Hell
I usually shy away from the very serious on this blog, and I’m not sure why. So here goes a religion discussion, awesome! Had the beginnings of this convo with a friend yesterday, and it got me thinking of a topic I’ve never really understood.
I’ve never agreed with the standard Christian definition of hell. Christians go to heaven. Non-Christians go to hell. That’s incredibly simple. But in my mind, it’s never made complete sense. People say that if it was just earned by good deeds, that people would do good deeds without ever changing who they are, just to be among the ‘chosen.’ Makes sense, in some ways. But this system would confuse me too. What motivation do you have to be good?
I’ve always thought of it this way: If George W. Bush is going to heaven and Gandhi hell, then I’m an athiest. Basically that philosophy is saying that good and evil don’t matter. You can make the world a worse place, and not follow any of Jesus’s actual teachings, but accept Jesus and you’re fine.
There are four possible outcomes of that previous example, and to me that one is the only one that makes zero sense.
Gandhi heaven, Bush heaven. Universalism. Everyone goes to heaven. I understand this philosophy and the hope some people have for it. Not sure I agree with it, but it has its merits.
Gandhi hell, Bush hell. Gandhi for not believing in Jesus (even if he had interest in it before he was thrown out of ‘Christian’ churches for not being white), and Bush for being evil, hateful and opposing Jesus’s teachings. Makes sense. Not ‘fair,’ per se, but probably the most biblical, I think.
Gandhi heaven, Bush hell. The one that is based on merit. Probably the most sensical on the surface, but it makes Jesus irrelevant.
Gandhi hell, Bush heaven. Shows that right and wrong don’t matter, and that what Jesus said was him just killing time before he got crucified. Makes no sense on any level.
So what do I believe? I don’t know. I wish I did. I prefer to let God handle who is in and who is out. This is why I could never tell somebody ‘follow this or go to hell.’ Not just because it is evil and gets people to believe what you do through fear, it’s that I don’t know. It’s not my call.
Then again, I’m also in the school that ‘hell’ simply means complete separation from God, not devil and pitchforks and all that crap.
Need to read Brian McLaren’s “The Last Word and the Word After That” again because it was the only thing that made sense to me on the subject.
Thoughts, anyone?
Hi, was interesting reading this, a bit funny as well. Yes, I belive no matter which religion you belong to, as far as you are doing right things, the works that not only hurt someone but also help aomeone in any way, leads you to heaven. When Gandhi was in London he was very close to Christians and read Old and New Testaments as well. He also tried to understand the Christian philosophy, his CHristian friends were worried about him that he is such a sublime fellow but not Christian so would not be able to go to heaven. They tried a lot to persuade him to convert but he did not. He said a person should remain in whatever religion he was borne and should try to learn from all religions and from that learning he/she should try to better his/her own religion wherever possible. So according to me there should be no confusion about it whether a non-Christain person can go to heaven or not! Thanks for the blog.
One other idea to present, which is not new. This is “hell” or at least a classroom to learn from and change. You do not pass, you come back and try again. That would put Ghadi in Heaven or at least close to finishing the course and Bush with a Loooong way to go.