Interesting concept is Hell, not so much a real place as a state of mind. Most Christian scholars these days teach that it is defined as 'Separation from God', so it is perfectly possible to exist in Hell now and not know it.
Certainly more traditional churches and faiths would teach that hell is a spiritual realm where the soul manifests as an ethereal version of the corporeal self and is hence subject to whatever tortures are particular to that faith, be they "Belchin' shmoke and burnin' flayam, dayumned for all eterneteh for dishobeyen the word of yo great Gawd" or something more realistic, not to express any form of bias toward any religion in particular.
From a literary perspective, Hell has been described in many weird and wonderful ways throughout the centuries. I quite like John Milton's explanation in 'Paradise Lost', but if you don't fancy picking your way through that language, then read 'Surface Detail' by Ian M. Banks. That is all about virtual hells in a society where the 'soul' is downloaded into a giant super-matrix where the dead can still be contacted by the living. Seriously hard sci-fi here, wouldn't recommend it for a first read.
In my opinion, if there is a hell, or indeed if there are multiple Hells for different religions, then they are entirely the construct of humanity. Religious people have it drummed into them what Hell is going to be like and so they would experience it as they have been told to. It is entirely possible that, once dead, the complex pattern of electrical signals that make up what we perceive to be a personality would transfer into an 'equal realm' where they join all the other patterns in sort of 'static-dance'. So Heaven and Hell are actually the same place, just experienced on a different level, both from each-other and from the physical world we experience with our senses.
Of course, when you die, you might just 'cease to be' and actually have no experiences post-mortem.
Certainly more traditional churches and faiths would teach that hell is a spiritual realm where the soul manifests as an ethereal version of the corporeal self and is hence subject to whatever tortures are particular to that faith, be they "Belchin' shmoke and burnin' flayam, dayumned for all eterneteh for dishobeyen the word of yo great Gawd" or something more realistic, not to express any form of bias toward any religion in particular.
From a literary perspective, Hell has been described in many weird and wonderful ways throughout the centuries. I quite like John Milton's explanation in 'Paradise Lost', but if you don't fancy picking your way through that language, then read 'Surface Detail' by Ian M. Banks. That is all about virtual hells in a society where the 'soul' is downloaded into a giant super-matrix where the dead can still be contacted by the living. Seriously hard sci-fi here, wouldn't recommend it for a first read.
In my opinion, if there is a hell, or indeed if there are multiple Hells for different religions, then they are entirely the construct of humanity. Religious people have it drummed into them what Hell is going to be like and so they would experience it as they have been told to. It is entirely possible that, once dead, the complex pattern of electrical signals that make up what we perceive to be a personality would transfer into an 'equal realm' where they join all the other patterns in sort of 'static-dance'. So Heaven and Hell are actually the same place, just experienced on a different level, both from each-other and from the physical world we experience with our senses.
Of course, when you die, you might just 'cease to be' and actually have no experiences post-mortem.
