The Threat Of Hell
By James Donahue
Fear is a powerful method of controlling people. In a religion that threatens an eternal punishment of fire and brimstone and living in agony forever in a place called Hell, followers find themselves trapped into compliance. They live in constant fear of being sentenced to Hell if they break the rules established by the church.
It is interesting to note that the Old Testament does not mention Hell or threaten that sinners might end up there after death. Yet in the New Testament, Jesus is quoted 45 times of making serious threats of eternal damnation in a place of fire.
That is a serious threat. Since Jesus apparently invented it . . . or his biographer did . . . it is a wonder that he had any followers. The religion Jesus teaches in the New Testament Gospels is somewhat convoluted. While teaching love and compassion as a way of life, he threatened a punishment worse than anyone might imagine for anyone falling short of achieving perfection and not making amends for doing so.
Christianity also offers another interesting conflict. The claim is that anyone who “accepts Jesus” in their heart as a “personal savior” can easily escape the fires of Hell, even if they committed terrible acts of murder, torture, rape and robbery. All they need to do is commit their hearts to Jesus before falling under the hangman’s noose and they have a free ticket to an eternity in Heaven.
That means guys like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, David Berkowitz and Ted Bundy might all be in Heaven in spite of going down in history as being among the worst killers that ever lived. Indeed, Bundy declared himself “saved to Jesus” on the day he was put to death for his crimes. The irony here is that many of the people these men killed may not have accepted Jesus and subsequently, are now burning in Hell if the Christian threat is real. This makes them double victims of a life on Earth they should never have lived.
What kind of God is it that might set up such a deadly trap as this? If this God is all-knowing and all-seeing, why would He create such a conflicting existence for the people living in His creation?
Comedian Bill Burr in one of his televised shows envisioned himself going to Heaven and then being disappointed when his family and friends failed to show up. He portrayed the situation of coming face to face with Jesus after learning that the old gang didn’t follow him. While Burr told the story with a humorous twist, the underlying suggestion was not really funny. If the Christian threat is real, Burr’s portrayed situation could really be occurring.
Theist Gary Shadle on his website 888 Reasons Christianity Is Invalid, points to the Hitler story as an unsettling conflict in fairness. Since Hitler was a Catholic by birth, and maintained close ties to the church, it must be assumed that both he and his mistress Eva Braun confessed their sins before killing themselves in his bunker at the end of the war.
Shadle wrote: “Hitler dispatched Jews to the concentration camps and gas chambers for no reason other than their ethnic identity. This was a temporal punishment; it sometimes lasted only a few days.
“God, on the other hand, is prepared to send good, well-accomplished and generous people to a place of everlasting punishment and torture for the ‘crime’ of not believing in something for which no credible evidence exists. The god of the Bible is, in effect, worse than Hitler.”
By James Donahue
Fear is a powerful method of controlling people. In a religion that threatens an eternal punishment of fire and brimstone and living in agony forever in a place called Hell, followers find themselves trapped into compliance. They live in constant fear of being sentenced to Hell if they break the rules established by the church.
It is interesting to note that the Old Testament does not mention Hell or threaten that sinners might end up there after death. Yet in the New Testament, Jesus is quoted 45 times of making serious threats of eternal damnation in a place of fire.
That is a serious threat. Since Jesus apparently invented it . . . or his biographer did . . . it is a wonder that he had any followers. The religion Jesus teaches in the New Testament Gospels is somewhat convoluted. While teaching love and compassion as a way of life, he threatened a punishment worse than anyone might imagine for anyone falling short of achieving perfection and not making amends for doing so.
Christianity also offers another interesting conflict. The claim is that anyone who “accepts Jesus” in their heart as a “personal savior” can easily escape the fires of Hell, even if they committed terrible acts of murder, torture, rape and robbery. All they need to do is commit their hearts to Jesus before falling under the hangman’s noose and they have a free ticket to an eternity in Heaven.
That means guys like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, David Berkowitz and Ted Bundy might all be in Heaven in spite of going down in history as being among the worst killers that ever lived. Indeed, Bundy declared himself “saved to Jesus” on the day he was put to death for his crimes. The irony here is that many of the people these men killed may not have accepted Jesus and subsequently, are now burning in Hell if the Christian threat is real. This makes them double victims of a life on Earth they should never have lived.
What kind of God is it that might set up such a deadly trap as this? If this God is all-knowing and all-seeing, why would He create such a conflicting existence for the people living in His creation?
Comedian Bill Burr in one of his televised shows envisioned himself going to Heaven and then being disappointed when his family and friends failed to show up. He portrayed the situation of coming face to face with Jesus after learning that the old gang didn’t follow him. While Burr told the story with a humorous twist, the underlying suggestion was not really funny. If the Christian threat is real, Burr’s portrayed situation could really be occurring.
Theist Gary Shadle on his website 888 Reasons Christianity Is Invalid, points to the Hitler story as an unsettling conflict in fairness. Since Hitler was a Catholic by birth, and maintained close ties to the church, it must be assumed that both he and his mistress Eva Braun confessed their sins before killing themselves in his bunker at the end of the war.
Shadle wrote: “Hitler dispatched Jews to the concentration camps and gas chambers for no reason other than their ethnic identity. This was a temporal punishment; it sometimes lasted only a few days.
“God, on the other hand, is prepared to send good, well-accomplished and generous people to a place of everlasting punishment and torture for the ‘crime’ of not believing in something for which no credible evidence exists. The god of the Bible is, in effect, worse than Hitler.”