Okay… coming back to the question Ash (and Frink) wanted me to answer about my opinion of Hell, and how it compares to the traditional view as fire and brimstone.
The truth is: I’m not sure exactly. I do have ideas, but not all of them solid. I do know (and by “know” I mean posit) that as Heaven is eternity in the presence of God, by contrast Hell is eternity apart from it. I am aware that there are personal accounts from people who had (near?) death experiences and came back with descriptions of what Hell is like.
For myself, I kind of figure that a description to us of Hell is similar to the description of the Holy city in Revelation in the sense of trying to describe the indescribable. In Revelation, John talks about the Holy city with descriptions like it having gates made of pearl and streets made of gold. It occurs to me that gold’s value comes from its scarcity, and that for it to be so abundant that the street is literally made from it then cheapens its value. Basically, he’s trying, in so many words, to say the city is indescribably, uncomprehendingly beautiful.
Similarly, in the case of Hell, the experience is indescribably terrible. Whether that comes from separation from God or literal physical torment, I’m not sure. But then, let me explore the meaning of the word “eternity.” God created time and space as it exists in our universe and on this dimensional plane. It occurs to me that time does not have to flow or exist in the same manner on different planes or different universes or whatever. And therefore, to say “eternity” may not mean “for all time”, but rather “is.” Like, if you take where you are at a single point in time, and in that point you are there, if you remove time from the universe, you just exist there in some concept of eternity that just means “is”.
So I don’t know, but I have concepts of what it might be like, none of it good. I don’t believe it means you cease to exist, because the Bible does not suggest that to be true. The Bible does use the word “destruction”, but that is not synonymous with annihilation.