Don't Worry...Hell Makes No Sense Whatsoever

Last week Christopher Hitchens passed away. Prior to his death, Mr. Hitchens foresaw a couple of things happening when his time was to come. Firstly, he predicted that there would be those who claimed he had a last minute death bed conversion to Christianity. Secondly, he predicted that there would be those who claimed, as soon as he died, that he is now in hell. The second of these has happened, though I won't be referring to the specific people who have done so - they don't deserve the publicity.

But, more importantly, these types of claims give us the opportunity to pause and really consider their utter absurdity. Consider for a moment the idea of a hell. Most people will traditionally think of hell as a place where there is eternal suffering and pain at the hands of the Devil. Many modern religious believers will have long since given up the notion of a goat-hooved caricature of the Devil, but many undoubtedly still believe that hell consists of horrific suffering as a result of being tortured by the Devil and his demons. I always like to consider things a bit literally and see where it takes me, so consider that version of hell for a moment. The Devil is God's enemy. God will undoubtedly do one of two things to his mortal enemy of the ages: either destroy him once and for all, or punish him forever. Now, if the Devil is the sort of character who gets off on torturing people to begin with, then spending an eternity in hell torturing unbelievers is probably what the Devil wants to do for an eternity. That would be like heaven for the Devil, wouldn't it? So, if God is just and can't stand evil, then he must either completely destroy the Devil, or make him suffer endless torture alongside all the unbelievers. Either way, hell most certainly does not consist of suffering at the hands of the Devil as that would bring pleasure to the Devil, which surely God wouldn't allow. Why would God reward the Devil with what he wants at the end of the world?

So, many more modern Christians might shun the idea of a Devil-centred hell then. Perhaps they espouse the popular "eternal isolation from God" version of hell. But would that be hell? Suppose you weren't being tortured. Suppose you were alive and pain free for eternity, but were separated from God. Wouldn't that be a version of heaven for an atheist? We're going around in circles here. I just can't find a decent hell.

Then, of course, there is the scientific problems associated with an afterlife of any sort, let alone hell. We know that our personalities are the result of cerebral structures. Give someone a degenerative brain condition and their personality literally changes. They are no longer the same person. Tragically this happens all to often in old age with the onset of Alzheimer's and other debilitating diseases. So once the brain is dead and creamated, the personality of the deceased no longer exists. The memories, language, intellect, are all gone never to exist again. Would God really re-establish that person physically (by somehow magically re-creating their brain physically) just so that he could show them he is right after all and to punish them by separating them from him for an eternity? We know the God of the Bible is petty, but that takes it to a whole new level.

So, if you are one of those Christians who are still struggling with the whole issue of fear of hell, or if you are one of those newish atheists who still occasionally feel the tug of Pascal's Wager out of fear of being wrong after all, then relax. Think it through. There is no hell. The whole concept makes absolutely no sense at all. It is not at all reasonable.

Instead, go have a glass of Johnnie Walker (no ice), sit down with a good bit of writing by Christopher Hitchens, and enjoy what he had to offer the world. His writings are immortal and heavenly.

Never Miss a Marketing Opportunity

When I was a child, my family attended a church in which the minister, an American Baptist, never missed an opportunity for an altar call. In fact, his every sermon, no matter the topic, always rounded to a call for anyone who had not yet done so to physically come to the front of the church and accept Jesus as their personal saviour. This was perhaps one of the least intellectual and instructional churches I ever attended. The whole message revolved around a one-off opportunity to become a Christian. From then on, nothing really mattered. Perhaps it’s understandable, acceptable even, for a minister to make an altar call from the pulpit once a week on Sunday morning. After all, what else do you expect to hear when you attend church? Why should that be offensive in the least in a church service?

But, there are times when it is offensive. I witnessed one such occasion a few years ago. I attended the funeral of a young man who had been killed suddenly in an accident. The funeral service was in a community hall in the town where this man had lived. It was packed full of everyone in the community. I suspect everyone was there whether they knew the deceased or not. That fact was clearly not lost on the minister who conducted the service as he saw a golden opportunity to proselytize. The service proceeded as one might expect, with some stories and anecdotes about the young man’s life. This young man had grown up in a semi-religious family and had never really taken religion too seriously. He liked to party and have a good time and was not someone you would ever suspect of being a Christian if you met him. At the funeral this fact was initially unspoken and left alone, but sure enough the minister couldn’t pass up an opportunity to save a few souls. Eventually he rounded on the topic of where this young man had now taken up residence for eternity. At a funeral, with relatives including in this case the young man’s pregnant wife sitting crying in the front row, the last thing one needs to think about is the possibility that their husband, son, brother, father, was now in hell being tormented by Satan himself. The minister at this particular funeral decided to go the alternate route, and confidently proclaimed that this young man had confessed his faith to the minister not a year or two before his death. He was, even now, rejoicing with God in heaven, the minister confidently announced. Then he went on to deliver the meat and potatoes of his message, all about the deliverance from death to those who accepted Jesus. I was immediately back in my childhood church.

