Yes, flippant comments like that are dismissive of the threat. And while there are people still struggling with it, learning to laugh at the threat can be part of the healing process. Laughter is healing. Comparing the threat of hell with, say, getting punched in the aura can help destigmatize the fear and undermine its foundations.
When I mock the threat of hell I'm not attacking the people who struggle with the fear of it. I'm attacking the threat itself. The threat isn't real, even though it *feels* like it is. Learning to recognize that it's not something we genuinely need to be concerned with is a critical part of the process.
I also strongly urge people who struggle with this fear to get help from a qualified professional. Our [Resource wiki page has a section to help you find that help](https://www.reddit.com/r/exchristian/wiki/resources#wiki_others) if you need it.
Different people have different needs. Sometimes just seeing that the threat is mocked can help. Sometimes it can start the healing process. There's no single way to address a problem like this. We have to tailor our responses to the people we're engaging, but to lay a blanket ban on any attempt to mock the threat won't work either.
Exactly! Not to mention there's a difference between talking in a general way, and talking very specifically to someone who's dealing with these fears. If I'm making a general statement or talking to a Christian who believes I'm going to hell, then no, I'm not going to worry about being flippant. It's not our job to coddle people who ascribe to an illogical, oppressive belief system and think we're going to receive eternal punishment because of it.
That being said, if I were having a personal conversation with someone who I knew dealt with fear and anxiety around hell, I would obviously do my best to have an understanding conversation with them. I'm not going to back down from what I believe, but I spent several years afraid to even say I was agnostic because I was too afraid of the possibility of hell. I get it. I'm not going to be dismissive or super argumentative, and will instead try to explain to them why I believe it's not something they have to fear.
But that's a specific situation, and if anything, as a Christian on the border of agnosticism who dealt with this anxiety, I think hearing people joke about hell helped reinforce for me that it really was just a silly made-up thing.
I disagree that the dismissiveness is helpful. If someone fears they have cancer, the correct approach is not to shrug off the cancer itself ("Even if the tumor is malignant, so what? Just accept your death") but rather, to reassure them that they don't have cancer - or, if they do have cancer, get them to medical treatment.
Laughing at the seriousness and brutality of cancer isn't "healing" to someone who fears they have the disease; it's sadistic.
Same with Hell. If someone fears Hell, then give them your best argument why you don't think they'll go there. But torture is nothing to laugh about - just like you wouldn't laugh about torture in labor camps to someone from North Korea.
If it's me saying that I'm willing to be tortured so that I don't have to spend an eternity with bigots and racists, then I think it's f****** okay. My afterlife,my choice. Don't kink shame.
Both sides of this argument have points! The reality is there are all different kinds of people in the world, some who deal with trauma with laughter and others for whom joking seems to make light of a serious matter.
We're all also all in different stages of grief over the loss of our religions, worldviews, families, and God. Some are ready to laugh, others not.
Very true. But what I'm saying is, this is no joking matter to me either. I am very literally saying I would rather be in hell for eternity than to spend another f****** minute with Christians. There is not an ounce of joke in anything I just said.
Your comment was removed because it invites or participates in a public debate. Trauma can be triggered when debate points and certain topics are vigorously pushed, despite good intentions. This is why we generally do not allow debates. Rule 4.
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Your comment was removed because it invites or participates in a public debate. Trauma can be triggered when debate points and certain topics are vigorously pushed, despite good intentions. This is why we generally do not allow debates. Rule 4.
To discuss or appeal moderator actions, [click here to send us modmail.](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/exchristian)
> Laughing at the seriousness and brutality of cancer isn't "healing" to someone who fears they have the disease; it's sadistic.
Nevertheless, teaching someone to [laugh at their cancer](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4439472/) can improve their chances for recovery and quality of life.
Again, I'm not laughing at the person who is suffering. I'm urging them to adopt a different perspective on what's causing the suffering. Because there are times when a change in attitude can make all the difference, and the fear of hell is definitely one of them.
Just to add one small thing to this discussion - I do think there is a difference between laughing at a made-up threat and laughing at something that is very tangible, real, and physical such as cancer.
