Go To Hell!!!

Would I ever send you a message like this? Even if I didn’t know you, even if you were trying to sell me a magic ointment for a thousand dollars that would make me young again? Even if you promised you would set up a chat with God for me? And for a continued donation of as much money as I could beg or borrow, you could intercede with God for me and assure me that I will go to Heaven when the time comes. And you also tell me that if I don’t qualify for Heaven, I will go to Hell and spend eternity in a sea of fire calling for help that doesn’t come. ?Unfortunately, some of you are so deep into the authoritarian and monetary returns that can be reaped from religion, turns the real essence of religion into just a word salad that makes money. That’s my opinion and I believe science when it says that the supernatural punishment of hell does not exist.

But a promise of eternal life living in beautiful Earthly pastures created for you by a God, who saved you from the horrors of Hell makes eternal life more livable for the many people who believe in God. True or false your religions do help many people, but the bottom line for many of these people is the money and social superiority that your believers give you. To you, I would say,

“Thanks, but no thanks, I’ve worked hard for over 80 years in science to live a productive life, and I won’t give that up for the fake promise of a supernatural existence.” You might have a stronger response to this. You might pull out all the stops and say something like this to me.

“God and I, are displeased with you and your effort to deny God’s existence, and not tithing e a significant sum of money to my people. You express false claims and fake science that deny the existence of God, and that are hurtful to religion. Thus, ?I am going to wish upon you the most damning and hurtful thing that I can envision, both in God’s eye and in my existence as a human being. So, I say, You are going to Hell upon your death and you will suffer the greatest torture ever given by God and expressed through all religions, a burning torture that continues without end. This is the ultimate sentence to human existence that religion and culture could not fully describe.

“According to our Christian Bible, Hell is ‘The Abode of the Unsaved.’ So unless you accept God as your savior you will go to Hell upon your death. So I’ll say to you, if you continue in disbelief, then you will Go To Hell, which is a place without God. It is the most horrible and painful forever supernatural existence that any human being can experience after life has ended. Please come back when you meet our God.”?

Yeah, most of, if not all, of religious expressions that call for damnation from a supernatural being and existence in a supernatural Hell, are derived from ancient supposedly supernatural concepts of the Christian religion. Sometimes it is specific, such as when Jesus says in Luke 16:23,

“And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.”

Jesus doesn't only reference hell, He also describes it in great detail, at least the ancient accounts of his presence on Earth describe what many authors think he said. He says it is a place of eternal torment (Luke 16:23), of unquenchable fire (Mark 9:43), where the worm does not die (Mark 9:48), where people will gnash their teeth in anguish and regret.?And among many others,

“And if any was not found written in the book of life, (meaning people who did not believe) he was cast into the lake of fire.” Rev. 20:15.’’

In the Bible Hell is also known as Sheol, meaning a place under the ground and in the land of gloom and deep darkness., and Hades, land of torment after death, a place where those who were rich and uncaring in life, receive their punishment. In traditional English Bible versions, Jesus does occasionally seem to speak of “Hell” – for example, in his warnings in the Sermon on the Mount: anyone who calls another a fool, or who allows their right eye or hand to sin, will be cast into “hell” (Matthew 5:22, 29-30).

Many authors often use the history and imagination of hell in stories and books. Most religions seem to use the concept of hell to create interest and suspense in their writing. The first time Hell was used in fiction was Dante’s Inferno written in the 14th century. This is the first part of the Divine Comedy written by Dante Alighieri in the 14th century. In today’s world, hell is a very mild expression of emphasis such as, Hell no, I don’t want a hot beer! Maybe the afterlife is divided by a cold beer at a pleasant beach; or floating in a lake of very hot beer. ?Well, I don’t think I’ll find out.

Dante Alighieri was the first to use religion in a fictional work. But as the early years and centuries followed Dante’s work, his fictional descriptions of hell gradually slipped into a religious feeling of what of what hell was like, and these lurid descriptions of the afterlife, punishment in Hell of Christians who were corrupt and the sins of the Christian Church that fell into corruption became a significant part of the Medieval Church. The echo of Dante’s Inferno dare still part of descriptions of Hell that appear in many Christian churches of modern times. ?

Most, if not all of religion is deeply concerned with life and death, belief and nonbelief in God, punishment and reward, resurrection after death, and the punishment of souls that ignored the teaching of the Christian church. Often great literature is found buried into the structures of today’s religious beliefs.

But there has been changes in the human world. Changes that took thousands of years to be recognized as the search for real Truth, not seeking supernatural beings and events to explain nature and humanity. These changes began with what is called The Age of Reason, and it began with the 17th century philosophers, the names are Pascal, Hobbes, Galileo, Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz to name a few, and what they began is now called Science. Science really threw a monkey wrench (the monkeys came a bit later), into the way humanity thought and used the things of the world to survive and accurately explain the origin and workings of the things of the world, and guide the development of humanity, an ape with intellect, to use this intellect to create a future that may create a new world that under humanity understands both itself and nature and uses science to carve a place in the Universe for life to come to know itself, and where it is.i ?

At this point you may be wondering, Why Moe, do you bother to even think to write about the problems caused by, and the impossibilities of religion in our modern world? And that’s a good question. Why waste my time? It’s not going make any changes in the world, probably just create problems that don’t need to be created and there’s little possibility of changing the mental status of humanity anytime soon. But one does what one needs to do. There’s an old song titled Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be) The future’s, not ours to see. So we do what we can, however we can, to make the presence of our species carve a future out of our reality that will preserve our future out of the presence of our species, without going to hell.

?Martin Moe