Which version of hell is more frightening and despairing to you?

[OreoMaster]

1. A terrible place with unearthly creatures that not even the most creative and imaginative person could ever slightly imagine, torturing everyone there in an indescribable way. Fires everywhere,lava and magma. Imagine a huge lake of magma, so excruciatingly painful and hot, yet everyone would burn in there forever and ever. You would try to get out of the fire, crying and wailing in pain but the demons would push you back. And the worst thing is that you would be dead. You couldn't die again so as to get away of the pain and torture, thus it would be eternal torture. Dark rooms where the damned would be tortured and fires where they would be thrown afterwards. And the worst thing? No time there. It would go on and on until forever. It would actually never end. Torture forever.

2. A vast, absolutely dark place. Alone. Nothing else. Just you. In a vast, dark place. Just think of it. Not even fire or anything. There stuck forever and ever and ever..and ever..Go stay in a dark room for some time alone. You will NEED to get out of there. Now imagine that forever. No way to suicide(ironic, u're already dead), nothing to do. Lying there in the darkness.Cry and shout as much as you want.You wouldn't get out.Forever. Ever been stuck in a lift? How did you feel? Panicked right? It was just a small space with nobody to hear you unless you were lucky. You get the idea( well at least a bit).

 

[Evanlyn]

This is a...... tough question to answer. They are both rather horrible.

Though I'd say that the first way is worse. I might be able to stand being on my own and whatnot... but torture is just horrible.

 

[IanDonyer]

The second. In my opinion, mental torture is much more effective than physical.

 

[OreoMaster]

I have yet to decide which one is worse hehe They are bloody awful!

 

[Nihilego]

The first would be worse imo. The kinda stuff in there would screw you up in the head anyway so it doesn't really matter that it's not directly psychological.

Not sure if this will generate discussion, btw. If it doesn't then I'll send it over to OVP but not yet.

 

[Esper]

The idea of total nothingness doesn't seem all that bad. I have to think you'd eventually grow numb to something like that.

I would not at all like the idea of eternal torture and pain. I mean, pain is really unpleasant. It's not like you could escape it any more than the "torture" of nothing.

But really both of these aren't the worst thing I can think of because they're both consistent in what they're doing to you. I don't know about how anyone else feels, but I would imagine that having things constantly changing on you, as well as being torturous, would be a far worse fate. Like combine the two for a start. You get tortured, and then suddenly it stops and you think you've been spared, but it comes back just as suddenly and you have your hopes dashed.

 

[OreoMaster]

Scarf, explain that a bit please :) What do you mean by having things constantly changing on you? Like things changing and not being a routine? I don't get it.

Anyway, just think how bad hell is. I mean, we can imagine these things and we know it would be horrible that way. Yet, in the Bible, it says that hell is a place that NOBODY could ever imagine of. It is just out of human imagination limits. We can imagine a dark,dull,asphyxiating place with fire and torment and we say 'Oh that's bad'. But hell is even worse. And that is forever. There are basically two 'lives'. The one you live now and the afterlife. The difference is that the afterlife is going on FOREVER.I don't know if you completely realise what forever means. It never ever ends. So pain forever. I feel bad even writing that :/

 

[Nick]

Thanks to most movies that have their hell, when I picture hell I think of the first one, so I think I've grown somewhat accepting that if hell were to exist, that that would be what it's like. The idea of being in complete darkness by myself that goes on forever without any shred of hope or another being (though there won't be any of that when I'm dead, I guess, still...) seems much more unpleasant to me, though. I don't have much of a reason, though. Eternal nothingness would affect me way too profoundly mentally.

At least with the first one, after I'm tortured or whipped or whatever, there'd be others there. The first one is more frightening, but the second one is more despairing. You know what you're in for if you're spit into the first one, so you can expect it. The second one, you'll hope that there's something else there and spend the rest of your time finding it until your hope is just lost, and that to me is just way too terrible.

Luckily, I don't believe in hell, so I'm not all too concerned!

 

[OreoMaster]

Patchisou I agree with you. The first one is frightening, to know that unbelievable pain will follow yet the second one is so despairing that it drives you crazy. And I don't know why but just the thought of eternity creeps me out.

 

[Ephemeral Euphoria]

I'd have to say the first one sounds much more agonizing than just being alone for all eternity, granted your psyche may not be able to handle the emptiness of the void but you should be able to adapt to it, well hopefully anyways.