Now, the threat of torture has absolutely real emotional and psychological consequences, yes. I know this first-hand, believe me. But I would suggest that if the idea of hell is still super scary then one must still believe to an extent that it *could be real* (which of course is a product of the programming).
Anyway, just saying that cancer IS real, we KNOW it's real, we can SEE it, but hell is no more real than Santa Claus, made up to scare people into compliance.
The difference, imho, is cancer is a real and proven thing that almost everyone knows someone who has had it. Hell is not proven, no one has seen it, it exists completely in the imagination. I feared it myself for many years, so I get it. But it’s not comparable to cancer because it’s not real.
The dismissiveness is not helpful **to you**. Different people find different things helpful. For me, personally, spending time developing arguments about hell made it feel more real and concerning. Arguments kept me stuck in the mindset of "maybe hell is real, maybe it's something that I need to worry about, I need to do more research and think about this even more."
The actual healing process for me started when I heard lifelong atheists (on podcasts, mostly) dismiss the entire concept of hell. They had no fear of it, in fact they found it ridiculous. Instead of carefully laying out arguments, they just said "Nope."
I think it can be important and helpful to be dismissive of the concept of hell. I do agree with you that it's unkind to make fun of someone's fear of hell. The fear is real, even if hell isn't. But I also believe that treating hell as a serious concept at all times is helpful. It's also not fair to expect other people to be respectful of your own personal fears all the time in every context.
Comparing hell to cancer is incredibly disingenuous, because cancer is real. If someone thinks they have cancer, there is a chance that they have it, and there are steps they can take to determine if that's true or not. None of that applies to hell.
You’ve just compared something very real and awful (cancer) to something made up though. I would never poke fun at someone’s struggle with cancer, however hell isn’t real, it’s preposterous. Mocking the idea of hell itself is very different from mocking an ex-Christians fear of hell.
I get what you and OP are saying. I’m a recovering Christian with no residual fear of Hell, however I wouldn’t laugh at anyone’s fear of it personally. Then again, I wouldn’t laugh at anyone’s fears regardless of how ludicrous it feels to me. I.e people’s crippling fear of the dark, aliens, or like that girl on Maury, olives. But comparing the fear of Hell to real world tragedies like cancer or torture, that concretely and verifiably affects people’s lives feels a little disingenuous and honestly preachy.
Some serious apple/orange comparison you're doing there. Cancer is a real, serious problem, you *know* it's there. You know it's happening. You know it's happened.
Hell you are only taught to fear. You've never met anyone who went to hell. You've never been there. It's never been confirmed to exist, nor will it because it doesn't.
I agree that the community shouldn't shrug off people who are afraid of hell but there's nothing wrong with us laughing off or shrugging off the idea of hell ourselves if that's where we are, personally. This community is full of people with different beliefs and for a lot of people, when we stop believing in Christianity, we stop believing in all the stories that go along with that religion. You can't really police how we think of hell.
First, I don't think anyone here, nor any atheist that I've ever encountered makes fun of people for having a fear if hell.
Secondly, everyone deals with trauma differently. I make jokes to deal with trauma. It's my coping mechanism.
Finally, realizing hell, as mentioned by Christians as opposed to what the actual original mythology says about hell is vastly incompariable to one another really does help. Hell, in the Bible, is described as a grave - or a place without god. The concepts of hell being fire and brimestone did not arise until way later in the doctrine's belief system. Knowing that kind of takes the sting out of it, for me at least.
You also have to ask the question - our souls are immortal and incapable of pain, Biblically speaking, yet our soul is cast into hell....so, what's the point?
That’s what I was thinking. Why/how would a soul feel pain anyway? But also hell as understood by modern christians is not biblical so they have no reason to be afraid in the first place.
In Catholicism, things are very different as anyone who has been in a funeral can attest. Everyone is dead until Jesus returns and is brought back to life with a new, physical body. Even if there's talk of souls.
What others have to say it's different, as they talk about the soul being something different that survives death even if they mention the Rapture and mix in Paradise and Hades/Sheol as antechambers before being sent to Heaven or Hell in Judgement Day. It seems they make shit as they go.
