Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lonely Tylenol" data-source="post: 2133097" data-attributes="member: 18549">I'm not sure about that.  Hades is generally described as being a place of ultimate boredom, in which the spirits of the dead, grey and washed out to transluscence, mill about aimlessly for all time.  I think that the fire & brimstone thing was added in the renaissance, but I might be wrong about that.A professor of mine translates Sheol to mean something more like "rubbish pit".  As in, once you're used up and done, you get chucked into a hole and forgotten about.  A happy afterlife was a late addition to the mythology, and so many ancient prayers run along the lines of "preserve me and don't throw me in the pit."  Long life was the most you could really ask for.One thing I've never really understood is, if the devils got thrown out of heaven, and launched into hell, why do they hate humanity so much?  In Dante, it's because humanity doesn't know what they're missing, but I don't see any reason why the devils wouldn't want to establish their own paradise, under their own rules...which must have been the impetus to revolt in the first place.  So you'd think they'd come across like time-share salesmen, rather than wicked tempters.  They'd want to offer "all the fun and pleasure you'd expect from eternal paradise, with none of the starchy rules!  It's like Club Med without the hangovers!"  And then once they've got the bulk of humanity having a grand ole time in "hell", wondering why they ever considered following the rules that would get them into heaven, the devils could spend eternity gloating over their victory of ideals.  Humanity isn't a foe to torment for failure to serve the enemy's purposes, but rather a neutral party that exists only to provide bragging rights to the side who can claim the larger group of supporters.  Humanity tests the ideals that the two opposing philosophies espouse, and whoever gets the lions share of humanity also gets the right to claim that their philosophy was obviously the better one.At least, that's what I'd do if I were the devils.  And since I'm the DM...</blockquote>

Verification