As an innocent child, I honestly thought no one actually believed in Heaven & Hell. I naturally assumed it was something cute and campy people said to be nice. But to my chagrin…
A Little Herstory
When you’re not consistently scared with hot flames burning your face off, the mention of Hell is more humorous than anything else. For those of you not aware, Jews don’t believe in anything close to what the Christians and Muslims when it comes to the afterlife. There is no specific doctrine that depicts Heaven and/or Hell. A Jewish friend of mine once described the afterlife as closeness or distance to/from God, which is – in a nutshell – how most describe it.
To explain, I heard of Heaven occasionally, as if to say my Grandfather who passed on was watching me… masturbate. Eww. Even so, it wasn’t mentioned frequently and Hell was just used in clichés and jokes.
On Earth
I prefer to relate Heaven and Hell as a metaphor for balancing our lives, that it exists on Earth, part of our daily lives. Here and now. It’s a fancy way of saying there is good and bad, let’s make the best of it.
I received the following comment on an older Coming Out Godless video I had made quite some moons ago. This is what prompted this post:
FUCC YOU!!!! YOUR GOING TO BURN IN HECK
L to the O to the L! What a mess. Yes, all uppercase really gets the message across. Thanks for yelling to me about your version of Heck in the most non-confrontational video ever. Most versions of Hell don’t even involve flames, so who are to you impose your views?
