Do you believe in a hell or a place of punishment when you die?

[TreasonousBastard]

7. No. The Jews had...

sheol and gehenna, which were not places of eternal punishment, and later absorbed some of the idea of hades from the Greeks, but never seriously considered it a real place.

Hell, as we think of it now, was never specifically mentioned in the New Testament, but hinted at in some symbolic passages. Again the Greek influence. And translations into Greek used "hades" for some unknown reason.

I have no idea when the modern hell appeared in Christian theology, but Augustine talked about it, so it was pretty early on in Christianity.

Goggle around-- Bishop Spong, the Catholic Encyclopedia, several Protestant universities... all have a lot of interesting things to say about it.

Me, I take the easy way out with the Quaker observation that God has not told us much about it and nobody has come back to describe it. So, once again, we can't go wrong leading a proper life in this life.