There is NO Hell– God Just Couldn’t Be Meaner Than We Are

From Patheos, former fundamentalist theologian Frank Schaeffer muses on the irrationality of Hell:

Why does our view of Hell matter? Because believers in Hell believe in revenge. And according to brain chemistry studies, taking revenge and nurturing resentment is a major source of life-destroying stress.

For a profound exploration of the madness caused by embracing the “justice” of “godly” revenge and retribution, watch the film “Hellbound?”

The film shows how the “Hell” of revenge thinking, and the resulting unhinging of some people’s brains through their denial of human empathy, leads them to relish the violent future of suffering that they predict awaits the “lost” in Hell.

Do we really want to go back to a time of literal religion. Wasn’t 9/11 enough of an argument against retributive religion?

We need a concept of “Hell” like a hole in the head. It’s time for the alternative of empathetic merciful religion to be understood.

More here.

Okay, now I really want to see this documentary Schaeffer mentions.  Because, really, at this point in my life, this is why I continue to reject Christianity, and will very likely do so for the rest of my days: as Bertrand Russell once observed, eternal punishment is inhumane; no just God would ever condemn souls to hell.

To me, it seems that any entity insisting that it is the creator of the universe and is therefore deserving of my worship must necessarily demonstrate that it is, in fact, God.  A very simple test is omnibenevolence; is this "God," in fact, all good?  Given how very murky and ambiguous the notions of good and evil are, it strikes me that the behavior of the creature described in the Bible as God, Yahweh, automatically rules Him out as worthy of the description omnibenevolent.  He commits genocide; he commands his elite chosen "children" to commit genocide.  He condemns people who do now bow down before him to be tortured for eternity.  This is not good.  Indeed, by every definition I understand, Yahweh is, in fact, evil.  He may very well be the creator.  He may very well possess vast unimaginable power.  But because so many of his actions are unarguably evil, he cannot possibly be God.

It is almost funny that Christians cannot use this simple test.  To them, the only morality is that which comes from Yahweh; therefore, anything Yahweh does is, by definition, good.  They are necessarily blind to their own consciences, totally unable to see that they worship a heartless, predatory, serial mass murderer.  Because His morality is adopted as their own morality.  Or rather, immorality.  You have to kill the most important part of yourself to become a Christian.  You have to believe that the greatest thing that can happen is that non-believers suffer forever.  Sick and twisted shit.

And it has cast a sickening and immoral shadow over Western civilization for two thousand years.

You know, I like Jesus.  A lot.  But it cannot be denied that the book that contains the Gospels, his story, is the same book that portrays his "Father" behaving in ways that would make Adolph Hitler and Jeffery Dahmer blush.  A split personality religion, and the Mr. Hyde aspect rules the day more often than not.  We're just about love, they like to say.  But they never admit that it is a love that allows and encourages primitive brutal behavior.  Love as an afterthought at best.

Yeah, I really need to watch that movie.

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