Is Christianity's 'secret' weapon hell?

[Cicero]

So I have been thinking about death (for obvious reasons) and hell. All throughout my childhood I was taught that if your not 'saved' you go to hell. From what I see, a Christians mission is to save as many people from hell as possible. If you arent saved, you go to hell, in Christianity at least. So do they use hell as a type of weapon to scare Christians and make them fear God and fear hell? This isn't a discussion about if hell is real btw

[OrKing]

I don't know about in general today, in my school they didn't use it as a weapon. I went to an almost all Catholic school. When my mum was growing up they did though, everything was "Go to school or your going to hell." "Go to church or your going to hell." "Listen to your mom or your going to hell." Although she did grow up an IRA supportive part of Northern Ireland when it was all extremist so that obviously had an effect on the people and how extreme religion was at the time. So in general, I really don't know, they didn't in my school or church but I do know of people who have been told such things by their more extreme parents.

[Mortal Coil]

Yeah, I think so. There are a lot more Christians who are simply afraid of going to hell than there are who genuinely love their God because that's the "right thing" to do. Children aren't coerced into going to Church because God loves them, but because this God will send them into a lake of fire where they will be tortured beyond human imagination for eternity if they don't.

[TheBigUnit]

Hell is a weapon? Hell yea (no pun) I mean I wouldn't want to go to hell, do u?

People sometimes take advantage of those who are afraid to go to hell like televangelists (some of them) who make a lot of money from scaring ppl

[FreeFall]

Yep. At least my Dad uses it as a scare tactic. I'm atheist, at least twice a month I hear "save your soul from damnation and follow the path of our righteous god!"
My sister's their perfect little believer but when she does something wrong "Be careful if you upset me, you've potential to upset god, then you'll lose your place before jesus!"

It's probably most humans are afraid of what comes next. We like knowing things and most fear death, most want their adventure to continue so they like to think there's life after death or something that gives them hope for after they die. It's pretty much common tale that hell's an awful place and really bad, so no one wants to go there.

[Noirtier]

In all honesty? I would say it's definitely something that Christianity uses as a scare tactic. For example, at one point when I came out, I got the whole brimstone and fire damnation speech--twice. Told I was horrible and going to hell, etc. in an attempt by them to scare me back to being straight. Looking back, it just seems ignorant and stupid as hell for them to try to do that. We don't like pain, and we're afraid of death. Religions have profited from that by including doctrines such as hell incorporated throughout them in an effort to win more adherents. In my mind, that just doesn't seem right.

[Fiction]

The Latin and Hebrew versions of the bible use the words "Hades", "Gehenna", "Sheol" and "Tartaroo", for what would now be translated in an english bible as "Hell". These words mean very different things:

Gehenna- A rubbish tip outside of Jerusalem which was used to burn the dead bodies of criminals who had been executed.
Hades- Greek name for the God of the underworld.
Sheol- A word used by many people in the bible referring to where they will go after their death, including people who where seen to be righteous.
Tartaroo- A place for the imprisonment of fallen angels.

Now, do any of these words really refer to the hell that we know of now?

In my opinion "Gehenna" is where we got the idea of burning after death if we are sinful, "Hades" is just a word used for bibles written in greek as it something the greek people would understand, "Sheol" just means going too the grave as it where, and "Tartaroo" is another part of the angels myth.

So yes, Hell is a medieval invention created before normal people could read the bible for themselves in order to control them and make them obey.

Also for example the catholic invention of purgatory (A place between Heaven and Hell where a person can purify themselves to go to Heaven), was used too get money off the families of people who had died. People used to be told if they gave money to the church they could help their relatives get into heaven. I know this is slightly irrelevent, but it shows at the same time what the church has done for money... and purgatory isn't mentioned in the bible at all.

Then there's arguements about a just God not sending his people into eternal punishment, which is also true, but I think i've already proved my point ;p