As you know, hell is a place of posthumous punishment for sinners. Consequently, it is possible that the criminals who were not overtaken by legal punishment on Earth, will fully swallow the torment in the afterlife.
To each his own
In Russia at the time, for example, of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, in the 17th century, there was no doubt that the souls of executed criminals were going to hell. And they believed: a fiery river flows in hell, at the bottom of which the perjurers sit, the children cursed by their parents stand up to the waist in it, and unrighteous judges are immersed in liquid flame up to their knees. It was believed that poisoners and child-killers, in the company of whom the swearing people fell, drink boiling tar in hell. Murderers endlessly fall into deep chasms, without reaching their bottom. The dead drunkards were a little more fortunate: for them, their eternal punishment was the work of providing the devil with firewood and water for the boilers where other sinners are boiled.
However, since then, the idea of hell has changed more than once. In Europe in the Middle Ages, for example, it was believed that underground demons tormented the flesh of pagans and heretics with hooks. But Buddhism and Taoism, for example, have their own ideas about hell. Therefore, it is not a fact that the soul of the same Taoist should be tormented in the Christian hell, and not in his Chinese underworld called Huang Chuan.
First five laps
Perhaps the most vivid description of hell was given by Dante Alighieri in The Divine Comedy. According to his version, all hell is divided into nine circles, in each of which an execution is performed on a special category of sinners. Dante's description of hell is quite impressive, but it is curious to see how much it correlates with our ideas about the highest justice.
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According to Dante, in the first five circles, the souls of practically innocent people suffer. At least they didn't commit any crimes. It turns out that a certain humanism is present even in hell. The souls of unbaptized babies and righteous pagans who dwell in the first circle are delivered from torment. The adulterers in the second also do not suffer much - their souls are simply constantly carried by the wind. But the gluttons in the third circle already get it: not only are they constantly in the rain and hail, so also the three-headed dog Cerberus gnaws off the flesh of the gluttons piece by piece. Indeed, the best diet advertisement is the ability to avoid Cerberus teeth. It remains only to sympathize with the stingy, wasteful, angry and gloomy people who are serving eternal sentences in the fourth and fifth rounds. Although, to be honest, their fault is not entirely clear to the author of this article.
And four more are the worst
But the first five circles are still "flowers". Further, the lower tiers of hell begin, where real criminals are given their due.
In the sixth circle, the souls of heretics and false teachers are tormented. They have to lie in red-hot graves.
In the seventh circle flows the Phlegeton River (first belt), only instead of water there is boiling blood in it, in which the souls of rapists, murderers, tyrants and invaders are boiled. In principle, it is not entirely objective to lump the tyrants who ruled empires and insignificant lustful maniacs into one heap, but from a philosophical point of view, this is understandable. Another thing is that the souls of suicides (second belt) are placed in the same seventh circle. They turned into dwarf trees with poisonous fruits. In this case, the neighborhood of those who committed suicide and maniacs seems to us somewhat strange. However, the degree of their afterlife is still different. In the sand blazing with heat (third belt), the souls of blasphemers, sodomites and covetous people are tormented.
The eighth circle, known as Malebolge, which has the shape of a huge amphitheater and descends ten more levels, has its own special hierarchy. And the distinction is simply necessary here, because otherwise this place would be a real pandemonium. In Malebolge, the souls of deceivers (who deceived the disbelievers) are gathered. But since deception and deception are different, it would be unfair to cut everyone with the same brush. Yet the harm from a swindler who deprived many people of the livelihood, and from a banal flatterer, is different. Therefore, each liar, depending on the significance of the sin, has his own retribution. Demons scourge pimps and seducers. Flatterers stand up to their throats in fetid feces. The clergy who bought or sold church positions have their bodies walled up in rocks, and fire streams down their feet. Diviners and sorcerers have their heads turned back forever. Bribe-takers and bribe-takers boil in tar, and demons drive hooks into those who stick their heads out of it. The hypocrites are forced to wear heavy lead robes. Thieves spend eternity in a cluster of various reptiles: snakes, kenhr, amphisbens, fares, yakul and echidnas, which bite them every now and then. Crafty advisers burn in flames. The most monstrous reprisals - gutting, cutting off arms and legs and chopping off the head - are the instigators of discord, to put it simply, provocateurs. Alchemists and counterfeiters suffer from leprosy and deprivation, itch, tear the skin with nails.yakul and echidnas, which bite them now and then. Crafty advisers burn in flames. The most monstrous reprisals - gutting, cutting off arms and legs and chopping off the head - are the instigators of discord, to put it simply, provocateurs. Alchemists and counterfeiters suffer from leprosy and deprivation, itch, tear the skin with nails.yakul and echidnas, which bite them now and then. Crafty advisers burn in flames. The most monstrous reprisals - gutting, cutting off arms and legs and chopping off the head - are the instigators of discord, to put it simply, provocateurs. Alchemists and counterfeiters suffer from leprosy and deprivation, itch, tear the skin with nails.
