Go To Hell
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I finally got a chance to talk to my Mom. She took it pretty well for the most part.
We sat in the kitchen of the church basement and talked over tea. We made small talk at first, and then I asked her if she had any questions about what I told Dad. (I knew Dad had talked to her already)
She cried. “I can’t help what I believe,” she said. “And because of what I believe I am concerned for your soul. I mean, if you died today, where would you go, at least according to what I believe.”
I appreciated that she corrected herself, but it still made me tingly all over. You know the kind of feel of sheer terror when you literally feel something drain out of you.
It wasn’t because she was upset. It’s never a great thing to see your mother cry over you, but it wasn’t that.
I’m still afraid of Hell.
I’m sure some of you will be delighted, almost gleeful, because of my ardent objection to the theology of Atonement. Ironic that I have a closet case of Hadephobia.
I have very sound reasons for not believing in Hell, or a punitive God who would set up our need for Atonement. But it doesn’t take much for that careful reasoning to fall away like a trap door and cause me falling into a deep pit of fear.
It doesn’t take much really. What if? What if they are right? What if Hell does exist? And from there it’s all panic and fear and oh shit what the fuck I don’t know what is going to happen when I die and even if there is no Hell then what is there heaven or just nothing how is that any better oh shit I’m going to struggle through my life and then I’m going to die and either go to Hell or nothing oh shit oh shit.
Happens every time I think of death and every time I’m in an altar call.
That fucking bow your head and close you eyes nobody looking around bullshit where they tell you this could be your last chance to get out of going to Hell. After-life fire insurance for those who prefer not to burn. So Goddamn manipulative and so fucking effective. The tension. The twisting and turning. And if someone else goes up and breaks the ice, and people go, there’s less attention, less of a show. All you gotta do is get up and go and this sick feeling in your stomach, this impending doom, this future in Hell will be averted. Just come back. Just come back. It’s the only way to get out of this thing you’re locked into.
I can’t sit through altar calls very often anymore.
Speaking of deep pits, I had a lot of time to imagine what Hell would be like. No, I don’t imagine it like a place filled with fiery lava with devils and pitchforks. I always thought that was metaphorical.
No, imagine yourself stripped of your body, stripped of your senses, your ability to communicate and experience external stimuli. Then add in the sensation of pain. Physical (even though you have no physical form) emotional, all kinds. Eternal. No screaming, no passing out. Just pain.
Makes me want to cower in a corner right now. Actually, on second though, take away the pain, and just have the eternal solitude. That right there makes me want to drink myself to sleep.
That’s the best part. The way I stop it, the way I slam the door shut on the bottomless pit is not through careful reasoning and calm meditation. It’s distraction and avoidance.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get a drink and go to bed and try not to think about this anymore.
I finally got a chance to talk to my Mom. She took it pretty well for the most part.
We sat in the kitchen of the church basement and talked over tea. We made small talk at first, and then I asked her if she had any questions about what I told Dad. (I knew Dad had talked to her already)
She cried. “I can’t help what I believe,” she said. “And because of what I believe I am concerned for your soul. I mean, if you died today, where would you go, at least according to what I believe.”
I appreciated that she corrected herself, but it still made me tingly all over. You know the kind of feel of sheer terror when you literally feel something drain out of you.
It wasn’t because she was upset. It’s never a great thing to see your mother cry over you, but it wasn’t that.
I’m still afraid of Hell.
I’m sure some of you will be delighted, almost gleeful, because of my ardent objection to the theology of Atonement. Ironic that I have a closet case of Hadephobia.
I have very sound reasons for not believing in Hell, or a punitive God who would set up our need for Atonement. But it doesn’t take much for that careful reasoning to fall away like a trap door and cause me falling into a deep pit of fear.
It doesn’t take much really. What if? What if they are right? What if Hell does exist? And from there it’s all panic and fear and oh shit what the fuck I don’t know what is going to happen when I die and even if there is no Hell then what is there heaven or just nothing how is that any better oh shit I’m going to struggle through my life and then I’m going to die and either go to Hell or nothing oh shit oh shit.
Happens every time I think of death and every time I’m in an altar call.
That fucking bow your head and close you eyes nobody looking around bullshit where they tell you this could be your last chance to get out of going to Hell. After-life fire insurance for those who prefer not to burn. So Goddamn manipulative and so fucking effective. The tension. The twisting and turning. And if someone else goes up and breaks the ice, and people go, there’s less attention, less of a show. All you gotta do is get up and go and this sick feeling in your stomach, this impending doom, this future in Hell will be averted. Just come back. Just come back. It’s the only way to get out of this thing you’re locked into.
I can’t sit through altar calls very often anymore.
Speaking of deep pits, I had a lot of time to imagine what Hell would be like. No, I don’t imagine it like a place filled with fiery lava with devils and pitchforks. I always thought that was metaphorical.
