Hell - A Self Damning Empty Threat

Hell as in visioned by Hieronymus Bosch

We have all been engaged in a political or philosophical conversion that turned ugly at one point or another. Casual debates can turn personal and when emotions boil over personal attacks often begin. It seems whenever religion is involved in these sorts of dialogues sooner or later, someone religious will say “you’re going to hell” or something suggesting the person who disagrees with them will, and should, suffer in the afterlife.

The first and perhaps most obvious problem with shouting “you’re going to hell” is that this is in no way an argument for or against whatever is being discussed regardless of the topic. The events of the afterlife are irrelevant to our on goings here in waking life, and who gets to go to heaven or hell hardly matter while we are alive. We are all brothers and sisters on earth and all our lives are equal in every moral, political, and lawful sense. Surely cooperation and reason should be the only criteria for us to consider when working through our current living condition, as that is the only way to be just. If we are being judged this is also our safest bet, we greatly increase our chances of being judged positively, you know, by doing our best. The afterlife is, at best, anyone’s guess, or more realistically, imaginary.

If we pause for a moment we can quickly identify “you’re going to hell” for what it really is; a threat of violence. Not a threat of ordinary violence either but rather a threat of infinite and endless violence. If someone were to utter a death threat legal action could be taken. Globally human civilization frowns upon murder as the single worst thing someone can do to another, so much so, that verbally expressing intent to kill is typically enough to be considered a criminal offensive. But if we are to compare the threat of death to the threat of hell we see there is no comparison, hell is literally infinitely worse. Hell is not just murder, it is endless murder. Hell is not just torture it is torment unimaginable by humans. Hell is the worst torture we can think of, multiplied by infinite, and multiplied by infinite again when we consider that it is meant to last forever. Hell is the worst thing ever times by infinity squared.

We people have a word to describe someone who uses violence and threats to pressure someone else into going along with them, we call it bullying. The only reason this kind of bullying often flies under the radar is that no sane person takes it seriously. It is asking a lot from any of us to accept the threat of hell as palpable since regardless of the argument we are obviously already in disagreement about the characteristics of god and the afterlife. They might as well threaten someone with an imaginary gun. But they think this nonsense is deadly real, so they are sincere in their threat and they are intentionally using fear tactics to bully us into agreeing with them, and they are stupid enough to think it will work. This kind of bullying only has a high level of success towards children and the mentally meek, both of which still require great ignorance in order to be duped. So being threatened with hell is not only monstrously offensive but also somewhat indirectly insulting to our intelligence.

The threat of hell is empty, but perhaps more so than we may have fully realized. The existence of the afterlife demands three very huge and dubious premises:

First, there is a nonphysical celestial realm of existence, even though there is absolutely no evidence to suggest such a thing exists and no reason to justify such a thing as tangible let alone probable.

Second, human existence contains some kind of energy that is connected to this above mentioned celestial realm and returns to it in death. Again there is no evidence for such energy’s existence and no reason to think such a thing as believable or that it would behave this way.

Lastly, and most damning, is an identity crisis. We know enough about neuroscience to understand how memories and emotions are created and how they can be manipulated. The specifics are unclear and it would be inhumane to have test subjects assist in investigating the matter further since the odds of them surviving the test is questionable. Nonetheless look no further than cases of brain trauma for evidence at just how easy it is to lose memories and personality traits when our physical minds are damaged. It may be a terrifying thought to some, but all we are, all our thoughts and feelings, all our dreams and memories are solely contained within the biochemistry of our physical brains, and that is a fact. When we die, the fauna and flora that comprise our bodies breaks down and is consumed by other fauna and flora, resulting in the cellular disassociation of our brains, and thus bringing an end to all that we are. The third premise demanded for an afterlife to exist is that our physical minds transform into nonphysical energies which is logically impossible.

If the first two premises were true it would be meaningless without the third because without it the experience would be a non-event. Without our minds the energy leaving our bodies would lack our identities and not really be us. But since the first two premises required actual magic in order to be rationalized we should not expect everyone to fully appreciate the convoluted absurdity that is this final premise and instead someone might just continue to ignore all reason in favor of magic. People are free to believe whatever they like but please understand the incredibly strong rationale argument against such a concept as the afterlife, and furthermore if such a concept should prove true there is no way anyone could accurately guess what an afterlife could possibly be like.

