hell
From RationalWiki
Hell is a small village in Nord-Trøndelag, Norway.
Hell is four-fifths of the way to saying "hi" to someone (except in Kleberg County, Texas).
Hell is also the name of a crater on the moon.[1]
You can also find a couple of Swiss Hells in the Jura canton of Switzerland under the French name Les Enfers (the hells), lots of horses, cows, trees, and grass there, not far away from a nice kayaking place also.
In the United States, if someone tells you to "go to Hell", they probably mean the village in Livingston County, Michigan. Hell is located just north of the Washtenaw County line, about 15 miles northwest of Ann Arbor and about three miles southwest of Pinckney, the nearest town. Alternatively, they could mean Los Angeles.
Is there anything else special about hell? Read on...
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[edit] Hell
Okay, so you wanted to know what Hell is. Hell is also an effective mechanism of control discovered by human beings about 2,000 years ago. You know, "Give me ten percent of your gross income or your soul will burn for all eternity in hell." The hell meme developed from Gehenna, which was the name of the Jerusalem city dump. Gehenna was constantly smoldering with spot fires which never went out and Jesus taught several parables about the worthy going to see Abraham after they died while the unworthy were thrown into Gehenna. Fundamentalist preachers, seeing the real power of the fear motive, have interpreted these parables as reports about actual conditions in the afterlife. Numerous religions have their own version of Hell, one prominent religion has Gre'Thor, where the dishonorable are eternally tortured. Although unlike in orthodox Christianity, the damned can leave Gre'Thor if their friends or family commit an act of heroic sacrifice. In another religion, Hell is hypothesised to be "similar to the heaven, but the beer is stale and the strippers have venereal diseases."
[edit] An analogy
Dogs are naturally carnivores, but you make a rule which says they must eat grapes alone. At a time of your choosing, you take any dog which obeys your rule to only eat grapes and let them run free in Napa Valley forever. But the dogs which continued to eat meat, according to their created nature, are taken to a well-furnished torture chamber to be "punished". They are kept alive forever, as each of their nerves are destroyed one micron at a time starting from the end, and regenerated as the torment goes along so it can begin again. And none of these unfortunate dogs are ever allowed to warn their pals on the outside. No one calls you a sadistic tormentor of helpless animals. They call you an omnibenevolent deity.
[edit] The fairness of Hell
Suppose someone died 6,000 years ago and went to Hell. They will be always 6,000 years ahead of an unsaved person who dies today. Some people believe 6,000 years of extra torture is unfair of God.
However, the concept of limits from calculus reveals that Hell is indeed quite fair. When another six thousand years have passed, the first person will have 12,000 years of torture, and the second will have 6,000 years of torture. That means the first person will have twice as much torture as the second person. Another six thousand years after that, the first person will have 18,000 years of torture, and the second person will have 12,000 years of torture. That means the first person will have (18,000/12,000)= 1.5 times as much torture as the second person.
Now suppose a million years have gone by. The first person will have 1,006,000 years of torture, divided by the million years of torture of the second person, for a ratio of 1.006. You see that as we approach infinity, the amount of torture the second person suffers approaches the same amount of torture the first person suffers. So Hell is fair of God after all.
[edit] Slightly less maths based fairness
One can, quite rightly, argue that the entire idea of eternally punishing people for something they did while mortal is inherently evil. Think about what eternity means, it doesn't mean 100 years, or 1000 years or even a million years (but even harsh torment for such a meager amount of time is harsh for some sins). By this respect, even the most evil people in history or the worst mass murderers do not deserve Hell as no crime can be so bad that it deserves eternal punishment. Add to this that practically everyone goes to hell, and you're looking at a very unfair concept indeed.
[edit] Hell in the Bible
Hell could hardly be called a main focus of the Bible: references are few and far between, usually in passing, and there is no direct description offered of what it is like, where it is, or who goes there. Allusions to Hell (or sometimes Sheol) often read as though the audience is expected to know what it is like from other sources. A few examples of what the Bible has to say are:
- James 3:6 says:
- -And the tongue is a fire. [no - this is not a porn piece, so just relax, okay?] The tongue is an unrighteous world among our members staining the whole body. setting on fire the cycle of nature, and set on fire by Hell.
