On Hell

Here's an interesting what-if...

What if Hell is a choice? Like, we stay there if we continue to embrace our sin, but then jet out of there as soon as we get over it?

This has some interesting parallels with life here. It's generally believed that doing good stuff is ultimately rewarding, whereas being bad might seem fun but ends up sucking. Yet people continue to do bad. Obviously, we've got some learning issues to contend with as a species. Or, all of us goody-goodies really need to get out more and see what it's really about.

But, there are some really elegant things about this viewpoint. It resolves why some people end up there - they just won't leave! We don't have to blame God for that. And as well, the unpleasantness they're dealing with is just part of the package.

Also, if it sounds absurd, there are a million examples of people choosing misery over and over, when freedom is right across the hall. Abuse victims, addicts, and Cubs fans just for starters.

There's a well-known technique for catching raccoons (which also works on monkeys and small children I'm told) where you place something shiny in a hole with an opening just large enough to get your hand in. The victim grabs the bauble and, because the full fist is larger than the unladen appendage, the hand becomes trapped. Being unwilling to let go, the unfortunate creature remains in this state indefinitely.

There's also a depressingly cruel experiment from back when such things were fashionable where a small, cuddly animal was placed in a cage with an electrified floor. When it was turned on, the experimentee would try to escape for some time, but would eventually accept the hopeless fate it was given and just accept the pain. Where it gets really heinous is when the researchers opened the cage - after learning once that escape was impossible, the test subject wouldn't try any more even with easy escape possible.

So, I didn't include that anecdote just because I was too happy and really needed a downer, but instead to make the point that we often choose the more painful way, because it's familiar, because we think we deserve it, because we think we can't do any better, or because we think there's a perk that makes it worth it. Maybe if we don't go to heaven, it isn't because we can't, but because we won't.

On Time

I think our approach to eternity is way off.

The afterlife gets so much damned mindshare with Christians and religious-types in general, and I don't see any good reason that it should be so. This happens largely because words like "forever" and "everlasting" are thrown about rather liberally in the Bible and a good chunk of other religious literature.

However, how do we use these words today? I would argue that almost every time we encounter them they are used for gross exaggeration of one kind or another, mostly as a habit of language, and often to emphasize a point. When you say you waited forever at the DMV, people KNOW that you weren't actually stuck in an infinite time loop with a ticket number that never got called (this is a good spot to shamelessly plug my next post - On Hell).

Why should we think it was any different in Biblical times? Exaggeration is so well-known that they've coined a term for it - rabbinical hyperbole. Teachers regularly used extreme examples to drive home a symbolic point.

I find it interesting to read statements about everlasting reward for the righteous and eternal suffering for the wicked as descriptive facts on the nature of righteousness and wickedness. This also makes more sense as a discussion topic for Jesus, rather than figuring that he was just crazy obsessed with death and wanted to give us the low-down on the next few eons.

Here's my plan: next time I read a passage that talks about infinite life, rather than thinking about sitting around in some quasi-physical state just being alive pretty much indefinitely, I'm going to think that the passage is saying that you get "life, every time". Reminds me of Sex Panther - 75% of the time, it works every time. Made with real bits of panther.