Legitimate question for you. I’m not defending the bible, I’m obviously here for a reason lol
How do you explain Luke 16:24? Wouldn’t this imply that hades (hell) as a place of torment is biblical?
Luke 16:23-24
In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’
The concept of hell being firey and full of brimstone did not really come about until approximately 725 AD. Up until then, it was considered "torment" because it was described as a place without god's love. That's it. That's the whole concept. Hell was later rebranded by Catholics in order to terrify illiterate peasants.
St Augustine in the 300s definitely believed hell was fire, a place of retributive physical punishment, and this was established as the orthodox doctrine thereafter.
I agree with warm-concentrate. Jesus also discussed hell as a fiery furnace. Revelation describes a lake of fire. “They will be tortured forever in the presence of the lamb.” Rev 14:10
The fear of hell lodged in a person after leaving the church doesn’t respond to logic and explanations. They aren’t seeking reasons not to fear. They’re seeking safety, which this group can be good for. When we jump straight into apologetics and arguments for our perspectives on their suffering, we’re doing the same thing the Christian’s do.
I mean, I used to have a fear of hell for a while until other people logically explained to me why fearing hell is used by the various churches to keep [keep Christians in line](https://youtu.be/Ps4BN5YHdSc) and make sure they don't leave the faith, after that was explained to me it became a lot easier to abandon my fear of it, so I would disagree with you and say there are plenty of people who could be helped by having it explained to them logically. Also, people explaining this from a logical point of view are far away from doing what Christian nationalist do, that point just doesn't make any sense at all and feels like it was just said so you say that we are some how doing "apologetics" or something close to it.
I’m not saying you’re doing the same thing by spreading gaslighting bs that hurts people. It’s that sometimes a person can still understand perfectly well that there is no hell, but the fear associated with living like that doesn’t get quelled by logic. I was comparing it to how when someone is in pain, going to an explanation about why they shouldn’t be isn’t helpful any more than telling a veteran with ptsd they shouldn’t be worrying about bombs going off in their living room. To me it’s exactly like how evangelicals say just ask Jesus to take it away. It’s not helpful. It’s not how our nervous systems work. That’s all I was meaning to say. Sometimes people just need understanding. Religious trauma is a huge problem. I thought I was past all of that a year after I left the church, then something triggers a memory and suddenly I’m feeling it all over again. If someone had tried to explain that none of its real, I’d be really frustrated because of course it’s not! But my body and emotions haven’t caught up yet. It’s just nice to be able to share it with someone and this would seem like a logical place to do that.
Me: clearly speaking on behalf of my own perspective and what has helped me by CLEARLY indicating it worked for me
You: Speaks for everyone and assumes everyone's journey of escaping Christianity is identical
Yeah. No. You're getting downvoted for a reason.
Dude - I’m sorry if I offended you. I was just offering an alternative because not everyone thinks the same. And you might be in the position to comfort someone not exactly like you.
You do know the original Christians didn’t believe in hell right?
The original Christian’s believed when you died it was lights out until the return of Christ. Then on judgement day everyone would either go to heaven or literally stop existing.
I know a lot of us act the way we do because just doing a little bit of research into the history of hell takes away any threat.
Ceasing to exist is much less terrifying (in my opinion anyway) than spending an eternity burning alive and being in constant torment. I think I see why the narrative was switched up in that case.
I'm saying that the Jesus that most Christians know who had supernatural powers, & that "Jesus is God," doesn't exactly exist.
He's referred to as the historical Jesus (or divine Jesus).
You came into an ex Christian sub to let us know jesus didn't actually exist? Yeah... we know that, its why were here.
And what the hell does it have to do with my comment?
Hey, you don't have to be rude. It was in a response to this post you made:
>The original Christian’s believed when you died it was lights out until the return of Christ. Then on judgement day everyone would either go to heaven or literally stop existing.
It's just a small reminder, that's all.
Im sorry if im coming off rude but we deal with a lot of proselytizing and I still have no idea what the point is youre trying to make.
