In Reply to: Hell & demons posted by Interested on April 08, 2004 at 12:22:37:
If mankind didn't just invent hell or a hellish place to put muderers and the like and make them suffer because if there is no justice in this life, and we all know that this is true too much of the time, then we need to know there is justice in the next life. Even in Buddhism and other asian religions, they believe in punishment, and they also live a very fearful life. This is not restricted to Christianity only. I wonder why people can point out flaws in religion, but only mention Christianity. The Buddhists believe that if you create havoc in this life, it will pass on down to your future generations. Hence, they often attribute bad things happening to them as some ancestors past sin. They do many things to atone for these sins. The Chinese burn all kinds of things in little alters to appease their ancestors. In Thailand, the Thais wear little buddhist idols on their neck for protection from evil spirits. They are really into that. Every house must have a spirit house where the people who lived there before can live so they don't do bad things to them while they are living on their property. If you really look at religions all over the world, there is a fear factor and some kind of punishment when one does bad things. I think it's man's nature to want to have retribution for people who have harmed others, otherwise, we might go mad if some murderer kills our little children and gets away with it. We want him to suffer somewhere, sometime, for a long, long time. In any event, I would prefer to follow Christianity, in spite of the bad people who mess it up, if one really understands the truth behind it, then other religions that I have studied or experienced.