(original author unknown)
The common myth of hell comes from a misunderstanding of the word Gehenna which was actually a garbage dump outside of Jerusalem. There was always a fire burning because of garbage being burned, and it was sweltering and miserable to be there in the head of the summer. The people who didn't obey all of the laws of the land would sometimes get banished from the city and would go to live there, hoping to get enough food from the garbage to survive... All that was being communicated was that if you don't follow the laws of the land you might become homeless and live in a dump, hardly the image that the fundies [try to] paints, isn't it?