Hi Amadeus, it's Rita X
My son and I were discussing this the other day, he is very much of the opinion that the teaching of hell was introduced with the means of controlling the people - which often happened before people could read scripture for themselves - it became interwoven into the very heart of religion - as we are a few generations down the line, it's been handed down, but once again in question because we do have the ability to search it out for ourselves and seek the truth x
Hi RitaX
I'm not so sure what you say was done intentionally.
In Mathew 25:41 (or thereabouts) Jesus DOES say to some that they will go to hell. Now, which hell did He mean?
The bible was translated very badly when it comes to this one word.
The KJV says that "they will go into everlasting punishment".
A study could be done on this, but it doesn't interest me too much.
I believe the intention was to keep persons out of hell. Perhaps fear was used instead of love. This I can attest to. But I don't believe it was to manipulate people. For what possible reason??
Anyway, the idea is to keep out of there!
Let's just keep our eyes on Jesus and not think about hell too much.