No, imagine yourself stripped of your body, stripped of your senses, your ability to communicate and experience external stimuli. Then add in the sensation of pain. Physical (even though you have no physical form) emotional, all kinds. Eternal. No screaming, no passing out. Just pain.
Makes me want to cower in a corner right now. Actually, on second though, take away the pain, and just have the eternal solitude. That right there makes me want to drink myself to sleep.
That’s the best part. The way I stop it, the way I slam the door shut on the bottomless pit is not through careful reasoning and calm meditation. It’s distraction and avoidance.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get a drink and go to bed and try not to think about this anymore.
posted by deadwriter at 10:46 p.m.
7 Comments:
I can't imagine fearing hell, because in all my life, I never I did. I guess it depends on your parents. I heard all about hell and who was going there in church, and from other friends, but my parents never entertained those notions with me. My mother has always been one of those people who believe that if there is a hell, it's empty. I'm lucky that way.
I saw What Dreams May Come for the second time recently. It's more of an artistic rendering of the afterlife than a theological one, but I still like it. The characters create their own heaven when they die. It's heaven,in that everyone else is there, but they create the landscape based on their will and imagination. When Robin William's wife commits suicide, she isn't damned to hell by God. She sends herself there with her self-blame. I can relate to that. All she needs to do to leave is to accept that she has killed herself, and the possibility that she can leave, and then she does. Our mind certainly controls our experiences here. As a motivational speaker told the high school kids last week, where your attention goes, energy flows. I suppose our awareness could affect our reality we die too. And if that's possible, then you might want to exorcise yourself of your fear of hell. You wouldn't want to create hell for yourself just by not letting go of your hang-ups.
Whenever those (in my case, Baptist) fears well up in me, I force myself to remember one thing. There was no Hell in ancient Judaism until the Persian period. When people died, they "went to be with the ancestors (literal Hebrew: fathers)." Persians, on the other hand, certainly had Hell, not to mention advanced angelologies and demonologies. Mysteriously, Hell - in very nascent and debated forms - popped up in Judaism shortly after Persian hegemony did. By the time the sect of Judaism now known as Christianity rolled around, Hell, demon possession, angelic visits, etc, were more or less entrenched in the popular imagination. Early Christian texts made use of these motifs, just as did many other Greco-Roman Jewish texts of the time, as well as many "pagan" texts. So if you hold to a belief in a Hell that you will go to for eternity if you don't "x" (fill-in-blank-with-proper-get-out-of-hell-card), then come out and tell the truth: you follow ancient Persian religion. Now, why would you want to do a silly thing like that?
;) Dr_Weezie
Unfortunately, the soundtrack is not working yet. Please check back after the weekend to listen to the musical companion of this post. Hopefully the problems will be worked out by then.
deadwriter
This sounds eerily similar to Pascal's Wager, in which Pascal argues it's a better idea to believe in God than not to, because
- if you believe in God, and there is a God, you go to Heaven
- if you don't believe in God, and there is a God, you're likely to end up in Hell (if God isn't a Universalist, and that's a topic for my blog)
- if there is no God, it doesn't matter what you believe, since there is neither a Heaven nor a Hell
Since the only bad outcome results from there being a God and you not thinking so, you should believe in God. Y'know, just in case. ;-)
This 'is there a Hell?' is just a reformulation, where the existence of Hell is the question, and the trouble comes from you not thinking so.
That doesn't help you, though. Look on the upside - when the end comes, you won't be the only one enjoying the eternal life of pain. There are others who find absolutely inhuman and untenable, the idea of a God so hell-bent on making someone pay for sin that he brought a son into the world so he could die for them.
This turned from something not really about your dilemma into a personal rehashing of my own faith crisis. Zut.
Hope some of what I said was useful. ;-)
Branflakes,
I made an oversight and that's why your comment didn't get published until now. Sorry.
The thing about Pascal's wager is that he doesn't consider the implications of believing in God now, at least, in a petecostal way. yes you get love and support froma huge group of people, but also heaped on you is pressure to repress what I now think are normal human emotions and feelings (withing our current cultural context). This leads to an unhappy existence, and if there is nothing afterwards, you waste the only time you have being miserable.
The scariest part for me is that I won't be AWARE of the other people suffering with me in Hell. Sure, I'll know there are other people in Hell, but striped of my ability to see , hear, smell, tought or taste, I will still feel completely alone.
deadwrtier
Yes, but you're forgetting one thing: Pentecostals are even weirder than ancient Persians! Take them both out of the equation and you won't HAVE this problem. ;)
For a bit, I wondered if you agreed with my assertion that I said nothing of substance and just didn't bother to publish it. ;-)
From a recent post by a random Christian stanger on my blog (http://www.branflakes.net/), a similar debate ensued, and after some research, I discovered there are multiple theologies on atonement. I don't want to rehash the whole argument here, so take a look at the posting "On Atonement" at my blog.
I'm still not sure where I stand on atonement, but some of the other theologies rest a bit better on my conscience.
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