The Bible uses verbal imagery to "depict" the state of separation of the souls from God in a way that we can relate to. We really don't know what death "feels" like. Thus hell is depicte din many ways, all of which have a common theme and that is that the eternal state of separation from God is something none of us would wish.
If all the Bible verses discussing this, and there are many, are ALL WRONG, then Orthodoxy is hoarding to itself some of the greatest secrets of Christianity
You are too busy reading literally what's in the Bible. These are allegorical references to heaps of fire of Jerusalem garbage dumps, to burning sufur lake, to cold and desolate place where the warmth of God enver reached (outer space where the tenperature approaches absolute zero?), etc. he comon threatd to all is true and clear: Hell is hell!
My guess would be that it is completely within Orthodox theology for a person's soul to be mortal one minute, then immortal the next, then mortal again the following minute. If true, doesn't that throw out the actual meaning of the word?
The wages of sin are death; and we sin avery day, every minute of ours life on earth. So, I would say you are right.
Well, as you say, whatever it "feels" like it is something we don't want. That describes an immortal soul that is going to "feel" whatever it really is ...... forever. I have no problem taking the text at face value, unless there is a good reason not to, such as apparently contradicting other scripture, or an obvious parable, or a violation of reason. I am unaware of any contradicting scripture, or parables, or violations of reason in the verses encompassing our discussion.
You are too busy reading literally what's in the Bible. These are allegorical references to heaps of fire of Jerusalem garbage dumps, to burning sulfur lake, to cold and desolate place where the warmth of God never reached (outer space where the temperature approaches absolute zero?), etc. The common thread to all is true and clear: Hell is hell!
But other than the summary quote "darkness is where there is no light", what IS hell? How can there be a clear common thread if all of it is allegory that can be interpreted in a dozen different ways? I listed when I don't take the text literally (there may be other times), and none of those applies here. How do you know when to take the scripture as allegory and when not to? I'll bet it is whenever it disagrees with the consensus patrum, or whenever you just plain disagree with it. :) In these cases, passages in the Bible can be declared as an allegory for absolutely any outcome desired. So when you say "Hell is hell", that could mean absolutely anything. Apparently, men that you trust chose it to mean something not nearly so terrible as the text of the Bible describes.
I think it's really dangerous to just write off the text to allegory and preach that "we just don't know, it's probably pretty bad, but who knows". I am also at a loss to explain the possible motivation behind this. Normally I would think that a "brimstone" approach would help to consolidate power within the clergy and hierarchy. Such is critical to the life of the Church. But here, there appears to be a laissez-faire attitude about what the laity thinks about hell. I am reminded that Orthodoxy has its own definition for sin. It's really not the commission of evil, it's just missing the mark. I think that's the same attitude the Protestant pastors I recently criticized would have.