What’s up with Hell?
This whole Hell thing is starting to get me down. Not so much that I’m worried about going there, since I’ve noticed God is not insane, but that it’s considered so darn normal. “Hell, yeah, la de da, that’s normal, dead people burning for all eternity. Makes perfect sense.”
Is it only me and my twisted reality, but do aliens make a lot more sense than Hell? At least there is some modicum of logical reasoning that might indicate there could be life elsewhere in the galaxy. But the idea that the All-Powerful Creator of Everything would care to burn his children for eternity boggles the mind – or even provide a place for that to occur: eternal burning place, check. What on earth for? Can’t He just snap us with rubber bands or something?
Oh I know, there were a lot of fornicators back in the day, surprise surprise, and people who didn’t like His book. Now I’m all for punishing book critics, but not forever, even them. How about if we just slap them around some until they give us a good review, then let them go back to having pleasure occasionally?
Somehow I got this weird idea that revenge is bad. And punishment with no chance to alter one’s behavior afterward is nothing but revenge. God wants revenge on humans? Man, that’s one dumbass God.
What kills me is that this bizarro belief is considered normal and loving by the religionists. How dare you question our loving beliefs? Off with his head!
Not the Red Queen,
LWIII
Not the Red Queen but are you the real McQueen.
At least aliens dazzle you with a light show every now and then. Plus they have their own town, so to speak, out in the desert somewhere. Has a flying saucer diner and everything. What’s hell got going for it…Charlie Daniels and a song about a fiddle.
Check please, I’ll take the aliens.
ClX
Maude, blue-alien special to go please!
Here you go, sir.
Go read Julian of Norwich, a 14th century English anchoress (a particularly amazing kind of religious figure). She believed that God had spoken with her during a serious illness, and I have to say, I hope that God did, because I like her God a lot.
She had to explain her visions very carefully in her public book because she didn’t want to be accused of heresy. So, when she takes up this exact question (why does a loving God create hell?), she does so cautiously. All she will say about her own revelation is that, while the Bible is indeed accurate in all things, after Judgment Day God will accomplish a “great deed” that is a mystery to us now but that will “make well all that is not well.” She continues to wonder how God expects to pull this off, given that “all” is plainly not “well” if hell still exists, and God finally says, “That which is impossible to thee is not impossible to me. I shall save my word in all things, and I shall make all things well.”
T.S. Eliot, at the end of his his gorgeous poem *Four Quartets,” quotes Julian from this section of her book: “All shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.”
Anyway, can you tell I’m a graduate student in English Lit? Of COURSE you can’t. I hide it well.
Here’s a passage from Julian that I found online, in which she talks about sin (though not hell specifically):
http://www.gloriana.nu/sin.htm
Basic Julian info:
http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/julian.htm
Anchorites:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchorite
And finally “Little Gidding” from *The Four Quartets*:
http://www.tristan.icom43.net/quartets/gidding.html
Holly whoo-hoo! Thanks so much for the grand reply. You just posted the best comment of all time (almost a year) on my blog. Sure do appreciate it.
I will definitely check out Julian of Norwich, if only to find more quotes for the Extracto:
http://www.tomhowe.org/extracto-literarium.php
Have you been there? It’s heaven on a stick for English majors with a spiritual bent, though ain’t got anything from the Bible, since I never realized it’s accurate in all things before and I didn’t want to encourage those who did, since they tend to be so darn mean already.
Actually, the Bible is made out of words, right? As a scribbler you know by now that words ain’t squat, as far as accuracy goes. If one is looking for accuracy, you’re restricted to mathematics. Words are just tools for communication and persuasion. Truth is not found in them, although they are good for description and dialogue, and persuading people that you know what the truth is.
Truth is found in the heart, not in words.
Off to check out your links. Thanks for sharing!
Way,
LWIII