’t do the right things in life, we’ll end up in hell.

But where is hell?

This is not just a rhetorical question. This question is not being asked in order to generate an ecclesiastical argument in order to prevail a particular religious ideology.

In other words, the purpose of asking the question is not to threaten. It is not a concealed attempt to get people to join one religious sect or another. Nor it is an attempt to dissuade someone from their particular religious leanings.

Rather, this is a practical text that discusses the scriptural sources of the notion of hell, and the particular specifications of its existence and location.

We will also explore the various ecclesiastical myths regarding hell and the origins of those.

Then we will reveal the only scientifically valid locations for the place we call hell, utilizing the specifications as detailed in the scriptural sources.

In other words, we will separate the myths about hell from the realities about hell.

And we will carefully and accurately define hell consistent with scripture.

As such, we will also explain how one arrives in hell and how one escapes hell once arrived.

The information contained in this text is derived from three central sources:

Scripture will be a central source of information – which will be referenced and quoted. The scriptures used will focus upon the Bible because it is readily accepted in Western civilization.

Modern science and current affairs will also be discussed. These will be indicated as observations with some referencing for concepts that are not readily known.

However, the overriding knowledge and wisdom being disseminated in this text comes from an ancient lineage of spiritual teachers that have handed down this wisdom for thousands of years. Each teacher within this lineage has passed on the wisdom to a student who eventually became a teacher to pass it on to others.

What this text does not contain is speculative discourse. The content is not the author’s opinion. Let’s repeat that: The content of this book is not the author’s speculative opinion. The author does believe in the content of this book, but the content does not come from the author. It is not a creation of the author.

This is the case with most of the philosophies that are being passed around today. Someone made up the philosophy at some point in the past. For some philosophies, it was a preacher from a few centuries past. For others, it was a more modern person with a Ph.D. or other credential.

Regardless of the credential, these philosophies are coming from speculation. They are creations of speculative minds.

Typically these philosophies create a speculative thesis for the existence of God and our purpose on the planet. These are the critical pieces as they typically define the larger questions we have about our own existence.

For example, one philosophy says that we have all descended from aliens and God is an alien. Without commenting on the philosophy itself, we know that the source of this philosophy is ultimately some person who imagined it to be true. It is speculative fantasy.

The content of this book draws from another source.

The content of this text is taken from those very same teachers that have been quoted from and misinterpreted with regard to their teachings of hell.

This is inclusive of the Prophets, which over the centuries passed down truth from teacher to student. This truth included the potential for a person to descend into a type of abyss that has become misunderstood and misinterpreted.

Here we lay out the impressive collection of truths along with the scientific reasoning and observations of the natural world which together illustrates the truth about the existence of hell and where it is.

These are referenced along with scriptural texts, taken from the New International Version Bible.

Chapter One: Can a Dead Body go to Hell?

Our notion of hell, at least in western society, imagines a dungeon-like environment full of pain and suffering. When we see renditions of hell it is usually conceived as people being chained to a brick wall in a room with a fire burning.

This notion has been misinterpreted from scripture and it is not incorrect.

Certainly one of the problems lies with the understanding of where this place is located and what form the inhabitants of hell are in. In other words, who are the citizens of hell?

Such a question is typically answered by saying that sinners go to hell. Certainly but this doesn't fully answer the question. This tells us what a person did to deserve to go hell. It doesn't indicate who goes to hell.

This of course relates directly to identity.

Let's put it more practically. When someone dies, the body becomes lifeless and is buried or cremated. If the body is buried it decomposes and the flesh and tissues biodegraded. How does this take place?

Decomposition takes place from three levels.

How do animals, insects and microorganisms decompose?

The decomposition process is accelerated by certain types of organisms – those that specialize in decomposing flesh.

If the body is available to airborne insects, flies will be the first to feed off the flesh. These are called flesh flies. Flesh flies include Blaesoxipha, Gymnopsidia and Opsidia species. The adults will eat flesh, but they will also lay eggs in the flesh and their larvae will also eat flesh as they develop.

Another type of fly that eats flesh is called the blow fly – or Cochliomyia sp. There are many species of these around the world and the larvae are the typical flesh eaters – although adults will sometimes eat flesh.

When bodies are buried, these larvae will also make their way into dead flesh under the surface. They are adept at locating and finding their primary food source.

Beetles are also good at burrowing into the soil and getting to their favorite food source. In the case of dead flesh, a number of beetles will chomp on decaying carcass. These include carrion beetles (Silphidae), rove beetles (Staphylinidae) or rove beetles, and dung beetles (Scarabaeidae).

The species of beetles will vary by region. The small American carrion beetle (Necrophila Americana), the giant carrion beetle (Nicrophorus americanus) and the gold-necked carrion beetle (Nicrophorus tomentosus) are common species in North America. In South America, dead bodies are ravished by the rove beetle called the devil's coach-horse beetle (Ocypus olens) or the scarab beetle (Coprophanaeus lancifer). These can grow quite large.

Larger scavengers that feed off of dead bodies include coyotes, vultures and a few other birds.

In the microscopic world, a number of parasites will begin to feast on a dead body's tissues. Along with these are flesh-eating bacteria – but also yeasts – will assimilate and break down cell tissue into nutrients they utilize for energy.

How do molecules decompose?

