Hell

In 2005, my husband and I had a conversation. We had many that year, but the topic of this particular conversation was faith, and because of this, it took place in the basement on the spare bed while we both stared at the ceiling rather than each other. After seven years of marriage, we were able to discuss sex of all types, unpleasant bodily functions and even menstruation comfortably, but not faith.
“What if,” Jeff began tentatively in a near whisper, “the Bible isn’t true?”
My husband’s unforgivable sin of doubt caused a vision to flash through the mass of rapidly firing neurons I like to call my brain, and it was less than pleasant. Something like the father of my children writhing in agony, surrounded by non-consuming flames, his eternal body being devoured by worms and violated in various methods by grinning demons with pitchforks.
You get the picture.
You might wonder where I got the picture.
Church, of course.
As a child, I could swear the most oft repeated phrases in church were “Lake of Fire” and “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” The Chick tracts sold in the church bookstore that served as my “light” Sunday afternoon reading did nothing to help my images of this place of nightmares. The wicked sinner in the story always wound up in hell with a gleefully grinning fork-tailed Satan poking him.
In services, the fire-and-brimstone preachers became most enthusiastic when speaking of hell. “Imagine the worst possible pain and suffering,” they would say, voice trembling dramatically, “And that is what Hell will be like if you do not repent now and beg God for mercy!”
For some reason, as I grew older – say, preteens, early teens – this worst possible thing became sexual. Hence the violations by the demons in the earlier scenario. Rather disturbing, wouldn’t you say? One of the biggest things I feared about hell was, well, rape.
Why is this? What is a young girl doing picturing hell as a place of sado-masochistic sex by firelight?
I posed this question to Jeff recently, when we were trying to determine if we were to the point of considering hell “silly” yet. His answer, once he’d recovered from the obvious disturbing visuals, was something like this:
The biggest sin in church is sexual sin, i.e., sex with someone who is not your spouse in something other than the missionary position and for another purpose besides bearing children. Sex is preached as dirty, filthy and evil. Dramatic phrases like, “lust of the flesh” are bandied about in scandalized tones. Therefore, hell involves sex.
Wow.
Next post: Why heaven is the lesser of two evils. But just barely.

Why am I an Atheist?

As I mentioned in my introductory post, I am an atheist. I do not believe in deities or in 'revelations' being given to mankind. I am learning to prefer the self-labeling of 'secular humanist', as I believe it is better to go by what I do believe rather than what I do not. But what brought me on this journey from fundamentalist Christian to liberal Christian to slightly confused deist to atheism to humanism? A few acquaintances – some friends, some family – have proposed their own theories.

There is the theory that I have “rejected” god or somehow “hardened my heart” towards him. The gentler side of this theory, but no less annoying, is: “Even if you don’t love Jesus, he still loves you!”

There is the theory that I am just “doing it” to “rebel” or “get attention.”

There’s also the theory that I was looking for reasons to disbelieve. Which apparently goes along with the theory that I wanted “permission” to “sin”.

Each of those theories has its own fallacy. It is impossible to reject something in which you do not believe. If I said I did not believe that there was a giant purple tea pot in orbit around the earth, would I then be accused of rejecting the giant purple tea pot?

I’m a notorious introvert with a strong desire to blend in and be accepted, so why in the world would I be wanting attention for something that many feel is negative?

As for the third, the reason is actually the exact opposite. I was looking for a reason to believe. By the way, I’m still working on the major increase in “sin” that was supposed to happen. For some reason, I haven’t seemed to get anywhere with that! What is wrong with me?

Ahem. Back to topic.

You see, the more I learned about the history of Christianity, especially the formative years, and the more I learned about religion and the more I read the Bible, the more Christianity I was forced to throw out. When I enrolled in TH 220 at SMWC, The Hebrew Scriptures, I was thrilled.

Now I’m going to learn something! I thought excitedly. This is where it all began, this is how I’m going to find out exactly what my faith is about and exactly what God had in mind for the world. I believed that the oldest recording of my faith had to be the most accurate.

Instead I found contradictions, faith-based atrocities, and a god that is far closer to a paranoid and controlling schizophrenic than a genuine awe-inducing deity.

I became an atheist because I had an honest desire to know the truth. I wanted to learn and I was hungry for actual knowledge – historical, contextual, political – about my religion.

Churches often stifle this desire by declaring doubt to be unacceptable. Remember Thomas? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe, or whatever the heck it says. Blind faith held up as a virtue. Thomas is the real hero of that story and Jesus is the impatient, sleep-deprived parent snapping, “Don’t ask questions! Why do you always have to know everything?!”

And yet, most of us have a desire to know from the moment we take a breath. Would a deity or “intelligent designer” truly create a species with an intense desire to know and then smack them for being inquisitive?

*Ouch! I’m sorry! Ouch! Please stop! I won’t ask again! I promise!!! Damn it, God, stop hitting me!!!*

Greetings!

I now have three blogs. This one, this one and this one. This is my CS 101 blog; sorry for the lame name, but it's late and my creativity is shot. And the coyotes are oddly silent tonight.

Basic facts about me. I'm 28. I have been married nearly 9 years. Yes, we got married young. Which is why I'm going to college now and not then (marriage and lack of any sense of self sort of interrupted my first try...) My husband is a Captain in the Air Force with 6 years in; he is stationed at Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque, NM. He's a space guy and has a Master's in astronautical engineering. We have two sons, ages 3 and 5. They're adorable, exasperating and wonderful all at the same time.

Before I left college to marry Jeff, I had a year of aerospace engineering at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. After the birth of my second son, in 2004, I started at SMWC and it's one of the best decisions I have ever made. I honestly believe that SMWC saved my sanity. In my 'free' time, I read, work on my novel, cross-stitch and scrapbook. I occasionally clean house, bake, pack lunches, potty train kids, pull weeds out of the gravel in the yard, attempt to garden, fold laundry and vacuum. I try to play my piano occasionally, although I am rusty and untrained. I also play racquetball with my husband and go rock climbing, indoors, when I can. I love motorcycles and wish I had one... I have one tattoo that was my birthday present this year. I tend to ramble when I write so my posts are usually too long.

I'm from a large family and spent the first 18 years of my life in Ohio, out in the boonies. I am the youngest of six. My parents raised us at a crazy church, but they didn't know any better, so that's okay. We didn't celebrate Christmas or Halloween when I was a kid, so those are my favorite holidays now. Anyway, after a few years of wandering from church to church, my husband and I became atheists, partially from actually reading the Bible. It's the best thing that's ever happened to us, which is why I mention it so often.

Life is great!