Growing up a religious kid, I spent most of my childhood afraid of the rapture. There wasn’t a lot of fear of death happening in my house, so dying seemed far away; therefore, the consequences of the afterlife seemed distant. Being left behind, however, was a very real fear. I imagined it would be like Home Alone but with demons chasing you instead of the Water Bandits. As I got into my teens and began to have those Barbie-level “Do you guys ever think about dying” existential crises, Hell became something to fear.
Being not catholic nor christian, I'm a big Ole heathen by being Native American and believing in our Creator, (go me!) I always thought the heaven and hell thing was a bit strange. If your God loved you so much, why would he put ultimatums on literally anything you did? Also, as long as you go and "confess" at church, you're completely absolved of any and everything. Wat? No. Make it make sense. A person who constantly harms others should not be absolved of anything if they head to church on Sunday. Stop it. 🤣 I'll stick to mine, the Creator wants us to take care of each other, the earth we live on and there really isn't "good or evil", however things will come for us if we are going against the balance of Nature. Greedy? The W*ndigo will find you and you'll be hungry forever, hurt women and children? Watch out for Deerlady, she doesn't play. We're supposed to live in harmony with the earth and her protectors. That means helping those who are down with a hand up. Taking care of each other. Not taking more than you need. Sounds a lot like that other religion 🤔 but we don't twist ours for our own good, or we get visitors you do not want.
I have increasingly come to think that heaven and hell are both right here. Hell is the world we were born into, and the state of being tormented by the horrors of this place. Heaven is what we want the world to be, and the state of those who have set themselves upon the task of making it so.
Many years ago, there was a line in a BBC sitcom that involved vicars discussing the afterlife. One vicar says to another, as I recall, "God bids us to believe in the existence of hell, but only a fool would believe he puts anyone there." As a rebellious vicar's wife, I clung to that statement, much to the annoyance of the vicar, who had been raised Presbyterian and had no clue what Anglicanish orthodoxy was about. (Several years later, I was 400 miles away and adopted by the Greeks, who didn't talk much about hell, just building funds.)
There is an extremely long list of reasons that I confidently walked away from the faith over a decade ago. And one of the multi-faceted reasons was my discovery of just how tightly Christianity was wrapped up in the much older mythologies and traditions of Ancient Egypt. Orthodox Christianity (and many of the popular characters)... let's say "borrowed" quite a bit from the Egyptians. More specific to your essay here, the Egyptians seemed to be the first to officially establish this sort of "post-death" narrative and I firmly believe it just got a Greek/Roman revision later on in history. In Egyptian tradition, the souls of the deceased entered the Hall of Maat where their heart would be weighed on Anubis' scales against Maat's feather of truth. If the heart was lighter than the feather, the soul was granted entry to the Kingdom of Osiris where it embarked on a new journey in the afterlife. If the heart was heavier than the feather, that soul was then immediately devoured by Ammit, the devourer/destroyer of souls. No eternal torment or pain. Just a quick, definitive ending. All results were recorded by Thoth.
"....and instead, Heaven is something we are supposed to build right here on Earth by way of creating a more just and equitable society like the one Jesus described? "
Great question and the ONLY thing that makes sense to me. Unfortunately, Christians in general seem bent on the "punitive justice" aimed at everyone they don't understand.
Currently heaven and hell are all based on FEAR, False, Evidence, Appearing, Real .
I don't remember my birth and I'm ok if there is nothing when I die. In the mean time ,I'll do what I can to love my neighbor by unloading my gun of punitive justice.
Thank you for dividing up the English Hell pie into three pieces and delivering an explanation!
It is odd that heaven and hell are not mentioned in the same breath yet somehow most religious folks lump the two together as if they are polar opposites. Isn't it strange that the Kingdom of Heaven gathers both the good and the bad? Matthew 11:12 "And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force." Why is heaven suffering violence and who is taking it by force? It seems the kingdom of heaven needs to get its act in order.
Then there's the case of Jame's epistle, "And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell."
