Catholics used to believe that only those who were baptized could enter into heaven. All the other poor souls, if they were without sin, had to stay in Limbo--a kind of holding tank until the Second Coming. The drawback of Limbo was that any souls residing there were never allowed to see God, so they always knew they were missing something. This is why many Catholic mothers used to carry a sponge sopped with holy water as they made their way from the hospital to the church for their baby's baptism. That way, if a deadly car accident should occur, the mother could, in the absence of a priest and the presence of an emergency, baptize her baby, ensuring that it would make it into heaven and out of Limbo.
Poor Virgil could never be baptized because he lived before Christ; therefore, he resides in Limbo with the other unvirtuous baptized. It is interesting to not that sometime between Dante's time and now, the Catholic Church decided that there really isn't a Limbo.
As we read Dante's perception of the depths of hell, I would like for us to consider what they mean to us. First, I encourage you to explore what others believe/believed about hell--the Greek perspective, modern day Christians. You may even want to visit some additional sites at Religion Facts.
Then consider the following questions: What do the three "danteworlds"--hell, purgatory, and paradise--mean to you? How do you think they might relate to one another and to the world(s) in which we live?
Poor Virgil could never be baptized because he lived before Christ; therefore, he resides in Limbo with the other unvirtuous baptized. It is interesting to not that sometime between Dante's time and now, the Catholic Church decided that there really isn't a Limbo.
As we read Dante's perception of the depths of hell, I would like for us to consider what they mean to us. First, I encourage you to explore what others believe/believed about hell--the Greek perspective, modern day Christians. You may even want to visit some additional sites at Religion Facts.
Then consider the following questions: What do the three "danteworlds"--hell, purgatory, and paradise--mean to you? How do you think they might relate to one another and to the world(s) in which we live?
*Here's another little tidbit to aid your understanding of the three beasts in Canto I.
I suppose I fall in the category of the 70 percent of Americans that believe in Hell. But I also believe in a purgatory, and I definately believe in Heaven.
ReplyDeleteFor me, you have to commit sin after sin after sin to land yourself in Hell. If you reject God from your life, or never seek for God's help in your lifetime, I believe they go to Hell.
As for purgatory, I don't feel as strong about. It's just someone who's on their way to Hell, but they can still quest their way out, much like Dante is doing.
I beleive the majority of Americans go to Heaven though. A lot of people may end up in purgatory during "the early years" of their life, but they have their whole life to turn that around. For example, look at Brian Welch, ex-member of the band Korn. He was the definition of a rockstar. Tattoos, drugs, the girls. He thought he had everything. He married, had a baby girl, I bet life was good..until his wife died of heavy drug usage. Brian saw that he was living his life the same way his wife was, and he couldn't let that happen to him. So, he stopped doing drugs, quit the band Korn, and has chosen the Lord Jesus Christ as his savior. He gave up everything, and for that, I believe he's out of purgatory. He seeked for God's help, for God's forgiveness.
But I can't really say that I'm the "religious-type". So I'm curious to see how other people's religious beliefs differ from mine.
That's actually a really great story. He found something that turned his life around. I can't say I would do it the same way, but I'm never going to be in THAT situation.
ReplyDeleteI simply don't believe in any type of religion. At all. I just find all of this stuff really interesting. I look at Dante's Inferno the same way I look at any other piece of literature. I'm not going to put any stock in any of it, but I can talk about it the same way I can talk about anything else we read.
I wouldn't fall into a certain religion, I guess I just believe in myself. I mean I, like Nick, think that many religions are really interesting. I like to look up certain types on occasion. I am not really sure if I believe in hevan or hell. I want to believe something, but I am still on my way to finding my own answers.
ReplyDeleteWhile I do believe there is a heaven and a hell, I think the whole purgatory thing, at least as Dante presents it, is inaccurate. I believe our lives are the purgatory. We don't live out our lives doing whatever we want and then get a second chance at doing things right after we die. To me that just wouldn't make sense.
ReplyDeleteI do believe in heaven and hell as well. And just like cameron said, I also sort of believe we are living in our purgatory. It just makes sense to me that what we do now affects our afterlife. If you go on living life doing every sin and than you're given a second chance, what was the point of living?
ReplyDeleteAgain, I feel as though my opinions/beliefs are not as valuable as most other classmates. I used to be religious, but even then, I only believed in heaven...then as I got a little older and looked into religions other than Catholicism, I found myself able to believe in any religion I researched. So to satisfy my confused mind, I believed each individual experienced whatever type of afterlife they believed in and believed they deserved. I mean, if our deity/deities are almighty and all powerful as we claim they are, wouldn't that be possible? I really enjoy talking about things like that and asking questions like that, but to be totally honest, that's not what I believe anymore. I don't believe in a deity or in an afterlife. I think that human religion is the most powerful influence on our lives and I respect that belief, almost sometimes envy it as I no longer have that.
