Monologue on the Christian Hell. "It says in here that we have to be saved in order to go to heaven..." Such were Marilyn Manson's words before tearing the pages out of what seems to have been be the Holy Bible under the applause of hundreds of people coming to see his show. Indignation of this sort comes by every so often when you think that you must somehow escape the practically inevitable thunderous wrath of God's Holy Punishment called Hell. How a personal God who loves and cherishes dearly every human soul could ever create such an awful place in order to dump the vast majority of humanity (on a grudge against only two of them) is something which completely baffles many. A God unable to (or worse, chooses not to) forgive implies that his hatred is greater than his love; incredibly so considering that the Hell population supposedly outnumbers the Heaven population. A strange paradox it is, that The God of Love created Hell, and many theological explanations attempt to reconcile Love and Hell, some refer to the hereditary original sin, others call upon a purgatory, some give up Christianity altogether, and some wonder on the validity of the conception of Hell. When I die, what will become of me? It must be assumed that in order for there to be a continuity of life after death, one must absolutely remain himself. If he doesn't remain himself, then his consciousness cannot reach the full realisation of his presence/existence in the afterlife, in this case the eternal divine punishment commonly called Hell. Who we believe we are (our self-consciousness) is in relation to what we know of ourselves (our self-conception). If, in the afterlife, what we know of ourselves is different than before we passed away, then we will be someone else and who we were will have ceased to exist. This is why it is commonly believed that our death is in continuity of our present life, and an evolutionary perspective is often referred to, with the admittance of a stable foundation to the evolving personality (or self-entity). Sit in the corner and think about what you did! A punishment is only a punishment when in relation to a wrongful act, he who is in Hell must realise that the perpetual suffering is a consequence to what one should have done and did not do. Therefore a memory of what was is necessary for the punishment to take place. In other words, there must be a meaning to a punishment (a cause to a consequence), otherwise dwelling in Hell becomes completely absurd. Furthermore, one must have an awakened state of consciousness in order to compare the current experienced reality with the reality that could have been. Without the possibility to compare the current state with another better state, there is little or no possibility to realise that the current state is awful and painful. This comparison is enabled both by the memory of what was before death and with the knowledge of Heaven's existence. In other words, he who is in Hell, in order to be in Hell, must be able to think. The Hell-dweller unable to think is not in Hell, he is merely asleep, and does not feel anything and the situation of being in Hell does not apply to him, as his experience does not include the painful realisation of being in an eternal punishment. It can be asserted that the ability to reason in abstract concepts (to a certain degree) is necessary to understand the horrors that they experience, otherwise the eternal lake of fire would be like repetitive cigarette burns on PCP : painless. If we are to go to Hell, we must remain ourselves in order to fully feel the torment in which we will reside. Omnipresence and Omnipotence and Omniscience. These three words are often used to define God. The simple fact of stating God's omnipresence signifies that there is no place in existence- material, immaterial, spiritual, etheric, real, fantasized, et cetera where God is not. Wherever something is, God is. God is in Hell. God's divine presence can be felt/known throughout all of existence, including everywhere. (Otherwise, He wouldn't be omnipresent, would He?) Knowing this, how can there be a place so vile as Hell with God there to love every sinner within his divine presence? This would imply that God's love (which is infinite, therefore in equal "quantity" everywhere, on earth, heaven, or in this case, Hell) is also present in Hell and can be experienced by those who are in Hell. Remember God's omnipotence. Omnipotence implies that God cannot create a rock so heavy that He cannot lift. An omnipotent God who loves those he created cannot create anything where His love cannot reach. God cannot create a being so vile that He cannot love. Nor can a being render himself more vile than the vileness God could generate. But never would such vileness overpower the love of God. (Otherwise, He wouldn't be omnipotent, would He?) And of course, God could not forget those who are in Hell. God can no less forget that He created us, nor that we exist. God could never forget that He loves all of those who are in Hell. This is due to His characteristic omniscience - God knows all. He can't just throw us in Hell and forget about us. This is important because we will always exist to Him, and His knowledge of our existence is what prevents us to stop existing (because He is omnipotent and omnipresent). If He were to forget about us, we would stop existing, hence no longer being in Hell, making Hell empty. If Hell is empty, God is angry at nothing at all, and his anger ceases to exist and so does Hell. Therefore, a thinking human aware of his situation in Hell has the possibility to experience the love of God, for it is everywhere and limitless; as He is omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent. The human Hell-dweller. Let us nonetheless hypothesise for a moment that God is absent from Hell (i.e. neglecting omnipresence and omnipotence). This human being in Hell suffers the worst torments of God's wrath (i.e. also neglecting God's Love). Because of a human being's adaptative qualities and the infinite properties of the horrors of Hell, it can be supposed that the suffering increases without end. The primary characteristic of Hell is the perpetually increasing pain. A second characteristic of Hell is that the soul who is in Hell is a thinking, human soul. This thinking human soul has consciousness of the pain, has consciousness of the existence of God and God's Love, both of which he isn't and won't be experiencing, but would like to. Is the pain so great that the ability to reason about ourselves and the situation is lost? The loss of all abilities except the one to feel pain then turns the human being into an automate (action-reaction etheric robot). As stated before, this human being must still be able to think. Locking out thinking renders Hell contradictory in a Loving God's perspective since all He would need to do is apply a similar technique to the soul's "program" wiping away the possibility to be "evil" and instead of making a pain-feeling robot, He would create a love-oriented