Nope.
The thing about Hell is… it only exists for those who think it exists. If you don’t believe in it, it just isn’t there. Essentially, no one can send you there but you. It’s just that simple.
People have built up a whole mythology of hell and hellishness, and on some plane it must exist because people believe it does. If people are willing to lend energy to an idea, they can create it. So I choose not to believe in the Christian hell or lend energy to its maintenance. The only way you could ever end up in such a place is if you honestly felt you deserved it, or if others convinced you that you did.
The myth of hell is based on a variety of sources, but it once had a physical location in Gehenna. This was the waste place where trash and criminals were disposed of outside the walls of Jerusalem. In another life, I was stoned by people who didn’t like what I had to say, dragged to Gehenna and set on fire. I refuse to think of myself as trash or a criminal, and I don’t think anyone belongs in a place that was based on what equates to the city dump.
People will continue to believe in a place where people are punished and call it hell, but before the Judeo-Christian concept, there was no such place. There is an underworld, a place of the dead, in nearly every belief system, but it is not hellish. It is not a place explicitly for punishment.
Hell is for those who believe in it, and will continue to exist for those who believe in it until they learn to believe otherwise. So long as people continue to fear death, they will fear a hell. So long as people are told that they are bad for no good reason, there will be a hell because they will come to believe through the words of others that they belong there.
Confused? I don’t believe in hell, but others do. Belief, as an extension of the Will, creates. If you choose to will hell into existence, then for you, it exists. Yay for you… I guess. o.O
July 8th
The feast of St. Sunniva was a medieval version of Sunna, the Norse solar maiden.
This is the second day of the Nonae Caprotinae honoring Juno.
Comments (16)
i saw a show a long time ago on near death experiences. there was a guy on there that didn’t beleive in heaven or hell and when he had his experience he claims he went to hell. he said it was the most terrifying expereince of his life and he could describe it. i don’t know if he was lying or not. you never know on things like that but he said it completely changed his life. because he felt he got a second chance coming back. i don’t know. i tend to think any experience like that can change peopes lives.
I tend to agree that one sends oneself to such a place, indeed, to any given place, in death, as in life. I don’t really think there is instant enlightenment upon death. Even given any Zoroastrian influence on Judaic/Christian mythologies, I think the notion of hell is a longing of the human ego for justice. But in that justice, because it is ego-based, one always develops a judgment manifesto for the other guy’s destination. It has been a useful tool for religions to bring converts into the fold on pain of damnation (although Judaism is not a proselyting faith system, but I would imagine it would keep those in the fold secure in their membership.)
There is a saying that goes: “We experience what we believe. If we don’t believe we experience what we believe, then we don’t, which still makes the first statement true.” I think the time is always here and now where we must examine our beliefs, our mythologies, because I think they follow us, presently as well as into any afterlife. It seems that any notion or experience we have draws its own conclusion. If you weigh the average lifetime of a human being against an eternity of either heaven or hell, then what is the purpose of living at all? The very notion becomes absurd. For every belief, there is an accompanying illustration, almost like one of those illusory mirrors at a carnival, only you think it is real. That is the paradox of the Law of Paradox, I suppose.
As always, a great post.
Blessings~
Hell definitely exists for those who believe in it. I find the Christian idea of sending people to hell just because they don’t believe in something kind of confusing. Especially people who lived before Christianity was even thought up! o.O
I agree with you… and you put it much nicer than I would have.
Maybe we could come up with our own belief of an afterlife so we could all hang together. 
This post reminds me of a great joke! Now, I’ll be smiling while I work my behind off today.
@NightlyDreams - Subconsciously, he might have felt he deserved punishment for something, even if he had consciously rationalized hell away, well we’re conditioned to believe in Hell by the society we live in and so he ended up there. I don’t think people have to end up there if they’re wise enough to know it’s a construct. It’s like a spirit trap created by a meme. (Yup, back on memes again.
