There is NO Hell– God Just Couldn’t Be Meaner Than We Are

Is it any coincidence that the latest war of religion that started on September 11, 2001, is being fought primarily between the United States and the Islamic world? It just so happens that no two groups of humanity are more ingrained with the doctrine of literal fundamentalist religion — including a retributive view of God best expressed by a belief in a Hell — than conservative Muslims and conservative Christians. American fundamentalists and Islamic fundamentalists deserve each other.

And nowhere on earth have conservative Christians been closer to controlling foreign policy than here in the United States and/or the Islamic cleric-controlled strict conservative countries like Saudi Arabia– home to so much worldwide funding of terror groups. Nowhere on earth have conservative Muslims been more dominant than in the countries from which the 9/11 extremists originated – Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan.

What ties the fundamentalist Muslims and fundamentalist American Christians together? A literal belief in a judgmental angry God who desires to punish unbelievers for eternity. If we serve an angry killer “god” why not imitate him and kill each other? Why not “punish” each other for wrong beliefs as W Bush did attacking Iraq for no reason and bin Laden did in attacking us on 9/11? After all bin Laden is mild and kind compared to a god who would send anyone to Hell for believing wrong. Bin Laden only killed people once, not for eternity.

What a pair George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden made. On the one hand, an American president who was a born-again evangelical with a special “heart” for the state of Israel and its importance to the so-called end times, and on the other hand a terrorist leader who believed that he was serving God by ridding the Arabian Peninsula of an American presence and cleansing the “defiled” land of Palestine of what he believed were “invader Jews.”

So whether you’re an atheist or not, the issue of who’s going to Hell or not matters because there are a lot of folks on this planet – many of them extraordinarily well-armed – from born-again American military personnel to Muslim fanatics, who seriously believe that God smiles upon them when they send their enemies to Hell.

And so my view of “Hell” encompasses two things: First, the theological question about whether a land of eternal suffering exists as God’s “great plan” for most of humanity.

Second, the question of the political implications of having a huge chunk of humanity believe in damnation for those who disagree with their theology, politics and culture, as if somehow simply killing one’s enemies is not enough.

What most people don’t know is that there’s another thread running through both Christianity and Islam that is far more merciful than the fundamentalists’ take on salvation, judgment and damnation.

Paradise, which Muslims believe is the final destination of the society of God’s choice, is referred to in the Quran as “the home of peace”

“Our God,” Muslims are asked to recite, “You are peace, and peace is from You.”

Since Christianity is my tradition, I can say more about it. One view of God – the more fundamentalist view – is of a retributive God just itching to punish those who “stray.” In that view Jesus’ death was all about satisfying an angry “god” who needed a blood offering to make him change his mind about damning everyone and entice him to save a few the “elect.”

The other equally ancient view, going right back into the New Testament era, is of an all-forgiving God who in the person of Jesus Christ ended the era of scapegoat sacrifice, retribution and punishment forever.

As Jesus said on the cross: “Forgive them for they know not what they do.”

That redemptive view holds that far from God being a retributive God seeking justice, God is a merciful father who loves all his children equally. This is the less-known view today because fundamentalists – through televangelists and others – have been so loud and dominant in North American culture.

But for all that, this redemptive view is no less real.

Why does our view of Hell matter? Because believers in Hell believe in revenge. And according to brain chemistry studies, taking revenge and nurturing resentment is a major source of life-destroying stress.

For a profound exploration of the madness caused by embracing the “justice” of “godly” revenge and retribution, watch the film “Hellbound?”

The film shows how the “Hell” of revenge thinking, and the resulting unhinging of some people’s brains through their denial of human empathy, leads them to relish the violent future of suffering that they predict awaits the “lost” in Hell.

Do we really want to go back to a time of literal religion. Wasn’t 9/11 enough of an argument against retributive religion?

We need a concept of “Hell” like a hole in the head. It’s time for the alternative of empathetic merciful religion to be understood.

Watch the “Hellbound?” trailer here and also get addresses of theaters showing the film.

To book Frank Schaeffer to speak at your college, church or group contact him at Frankschaeffer.com 

Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back .