Is hell in Doom christian hell?

I've always just thought of it as a generic hell. I really don't pay attention to any of the symbolism.

GoatLord said:

There is clearly some kind of broadly defined Hell, which in modern times is mostly tied to Christianity, that is volcanic and sulfuric.

No, there is not. There's a public preconception that gets reinforced through repetitive use (like the depiction of the devil—horns were considered a good thing in the Old Testament), but there's no "defined" hell. I do agree that people often took what scared them and projected it onto the afterlife—many beliefs depict the underworld as a dark, sorrowful place which may or may not have fire and sharp things—but our concept of hell differs from what our ancestors (& their neighbors) probably believed in. The only real unifying aspect between the various hells is that they're almost always multi-layered.

dobu gabu maru said:

No, there is not. There's a public preconception that gets reinforced through repetitive use (like the depiction of the devil—horns were considered a good thing in the Old Testament), but there's no "defined" hell. I do agree that people often took what scared them and projected it onto the afterlife—many beliefs depict the underworld as a dark, sorrowful place which may or may not have fire and sharp things—but our concept of hell differs from what our ancestors (& their neighbors) probably believed in. The only real unifying aspect between the various hells is that they're almost always multi-layered.

I tend to disagree. The Abrahamic religions (Islam, Christianity and Judaism) are fairly consistent with explaining Hell as a place of eternal torment. Unless you are talking about reincarnation religions like Hinduism or Sikhism (where we get the idea of 'karma' from), Hell is a real place made up of demons and the unfortunates who didn't repent/convert, and exists to torture them forever. It also mirrors a heaven too.

The hell in Doom is hardly a Christian Hell though. You have monsters with rocket launchers, mechanical lifts/factories everywhere, spiderdemons with lasers and gattling guns fused to them, and the icon of sin with thick pipes and conduits feeding it. There are distant Christian references, like chandeliers and pentacles, but otherwise it's an aggressive, biomechanical idea of Hell.

Sometimes I wonder what "Christian"/"Holy"/"Anti-Demon"/"Angelic" etc counterparts to doom monsters would look like, and what their abilities would be.

Possessed Soldier --> UAC Soldier (not necessarily "Holy", but opposed to Demons)
Possessed Shotgunner --> UAC Shotgunner (same as above)
Possessed Chaingunner --> UAC Chaingunner (same as above)
Wolf SS --> US Marine (same as above)

That was the easy part, of course.

Hell Knight = Heaven Knight (duh)
Baron of hell = Baron of Heaven (duh, again)
Arch vile = Arch angel
Cyber demon = Cyber Angel (kick-ass)
Spider mastermind = Jesus

Danfun64 said:

Sometimes I wonder what "Christian"/"Holy"/"Anti-Demon"/"Angelic" etc counterparts to doom monsters would look like, and what their abilities would be.

Possessed Soldier --> UAC Soldier (not necessarily "Holy", but opposed to Demons)
Possessed Shotgunner --> UAC Shotgunner (same as above)
Possessed Chaingunner --> UAC Chaingunner (same as above)
Wolf SS --> US Marine (same as above)

That was the easy part, of course.

Icon of Sin - God

deadwolves said:

I tend to disagree. The Abrahamic religions (Islam, Christianity and Judaism) are fairly consistent with explaining Hell as a place of eternal torment. Unless you are talking about reincarnation religions like Hinduism or Sikhism (where we get the idea of 'karma' from), Hell is a real place made up of demons and the unfortunates who didn't repent/convert, and exists to torture them forever. It also mirrors a heaven too.

They're not fairly consistent though. There's no Hebrew analog of Hell (the closest we have is Gehenna, and even then it can simply mean the grave or a purgatory of sorts [all references to it are about death]), and the Bible's references of Hell boil down to "eternal fire" and "weeping & gnashing of teeth" (with no mention of other living creatures, barring the prophetic nonsense in Revelations). Jahannam/Al-nar seems closer to our modern concept of Hell since it actually describes the locale & torture, but it's a borrowed expansion off of the Christian concept, not necessarily a compliment to it. I definitely concede that we have a modern construct of hell that people believe in that has fire and torture devices, but there's no one definition between the Abrahamic schools. Similar through lines, yes, but the difference is in the details. Additionally, there's also modern schools of thought that take the Christian concept of Hell to mean "separation from God"—no agony, fire, or torture, but only (potentially momentary) oblivion.

Sorry to go off on the tangent guys—I suppose I have a stick up my butt regarding afterlife discrepancies :P

When Doom was in production I'm fairly sure they were aiming for their take of a legitimate Hell with a heavy metal twist to it. There are quotes taken from the Bible so it somewhat narrows it down. I wouldn't put too much thought into it as I doubt the developers did.

