[talk.religion.misc] The great Hell survey

laura@hoptoad.uucp (Laura Creighton) (09/22/86)

Well, I am back from vacation.  I have sent mail to all people who
have sent me an answer to the question ``What is Hell?  A state
of alienation from God, or a place where the wicked go when they die.''
If you didn't get an answer, you should resent your reply.  Also, if
you want to get in on this.

For a long time ``Hell is a place'' was leading 3 to 1, but a
recent flurry of letters has made things about even.  Keep the
cards and letters coming.  Results will be posted October 1.

laura@hoptoad.uucp (Laura Creighton) (10/01/86)

Well, here it is.  The results of the ``is Hell a place where sinners go or
is Hell a state of alienation from God'' survey.  27 people replied.  3
of them did not believe that it was either of these things -- I got one
``Hell is a state of alineation from God, not a place, where sinners go
when they die''.  I don't understand this.

As for the rest:  it is a tie, folks.  Exactly 12 people think that it
is a state, and 12 think that it is a place.  I don't know what that means.
It does correspond to the ratios I found when I went around looking for
Christians at churches to ask this question to.  I wonder -- are the 
Christians who reply to surveys in net.religion unrepresentative, or
were the churches I went to in Toronto?  I am tempted to ask this same
question on COMPUSERVE.  Of course, that would mean getting a COMPUSERVE
account.

But I ramble.  Thanks for listening.  I don't know what the results mean,
but here they are.
-- 
``Never string ethernet in the presence of a kitten.''
Laura Creighton		
ihnp4!hoptoad!laura  utzoo!hoptoad!laura  sun!hoptoad!laura
toad@lll-crg.arpa

hydar@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Dan Hydar) (10/11/86)

In article <1169@hoptoad.uucp> laura@hoptoad.uucp (Laura Creighton) writes:
[survey on nature of Hell]
>As for the rest:  it is a tie, folks.  Exactly 12 people think that it
>is a state, and 12 think that it is a place.  I don't know what that means.

   Hmmm...  How about "People who generalize about 'what all Christians
believe' should be assumed to have no idea what they're talking about"?
Seems reasonable to me, anyway...


				    |Dan|
      				    "Just browsing in the K-mart of ideas"