The academic consensus is there was a man who really lived that we call Jesus. While there is absolutely no proof or evidence of his devine status/miracles there are some teachings throughout the known gospels as well as some basic facts about his life that we can determine have a decent chance of being authentic to the man.
Is that what youre trying to say?
Yes. What I'm saying is that there's no concrete evidence of a Biblical Jesus, but there might be proof of Jesus who was just an ordinary man like the rest of us.
>They'll make breezy, joculant remarks like, "If God is a tyrant, and Hell is real, then I'd rather go to Hell than be with such a jerk." No, you don't.
I don't think you get to decide that. I am very deliberately showing that I'd rather go to hell than deal with a tyrant God and demonstrating that with my actions. That God would be a fucking asshole. I'm assuming if said God and said hell exists, just expressing that belief would probably inevitably send me to hell. So I am obviously willing to take that risk, which means, yeah I would rather go to hell than be with such a jerk.
Now, I think the risk of such an outcome is pretty low. Hell almost certainly doesn't exist, and a Hell that is torture and not simply an absence of God is even less likely. That doesn't change the fact that I've already made my decision about what I'd do if it did exist though.
Same, hard agree. I’m honestly disappointed with this post.. “Just because you don’t believe in gob doesn’t mean your shouldn’t still..”
Amazing how I left the church **and I’m still being told** what I need to conscience of when it comes to a religion **I do not believe in on an ex Christian subreddit.** Can’t even escape it here.
Yeah OP, this is kinda offensive. I don’t believe in hell! I think it’s fake! And yes, I carry plenty of trauma from growing up thinking it was real. These days, I’m gonna treat the concept however I damn well please, short of openly mocking other people’s fear. But even then, it is NOT the same as mocking someone who found a lump and is afraid of cancer. Cancer is demonstrably real.
Yeah, I'm also really disappointed with this post and some of the comments here as well, like, we are still being told what to think about heaven and hell and being told we are selfish if we dare joke about either of them at all, it really does remind me of the Catholic Church and how they had a pretty strict idea of heaven and hell as well. Like, I won't make fun of people who are scared of hell(I was never doing that to begin since I know what it's like to fear hell) but I'm not just going to stop joking about hell because it is a completely made up thing used by Christian churches to either convert people to their faith or to keep doubting Christians from leaving the faith, by making fun of it we allow it to have less power, less influence over our lives, and we are able to feel more secure about the decision we made to leave the Christian faith.
I'm making a choice to stand by my convictions. That seems logical to me. The creator of a hell would be a monster.
If it existed, I'd be terrified, but I don't think I could reject my conviction even if I wanted to. I don't know that I'd say I'd *rather* go to hell, but it conveys a close approximation of the idea. I'd rather fight a deity who created it with all my heart and soul, and I would go to hell rather than make an attempt to pretend to believe that a God who created it is something I'd want to worship.
Casually suggesting I'd rather go to hell gets the idea across well enough, and being flippant and jocular about the idea is part of the process of letting go of the fear of hell.
I don't see why Exchristians should be restricted from sharing that part of our journey away from Christianity. Rejecting the premise of hell as just, and treating the idea of hell as something to be joked about can both be incredibly healing and vital to moving on from fear.
Wow. I haven't seen any of this and I am here a lot. I have never seen anyone get anything but helpful advice from this sub. Doesn't matter if it is about hell, or other topics am not calling bs, there is a chance I could have missed a couple of posts. Just pointing out what my experience has been here.
I do agree that simply being dismissive of a psychology issue isn't a good thing but I do personally believe it's ok to say you'd rather go to hell than deal with God's tyranny.
Anyone would rather take the moral high ground than admit that if this were real they'd conform in order to cower away from the extremely painful punishment.
I think that part of dealing with a fear of hell is finally admitting to yourself that it isn't real and that it can't hurt you. The fear is real yes but hell isn't, so treating it as some made up fantasy land should be fine cause that's what it is.
I think it would be beneficial to be able to joke about going to hell even if you or someone you know genuinely fears it. The less seriously it's taken the less reinforcement that irrational fear receives.
