The Truth About Hell They Never Explained to You

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]You were taught to fear hell.

[00:00:03]But the hell of the Old Testament or the hell of the New?

[00:00:12]Hey guys, it's John here on my back deck on a fabulous day. It's in the mid70s, completely overcast, drinking a giant mug of water. You're going to hell.

[00:00:22]That's what the church wants to tell you. That if you do things that are against their doctrines or theologies that you're going to end up in hell.

[00:00:30]But hell is an interesting topic because which hell are you going to? You know, the Old Testament is from the Torah. There was no hell in the Old Testament. The Torah comes from the Judeaic faith and there was no concept of hell that Christians lean into in the Old Testament or in the Torah.

[00:00:54]In the Torah, there was the place known as Shiel. And shiel is is the place where the dead go. And it also of is often translated as the hole in the ground or a grave.

[00:01:06]But there was not a place of eternal damnation. There was not a place of eternal punishment for your sins. There was not such a place in the Old Testament.

[00:01:17]Now you get into the New Testament and uh people will say Jesus said hell more than anybody else. That's not actually true. Paul said hell more than anybody else. But when you look at at the the concept of of what is hell?

[00:01:36]And in the Bible, Jesus actually says, "Think not upon tomorrow, be here today."

[00:01:42]Well, if you're thinking about a hellish uh experience in the future, you're going to get it. You're going to have that experience because that's what you're putting faith in.

[00:01:53]The hell of the New Testament is a very interesting hell because it's an evolving hell. You know, in the beginning it was it was spoken of as Gehenna or Hades and it was just basically you're going to end up in a bad place with a bad experience, right, with you if you keep going down this pathway.

[00:02:14]Over the course of time and when we get into the Middle Ages, they start making it a a structured damnation of hell, a place that you go. By the time Dante writes his Inferno in the 1300s, you're now having nine levels of hell and demons and and and all of these other fear-based aspects of of hell. And the Catholic Church and the churches in general leaned into this concept of the structured place that they could use as a fear-based tool.

[00:02:46]But according to all of these Christian faiths, Jesus was a Jewish man. And when Paul writes about the scriptures, there was no New Testament. The scriptures he was writing about were the Jewish scriptures, the Torah. And when you look at it from that perspective, you start to understand that the Torah itself is is what the disciples probably believed.

[00:03:19]They leaned into this concept of what the scriptures said. Well, the scriptures didn't have a hell. The scriptures didn't have the damnation.

[00:03:27]And and it the word um Satan doesn't exist in the Old Testament.

[00:03:38]People say, "Yes, it does." No, you're reading translations upon translations and all these different things. And Satan comes from the word hassetan which means accuser.

[00:03:49]There was no polar opposite of God in in the ancient Hebrew books. There was no polar opposite of God. This was a is a Christian construct a a Christian addition much later.

[00:04:03]Anybody could be a hassan. When you look at the scriptures, the word is used as anybody who's accusing. And sometimes it's even used for temptation.

[00:04:13]But anyone who's accusing, you know, they they treat the word more like it's a prosecutor rather than a a a spiritual entity that's the opposite of God.

[00:04:27]This concept of that spiritual entity that's the opposite of God is a a Christian construct that is used to keep people in line. And when you look at it from the perspective of you know it's like you look at remember the the movie White Christmas right in that movie ver Ellen uses the word gay meaning someone's happy or someone's you know a joyful expression of life or they have a a pleasing personality.

[00:04:59]You know you say gay today it doesn't mean the same thing. The intent of the word in the film was to say the person that she would marry had to have this pleasing personality. It didn't mean it had to be gay in the modern sense of the word, you know. Um, when you look at it from the from the perspective of what did things mean and what were the intentions in the time, you start to realize that the New Testament is filled with all kinds of ideas and then people in the modern age started adding their own perspectives and beliefs onto them.

[00:05:29]Right? You know, this idea that that that love is that God is love and that people who love differently from me are evil or wrong or sinful. I believe wholeheartedly that that if God is love, God would not judge someone for how they love.

[00:05:52]The idea of the judgment itself is a fallacy of the church to make themselves have this fear-based ideology that that they're just simply wrong. You know, being someone who who who worked in theater for a long time, and I have a lot of gay friends and I grew up in Rahoba with Beach Ellard, known as the nation's gay summer capital. I have a I I have a lot of gay friends. They have never once tried to sway me to their way of thinking because they know I'm heterosexual. They they they knew it when they met me. They knew this guy is just straight, right? They understood the very nature of me and I understood the very nature of them. They love I had a party here one time and and two of my gay friends came and we're all sitting here and we're talking. We're having and I glance over and they're holding hands right in front of my fireplace and I thought it was one of the most beautiful pictures I've ever seen in my life.

[00:06:42]These two people expressing love in the in the in the open and feeling safe enough to do it here and now. I loved it. I loved it. who made me very happy.

[00:06:51]But this interpretation of of you're going to end up in hell because of these ideas that we have chosen to be wrong.

[00:07:00]When Jesus himself says they will know you're my disciples by how you love and I leave you one commandment to love one another. He didn't put caveats on that. He didn't say love one another unless they're gay. He didn't say love one another unless they're of a different faith. He never said any of that said. He said simply said love one another how you treat your fellow person your fellow human and it really comes down to you understanding that that you are choosing your interpretation. My mom who had her master's degree in liturgy in the Catholic church people will often claim that I don't understand Catholicism.

