If you believe there is a Hell … why do you believe it? How do you know it really exists?
Did you read about it in the Bible?
Has anyone told you?
Maybe God himself revealed it to you?
Have you read it somewhere?
Is this your own idea? You came up with it by yourself?
Maybe… a little bit of everything?
Many people who believe in the existence of Hell will probably answer ‘yes’ to many of the above questions, but what if the truth is much simpler?
Of course, I will not say with a 100% certainty why you believe in Hell but what I can do is to say why I did.
I believed in Hell for almost 40 years of my life.
I believed in Hell just because…
I was born in Poland.
And no, it’s not a joke. Perhaps just a simplification.
The actual underlying reason is not of course the country you were born, but we’ll get to that soon.
In the second half of 20th century Poland was almost 100% Roman Catholic. The fact that the Pope was Polish did help a lot in maintaining this status quo for many years.
(the caption should actually be ‘a map of Catholic churches in Poland…)
Until I was 20 I hadn’t met any believers who weren’t Catholics, perhaps except for a few Jehovah’s Witnesses and other “sectarians”, as everybody was calling them.
So… I simply believed in Hell because I was born in a Roman Catholic family at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, and it was in a country that was almost 100% Catholic.
Until I connected to the Internet, which was when I was 21 (yes, the Internet got to Poland quite a few years late, comparing to the USA), I did not even know people who believe otherwise. I knew they existed but they were spoken about as outcasts and treated with contempt.
And believe it or not, you may have been born in the USA, perhaps much later than me, and you were still in the same situation.
If you are religious, especially of any kind of orthodox faith, it’d bet a $100 it was your family, not you, who chose it.
In my country almost 100% people were of the same religion. In your country it might be 30% or maybe even 5%. It doesn’t actually matters. What matters is how many percent of your family and friends were of the same religion.
Very probably it was also close to 100% or just.. all.
Religious people usually marry only people of the same religion, and choose friends in the same church they go to. Your religion might be a small minority in your country, but when you were growing up, when your worldview was being formed; you could still be surrounded by 100% people having the same religious beliefs.
Our brain would die of exhaustion if we tried to question everything around us. We learn that if everyone else thinks something’s normal, it is normal.
Have you ever questioned the necessity to breathe?
Is everyone I know breathing? Yes, then I don’t have to think about it, I breathe and that’s it.
Does everyone I know believe in Hell? Yes, then I don’t have to think about it, I believe and that’s it.
But let’s make a little thought experiment.
Let’s change almost any detail in my curriculum vitae:
Let’s move my birth several thousand miles in any geographical direction.
Let’s move it in time a few hundred years back, or just a few decades ahead.
Let’s change my family’s religion.
My chances of believing in Hell drop from 99% to 1%.
I would probably not even hear of Hell! If I was interested in religions perhaps I would just know that there are people out there who believe that after death God will punish them.
And if you heard about Hell for the first time, when you were already an adult, and if someone told you that God is infinite love, teaching all people to forgive everything without limits, turn the other cheek and pay back good for evil… How come this merciful God created a lake of fire where most of His beloved children will fry endlessly, sending the rest of the people to Paradise, where they will feast without ceasing, perhaps graciously taking away their memory of their family and friends suffering indescribable torments …
And if someone had told you all this …
You would say it is
the stupidest story you’ve ever heard!
Inconsistent, pointless, and that there’s no way anyone normal in the world would believe it.
Well, someone does. According to statistics, over 2 billion people are Christians.
Of course – today there are many liberal factions of Christianity that reject the idea of Hell altogether, and even among members of the greatest churches that teach Hell, such as Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, and Baptist – there are more and more people questioning the idea. Not out loud, of course.
Religion likes getting more members. Some members have 2, 3 or even more children – how to make sure they will not run away?
Let’s convince them that all other religions are evil.
Our dogmas sometimes contradict each other… some, maybe lots of things are illogical… well we can’t make them unable to think but we can also try to convince them that doubting is evil as well.
Something you were taught last Sunday didn’t make sense? How can you even say that? Millions of others have believed this for centuries, do you think you’re smarter than them?
These tricks were made to keep you there, to keep going to church, pay your tithe, and some years later – to bring new believers.
My most serious error was believing that God hates it when you question His holy laws.
Stop. The laws are not His. They’re made by people. If God could hate…
He would never hate asking questions
He’d hate that we don’t use the brain He gave us!
Everything that was essential I had to say is contained in this one sentence:
I only believed in Hell because I was born in Poland.