All these ideas seem to imply that these metaphorical conditions are all present and not something occurring in the "afterlife" (another term that doesn't exist in the new testament). Besides, there's plenty of hell fire to go around on social media so don't get caught up with it.
Being not catholic nor christian, I'm a big Ole heathen by being Native American and believing in our Creator, (go me!) I always thought the heaven and hell thing was a bit strange. If your God loved you so much, why would he put ultimatums on literally anything you did? Also, as long as you go and "confess" at church, you're completely absolved of any and everything. Wat? No. Make it make sense. A person who constantly harms others should not be absolved of anything if they head to church on Sunday. Stop it. 🤣 I'll stick to mine, the Creator wants us to take care of each other, the earth we live on and there really isn't "good or evil", however things will come for us if we are going against the balance of Nature. Greedy? The W*ndigo will find you and you'll be hungry forever, hurt women and children? Watch out for Deerlady, she doesn't play. We're supposed to live in harmony with the earth and her protectors. That means helping those who are down with a hand up. Taking care of each other. Not taking more than you need. Sounds a lot like that other religion 🤔 but we don't twist ours for our own good, or we get visitors you do not want.
I have increasingly come to think that heaven and hell are both right here. Hell is the world we were born into, and the state of being tormented by the horrors of this place. Heaven is what we want the world to be, and the state of those who have set themselves upon the task of making it so.
Many years ago, there was a line in a BBC sitcom that involved vicars discussing the afterlife. One vicar says to another, as I recall, "God bids us to believe in the existence of hell, but only a fool would believe he puts anyone there." As a rebellious vicar's wife, I clung to that statement, much to the annoyance of the vicar, who had been raised Presbyterian and had no clue what Anglicanish orthodoxy was about. (Several years later, I was 400 miles away and adopted by the Greeks, who didn't talk much about hell, just building funds.)
There is an extremely long list of reasons that I confidently walked away from the faith over a decade ago. And one of the multi-faceted reasons was my discovery of just how tightly Christianity was wrapped up in the much older mythologies and traditions of Ancient Egypt. Orthodox Christianity (and many of the popular characters)... let's say "borrowed" quite a bit from the Egyptians. More specific to your essay here, the Egyptians seemed to be the first to officially establish this sort of "post-death" narrative and I firmly believe it just got a Greek/Roman revision later on in history. In Egyptian tradition, the souls of the deceased entered the Hall of Maat where their heart would be weighed on Anubis' scales against Maat's feather of truth. If the heart was lighter than the feather, the soul was granted entry to the Kingdom of Osiris where it embarked on a new journey in the afterlife. If the heart was heavier than the feather, that soul was then immediately devoured by Ammit, the devourer/destroyer of souls. No eternal torment or pain. Just a quick, definitive ending. All results were recorded by Thoth.
"....and instead, Heaven is something we are supposed to build right here on Earth by way of creating a more just and equitable society like the one Jesus described? "
Great question and the ONLY thing that makes sense to me. Unfortunately, Christians in general seem bent on the "punitive justice" aimed at everyone they don't understand.
Currently heaven and hell are all based on FEAR, False, Evidence, Appearing, Real .
I don't remember my birth and I'm ok if there is nothing when I die. In the mean time ,I'll do what I can to love my neighbor by unloading my gun of punitive justice.
Thanks for your study.
Your readings are always beautiful and fresh. My favorite thing about sundays
Thank you for dividing up the English Hell pie into three pieces and delivering an explanation!
It is odd that heaven and hell are not mentioned in the same breath yet somehow most religious folks lump the two together as if they are polar opposites. Isn't it strange that the Kingdom of Heaven gathers both the good and the bad? Matthew 11:12 "And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force." Why is heaven suffering violence and who is taking it by force? It seems the kingdom of heaven needs to get its act in order.
Then there's the case of Jame's epistle, "And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell."
All these ideas seem to imply that these metaphorical conditions are all present and not something occurring in the "afterlife" (another term that doesn't exist in the new testament). Besides, there's plenty of hell fire to go around on social media so don't get caught up with it.