ReplyDeleteI think that this topic gets a little tricky, but that's what can make our blog so interesting. I grew up believing in heaven and hell, and beliving that if you commited sin or never accepted God into your life, hell was your eternial punishment. And I still believe that. However I'm not sure what to think of the different levels of hell. If you commit more sins or worse sins, you go to a worse level of hell? If so, who decides what actions match each level of hell? Is that God's choice or the Devil's?
ReplyDeleteI also think that while Baptism is an important religious right, it should be a choice made by someone when they have enough information on God and the choice of following hi word. Just because a baby is baptized, doesn't to me mean that he/she is saved from hell. But if you decide when you are older that you give your life to our Savior Jesus Christ, then Baptism is a good way to show your love.
I was raised catholic, sent to PSR, baptized and confirmed. When I was in the Catholic environment, I never really believed the whole story. I didn't think that this God who apparently loved us unconditionally would send us to such a miserable place [hell]. As of late, I am leaning more toward spirtual beliefs. Not organized religion--just spirituality. I believe in some kind of afterlife, but I do not think there are "levels" to qualify for.
ReplyDeleteI was was born and raised catholic and so is everyone else in my family. Especially having a great uncle and a uncle as a priest, i grew up knowing not much else, other than If you were good you went to heaven, if you sinned you went to hell. The whole purgatory thing wasn't talked about much.
ReplyDeleteHowever, as i've grown up and read and learned about different religions, i think that there is a heaven, in a way. But its not like a heaven, heaven, like they show in movies, where there's the pearly gates and clouds and white streets everywhere, i just think that if you live a good live and have gotten into "heaven" then after you die your soulish type thing is at ease. If you don't go to heaven then your soul is unrested and not necessarily tortured for eternity but something along those lines. As for purgatory, i think of it as well you weren't bad enough to go either way so you get stuck with a little unrest. Even then i don't even know what would face the unrest because i've never really grasped the concept of having a soul. Like i know there are things inside a person's brain that says this is good that is bad, i should feel sorry for this person, etc. But i just don't really understand what the whole point of a soul is. I mean you have one life. You do what you want with it and then you pretty much die. But something still goes on to the afterlife. More of a spirit than a soul, if that makes any sense.
When I was younger, I went to church regularly. I was always taught If your good you go to Heaven and if you were bad you went to hell. However, as I got older, I got confused on what to believe.
ReplyDeleteI would believe that if you are a good person, then you should go to Heaven. If you follow God's word and obey by his rules, you should go to heaven. But what do you do when you get there?
If people are bad, and are repeated siners, I guess they would go to hell. I would beilieve that these places are final though. It doesnt make sense to me, like what Cameron said, that people go through their lives, probably sining, and then getting a chance to go to pergatory to get a second chance. I believe you go one way or another, you dont get stuck in between.
That is how I would think things would be like if I believed in the whole religious after life. But I'm not really sure that I do at the moment.
I would believe that these places are eternal. You would have to do something pretty bad to stay in eternal hell, and you would have to makes something of your life to be in an eternal paradice.
For some reason I find it difficult to write these assignments. I think it is because I am not entirely confident in my beliefs yet. While growning up, I always had a concept of what heaven and hell were, or at least my parent's concepts, but now that I am older and more exposed, I am unsure if the ideas I've grown around are what I believe. But here are the beliefs I'm comfortable with in comparison to Dante's worlds:
ReplyDeleteSome aspects of Dante's worlds are fictional to me. I believe there a higher power, a God, and a heaven. I believe all beings go to heaven unless they commit a serious and unforgivable sin. I also believe that my idea of God is more forgiving than Dante's in the sense that there is no limbo, only heaven and hell. But then doesn't that make me contradict myself? If there is a limbo, God is giving a soul a second chance to enter into heaven. This is where I begin to confuse myself. But I do believe there is a hell, for the sinners that deserve it.
So based on my unstable beliefs, Dante's Divine Comedy relates to our world is different ways. In many religions of our modern world, there is a heaven and a hell. But there are some differences, such as the Greeks, who believe you are more likely to entire Hades (the inferno) than Elysium (the Paradise) and Christians who believe hell is the afterlife for those who do not repent their sins. Dante's worlds relate to each other cause they are all the result of a consequence and are all stages of the afterlife. And it seems Dante made his the Divine Comedy more relatable/possible to give it more of a lasting effect. I mean, why else would we be focusing on it 700 years after it was written?
I can definitely sense that many of us are struggling with our beliefs of hell, purgatory, and paradise. I'd love to see us also tackle the last question--which EmilyJan has done in her entry.
