Ready to have some fun? I’m going to give away two of the author’s copies I received before pub date from the publisher. One is through a giveaway. Click below to enter.
Another is through a contest. Whoever is the first to answer this question first wins. How old was Erik when he had his first girlfriend? You can also tell me what grade in school he was in. Email me your answer to emedhus@gmail.com. I won’t answer them, but I will notify the winner as soon as we have one. Good luck, guys!
Now let’s see what the hell this post is about!
Me: Hello, how are you?
Jamie (chuckling): Erik throws his ear out expecting the blog members to say hello.
Erik: Hi!
Me: I’m sure everybody is saying hi to you, Erik. Say hi back.
He already did so…
Erik: Hello.
Me: All right. We’re going to talk about something that a lot of the YouTube subscribers have asked about and that is about evil and Hell and all that nastiness. Tell us first: Is there a Hell as the Bible says?
Erik: Wait, wait! Let me grab my soapbox.
Me: Go get it. God knows you could use a few more inches.
Jamie: Oh my gosh. I look like a tiny person compared to him.
Erik: Yes, let’s talk about that. Is there a hell? Nope.
Me: The end.
Jamie: Ding!
We both laugh.
Erik: You’re talking about a Hell as defined as something that’s in charge of someone, right?
Me: Right. Right.
Erik: That’s the definition you’re giving here? Fire? Brimstone?
Me: Yeah.
Erik: A place you go to because you’re being punished for what you did? That kind of a thing?
Me: Okay. Right.
Erik: No. No, it doesn’t exist. It’s a good story, though, and it’s a story that fits the linear human thinking of something can only be one thing at a time. You can only be in Heaven, or you can only be in Hell. It also fits our understanding of how to be a better person because that’s a big thing for people—how to be a better person. That already means you’re judging it, that you’re better than what you were before, and you weren’t accepting what you were doing before, and what you were doing before was wrong.
Jamie (motioning Erik to come from around her right side to the front): Stand over there.
I guess her neck was bothering her looking off to the side a lot.
Me: So are you saying that by people believing in Hell, they’ll be better people? Is that what you’re saying?
Erik: Yes.
Me: So there’s a reason to believe in Hell?
Erik: Yes. It fits our linear thinking on Earth, and it gives it structure. So it’s all tied up in our language and belief systems. But, in where we’re going, it’s not going to fit.
Me: Well, where did the idea of Hell come from anyway?
Erik: What religion, history or slice of culture do you want to look into? Everybody has their own version of it. It’s mostly defined as being shunned or not being accepted by the gods. That’s where it came from.
Me: Okay.
Erik: It was the explanation, the location or place of you not being accepted.
Me: Ah, I see.
Erik: Not only –
Jamie laughs.
Jamie: I see what you’re saying.
Erik: Not only are your actions and your thoughts and your words defining what you’re doing, but little do you know, the gods around you can make you do these things.
Jamie: He says it very sarcastically.
Me: Right.
Erik: I don’t mean that for real, but in olden times, it helped us explain [things.] Like if you were going crazy in your head, we didn’t have mental disease, but we had the devil, the one that was most ungodlike, and he must have been around you at that time to cause it. It wasn’t your fault or something in your human makeup that didn’t allow you to be kind or whatever action was expected at that moment.
Me: Okay.
Erik: So those are the two reasons why Hell popped up.
Me: Was there any nefarious reason for mankind to create the concept of Hell, or did they just really believe it? Did they go like, “Hey, let’s get together and [create something] to scare people so we can control them.” It’s certainly not like that, is it?
Erik: No. First it was used as not being accepted by God and to describe human actions that couldn’t be described by any other means at that time. Then, when it was already in the language, when governments began to form and take shape, they used it for their benefit like, “If you don’t tithe, of if you act like this, or if you don’t show this kind of loyalty, then you’re going to be banned to Hell. You’re going to be shunned.”
Me: Of course I’d be afraid of that. I was raised Catholic until I was about five years old, and my parents didn’t want to go to church anymore even though my great uncle was Cardinal of Spain.
Awkward.
Me: So my parents took all of us little girls, four sisters or actually three at the time, into separate rooms and interviewed us to see if we wanted to go to church. So my dad took me and asked, “Elisa, do you want to go to church?” and I said, “But I don’t want to go to Hell!” And he said, “There’s not such thing as Hell! Jackie, she doesn’t want to go!” That was the end of my church experience.
Jamie laughs hard.
Jamie: [Erik] loves that!
Enjoy your weekend, peeps, and stay tuned for part two Monday!
