hell on april stephen mcintyre writes i would rather spend an eternity in hell than be beside god in heaven knowing that even one man would spend his eternal life being scorched for his wrongdoings stephen i suspect that when you and i use the word hell we have different concepts in mind when you encounter references to heaven in terms of crowns and harps and golden streets i trust that you do not suppose or suspect christians of supposing that the golden streets are to be taken literally still less that they are what the concept of heaven is all about why then should you suppose that about the fires of hell have you read the novel atlas shrugged do you remember the last description of james taggart sitting on the floor beside the ferris persuader this comes close to a description of what is meant by hell in my circles if the image of fire is often used in this connection there are two reasons that occur to me the first reason is that it conveys the idea of hell as something that any rational being would earnestly wish to avoid as any rational being would wish to avoid the fate of james taggart but the latter image is meaningful only to those who have read atlas shrugged a smaller audience than those who have played with matches the second reason is the history of the hebrew word gehenna one of the words translated hell in the new testament it refers to the valley of hinnon outside jerusalem in early days it was a place where the canaanites offered human sacrifices burned alive to molech later it was made a garbage or refuse dump where fires burned continually consuming the trash of the city of jerusalem to be cast into gehenna or to burn in gehenna thus became a metaphor for to be rejected or discarded as worthless lest you think that identifying hell with the fate of james taggart is my own private fancy i commend to you the book the great divorce by c s lewis it discusses heaven no harps and hell no flames it is shorter than atlas shrugged and available at most bookstores and libraries yours james kiefer
