They merely said that being separated from God means suffering, while following H…er.im means walking towards the establishment of H…er.is Kingdom/City unto Earth. They talked more about Hell as a state than as a physical place, but, well… who cares nowadays, right ? Parabola never taught us anything about the real world, the spirit doesn’t exist, and morals are relative, they were simply naive ignorants who never had anything to teach us, embrace modernity and reject 100% of the past.
I don’t entirely agree with my comment either, because there’s multiple interpretation of Hell.
One of them is interesting, it says that if our consciousness survives after our death, our mind will finally think clearly, we’ll remember our past better than if it happened today, and we’ll be overwhelmed by shame, this hell would be created by ourselves.
Another one would talk about a real place, but not in the afterlife but right here, on Earth(, it combines perfectly with this talk of afterlife if you believe in reincarnation), and says that if we all live our lives ‘searching for’/‘aiming at’ God, then our descendants/reincarnations will live in Paradise(, or in Hell if we don’t).
There’re other interpretations, as well as the thought that we’re not free since we’re determined, so God decided before our birth whether we would end up in Hell or in Paradise, a thought discussed in the Middle-Ages and rejected in favor of free-will(, i don’t think Spinoza would disagree with the conclusion that God predestined us for Hell, if he believed in Hell).
Obviously, the most common explanation is that police(wo)men didn’t existed back then, God-fearing people was the equivalent of virtuous people, even when nobody can see/stop them.