Something to note: I think someone mentioned there was an upside down cross in the game. If I remember correctly, that's actually a Christian Symbol for St Peter. Although ignorant death metal artists and pathetic Satanic plebs use it as anti-christian symbolism.

Maybe it's Doomguys Hell. Like, it's his own nightmare. When he stepped on the teleporter, He saw Hell as if it was a mixture of his worst nightmares.

Also, Is the entire Planetary body of Deimos floating in the atmosphere of hell or is it just a portion?

Saint Peter asked to be crucified upside down, as he felt he wasn't worthy of being punished in the same manner as Christ. I think what changed this was the film The Omen and the rise of the Satanic Church, along with the eventual fixation on anti-Christian themes in heavy metal ala Venom, Hellhammer, Bathory, Slayer, etc. The inverted cross quickly became repurposed as something evil, which is interesting because it begs the question: Does reinterpreting the context change the original meaning, or are there now two acceptable meanings?

No. It's just a load of rocks and lava and shit.

I was always just spooked by the scary demons and then I shot them.

Tuaam said:

Also, Is the entire Planetary body of Deimos floating in the atmosphere of hell or is it just a portion?

Clearly it's just the chunk where the UAC bases are located.

Avoozl said:

But for one thing the Icon of Sin doesn't really resemble the Christian devil.

I love the idea that for all his deviousness, cunning and allure, at the end of the day Satan is just a giant wall with a hole in his forehead that leads to a small room with John Romero's severed head on a pole in it.

Winged_Warrior said:

Clearly it's just the chunk where the UAC bases are located.

Except that...

Doom Manual said:

Deimos simply vanished from the sky.

and

End of TSOH said:

DEIMOS FLOATS ABOVE HELL ITSELF!

The game clearly states that it's the whole moon of Deimos floatin' around. Not "the Deimos base" or "the bit of Deimos where UAC set up shop".

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure Deimos is more than a jagged cone of rock.

The entire moon is no longer orbiting Mars, but it's not exactly whole in Hell anymore.

The jagged cone appearance is for artistic reasons. Looks better than Deimos' actual shape, which would appear to be vaguely potato-esque in appearance:


Deimos is also tiny.

HorrorMovieGuy said:

Spider mastermind = Jesus

Son, I'm disappoint. Not just plain "Jesus" or "Christ", but

What if when Deimos teleported, it broke. So the parts that were full of cool bases the demons made float in the air, while the rest just fell down. Then Deimos would be gone and all coney.

BaronOfStuff said:

The jagged cone appearance is for artistic reasons. Looks better than Deimos' actual shape, which would appear to be vaguely potato-esque in appearance:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Deimos-MRO.jpg

Deimos is also tiny.

I find the shape of the planet oddly hilarious. It looks like it has the Zika Virus. Oh God I'm a prick. Too soon.

Chezza said:

I find the shape of the planet oddly hilarious. It looks like it has the Zika Virus. Oh God I'm a prick. Too soon.

It could be that the moon looks like a jagged cone in the game because of Hell's gravity affecting it. So, parts of the moon would shift downward / warp and slowly break apart.

Again, it could be a portion of it.

For me it's an evil dimension that co-exists with our own reality. It's a place of pure chaos and malice. I like to think of it as the same hell in the film Event Horizon. The timeless enemy alien race (I consider them to be aliens, since they're from outer space and thus the known existence) in Doom take on the form of Christian demons to terrify their human victims and mock them for their mortal beliefs.

You know, this is one of the many things that confused me regarding the Deimos floating above Hell. Some speculate Hell to be another dimension while others believe it could be an alien planet. Either way, Hell in Doom couldn't be based on the Christian mythology since according to Christians, Hell is deep down beneath the Earth's crust. The arachnotrons and spider masterminds further debunk this considering they're alien-like in appearance, not to mention nearly robotic as well. Furthermore, Evilution's storyline revealed how the demons invaded the Io base through a giant spaceship. Since Doom had more emphasis on action than story, it is never accurately explained on what Hell is supposed to be in its universe, and as a result we had countless of interpretations for every megawad, mod, etc.

I always thought Doom's Hell was a world of pure 90s awesome fuled by Pizza, Pepsi and John Carmack unholy coding skills

well seeing how id is from texas im going to say it seems likely they got most of their personal concept of hell from the bible.

Not to mention their extensive collection of heavy metal records.

Maybe it's just me, but I always imagined it being some parallel dimension to our own dimension, that's very reminiscent of the hellish other-dimension described in Event Horizon, or some alien world that we view as being Hell but actually isn't.

Or maybe it's the Sumerian interpretation of Hell... after all Evil Dead II DID inspire Doom. =3

Maybe I'm overthinking it though. It's probably just hell. =P

It's specifically Mormon Hell.

GoatLord said:

Jazz from Hell :-p

You haven't listened to any of Sun Ra's albums, by any chance? ;)