The last form of decomposition takes place at the molecular level. Here molecules that once made up the cells and tissues are broken down, with atoms being lost to other molecules. These loosed atoms will combine differently with other atoms to make different molecules. In this way, what once was flesh will now become soil.

This process of molecular breakdown and repositioning will also occur as worms and bacteria digest the flesh. The difference is that their digestive processes will force the metabolic process where as nature's elements can also bring about the process, which leaves the nutrients in the soil for plants or others to utilize for nutrition.

In other words, after its death our physical body will become nutrition for other organisms.

How long does it take for our body to decompose?

This depends greatly upon the environment the body is being placed. Modern burials will embalm the body with formaldehyde and numerous other chemicals. These will help slow the decomposition process. These chemicals - when combined with a casket made with wood soaked in preservative or synthetic materials - will deter the ability of microorganisms and worms to enter the body.

But because the body already contains billons of microorganisms that may only partly be inhibited by the embalming fluid, the microorganism-driven decomposition process is merely slowed and delayed a little.

Furthermore, the molecular breakdown of cells and tissues will still continue, though this is slowed through preservation as well.

The bottom line is that the body will decompose despite attempts to preserve it.

Embalmed bodies will typically decompose completely within a few years. The formaldehyde will gradually degrade, leaving the body ready to biodegrade.

This is evidenced by exhumations – sometimes done for autopsies. Exhumations have discovered significantly decomposed bodies after only a few months. The bone matter of the skeleton may remain, but most of the flesh and tissues have broken down. The bones will also typically take longer in a casket.

Will a casket biodegrade?

A body buried directly into the soil will certainly degrade faster. Here soil comes into contact with the body, bringing in a variety of microorganisms and insects to devour the body. Eventually this will also take place with a casket – once the casket biodegrades.

Once the casket decomposes, allowing soil within the casket, the tissues will decompose within a few weeks and the bones likely a year or two. But not much because the same elements that break down the body also break down the casket assuming natural materials.. This will certainly depend upon the type of soil. Soil with plenty of humus will decompose a body faster than a body that the snow will, or a volcanic eruption will.

These latter scenarios explain why bones are sometimes found thousands of years later. Snow or volcanic flows can inhibit the decomposition process due to the excessive cold or heat.

Here the excessive cold or heat will also deter microorganisms and insects.

In the case of snow and ice, most microorganisms are blocked or at least slowed.

The molecular breakdown of the cells and tissues is also slowed in slow and ice. For this reason, a few optimistic scientists have offered cryogenic freezing services for those who think that if their body is frozen after death, some future technology will be able to revive the body and thus bring the dead frozen body back to life.

The only problem with this theory is that at the death of the body, the spirit-person leaves and moves on. If the spirit-person does not return home, such a spirit-person will take birth in another physical body.

Thus the person will be long gone and already identifying with another body by the time the previous body could be revived. ‘That train has left the station’ so to speak.

What is cremation?

Cremation produces the same end result but much faster and more emphatically. Cremation is done by placing the body into a furnace. The body is burnt until only ashes remain. The ashes are then put into an urn and given to the family.

This creates an almost comical situation should the family identify the body as the self. Such a family will see those ashes as the person they once cared for. But now that body is reduced to ashes and the family must figure out what to do with the ashes.

What is pouring the ashes?

Some families will pour the ashes into an ocean or other body of water while others will dump them onto some land seemingly meaningful to the person. Some will keep the ashes in the urn.

It is as if the person is somehow still existing within the ashes. What an absurd thought.

Sometimes the dead body’s ashes get spilled accidentally. Sometimes, just as the ashes are being dumped, a gust of wind will sweep the ashes into the person dumping them. What happens then?

How can a dead body go to hell?

Given the above understanding of how a dead body will degrade in nature, it is nonsensical to believe a dead body - whether it is decomposed or cremated - can physically go to hell: Or any other place other than biodegraded soil.

Yes, in the end, the dead body will turn into soil. Soil is composed primarily of the feces of animals, insects and microorganisms. These critters that eat dead flesh will absorb the nutrients and then excrete the rest as feces. Thus what once was our flesh will now become soil.

This soil will then become nourishment for other species of life. These include plants, which become nourishment for species of animals, including humans.

In other words, what once was the flesh of a human body will become part of the soil which will nourish the plants, which will in turn nourish our own bodies. This means that essentially, our physical bodies are composed of nutrients that once made up other physical bodies. It is a recycling of matter.

But we are not seeing the total equation here. These physical bodies – made of molecules and cells that are nourished from other dead bodies and feces – are differentiated from who we are within. We are not these physical bodies.

Let’s take a closer look at our real composition.

Chapter Two: Who Goes to Hell?

The points in the first chapter illustrate that before we can delve further into what hell is and where hell is, we must understand just who it is that would experience hell.

This is a practical issue. Let’s say we log onto an internet site. They will ask us for a user name and password. Why? Because they want to verify our identity before they let us in. They want to make sure the person accessing the site is supposed to access the site. If we are not holding the password, the site assumes we are not who we claim to be.

Identity is a big issue because it distinguishes a person from others. Without identification, how could one person go to hell and the other person not go to hell? Is it distinguished through DNA? Or some other means of distinction?

While we might gloss over this concern, assuming the existence of hell does require a deeper understanding of who is the experiencer: Who experiences life. Just who experiences death? And who lives on after the body dies?

What is Death?

Before we can understand just who would go to hell, we have to understand what death is.

We know the body dies. We can easily observe