It may surprise you or not that modern churches are still hinging their ideology on the concept that Hell really exists. There are less and less details provided as to what Hell is, (especially in mega-churches that try to appeal to western pop-culture with rock praise bands, fog machines, and front-flipping preachers) but it’s still pretty well-understood that Hell is a place where souls are cast into by an omniscient celestial authority (A.K.A. God) for eternal torture (burning forever) if they do not abide by God’s rule(s). It is a concept that is widespread like a disease, helping produce an overwhelming number of Christians by use of fear and guilt rather than spiritual enrichment.
A bunch of Churches devote one sermon per month to the importance of “tithing,” donating 10% of your earnings to “God,” or rather, to the accounting office of the church. These days, such donations will be used to buy new flat-screens, projection systems, or PA systems to make their church more appealing to the community and improve join-rates. The direct and implied urgings to keep God happy lest ye be cast away from His love is significant, while God is simultaneously presented as an unconditionally loving paternal-like figure.
The impossibility of combining these two preached characteristics of a divine authority is obvious, especially considering at a more basic level that God has a preference to things or people and their behaviors. Essentially, the idea presents that God has an ego, and God is so humanized to the point where “He” is as insane and as moody as a step-dad who once pretended to like you just to get with your divorced Mom. God is so paternalized in Church, intentionally or not, that all dad-issues a person may have risks manifesting the shadow concept of what your dad was like towards you, combined with what you wish he was like, and things you actually did like about your dad.
Art, psychology, and history is mostly dismissed within the church so long as it isn’t actively supporting the ideology of the group, or is often a creative regurgitation (rock music praise bands, pastor jokes and emotional anecdotes), used to bring outsiders into the church. The last church experience I had was visiting a local aspiring mega-church during a Christmas Eve service where the praise band played metal versions of Christmas Carols and then blatantly ripped off that Coldplay single from Viva La Vida and changed the words to be more worship-oriented.
Towards the end of my trying to make church work for me, all the questions started with the concept of Hell and how it didn’t make any sense to me that 99.9% of the population were soon to be banished to eternal torment. Our existence on Earth would only be a blink in the scope of universal existence, a test that existed only to see which humans were fit to please God (egotistically) for all eternity. Eventually I began to fall in love with books and ideas that expanded and enhanced my curiosity towards life and the nature of humans, and slowly the division between “me” (Christian) and “them” (non-Christian) began to fade, and meaningful relationships could finally form outside of a church circle.
I went to church for almost 2 more years after I mentally checked out because of appreciation for my roots and family upbringing. Eventually “teachings” and vibes became unbearable, solidifying one day when a “guest pastor” showed up with a leather jacket, hipster glasses, and perfectly pruned faux-hawk and proceeded to bash the Dalai Lama for receiving the congressional medal of honor.
“They gave the Dalai Lama the Congressional Medal of Honor… They gave some little guy in an orange suit the congressional medal of honor…”
A comparison-mentality is inevitable when believing in the concept of Hell, “I’m saved, they’re not.” It’s not unusual that Christians think they’re “more Christian” than others, also. All the problems with black-and-white ideologies seem so simple to explore and see, but when you look at the masses, there are A TON of people who still commit to the Hell idea. The simple reason is fear. If you believe you will be severed completely from your “Father’s” love by thinking a certain thought, there is no way you can even allow a new conflicting thought or insight come into/out of your head. Any idea that causes division among humans is not based on love, and can’t possibly be linked with an ideology of genuine unconditional love, a claim made by sermon-makers all the time. Where there’s division, there is violence, and where there’s violence on a mass scale, there’s war, and where there is a belief in Hell, there is a conceptual God of a psychotic and egotistical, paternal nature. When a mass population believes in all of it, there are many who don’t mind supporting a president who declares war for a stupid reason so long as he prays about it first.
Hell is a touchy subject. It’s hardly mentioned in church anymore because it’s an incredibly retarded idea and a lot of people squeeze off insight to protect the concept. There are still a bunch of people who don’t want to touch the funny feelings they have about Hell, and why everyone can be so cool with the fact that 99.9% are going there is still mind blowing. “Hell” is a translation from the Greek word “Gehenna”, an actual place where trash and dead bodies were burned in Jerusalem, used as a metaphor by the Biblical Jesus himself, not really a flaming void at the bottom of the universe where demons and the damned remain forever.
It doesn’t take much digging to discover this. So why, after centuries, is Hell still taught to young minds as real and existing with only one way to escape it? What else are “authority figures” teaching to all age groups that could possibly be complete bunky bullshit, claiming that it is ordained by the Ultimate?
Fear is something you don’t want as a mental structure in your psyche. Fear makes you hand over money to people who don’t really care about you. It’s used by advertising and marketing companies all the time. Fear makes it easy for other people to control you and your decisions. Fear makes you vote for people you wouldn’t vote for otherwise. Fear is exploited by institutions like school and government all the time. To commit to an idea that creates and perpetuates fear in you is insane. We are living on Earth, a round rock that is constantly threatening planetary upheaval while flying through space amongst solar winds and asteroids, surrounded by billions of galaxies. We’re tied into a banking system and economy that adds and subtracts imagined value, digits from a computer screen. There is no ultimate security in life. There is no ultimate safety. Lust for comfort suffocates the soul. It’s all illusory and chasing it in fear will eat and cripple you from the inside. Fear can’t exist in contentment. Neither can contentment or creativity exist in the constant grasping for security, whether from God, preachers, teachers, jobs, parents, kids, or even your country.
“Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.” -Ben Franklin
Liberation was the name of the game for the guys who started this country, not so much for the guys running it today. Unlike you’ll hear today at school, church, or on the news, the “Founding Fathers” didn’t believe in the fear-based concepts that churches teach today or even back then. If anything, there is enough hell to deal with here on Earth and the possibility remains that there are higher energetic spectrums and dimensions that may exist simultaneously outside of our everyday sensory range… hopefully dimensions that are free of such thick division and worry of damnation, and also worries about how bleached your faux-hawk tips are, or whether your low-cut church blouse and skirt will garner glances of bored husbands.
One more word of wisdom from Ben:
“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