[00:07:36]My mom had her master's degree in liturgy in our Catholic church. And I had deep discussions with my mother about spirituality.

[00:07:46]And not only that, I was an older boy. I was a reader. I I did the whole Catholic thing up to a And when people say, "I don't understand Catholicism." Or they say, "Well, obviously you weren't trained correctly." That's that is a ridiculous statement. You have no idea what I've been through with my with my Catholicism.

[00:08:05]And I am so blessed to have a mother who was truly living the the the teachings of Jesus, loving one another.

[00:08:14]She had no problem with gay people. She had no problem with with uh people of different faith. And when I started having my experiences, she opened up and we had great conversations. I asked her one time why she became so Catholic. Her response to me was she says, "I had my first outof body experience during a mass." So to her that was a religious experience which put her into a place of thinking well this is the way right for her. But what was one of the most beautiful statements she made to me in my life.

[00:08:43]She said spirituality is a personal journey. You must find what you believe.

[00:08:50]She didn't say spirituality is a personal journey. You must judge others for not believing as you do.

[00:08:56]Spirituality is a personal journey. You must hate gay people for for the way they love. You know, you must hate Muslims for being Muslim, right?

[00:09:07]She never said spirituality is a personal journey and uh anybody who's not uh um baptized into the faith is going to hell. She never said any of that. My mom and I had beautiful open conversations about spirituality and you know this this concept of of reincarnation it's it's in the majority of religions in the world even Judaism mentions it and in the Bible he he asked his disciples who do they say that I am and he said they say they some say you're Elijah or some prophet returned and he says no I tell you Elijah has come already and you have shunned him referring to John the Baptist.

[00:09:51]So for them to say that he's Elijah or some prophet returned means the disciples believed in some sort of reincarnation.

[00:09:59]For him to say that that Elijah did return and was John the Baptist means that he had to believe in some sort of reincarnation.

[00:10:08]I have brought this up in other videos and other conversations. People have said to me that's not true. He didn't believe in it. Well, why would he say that? because then they took an interpretation and said, "Well, no, no, no. This is this isn't reincarnation.

[00:10:21]This is supernatural gods coming back to earth." You know, it's to me it's it it's uh a chosen theology.

[00:10:31]But you can find reincarnation in Buddhism, you can find reincarnation in Hinduism, you can find reincarnation in Judaism, you can find reincarnation in the Bible, like I just said. So is it true? That's for you to decide.

[00:10:49]But is it is it for you to judge others for believing in it? No, it's not for you. Because even your own Bible tells you judge not lest you shall be judged.

[00:10:59]And when you come when it comes back to this understanding what is hell? Hell is is not um an absolute. Hell is what you choose for hell to be. Hell is for you to to understand that is it is now a tool the church has used to keep you in line to put you in in fear of going to hell of you know being taken over by demons or by Satan. These things didn't exist in in the teachings and the scriptures that Jesus read and or that Paul was even referencing.

[00:11:38]they weren't in there. All of this concepts of hell and demons and and Satan is all religious construct that comes from the Middle Ages, not from the historical time of Jesus. And it's it's a matter of you coming to that place of understanding that your personal hell is your personal choice. And I believe in a world of love and compassion. And I see it every day because that's my faith.

[00:12:04]That's what I believe. And you don't have to live in fear and and and you know expecting judgment or punishment. You know, it's funny when you look at the people who get into near-death experiences, which I find absolutely fascinating.

[00:12:18]The people who are heavily Christian who believe in hell and believe that they're sinners will often have near-death experiences of experiencing hell.

[00:12:29]But there was a there was a young girl who had two near-death experiences. She was living in India with her family.

[00:12:35]They were Christian. A bunch of Hindu marauders came and wiped out the Christian family and left them all for dead. The daughter survives.

[00:12:45]She has a near-death experience and Jesus comes and saves her.

[00:12:50]She's found by a Hindu family who sneak her back to their house and nurse her back to health. And then they start to raise her as their own child.

[00:13:00]Well, you know, time goes by and this little girl doesn't look like an Indian girl. She looks like a little Christian girl. And the marauders figure it out.

[00:13:07]Oh, that's that girl. We we need to kill her. They come back to and they try to kill her again. They leave her for dead a second time. She has a second near-death experience.

[00:13:15]Only this time, Shiva saved her.

[00:13:18]What was the difference between time one and time two? What she believed?

[00:13:24]She experienced Jesus saving her the first time and she experienced Shiva saving her the second time. because her beliefs the first time was she was a Christian and her beliefs the second time was she was a Hindu. So even even our experience of crossing over is is crossing through our own belief system and out of it. You you talk to the people who who had long near-death experiences. you find that they usually come back without a religion because they pass through that belief system and they see a different reality that that there is no religion in heaven in in near-death experience studies. So it comes down to understanding that that we are the pinpoint of creation just like the Bible says whatever you ask is granted when you pray believe you shall receive and you shall.

[00:14:15]Hell is not something you put faith in.

[00:14:18]If you put faith in hell, then you experience hell. If you put faith in love, you experience love. God is love.

[00:14:24]And be be the disciple that is known for loving. And then you you've understood the true teachings of Jesus. And that's my thought on this. You guys have a great day and I'll talk to you soon. See you. Bye.

[00:14:37]My friend, if something in this video hit you, then you're already seeing it.

[00:14:42]The patterns, the guilt, the conditioning, it's not random. It was built over time.

[00:14:48]And what was built over time has to be undone the same way intentionally.

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