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Visions of Hell

Visions of Hell

Bill Weise is a clean-cut real estate agent from Southern California. His wife, Annette, describes him as emotionally stable, churchgoing and certainly “not a complainer.”

Yet Weise can’t stop talking about what happened to him on Nov. 23, 1998, the night he tumbled into one of the raging theological debates of modern times, the night he was plucked from his bedroom and sent straight to hell.

“We came home from a prayer meeting on the night of the 22nd, went to bed, and at 3 o’clock in the morning, the Lord picked me up and dropped me off in a prison cell in hell,” Weise explained in a recent television interview. “I did not realize where I was, but I noticed immediately the heat.”

Sharing his cell, Weise says, were two 13-foot-tall reptilian creatures, pacing around and cursing God. When they noticed Weise arrive, the first one set about breaking Weise’s bones against a stone wall, and the second one used its huge claws to tear the flesh from Weise’s body. Later, Weise beheld a lake of fire crammed with sinners, and was carried up a long tunnel to kneel at the feet of Jesus before being returned to his house in California. It’s a story Weise has spread worldwide since the release of his book: 23 Minutes in Hell: One Man’s Story of What He Saw, Heard and Felt in That Place of Torment.

The funny thing about hell is that a decisive majority of Americans believes it is an absolutely real place, but those who try to describe what goes on there come off sounding like lunatics.

The pressure to explain hell comes from its enduring – indeed rising – popularity. According to a recent Harris poll, far more Americans believe in a literal hell (62%) than believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution (42%). Twice as many believe in hell than in witches, and hell beats out UFOs (35%), ghosts (41%) and the Virgin Birth (60%).

In fact, polls by the Gallup organization claim to have tracked a long upward trend for belief in hell, rising from 52% in 1953 to a peak of 71% in 2001 before relaxing to 69% last year. That’s a 13 percent jump for literal hell from Dwight Eisenhower to George W. Bush.

Read the rest here.

Tags: belief, christianity, christians, damnation, hell, rolls eyes, superstition

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Permalink Reply by Pirate Bard on September 15, 2011 at 9:45am

So, if I take my son and throw him in a closet where two strangers beat and cut him while I force him to watch images of other people being tortured in other heinous ways, and then I take him out 23 minutes later and demand that he worship me at my feet... That's okay, right? Because I'm just following God's example, right?

/snark

What a fucked up bunch of people who somehow think this makes their god "good" or "merciful".

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Permalink Reply by Lois on September 15, 2011 at 10:19am

Years ago, I awakened to a loud banging and pounding noise coming from the apartment next door. This scared the hell out of me because at the time, that apartment was empty, and it was the middle of the night. I remember thinking it was a ghost! Then I REALLY woke up and realized I had only been dreaming. I don't believe in ghosts, and it did not occur to me to start believing in them just because I had a realistic dream about them.

Here is an educational video about hell! (Contains some swearing and a hot chick. :o] )

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Permalink Reply by Crazy Cat Lady on September 15, 2011 at 2:49pm

Its called a nightmare or night terror. Blah.

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Permalink Reply by Dallas Gaytheist on September 15, 2011 at 5:15pm

Exactly. This one fundie posted on a site once how a preacher called him to the front, and he got all warm, flushed, and jittery, and that that is how he knew god existed. He felt his presence.

JFC, it's called anxiety you moron. You don't need god to explain it.

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Permalink Reply by Roy The Infidel on September 15, 2011 at 8:37pm

Out here in the P.I. the local term for hell is Impyerno. And it was a name for a popular topless bar in downtown Manila.

Great helluva of a place. Shades of Dusk till Dawn minus the fangs. :)

There were reptiles, too. The cops who fleece rowdy customers we call em "buwaya" meaning crocodiles.

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Permalink Reply by clivephoto on September 21, 2011 at 6:54pm

From what I'm learning about life in America for all but a wealthy few, it sounds like hell is a step up & these poor people just need something to look forward to. I guess they won't have to worry themselves about their tax dollars being wasted on the obese, alcoholics and smokers, eh? And the heating bills will be small. What more could you ask for?

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Permalink Reply by Dallas Gaytheist on September 21, 2011 at 7:10pm

Uhhmmm, do you think that matters to these people? There's no reference to the rapture, lesbianism, or the free-market, either, but that's never stopped them from flapping their gums about it.

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Permalink Reply by Dallas Gaytheist on September 22, 2011 at 9:37am

Just agreeing with you on the "stupid is contagious" comment.

Yeah, I know. Not trying to sound like I'm being confrontational with you.

I will quote a bible verse that doesn't even exist, sometimes even claiming a book of the bible that doesn't exist either and NO ONE that is listening will correct me!

Effin great.

"never believe anything you hear and only half of what you see."

Sage advice. I'm gonna have to pass that along.

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Permalink Reply by booklover on September 22, 2011 at 6:22am

My husbands cousin dated a girl whose father "doesn't believe in dinosaurs because they are not mentioned in the bible". Seriously.

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Permalink Reply by x Secular X Combatant x on September 22, 2011 at 6:48am

I think hell is when you get a fever, vomit or have diarea . everything else is just life
funny those that think they rule are the ones that perpetuate the hell while holding up the 'heaven' carrot stick : P