- It goes on to say some more fun things about tongues, but no more about Hell.
- Jesus is reported to have said "It is better for you to enter into life maimed than to keep both hands and go to Hell and the unquenchable fire. And if your foot is your undoing, cut it off; it is better to enter into life a cripple than to keep both your feet and be thrown into Hell. And if it is your eye, tear it out; it is better to enter into the Kingdom of God with one eye than to keep both eyes and be thrown into Hell, where the devouring worm never dies and the fire is not quenched." (Mark 9).
- The Book of Revelation rambles about a fiery pit that sinners get thrown into (but remember that Revelation is a complex web of metaphor and symbolism).
[edit] Fundamentalists and Hell
Christian fundamentalists and other religious conservatives place a very heavy emphasis on Hell, as the ultimate destination of anybody who does not adhere to their very precise interpretations of doctrine and morality. Some, like Andrew Schlafly at Conservapedia claim that Jesus Christ emphasised Hell more than Heaven,[2] and lament that Hell is not mentioned enough times in modern Bible translations.[3] Interestingly, the fundamentalist concept of 'hell' seems to be based on Dante's Inferno more than anything else.
The same conservatives are predictably outraged by the use of "hell" or "damn" as casual curse words. In 1997, Kleberg County, Texas, officially declared the nonsense word "HeavenO" to be the county's preferred form of greeting, in preference to the hellish "hello". In fact "hello" is not in any way etymologically related to Hell.
[edit] Small h controversy
During a discussion at Conservapedia about Hell's role in the Bible, Philip J. Rayment responded to Andrew Schlafly with a comment which included the word "hell" with a lower case "h", probably as a typing error. Schlafly replied, initially also including the small-h "hell", before correcting this and pointing out that "Hell" should be capitalised. Subsequently he used Rayment's initial use of "hell" as a tool in the debate, claiming that it indicated a denial of Hell's existence. Before long, spelling "hell" with a small "h" had entered Schlafly's stock list of "liberal positions".
[edit] Other uses of Hell
The Hell Law says that Hell is reserved exclusively for those who believe in it. Furthermore, the lowest Rung in Hell is reserved for those who believe in it on the supposition that they'll go there if they don't.[4]
[edit] In vandalism
Royal Dutch Shell gas station signs used to include the SHELL name spelled out. When modified in just the right way by a mischievous kid with a slingshot and too much time on his hands...
[edit] On your pocket calculator
7734
- As a kid my folk's cars license plate number was 7733, causing endless amounts of giggling and "add 1" and "7734 to you" and that sort of thing. This, by the way, pre-dated calculators by several decades so let's give credit where credit is due. This discovery (7734) was a Luddite invention, okay?
[edit] In sports
H E double hockey sticks (often referred to as the Canadian variation.)
[edit] In Jack Chick comics
In every goddamned one of them somewhere. With someone screaming YAAAAAAAH! [citation NOT needed]
[edit] Hell and Pope Benedict XVI
After decades or centuries of leaving Hell alone, Pope Benedict XVI decided to reinstate the doctrine of a real Hell (not abstract or metaphorical) and to eliminate limbo, thereby condemning every non-Catholic to perpetual torture in the fires of Hell. The motive behind this being that it was "just a theological hypothesis".[5] This has the very practical effect of reducing the standing of all men and women that are not under the Pope's authority to the category of damned souls, unworthy of treatment as equals and clear candidates for the missionary efforts of the Pope and his sycophants.
Gone are the times when Pope John Paul II sat side by side with representatives of every major religion in the world and talked about Hell as a state of mind. Pope Benny's infernal flip-flop followed a poll of 2,455 U.S. adults taken from Nov 7 to 13, 2007, which found that 62 percent believed in a literal Hell. Only 42 percent of those surveyed said they believed in Darwin's theory of evolution.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Hell (Atheism Wiki Article)
- Where in hell might YOU be going?
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ Named after a priest, no less!
- ↑ Comment here.
- ↑ As outlined here. See also Conservapedia:Bible rewriting project.
- ↑ Honest Book of Truth; The Gospel According to Fred, 3:1
- ↑ Catholic Doctrine on Limbo and Baptism Revisited
