{"id":20,"date":"2008-01-16T20:49:03","date_gmt":"2008-01-17T04:49:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/?p=20"},"modified":"2008-01-16T20:49:03","modified_gmt":"2008-01-17T04:49:03","slug":"hell-a-helluva-concept","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/?p=20","title":{"rendered":"Hell: A Helluva Concept"},"content":{"rendered":"

Speaking from the role of child psychiatrist, I think the concept of hell is a form of emotional abuse no less than beating a child with the buckle of a belt or a stick is physical abuse. It is a nasty, unnecessary idea that is part of a culture that reared children primarily through the medium of fear and coercion rather than love and encouragement. This culture is still very pervasive in the world. Remember the happy-sounding \u201cSchool Days\u201d song from the early 20th century?
\n\u201cSchool, days, school days, good old golden-rule days….\u201d<\/em>
\n(Okay, that seems like a nice, good-old-days feel-good image… people treating each other with the Golden rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.) But then the lyric goes on:
\n\u201cReadin\u2019 and (w)ritin\u2019 and \u2018rithmetic, taught to the tune of a hick\u2019ry stick…\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Teaching to the tune of a stick<\/em>? What does that mean? It means the teacher makes the \u201cmusic\u201d of a whizzing sound as she swings the stick through the air and strikes a child\u2019s body with it<\/em>! Now, consider how much that would hurt! Whoa! Within this sweet, bouncing melody there is a nasty subliminal message: That hickory stick was used to hit kids if they didn\u2019t answer correctly! (And dyslexic kids got hit a lot because they obviously \u201cweren\u2019t trying hard enough.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Now picture the scene: It wasn\u2019t just one strike, but several! We\u2019re talking about a degree of physical abuse that would get teachers fired today, if not criminally prosecuted. But it was standard experience for great-great-grandparents.<\/p>\n

So was being told that if they weren\u2019t \u201cgood\u201d they\u2019d be \u201cpunished.\u201d A \u201cgood whupping.\u201d Aw, it\u2019s just a spanking. Oh, yeah? Ask about it, read up a bit on what corporal punishment was like, and what behaviors were judged to merit it. It isn\u2019t a pretty picture, and there\u2019s still a fair amount of paddling and hitting allowed today, especially in religious schools that believe in \u201cspare the rod and spoil the child.\u201d Ask around.<\/p>\n

Beating a child is really pretty bad, generates trauma and resentment, humiliation, and other negative emotions, far more than a resolve to \u201cbe good.\u201d I\u2019m talking about ever-lasting punishment\u2014and not just sitting in time-out. I\u2019m talking about torture<\/em>. Now, let\u2019s remember what inflicting intentional repeated pain is, and that what Hell is about is being tortured.<\/p>\n

In addition to the pain, there\u2019s the mind-twisting. You\u2019re supposed to love the one who is torturing you. Okay, Satan is torturing you, or his demons. But God sent you here, and God permits the existence of Hell. It doesn\u2019t take a lot of figuring out to get that clear.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re supposed to love your God with your whole heart, and if you don\u2019t, then God knows all and can tell, and God will be angry and punish you and send you to hell. Now how can you get yourself to love a God who is likely as not going to ensure that you are tortured eternally?\u00a0 In psychology, this is called a double bind<\/em>: Not only is it an impossible dilemma, but it is compounded again by your being unable to leave the scene\u2014go live in another universe with a more sensible God, for example\u2014and you can\u2019t effectively protest that this whole thing is crazy as hell, because you\u2019ll be thought of as a sinner and there you are back in trouble\u2014BIG trouble.<\/p>\n

What is Torture<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now torture\u2014let\u2019s do just a little teeny tiny torture here in a thought experiment: You sit there and watch someone you don\u2019t even like very much be tortured. That person sits there and gets pinched hard enough to really get him yelping. Then it happens again in 30 seconds. Ooowwww! And again! Hey! No kidding! Stop it! And again. And again. And again. Every 30 seconds. Now he or she is starting to cry! Helpless, straining against his bonds: Yow! Please!\u00a0 After a couple of minutes, she\u2019s begging for mercy. You just sit there. You\u2019re not doing anything, just watching, and hearing the cries. And it continues. Ow! Yikes! Ooooh! Every thirty seconds.<\/p>\n

