Religion and Eternal Damnation - the doctrine that you become irredeemable if you die estranged from God
The Christian Church and Islam give us a Heaven where those who are suitable
have everlasting joy with God and they are so happy they will never leave it.
Those who are unsuitable go to Hell to suffer forever and there is no escape
from Hell. It is everlasting torment and filled with the pain of having lost God
forever. How can those who are in heaven then be happy while the damned suffer
in Hell?
The religions reply that because the damned have chosen this fate themselves and
are so evil and hateful the people in Heaven are able to be happy because they
don’t care. The idea that the saints forget about the damned in their happiness
is unacceptable for that would mean forgetting all God did on earth to get you
into Heaven and his saving you from Hell. If so that is an affirmation that
earth life is really just a waste of time. It would still mean the saints don't
give a toss about the damned.
It is better to hate a person than to not care about them. Not caring is worse
than hating. When you hate a person, you are able to turn the way you care about
them into the desire to hurt them. If you didn't care to some degree, you
wouldn't be upset by them or able to hate them. People only hate you because
they care about you on some level. The person who hates you could be the one to
save your life which the person who doesn’t care might not do. The opposite of
love is not hate. It is indifference or not giving a toss.
These faiths offer you an immoral existence with an immoral God in an immoral
Heaven. They look forward to being evil but happy for all eternity.
A religion with an unhealthy goal is an unhealthy religion, and worthy of being
opposed, no matter how much good it does. It cannot ask for thanks as long as
refuses to abandon the doctrine of everlasting torment in Hell. Its goodness is
largely hypocrisy. To approve of Hell is to sanction the greatest not-as-good of
all.
If we are to love sinners before they die but not care afterwards then a
frightening truth becomes evident. We love them only because God commands it,
not because it is right. For it if it is right then we must love them after death
too. Real love loves because it is right and not because anybody commands it.
Nobody has the right to believe on religious grounds that any person deserves
and should be sent to everlasting torment. That is putting faith before people.
Choosing such a belief says a lot about the chooser.
Do not demean yourself by believing that you can become wholly evil and
separated from God. Believe that your potential is to be good and to love. Your
mistakes, both big and small, do nothing to disprove that.
The doctrine of some is that the mind is so powerful that if you believe in Hell
and that you should be there forever you will create this Hell for yourself
forever at death. They say that you go there simply because you create it by
believing in it. If so, it is vital that we do all we can to make people discard
the belief and that we do it to bring them joy.
Hell is clear proof that the Christian faith and other faiths that teach the
doctrine are "immoral". To believe in Hell is to make the most powerful negative
affirmation of all. We know that affirmations can be a force for good or
not-as-good or both. The belief is very harmful.