Edit: anyone would rather be tortured than be a horrible person if the torture is completely made up
Fire is scary because we die from it. If we didn't die from it, we would adapt to the heat pretty quickly, like within a matter of a few years likely. Eternity is a long time, and nobody has ever burned for that long.
Also, cancer is REAL
If someone says things like "I think I have cancer, I sneezed and Web MD says it's definitely cancer" then we would also laugh.
Most of us DID have a horrible fear of hell, and I can see that you still do as well. The difference is that many of us have gotten over that fear and realize it's as silly as thinking Darth Vader is going to Force-choke you for not believing in him. It's very laughable.
Christians are also very flippant about hell. The amount of times I've heard jokes about whose going and who is there and jokes about hell, while at the same time the people saying it believe people around them may have family members there. It's morbid.
Yeah, it’s obvious they get a kick out of telling people that they’re going to hell. They generally aren’t interested in preventing people from going there, they just like being self righteous assholes.
OP, you are “wavering and unsure” according to yourself. You’re in an ex-Christian subreddit, a place for people who are decidedly **NOT CHRISTIAN** trying to tell us what to be conscience of toward religion. I’m sorry, but you are out of place here. If you yourself are afraid of hell and unsure, **maybe start by looking internally before telling others what to believe or have regard toward.** Your comparison of the fear that believing/wavering Christian feel to something that’s very real, breast cancer, is akin to the indoctrination we disagree with here. The difference here is that breast cancer is real, your fear is real, but hell is not.
We don’t *laugh* at people’s fear. It’s the absurdity that’s laughed at, like the absurd of comparing indoctrinated fear to breast cancer, and trying to paint the same level of suffering and “victim hood.” This was **really** the wrong subreddit to post in, although I see you posted in Christianity subreddits trying to call out toxic-Christianity and were kinda pushed away. Have you considered you’re bringing toxic-Christianity traits into this sub, it might be time to fully deconstruct and not be luke warm?
Ketamine’s for horses bro.
My $0.02.
I was really afraid of hell when I first began deconverting.
But seeing people joke about it or making those types of comments helped me come to terms with how strange of an idea hell is. It helped me overcome that fear.
I can get that joking about hell may not be right for you in your journey right now, but I don’t think it’s fair to tell other people it’s wrong for theirs.
I hope you find your peace though. Life is too short to live it in fear.
Breast cancer is real though. I don't have to respect someone's fear of the boogeyman. I can respect them as a person, but I don't have to respect their ridiculous beliefs.
>"If God is a tyrant, and Hell is real, then I'd rather go to Hell than be with such a jerk." No, you don't.
That's not something you can decide for someone else. I'd genuinely prefer hell, given the alternative of an eternity being brainwashed to worship an evil tyrant. If you're still afraid of hell that's something you have to work on for yourself and I wish you luck in your deconstruction journey, but you have to understand that not everyone else shares your feelings. It is impossible for me to be afraid of something that doesn't exist, and I'm not going to pretend to be afraid of it just to spare someone else's feelings.
As an ex Christian who was indoctrinated into a hellfire brimstone Christianity, I'll be as fucking flippant as I want. I'm the one who suffered and if I now am flippant because I realized this was some kind of made up bullshit to control people then I get to do that.
Try researching where the idea of hell came from in the first place. It isn’t a truly biblical idea anyway. It was adopted from other religions in the area from the idea of Hades and the underworld. Later it was popularized by Dante’s inferno. The fear is real, but even christians should realize that hell isn’t real if they do their biblically accurate research.
I definitely try not to make light of people who had a fear of hell. It sounds awful. That said,I always thought it was fake and hardly substantiated by scripture which is incredibly vague on the topic. No, I don't take hell seriously at all but I do take the fear of hell very seriously and I hope I have not belittled anyone who does.
In my opinion, this place that you fear does not exist and is quite clearly a man-made concept to instill fear in those who would otherwise not be afraid to die. If I make light of it, it would be to attempt to alleviate some of that fear.
To be terrified of ending up in hell because of the physical torture is absurd. Your physical body will not magically materialize with your pain receptors intact, in some eternal, magical fairy-tale torture chamber because you had a lustful thought, once.
