Not all religions and cultures believe in Hell as a discrete place; it’s actually a pretty uniquely Christian (okay and Zoroastrian, leave me alone) eschatological phenomenon. Most world religions really understand the afterlife as a constant for everyone, in the way that if you get on a train and leave one station, you have little choice but to go to the next station.
In the Bahá’í tradition, ‘Heaven’ and ‘Hell’ are considered poetic (or, if you’re into the Monist / Dualist discourse, ‘fictional elements’) descriptions of the state of any one person’s spirit upon arriving at the afterlife. ‘Hell’ is a state in the way having chronic pain is ‘being in hell.’
Not all religions and cultures believe in Hell as a discrete place; it’s actually a pretty uniquely Christian (okay and Zoroastrian, leave me alone) eschatological phenomenon. Most world religions really understand the afterlife as a constant for everyone, in the way that if you get on a train and leave one station, you have little choice but to go to the next station.
In the Bahá’í tradition, ‘Heaven’ and ‘Hell’ are considered poetic (or, if you’re into the Monist / Dualist discourse, ‘fictional elements’) descriptions of the state of any one person’s spirit upon arriving at the afterlife. ‘Hell’ is a state in the way having chronic pain is ‘being in hell.’