You could stop it if you only stand up and shout, \u201cEnough.\u201d But you figure, hey, the victim deserves it, he must, or he wouldn\u2019t be being punished. Authorities must know better, they must have a good reason. Okay, let him be punished. A hundred lashes or something. And let\u2019s make this even more vivid: It turns out that the victim is someone you don\u2019t like very much. Think of the worst people you can imagine and that this guy is one of those.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s make it even worse: The victim is someone you hate. A terrorist criminal psychopathic nasty, nasty man. H killed your mom or brother. So you let \u2018im get what\u2019s coming to him! Nyah nyah nyah!<\/p>\n

Now the problem in this thought experiment is that you can get up and go eat and go to the bathroom, but part of your eyes and ears keep seeing this scene\u2014every thirty seconds, pain, real pain, deep pain, and… get this, slowly, the person is getting the idea that this pain is going to keep happening, will never stop: So you get to see that person\u2019s despair, too. You can go to heaven and be in bliss but… part of you is vividly aware that this enemy, this nastiest of people, is getting his, is getting what he deserves, and you can see every expression on his face and hear his cries. (Thankfully, you don\u2019t feel his pain, unless you\u2019re sensitive and empathic, but those categories are too troublesome to think about.) Point is, you can\u2019t forget\u2014the old out of sight out of mind business.\u00a0 You are vividly aware this guy is getting tortured.<\/p>\n

And you begin to wonder yourself, how long is this going to go on?\u00a0 Okay, how about constant repeated pain for a month? (You have to remain aware of each stab of pain even if you busy yourself elsewhere.). Two months? Could you stand it?\u00a0 How about two weeks? Some of you out there are saying three months!\u00a0 Don\u2019t be too quick about the easy phrase \u201cforever\u201d now. At what point would you be moved to stop and scream, \u201cEnough!\u201d\u00a0 (Now imagine that the pain being created is from an even more painful instrument or device, it creates excruciating pain, and it happens every five seconds! Imagine the screams, the pleas for mercy, the crying.)<\/p>\n

Remember, this is what the Bill of Rights speaks about\u2014in the 18th century, reasonable people were beginning to question the previous century\u2019s barbaric practices of torture. Apparently it became more civilized to abandon this procedure either for extracting confessions or imposing punishment. (Of course, the Bush administration\u2019s support of torture shows how excessively self-righteous people can rationalize cruelty and blind themselves to its reality.)<\/p>\n

Okay, well, kings shouldn\u2019t do this. Torture is nasty. And it would be harder to bear if you imagined that it was a kid getting tortured. But according to some religious beliefs, an all-Loving God can\u2014and does\u2014rightfully impose an eternity of torture on those who disobey certain rules. The problem is made worse because each of a thousand religions and sects disagree on which rules should be followed, which deserve the big punishment, and which maybe lesser punishments that remain unspecified\u2014so you better be sure to find the right combination!<\/p>\n

Now kids are taught that Hell is real, and that it happens, and some religions even teach that it happens to most people. Pretty scarey. I think sensitive kids who think about what is said to them get more upset, frightened, and traumatized than most people think. Kids sense what can\u2019t be challenged, what the parents seem unwilling to hear. They learn that simply saying, \u201cI don\u2019t like that!\u201d or \u201cThat\u2019s not fair!\u201d will be brushed aside.<\/p>\n

Indeed, dare we say that some types of child rearing are evil? Can we say that torturing a child mentally is even half as evil as torturing a child physically? Kids believe this stuff\u2014they don\u2019t have a category of allegory or metaphor or something that cushions the imagery. And it generates a more problematic state of what psychologists call \u201ccognitive dissonance\u201d\u2014 mixed-up thinking\u2014than folks want to recognize. To cope, the kids turn off. (It might make for an interesting research project to find out how well kids who believe in hell can engage in any level of critical thinking.)<\/p>\n

There have been a number of books more recently challenging the wisdom of associating the concept of Hell with any concept of a Loving rather than a harshly punitive God. Suggested reading from a retired Presbyterian minister:
\nWright, Keith. (200). The Hell Jesus never intended<\/em>. Kelona, BC, Canada: Northstone \/ Wood Lake Books ( www.northstone.com<\/a> .)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Speaking from the role of child psychiatrist, I think the concept of hell is a form of emotional abuse no less than beating a child with the buckle of a belt or a stick is physical abuse. It is a nasty, unnecessary idea that is part of a culture that reared children primarily through the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}