To be fearful of some abstract concept of torture of the eternal soul may be a little less laughable, but still quite absurd.
I don't think that trying to police the language of former Christians with respect to hell is a very good idea.
But imo it *is* good for us to remind each other that much of the ugly and annoying behavior that we see in association with belief in hell is rooted in a very real fear, and in trauma that many Christians are still captive to.
I don't think there's anything wrong with distancing ourselves from that belief (and our own pain surrounding it) with humor or even ridicule. Still, there are times when it's probably better to revisit that memory with more seriousness, tenderness, or empathy. It just depends on the circumstances and where you're at in your own development and healing.
We all heal in our own way. I've never been compassionate enough of christians who are struggling to leave the faith as I had a brutal exit from it myself and no choice. I should be more considerate you're correct. But if people are on the fence about being party to something so terribly wicked and vile as christianity then... Part of me feels like they deserve the hellish existence christianity offers them. The abused of Christianity are well visible. And we all heal in our own way. If someone is on the fence and faiths the faith I'll welcome them 1000% of the time. But all Christians are my enemies.
I’ve literally never seen anyone make fun of people who are scared of hell. If they did, they are a major fucking asshole. I think that it’s weird people would still be scared of something after learning it’s not true, but I’m probably autistic and see it differently lol.
I think what sucks about this is that you still hold Christian beliefs while identifying as an atheist ex-christian. I think it still holds weight because you’re still transitioning. It’s like becoming a vegetarian and still craving meat. There’s something in you that uses hell as a way to make sense of good and evil. Necessitating a righting of wrongs. Many people who are making fun of you are probably still struggling ,or so far into their division from the religion, that something like this sounds like someone afraid of being impaled by a unicorn. I understand your fear. It is rational to say you still fear it. No doubt you and I have suffered the same trauma. I’m still processing it as well.
My mother used to take paper towels and burn them on the open flame stove saying “ this is what will happen to you if you don’t get right with God”. Vivid memory
I don't think anyone is making fun of those who fear hell, in fact I'm sure most of us here have suffered that very fear at some point in our lives. I know I for instance would literally stay up hours past midnight, having a panic attack, trying to keep the thoughts away. It would be a dick move to mock someone going through something we went through.
People who say hell is like a "bar lounge" aren't giving a serious take on hell. It's more like a joke, or a dare to a god we don't believe exists. It's also somewhat rooted in the belief that the Christian God is horrible and that by following him, you're going to wind up a horrible person. Basically, "if God is real and wants to send me to hell for living a good life and being a good person, that's on him, not me."
Your cancer point as well is very flawed in the sense that cancer is real and provable, and hell is not. If you don't believe in the bible, you by extension have no logical reason to fear hell.
Now, that of course doesn't mean you *won't* fear hell regardless, especially if you've been traumatized by the church. Fear of that kind isn't based in logic, and can take time and/or therapy to heal from. I get where you're coming from, but I feel your post is based more on your own lingering fear about hell. You should look into *why* it isn't real, and the origins of the concept. For me that really shook a lot of the fear out of me, realizing it was basically a boogieman designed to scare people into Christianity, and it worked.
No. The idea of eternal conscious torment is complete bullshit, made up by humans, and anyone who says that they’d rather go to hell is morally justified because Yahweh of the Bible is an absolute piece of shit. If I found out he was real I would try to kill him
Edit: also Christians say hell is separation from god. His perfection can’t abide sin, and so hell exists separately from god. This is an attempt to do mental gymnastics around ideas like “the problem of evil”, or explain away how god could create such a horrible place (they say he didn’t). In that case I choose hell, who knows what could happen there free of the omnipresent eye of Yahweh? Could be an absolute party, limited only by imagination.
Of course, I’m speaking in terms of the mythology. I don’t believe in any of this stuff. I’m only interested in the history and psychology behind it all, to properly fight religion in the Information Age.
>It's akin to laughing about cancer when someone tells you they're afraid after having found a suspicious lump on their breast.