 

[twocows]

I can break the second one.

As long as I'm kept alive indefinitely, parts of me will regrow. Hair, fingernails, skin, etc. That means I have the materials to build. And with the ability to build, I can build anything. Give me infinite time and infinite materials and I will derive mathematics, chemistry, and physics; build a device to synthesize other kinds of materials out of my hair or something; build analog computers; invent AI; and become a creator. It may take thousands of years, but with infinite time there's not much else to do.

The only way to really make the second one work for me is if you take away any way I have of manipulating my environment. If I am a consciousness trapped without any world to influence, that would likely be pretty hellish. Sort of like someone in a persistent vegetative state except with no hope of even randomly coming out of it.

 

[Outkin]

I picture it much worse.....but I'd say 2, because I like fire too much to hate 1.

 

[Esper]

Scarf, explain that a bit please :) What do you mean by having things constantly changing on you? Like things changing and not being a routine? I don't get it.

I just meant that an environment which is torturous AND unpredictable is gonna be worse than one which is consistently torturous because you won't ever have false hope. When you have your hopes dashed that's gonna mess with you psychologically in a very nasty way.

But to put it in other terms. Imagine that you are going to get into a fight with a kid at school, one who is a lot stronger than you. What would be worse: meeting them at a prearranged time and place or not knowing when it will happen and always worrying that the kid will jump out of nowhere at any time?

 

[Magdalena~]

2. A vast, absolutely dark place. Alone. Nothing else. Just you. In a vast, dark place. Just think of it. Not even fire or anything. There stuck forever and ever and ever..and ever..Go stay in a dark room for some time alone. You will NEED to get out of there. Now imagine that forever. No way to suicide(ironic, u're already dead), nothing to do. Lying there in the darkness.Cry and shout as much as you want.You wouldn't get out.Forever. Ever been stuck in a lift? How did you feel? Panicked right? It was just a small space with nobody to hear you unless you were lucky. You get the idea( well at least a bit).

This one seems perfectly tolerable to me because if all your senses are cut off like that, you can easily drift away and become an unconscious being.
The first one is terrible because it tortures you physically AND psychologically. It's not directly psychological but I'm sure constant pain for the rest of eternity without a single speck of hope is something that's gonna mess with your head plenty. (Like Scarf said, having a speck of hope that flickers would be even worse, but being hopeless to begin with is pretty unpleasant on its own.)

So yeah, the first is worse to me.

You get tortured, and then suddenly it stops and you think you've been spared, but it comes back just as suddenly and you have your hopes dashed.

That idea reminds me of this song:

 

[~V~]

Wouldn't you become numb to the torture in #1 eventually?
If I had to pick a hell I would choose #2. It doesn't sound as bad as #1.

Thankfully I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to worry about this kind of stuff.

 

[OreoMaster]

Oh Scarf I get you know ;) Yeah that would be pretty bad. And ~V~ , you wouldn't become numb to the torture. Hell is something that nothing is positive there. So you can't say, there is the negative thing - the torture - but there is something positive as well - going numb and not feeling a thing. Imagine it like that. You are tortured till your body is completely destroyed and no more torture can be applied upon - yet you are still conscious and you feel the pain. Then you are like thrown away and 'recycled'. You still remember all of the pain you went through before and the agony and now, with a new body, you can be tortured once again. Think of this happening in a circle forever and ever.

 

[Dakotah]

They both sound bad, but since I don't believe in an afterlife anyway, it doesn't even really matter. Personally, hell for me would be akin to waking up in a hospital after a night of heavy drinking to find the ugliest looking nurse hovering over me with a needle in her hand and a wicked looking grin on her face.

 

[Alley Cat]

Option 1. If we can't die, I'd just mass organize a bunch of us to bum-rush the line of demons or whatever. We could keep trying, for eternity. I'm sure we'd break through at some point. And after a while, I'd be used to the pain. It'd be my normal, so when/if I finally stop burning in hell I'd probably feel weird for not feeling the pain! Don't get me wrong... I just think that the pain would settle in after a while.

 

[Reck]

They both are very torturous, but I must say that two would be the worst. In the second version you could easily lose your mind and become hysterical which, in my opinion, would be worse than physical pain.

 

[Shiny Celebi]

Number 1 would be worse because I cant stand physical pain, even the thought of that is terrible. Though they are both awful and psycological pain is bad.