And, finally, in the ninth circle, various traitors (who deceived those who trusted) are frozen into the ice - traitors of relatives, traitors of the homeland, traitors of friends and benefactors. There is also Lucifer himself. He, too, was frozen into a swampy river. But at the same time he still manages to torment the traitors by biting their bodies.
Who is worse?
No less, and perhaps even more terrible torments await criminals in the Islamic hell. There they will not only be tortured with fire, but also tortured, acting on each of the senses separately. But again, to the question of the highest justice: the most terrible torments await not bandits and maniacs, but munafiks - those who do not believe in Allah, but pretend to be believers.
For Buddhists, hell is also an extremely scary place. The bodies of criminals there are covered with iron snakes, and the unfortunates suffer from creeping reptiles more than from fire. The snakes crawl into their mouths and get out through the eyes and ears. Iron ravens pluck and eat pieces of criminals' flesh, while brass dogs gnaw at their bodies.
However, for most Buddhist criminals there is a chance to escape hell through repentance. It is unlikely that it will save only the killers of parents, women who had abortions, malefactors who wounded the Buddha or organized a split in the Buddhist Sangha community.
The most famous "scribbler" is Devadatta, a cousin of Gautama Buddha. In an attempt to become the head of his own sangha, Devadatta founded an independent Buddhist monastic order. But, having lost his reputation and influence after the split of the sangha, Devadatta wanted to sincerely repent before the Buddha and entered the monastery where he lived. However, at that moment, the earth opened under Devadatta's feet, and he fell into hell.
Keeping up with the times
In principle, the acts for which a person can go to hell are similar in most religious denominations. Christians have seven deadly sins: pride, envy, gluttony, fornication, anger, greed, despondency (idleness). Buddhists have 10 “black” sins: murder, theft, debauchery, lies, sowing discord, insults, idle talk, greed, malice and false views.
In order to keep up with the times, the Vatican in 2008 introduced the concept of special cases of mortal sins, which included: violation of "bioethics" (for example, birth control); Morally questionable research (for example stem cell or genetic engineering research) environmental pollution; exacerbating the growing gap between rich and poor; excessive wealth; drug use; bringing to poverty.
Presumably, the next step is “private” mortal sins in the field of high technologies so that hackers and carders (Internet scammers who steal money from virtual accounts, credit cards and other payment systems) do not feel at ease.
The road to the underworld
And the most curious thing is that the latest achievements of science and technology do not so much refute religious dogmas about the existence of hell as they confirm them. For example, the information that people have drilled … to hell has received great fame. According to her, while drilling the Kola well, the deepest in the world, Soviet scientists lowered microphones to a depth of 12 thousand meters, which recorded the "voice from the underworld" - the cries and groans of the souls of sinners in hell. After that, the Kola superdeep well began to be called "Dorogoi vad". And when it was deepened to 14.5 thousand meters, they stumbled upon voids, in which there was a hellish heat reaching 1100 ° C.
Even more sensational information came from American astronauts at NASA. In August 1978, they investigated solar flares from a spacecraft using a spectroheliograph. And suddenly a column of helium burst out from the depths of the heavenly body - 800 thousand kilometers from the red-hot star. In front of the astonished astronauts, the liquid stream of gas suddenly froze. And for 70 seconds, the device recorded a nightmarish vision: hundreds of thousands of human faces suddenly appeared on the pillar of fire, tortured in an eternal flame. The astronauts realized that this is hell, that it exists on the Sun and they saw it with their own eyes. What was reported to the base. But there is an incredible message and all the materials related to it were simply classified.
Magazine "Secrets of the XX century" No. 18. Oleg Loginov