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@Bijouli - I agree and I like your response. Very well thought out. The problem with death, as with life, is that we clothe ourselves in the illusion of our belief and only someone who knows themselves well will be able to remove those illusions at will to discover what is really there after all. I have always said that life is just a gestation period for the maturation of the soul, like a caterpillar to butterfly. Those events and ideas which we choose to ingest while we live are the substances that shape our soul’s form and environs in death. Illusions are useful if you know you’re using them, and they are not using you.
@heidenkind - Funny, if you read the old Irish mythologies, you get exactly the same response. Even though Christianity ultimately triumphed there, initialy the Pagan people of Eire also asked about their distant ancestors and got an unsatisfactory answer. Still, they converted. It can’t have bothered them too much, or maybe it was simply a war of attrition… they couldn’t do anything for their long dead kin, but they could at least save themselves and their descendants, or so they thought.
Hurrah for the returning Pagans. I spit in your eye St Patrick. The snakes were only sleeping after all. lol
@Broom_Service - Well, I do think I’ve developed some tact over the years. I got tired of my mom saynig I had none. lol I’m positive we can hang out in the afterlife together if we put our minds to it. Have you ever seen What Dreams May Come with Robin Williams? The afterlife is a collective creation. If you think about someone there, you can be by their side in an instant or longer if you choose to take the scenic route. heh The afterlife is fluid thought, a thought-scape, the stuff of dreams.
Personally, I’m building a library (at least as awsome as the library in the movie). Now you know where to find me. Don’t be a stranger.
I have to take the Cristian defense with you here,but I won’t get preachy because I hate that approach myself (and that’s what Revelife’s for, right?
). I believe in hell, but as something that’s yet to come when Jesus punishes sinners…not something horrific and terrifying that devours evil souls the minute they pass on, but a punishment for those who choose their own selfish ways instead of the eternal life God has to offer. And it isn’t permanent, either–a loving God doesn’t sentence anyone to perpetual torment, it has it’s eventual end–at least that’s what I believe. It was really cool to read your take on things, though!
@ElusiveSoul - Thanks, and it’s nice to meet a Christian who doesn’t believe in eternal damnation and suffering. It always seemed a bit sadistic to me. Have you read about all the hoopla over the polls that seem to indicate Christians (particularly the Right) are more inclined to approve torture than other faiths? I had been wondering if that played into their belief in Hell at all… as if their belief in an eternal punishment validated torture of enemies on Earth. Then there’s the FOX news and affiliates who will call what other nations do to their prisoners torture, but what we have done in Guantanimo Bay is apparently not? People like that really lower my respect for Christians in general, so it’s nice to meet one who’s not the stereotypical hellfire and brimstone Christian.
@harmony0stars - he could have been lying completely too. i mean people do lie for no reason sometimes.
@NightlyDreams - True, but there is a reason some people lie and that’s to get attention. It certainly made him famous, or infamous, as the case may be. And he was able to use it as a vehicle for his views on the afterlife. Who knows? Maybe he believed all along and just felt saying he didn’t made him cooler.
@harmony0stars - I really like that movie. And, I won’t be a stranger. I may spend a very long time in your library. We can discuss what we read.
I think I’ll work on my place in the afterlife while I repack some more boxes. 
@harmony0stars - i tend to think most people have an ulterior motive. rarely if ever do i not feel that way. that is unless i feel i know someone really well and knw what motivates them that is.
@Broom_Service - @harmony0stars - Have either of you watched Dead Like Me? It’s a vision of the afterlife where it’s just like being alive and working at a temp agency. Now that would be hell.
@heidenkind - I haven’t seen that one. I’ll have to check it out.
@Broom_Service - Both my mom and my little brother are obsessed with it now.
@heidenkind - I watched some of the series when it was on scifi channel. It was cute, but annoying. I don’t like the idea of a clueless reaper.
@heidenkind - That’s kinda scary.