ReplyDeleteGrowing up my mother never shared her religious beliefs with my brother, sister, or me. She believed that pushing her beliefs/thoughts on us wouldn’t help us in identifying with our true feelings about what we believe in. Whenever I was interested in Christianity, she would take me to church and sit with me. I went through a Buddhist phase and just accepted that that is what I believe. Now I am completely uncertain about what I believe in. There are too many religions and too many fanatics declaring that their religion is the “right” one. I think that as long as you are a decent person, who abides by good morals, then you will end up wherever your destiny may lie (whether it is in heaven or nowhere at all).
ReplyDeleteIt is hard for me to believe that people worship the bible when who knows if those stories are true? Who knows that those beasts that Dante’s mentions are existing? They sound like something out of Harry Potter to me. Where is the evidence, the proof that any of it is actually real? It is just a book, a piece of literature.
First of all, props to Ashley, your opinion is really awesome, and I very much agree that the afterlife is what each individual thinks it is.
ReplyDeleteFor me the afterlife has three levels: hell is for real scumbags, heaven is a Vallhalla hall of heroes- those that died honorably and lead good lives, and everyone else falls in the indeterminate gray middle area that's simply a bunch of queue lines. Why Queue lines you ask?
It's simple I also don't believe there is nearly enough space in the afterlife to hold the entirity of the human race. There's gotta be a max. So I also believe in reincarnation. The good party for a bit and then get back to work coming down as whatever they want to be, the middle just pick a group and stand in line hoping the animal doesn't go extinct before they come back to earth. And the bad are forced into some miserable creature no one really likes until they've shown some improvement in character. Reincarnation makes since to me. If matter (the body), and energy (the driving force of synapses in the mind) are conserved, why not the soul as well. I specualte it to be made of ultrafrequency waves that exist only visible in the fourth dimension--hence a coherant afterlife.
I love thinking about that question.
ReplyDeleteIf it's not important or accurate, then why are we still studying it? Why do we still belief in religions from what seems like forever ago if they are not true?
I like to think of it this way. Asking these questions with a limited scope works. Example: if you only consider Christianity, and ask "If the bible is full of bologna, then why do many humans still live their lives according to its word?" However, if you widen your view, that same question can be applied to almost any belief, at least any popular one. Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Bhuddists, etc. These are religions that have been around for at least two thousand years (Christianity being the latest). Now how contradicting is that? All of these religions can be backed up by such a question.
I think of it this way. It's not so much the value or truth of the religion, but rather how those beliefs effect human lives. It's the effect that counts, not the cause. I don't know if I can ever fully explain what I belief about this, but I can say that I disagree with Julie's last statement. Nothing is ever JUST a book or piece of literature. Even with fictional stories (as some of us may believe religious books to be), they don't outlast generations simply because it was a good read! It's the EFFECT that book had on readers that makes it be a best seller for so long.
I have to fix this. I said "belief" twice where I meant to say "believe."
ReplyDeleteOk sorry pet peeve. Thanks.
I really like everyone thoughts on this subject. Born and raised as a baptist, i was taught to know and follow one thing. There is a heaven and hell, and you must be on the path to heaven.
ReplyDeleteGrowing up, ive learned and grown in my spirit but i have also learned about other religions, and i feel like im more open to such discussions like this, because of that.
with that, i do believe there is a heaven and a hell. I also agree with camerons statement that the purgatory stage is our lives itself. But purgatory is the stage where you trying to get out of hell and into heaven, so do our lives begin in hell? are we always working to get out? Thats where i got confused.
With the three beasts, they are fictional in my eyes, but i think dante had a standing point behind them. They have strong symbolism and everyone can pull something out of those symbols in some way. They do have a meaning that stands out.
I have to agree with Ashley, that the books some religion base themselves upon, aren't just fiction. It's all about the perception of the reader. As with Dante's Divine comedy. It is not still around and being read/analyzed today just because generations after generations said "Hey this is a good book you should read it" It's still read because of the dramatic effect it has on people. It could leave the reader walking away questioning everything they had previously believed in. So it's not just a work of fiction is something that has affected people generation after generation just like the Bible, Koran, etc. etc.
ReplyDeleteperhaps this is where i should've placed my disclaimer. I'm going to jump right in, for i dare not do anything in any other manner.
ReplyDeleteI personally do not believe in any afterlife, etc. what i do believe is that a very long time ago, a group of extremely intelligient people discovered a way to maintain order. in a world without eternal damnation, i imagine very few people led completely honest lives. in my opinion, religion merely assists us in deciphering how we really feel about life. it is a lot easier to want to ascend to eternal bliss than it is to just do the right thing because it makes those around you happy. likewise it is more practical to want to evade eternal agony than it is to not want to make others sad. the two destinations of religion, in MY opinion, are symbolic of the two factions within ourselves. (freud has conveniently summarized them as the id, and the superego. I apologize for adopting the ideals of a less than favorable person, but doing so is the simplest way to explain my true beliefs.)