Hell
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Hell, according to many religious beliefs, is an afterlife of suffering where the wicked or unrighteous dead are punished. Hells are almost always depicted as underground. In Christianity and Islam, hell is fiery. Hells from other traditions, however, are sometimes cold and gloomy. Some hells are described in graphic and gruesome detail (for example, Hindu Naraka). Religions with a linear divine history often depict hell as endless (for example, see Hell in Christian beliefs). Religions with a cyclic history often depict hell as an intermediary period between incarnations (for example, see Chinese Di Yu). Punishment in hell typically corresponds to sins committed in life. Sometimes these distinctions are specific, with damned souls suffering for each wrong committed (see for example Plato's myth of Er), and sometimes they are general, with sinners being relegated to one or more chamber of hell or level of suffering (for example, Augustine of Hippo asserting that unbaptized infants suffer less in hell than unbaptized adults). In Islam and Christianity, however, faith and repentance play a larger role than actions in determining a soul's afterlife destiny.
Hells are often populated with demons, who torment the damned. Many are ruled by a death god, such as Nergal, the Hindu Yama, or some other dreadful supernatural figure (e.g. Satan).
In contrast to hells, other general types of afterlives are abodes of the dead and paradises. Abodes of the dead are neutral places for all the dead (for example, see sheol), rather than prisons of punishment for sinners. A paradise is a happy afterlife for some or all the dead (for example, see heaven).
Modern understandings of hell often depict it abstractly, as a state of loss rather than as fiery torture literally under the ground. Pope Benedict XVI affirmed in a Lenten homily on March 26, 2007 that the Roman Catholic Church and its loyal members retain belief in a literal Hell, a place that "really exists and is eternal".[1] [Apr 2007]
