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The Definition of Hell "In
many religious traditions, Hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the
afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict Hell as
endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict Hell as an intermediary
period between incarnations. Typically these traditions located Hell under
the external core of the Earth's surface and often included entrances to Hell
from the land of the living. Other afterlife destinations included Heaven,
Purgatory, Paradise, Nirvana, Naraka, and Limbo. Other
traditions, which did not conceive of the afterlife as a place of punishment
or reward, merely described it as an abode of the dead—a neutral place
located under the surface of Earth (for example, see sheol
and Hades). Modern
understandings of Hell often depict it abstractly, as a state of loss rather
than as fiery torture literally underground, but this view of hell can, in
fact, be traced back into the ancient and medieval periods as well.[citation
needed] Hell
is often portrayed as populated with demons, who torment the damned. Many are
ruled by a death god, such as Nergal, Hades, Yama or the Christian/Islamic Devil, called Satan or
Lucifer." -
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