adorator of God, without fault. It is therefore assumed that God wants humans to stay humans. Would it then be possible to limit the soul's thinking capabilities; to (metaphorically) keep the soul's eyes shut to beauty? If the human is incapable to conceptualise happiness or comfort, the comparative aspect then disappears and the pain can no longer be perceived as such, for both happiness and unhappiness merge to leave place to indifference in regards to the environment and happiness. This means: if that person still has a minimum of self-consciousness, semantically speaking, if a peer were to ask him if he were happy, the answer would be yes - considering the fact that they couldn't imagine being happier (or unhappier). It is therefore necessary for the Hell-dweller to understand that they could be happier than they are now. The Hell- dwellers must reason about themselves and their situation for the torment to take effect. This leads us to ask, could the human being be forced to remain completely passive in regards to the pain? The human mind's freedom of thought would be altered in order to not be able to try to improve their situation (systematically blocking potential self-help and/or positive thoughts). Once again, this will turn the human soul into a less than human passive etheric pain-feeling "push a button to make it squeal" robot. In a sense, if God were to take away the fundamental freedom of thought from the human souls in Hell, then the infinite torment of Hell could not take complete effect, since the numb-minded state would put a maximum limit on the experiences of Hell. It wouldn't the total human who would be suffering, since a part of that human soul's consciousness would be rendered ineffective, therefore unaffected. Furthermore, the suffering soul with a limited thinking/reasoning zone would need to have also blocked their natural innate developmental aspirations (in order for the blocked zones to stay blocked). Forcing stagnation upon Hell-dwelling souls would be subtracting a fundamental part of the definition of a human being (the ability to evolve). To take away the fundamental developmental aspiration IS also an encagement to the fundamental freedom of thought (and indirectly freedom of will), which is ironically the very thing which brought him to Hell in the first place, and the reason why he should stay there. Hence, it is possible for the human being to remain a passive victim in regards to the pain, but this passivity will be autodetermined, as an exterior agent will only deconstruct the human being, leaving nothing but a rotting self-aware programmed robot. To summarise, it was the total human who deserved to go to Hell and it is the total human who must go to Hell. Subtracting from (exterior modification of) that human doesn't make a partial human, it makes a non-human. (Note: please do not generalize this, as I am speaking of fundamental human characteristics, not handicap). The one thing that God cannot take away from a soul, without destroying the soul, is the fact that the soul exists as a soul. Modifying the existence of that soul equates to remoulding God's creation into another creature, different from the original. Humanity as experienced on earth must be continuous in the afterlife in order to remain humanity, in order to resurrect or in this case, go to Hell. Human potential Given the fact that a human must remain human, with all his fundamental characteristics (namely: evolutive capacities, self- awareness, freedom of thought, etc.), as well as his individual characteristics (memory of his past life, knowledge of other possible experiences, etc.) it must be acknowledged that the human soul in Hell has potential to change in different directions. Some of these potential directions are common visions of Hell: the soul feels more and more depressed and powerless, the soul develops a greater hate of God, the individual suffers increasingly as his understanding of the situation grows ... and the list goes on. Nonetheless, there are more possibilities than those which have been counted. A human soul dwelling in Hell, having the knowledge of the existence of God, also knows that God is Truth and God is Justice. This soul realises that his suffering is justified and has meaning. He realises that he is in Hell according to God's Will. Although the situation is quite displeasing - this soul has the possibility to realise that he does not have to hate God. If that soul loved God all his life, but deserved Hell anyways, why would he start hating God now? God is a God of love and justice - and a soul being in Hell is in Hell because he (and He) is doing what is right. The suffering of Hell is righteous. This human soul, if he chooses so, can come to an acceptance of the situation. This acceptance does not at all minimise nor negate the pain, but rather transcends it. The human soul has the possibility to generate his happiness, despite suffering, by changing the meaning he gives to situation. It is quite possible to rejoice in abiding in the Will of God, even while in Hell. This example (while many others could be stated) is mentioned in order to illustrate that a soul in the afterlife, while remaining human, still has human potential, according to his human will. While a soul in Hell has no control over anything, this soul still has his human self-consciousness, and all that a human self-consciousness can perform through its own will. This includes choice of perspective over a situation. This choice of perspective of situation may not change the objective situation, but certainly changes the subjective reality ... the reality which the Hell-dweller is conscious of. Depending on how the soul chooses to experience Hell, Hell can take on different feel, and eventually feel not so bad. Conclusion If we now, once again take into account God's omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence combined with human potential, human will, then the hypothesis of outliving the eternal death of Hell is strangely more realistic than victimised passive suffering from God's Holy Wrath. A human being in Hell, theoretically has the required potential to discover, understand and experience the Love of God. Of course, the conception of Love may be quite simplified, but its fundamental characteristic remains having an unconditional, unmodifiable, voluntary positive attitude towards another. Hell is incompatible with the combination of a God who is loving, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, logical and self-coherent. Even more so if we combine this with the characteristics of the human Hell-dweller. It is of no mystery to anyone that the overall concept of Hell came into existence during the Middle Ages - but what is its relevance today? Who still uses the fear discourse of Hell for the purposes of preaching? What are the goals of such religious groups? The human mind (human intelligence) perpetually evolves, so shouldn't the human conception of God and the afterlife (Heaven vs. Hell) evolve also?