Wait A Hell Damned Minute!!

The Hinnom Valley is a deep, narrow ravine located in Jerusalem, running south from the Jaffa Gate on the west side of the Old City (see also Physical and Spiritual Gates), then eastward along the south side of Mount Zion (seen in the top of the photograph with the Hinnom Valley below it - see also The Zion Bridge and Who, What or Where Is Zion?) until it meets the Kidron Valley which separates the Temple Mount from the Mount of Olives on the east side of the city. It is named from a certain "son of Hinnom" who apparently owned or had some significant association with the valley at a time prior to Joshua 15:8.
The Burning "Hell"

The Valley of Hinnom had a very horrendous history in ancient times. It was used as a place where the pagan worshipers did all sorts of vile and wicked things - including burning children alive as sacrifices to the idols Moloch and Baal. One section of the valley was called Tophet, or the "fire-stove," where the children were slaughtered (2 Kings 23:10). It was a place of tremendous evil for many years.

After their return from the Babylonian exile (see Why Babylon?), the Jews turned the Hinnom Valley into the city dump where garbage and anything deemed unclean (including the bodies of executed criminals) was incinerated. For that purpose, a fire was kept constantly burning there. Even though it was no longer used for evil worship, with all the filth and thick smoke it remained a very dark and dreary place.

The Hebrew name Hinnom when translated into Greek is gehenna, from which the translated word and concept of a burning "hell" originated (there is also another "hell" - see The Cool "Hell"). By the time of Jesus Christ, the deep, constantly-burning Valley of Hinnom was also known as the Valley of Gehenna, or Hell, and had taken on a popular image as the place "down there" where the wicked would eventually be cast into the flames for destruction.

Fact Finder: Did Jesus Christ also refer to the fire of Gehenna?
Matthew 10:28
Note: Jesus used the original word Gehenna, which is translated hell, in the above Scripture, but He obviously wasn't referring to the fires of the Valley of Hinnom. He was talking about the future lake of fire that will be used to destroy the enemies of God (Revelation 19:20, 20:13-15).

So, with all the wiked that go to hell these days. How does the Jerusalem government have the money to pay for the clean up? That shit must be tiring, hell is like like mcdonalds ya know? Over one billion served.

Origin of the Christian Hell [1]

Jesus Mysteries

[Of hell] "The more enlightened sages of the Mysteries viewed such horrors as merely stories to encourage better moral behavior. Plutarch calls the terrors of the Underworld an 'improving myth'. The Christian philosopher Origen likewise argued that the literal terrors of hell were false, but they ought to be publicized in order to scare simpler believers"
[...]
"Origen, however, was posthumously condemned by the Roman Catholic Church as a heretic for his compassionate belief that all souls would eventually be redeemed. The Roman Church required all Christians to believe that some souls would suffer in hell forever, while the faithful would enjoy eternal salvation. This is the one doctrine on the afterlife which Celsus regards as distinctively Christian. He writes:
'Now it will be wondered how men so desperate in their beliefs can persuade others to join their ranks. The Christians use sundry methods of persuasion, and invent a number of terrifying incentives. Above all, they have concocted an absolutely offensive doctrine of everlasting punishment and rewards, exceeding anything the philosophers (who have never denied the punishment of the unrighteous of the reward of the blessed) could have imagined' "

Jesus Mysteries [buy] | Info/Quotes, p90

"In the King James Version of the Bible, the Hebrew word sheol and Greek word hades (two very different concepts) are both generally translated as Hell."

www.religioustolerance.org

Plutarch (46-125CE) and the early Christians viewed hell as a symbolic place. It was only over time that Christianity became the literalistic belief system that it is now, initially all of its teachings were either Roman Mystery religion or Jewish in origin. The Valley of Hinnom (see above) was a place where sinners were actually burnt, the hell that the pagan religions believed in was a symbolic place (where those who died went) used to persuade people to behave better, and the Jews had little actual teachings on the concept of Hell. The result was that Christianity, a religion that was popular amongst the illiterate and undereducated in the Roman empire, lost its inner symbolic nature and became seen as an actual real place where sinners were punished forever, after death.

Yet, and still, people believe in this magical burning place. I would rather scrutinize the cornerstone of all that is deemed as moral. And here we have absolute bullshit staring at us in the face.