It is not unfair to conclude that the threat of hell is as empty as the head of the one uttering it.

But it gets worse.

When the threat of hell is made it is made because the person damning someone else believes this hell they are damning people too is real. This means they actually believe people who do not agree with them deserve to suffer infinitely forever. We have a word for this kind of intense hatred, we call it bigotry. The sort of hate that was necessary for elitist monsters to justify the slavedom and genocides within our dark histories is disgusting and embarrassing for all modern living humans. However, slavedom and genocide are nothing compared to hell, which is both inconceivably horrible and everlasting, which raises the question, how mind blowing hateful does someone half to be to genuinely wish hell upon someone? I believe we have now determined the most bigoted people ever. They hate others so much it cannot be put into words the horrors they wish upon them, and they are so brutal in their convictions they want this unfathomable torture to go on forever.

But it gets even worse somehow.

Kooks who have inadvertently showcased their extreme bigotry will often backtrack and claim they do not feel that way but god does. The crazy thing (though the list is very long at this point) is that people like this actually think they have avoided exposing themselves for the hatemonger that they are by blaming god. First of all, how are they unaware that people who disagree with them do not believe god is anything like what they claim or maybe they do not think god is even real. God is not speaking through someone in a heated debate nor do they get to speak for god. All this hate being spewed belongs to the one who said it not their imaginary friend.

But here is yet another thing, if we are to believe that god is this radical hate mongering tyrant, makes no difference. If god is such a diabolic sadistic bigot and actually believes anyone who holds a variant opinion on how humans should govern their own lives on earth should experience the worst kind of suffering forever, how is someone any less of piece of shit when agreeing with him? If we can understand why this sort of punishment is unjust and hugely prejudice then why worship the monster responsible? We have a word for people like this, coward.

It takes sickening cowardice to hide behind the skirt of god to express feelings of perverted bigotry. It takes even greater cowardice to worship such brutal tyrant in place of standing up for what is right. It takes a moment of great weakness to hide quivering in a shadowy corner when such an obvious matrix of falsehoods is being exposed and yet still cling to an imaginary friend as a shield of protection from thinking for one’s self. The price is high for such cowardice; the price is your mind, identity and dignity.

Only the worst among us would even consider the idea of hell as justified punishment for anything, and it is very revealing about how horrible someone has to be, if even for just a moment, to genuinely wish such a thing upon anyone. Next time someone threatens you with hell call them out on it, yes I know, the threat is empty, but the lunatic you are dealing with does not know that. They are serious and they want you beyond dead. Tell them you will not suffer their threats and expose them as the illogical, bullying, bigoted coward they are.

There are many people whose opinions I hate, (perhaps most notably people who think I should burn in hell) but I do not hate them. I appreciate most people believe the things they do primarily out of apathy, they like the idea of something being a certain way and never thought about it much beyond that, and if their curiosity should end there I am content to leave them be, these are not the sort of people who get violent about their beliefs. I also appreciate that most people believe things not for logical reasons but for emotional ones, which is exactly why they are equally irrational as they are potentially dangerous, they are willing to fight for their dreams and kill for their delusions, and it is these sorts of people that walk a slippery slope and I fear they do not know it. I would never wish such an abominable thing as hell, or torture, or death, on anyone. The only thing I would wish upon someone so lost is empathy because they are clearly in need of it.

Fortunately the inspiration for this essay does not come from personal tribulation but observation, though I have been told I would burn in hell multiple times in my life. After witnessing the invocation of hell in various dialogues I was given pause and I realized what was really being said, something far uglier than I would have initially suspected from such an empty threat. For the sake of argument, if a hell should be real where we are damned for simply not knowing or disagreeing, then the only righteous thing to do would be to fight like hell against it. Fortunately for all of us, this sickening view of the afterlife is part of a mythology belonging to barbarians from a time of great ignorance long ago and nothing more. If we are to explore new frontiers of philosophy and science we must do so with open minds and open hearts, but first, at the very least, we must learn from the mistakes of our barbarian ancestors; there is no reason for us to share in their archaic hatred.

- King of Braves