Why I Do Not Fear Eternal Damnation As the blasphemous and lusty wench that I am, I can joke many times about the fact that I'm going to hell. Honestly, I don't really believe in hell, not as it was presented to me as a child, and thus I don't genuinely fear it. To tell you the truth, I can't think too much on the afterlife when I'm just trying to get through this week. My philosophy is that the true path to happiness (some would call it "heaven") is to put a smile on someone's face whenever you can. I don't totally subscribe to the philosophy of "good works." God knows that it got the Catholic church in a lot of trouble during the sixteenth century, and any good student of history can tell you about the whole indulgences fiasco. But, if there is a God (I'm pretty much convinced in the existence of a higher power, but let's speculate here for a minute) I'm sure that he/she/it doesn't take the good work in and of itself into account, but the spirit in which it was done. I believe he/she/it does the same things for sins, as well. But I digress. So, anyway, I often joke about my constant irreverent blasphemy as my ticket into the fiery inferno. (How do Christian fundamentalists know that hell is hot? A block of ice, constant hurricanes, nonstop humidity, a pit of snakes, and Richard Simmons in spandex are all equally as bad, you know.) But there's a difference between joking about it and being honestly told that one is going to hell. Yesterday was the second time in five days where some cockamamie religious fundamentalist told me that I was going to burn, albeit indirectly. At first I was pissed off. Where do these people get off judging others? What do they know about my life or the lives of my good Jewish, Muslim, or even lapsed Christian friends? Why are they so arrogant as to presume that there is no salvation outside of their church? Having faith that the Bible was divinely inspired is respectable in and of itself, but don't they know it was written down by humans, and thus prone to error? I mean, God knows I've made enough errors in my lifetime when people have dictated things to me. And I had spelling and grammar check! And why are they ignoring the part in the Bible where Jesus lambastes the Pharisees, who presume that everyone is going to hell but them? All of these thoughts were racing through my head, but then I remembered. If they're supposedly the ones who are going to heaven, and I'm the one who's going to hell... that means that there are no annoying, self-righteous Christian fundamentalists in hell... which means that... hell is heaven! Maybe God is watching out for me. back to thoughts home