This is wrong on so many levels, one isn’t sure where to begin. Firstly, there is the obvious problem with the minister acting as eternal judge of the man’s soul. Who is he to judge? I thought Christians believed that God sat in judgment of the deceased. Clearly, though, this minister was astute enough to recognize the potential doubt about the eternal destiny of the deceased. He sensed that the family needed that worst part of Christianity: false hope. He also felt, presumably as a result of the very fact that this young man was not particularly religious, the need to publicly leave no doubt as to his fate. Secondly, why turn a funeral, where people are emotional, weakened by grief, and vulnerable, into an opportunity to enlarge your flock? I remember feeling genuinely sickened at the thought of this minister hoping to cash in on the fear of death so palpable at the funeral with an enlarged congregation. This goes to one of the main reasons I originally rejected Christianity’s claim of truth. Truth is self-evident. It does not need a salesman. In science, for example, teachers might educate students on facts and evidence, but they feel no need to convince and sell their truth to students. Yet in religion this sales pitch is an absolute requirement because the ridiculous ideas passed off as truth by the religious are as laughable as a late-night info-mertial unless they are properly marketed. And thirdly, though this didn’t really hit me until later when I had a chance to really think about it, if this minister was so confident that the young man, who had so clearly lived his life as he pleased without religion, was no in heaven, then why the need for others to make an even more public and sincere profession of faith. Once the bar for admittance is established, why waste energy over-shooting it? Without even realizing it, this minister had effectively said to his community: “Don’t worry about coming to church, don’t worry about living life as a Christian, don’t worry about any of that. Just swing by my office sometime and proclaim your faith, then go about your life as you please. That’s all you really need for admittance to heaven." Talk about shooting yourself in the foot with your own message.

I watched as this young friend of mine was lowered into the ground in a wooden box. Those around him sang about the glory, grace, and love of God. I drove home late at night and looked out into the darkness and realized that the only thing that remained of my friend was now out in that darkness under six fee of earth. That was it. He no longer existed beyond a broken body. It was very tragic and devastating. I have almost never felt such a profound sadness and sense of loss. But it was also very real. The young man's life was over. It was his turn. He had positively affected many lives and there was much to be thankful for. I appreciated having known him. And my own mortality became more focused and real. I recognized that all life is at once valuable and fragile.

To infinity…and beyond.

Image courtesy of Google Images.

One of the unavoidable issues one must face head on during or following a shift from being religious to embracing atheism is one’s future death. Many religions promise an afterlife. Indeed, there are those who hypothesize that religion in its most primitive forms originally developed as our species gradually evolved to consciously acknowledge our impending and unavoidable death and in an attempt to escape that prickly part of reality. Whether this is the case or not, however, it does seem clear that most modern popular religions make promises of, if not escape from death outright, an even better alternative than life itself once one passes over to “the flip side”. The religion of my past, Christianity, is infamous for its promises of an afterlife full of either reward or punishment, depending on performance (or at least belief) in this life. But, as one moves away from religion and accepts that we are mammals, restricted to all the nuances of the carbon cycle that we share with all other living things, then there is no alternative but to accept that you will one day die and cease to exist.

I remember, for myself, this was a bit of a stumbling block as I made my move away from religion. It seemed a bit harsh luck to find out that one’s eternal reward wasn’t real after all, and the idea of simply ceasing to exist was at first a bit frightening and somewhat depressing. Mixed in with this, of course, was the relief of knowing that there was no threat of hell either. I wouldn’t be suffering an eternity of pain, loneliness and despair just because once, as a child, the unforgivable thought: “There is no holy spirit,” had crossed through my consciousness (within a few minutes of discovering that that was the only unforgivable sin).

Now I have accepted quite readily that there is no afterlife. It has been quite a relief actually, and has certainly helped me appreciate this one life for what it is. One mustn’t put anything off until after death anymore! One thought, admittedly not my own, that initially helped was the realization that I had not been alive for all of time until my birth and that hadn’t bothered me in the least. Not being alive ever again after my death should be no more frightening or depressing. One shouldn’t feel cheated for no longer having the chance of an afterlife, but rather ecstatic that one exists at all.

Along this line of thought, I started to think a bit about death and the loss of loved ones. Though one’s passage into oblivion could hardly be bothersome to oneself (at least once the actual passing is over with), there is, obviously the potential for sadness and loss amongst loved ones that are “left behind” (temporarily of course). In this light I began to look at my own death in a whole new light. I realize that the solar system, including earth and all life on it, will be obliterated in a few billion years when our sun expands into a red giant and then fizzles down to a white dwarf. Then, for all eternity (as far as we know), there will be nothing as far as our solar system is concerned. Ultimately, to put is bluntly, we are all royally fucked. My present view of death is that at the moment of one’s death, time accelerates immediately to that obliteration. Time, of course, does not accelerate after someone’s death. We have all seen a loved one die and then go on to live many years or decades ourselves. But, that is how time is viewed from our living perspective. Not that time, or anything else for that matter, can be viewed from death, but in a sense the only logical view is that as one dies, everything instantly ceases to exist. In a sense my thinking is that eventually all life will end, so as far as I’m concerned when I die, it happens instantly. My best visualization of this process mimics that moment in the original Star Wars movies when Han Solo engages the hyper drive and every light source in view seems to accelerate at a terrific speed (on that rare occasion when the Millenium Falcon’s hyper drive actually functioned properly).

I have no logic or reason to support this notion of death but, given that the end of all life on earth is a statistical certainty, it seems a close enough approximation of reality. In some ways, this view (or really more of an acceptance of the future reality) could be seen as sad. Every living thing on earth will one day be gone. Every parent knows that their child will also on day die. It is incredibly difficult to look at your young child and accept that. But, it is also a remarkably calming visualization when you think about it. Life is special. It is rare. And, it is short. Cherish every moment.