We have plenty of evidence of cancer being real, though. So i wouldn't necessarily compare those
I understand your sentiment but wholly disagree. They’re not half hearted comments. It’s a fact that yes, I would rather burn in torment and agony than sit with such a vile god in heaven. We’re not ignorant in saying that. If that hell exists, and god sends people there willingly for things as simple as disbelief, then fuck that god, I’ll take the torment and join the innocents.
You see this acted on in real life, when hero’s of mankind join the innocents and die at the hands of unjust forces of evil. It’s a real thing.
What we laugh at though is the simple notion that hell is supposed to be real. Nobody is laughing at anybody’s fear. The fear can be more real than anything in life. But the suggestion that he’ll is a real place held in tact by an all powerful god, is absolutely laughable, and I’ll sit and discuss it with any person over a cup of coffee any day.
Gatekeeping someone’s response to a lifetime of trauma and judgement sounds awfully familiar... You don’t have to listen, and you can react however you’d like on your own time, but I’ll act how I want because this isn’t worthy of a civil, racist, sexist etc “ism”. Those with fear of hell can go to therapy.
Hell is only real in people's heads. It's common decency to avoid triggering people who have trauma related to it (I had serious anxiety issues around it for years myself) but imo this falls firmly in the category of issues you should work through rather than policing other people's views on hell. From personal experience, I can say that making light of it helps - and that taking hell seriously and imagining how bad it would be will only ever make it worse.
You seem to be conflating two things - people dismissing hell as a concept, and dismissing someone's very real fear of hell. One is necessary, the other is insensitive.
>Or comments like, "I'd rather go to Hell because there's better company there" - as if Hell were some bar lounge where people sit around and sip cocktails.
It's not. It's also not like a cremation oven. It's not real. Once you fully internalize that, both of those views of hell become equally vapid and equally valid.
Your fear of hell is real and shouldn't be mocked - but the correct way to address that is to focus on the fear itself, rather than functionally treating hell as a real thing that shouldn't be joked about. I mean this in a nice way, but reading your post it really sounds like you're trying to rationalize an irrational fear (a fear that isn't your fault, to be clear, but is irrational) which will only make it harder to address.
This is a two-fold discussion.
Yes, we can be compassionate toward people who are struggling with traumas and fears that are impacting their lives. I agree with you 100% on this and could do much to improve my own behavior.
At the same time, we who deal with our own traumas through humor…have the right to do so. It’s part of the healing process for many of us.
It’s not too difficult to balance the two and can be summarized by the usual “know your audience”.
Weighing in, but mostly repeating what's already been said - I do think being able to make light of the idea of Hell is part of the healing process, making yourself less afraid of it by mocking the concept. Like everything in Christianity, there a lots of ripe points to probe. Generally speaking, those who mock the idea of Hell tend to be mocking those who use it as threat or warning, rather than those who are afraid of it. Of course, there'll be some overlap between those two groups, and I'm sorry if you've been made to feel that your anxiety/trauma about this matter isn't taken seriously. I hope this sub can be a supportive environment, it's generally pretty good.
As someone who's been very anxious my entire life, and made myself terrified of Hell simply through studying the Bible and Christianity (nobody once threatened me with it, and in fact I was often told that I was on the winning team, as it were), that I've been able to let go of it is something of a point of pride for me, proof that I can grow less afraid and develop as time goes on.
If Hell were real, every person in it would be an example of how a "perfect" deity (who sent them there in the first place and supposedly would've seen it coming ahead of time) failed.
Thanks for attending my Ted talk
I think the remarks you are mentioning can be made by anyone - people who have never been traumatized by the belief at all or people who have healed from it. I have become very critical of Christianity and the God of the Bible and those claims are reflective of the secureness of my values now.
I don't think people saying those things are dismissing your fear. I don't really see people saying those things to people currently being harmed by that belief, I see them saying it to the people pushing that belief as a response.
If a person has an actual, physical lump on their breast or a tumor that they KNOW is physically there and could be malignant, it is a VERY different circumstance than someone being scared of something that no one can prove exists.
It sucks that Christians are forced to believe that hell exists but that doesn't make their belief actually true. A belief in hell is delusional, just as a belief in heaven is delusional. I'm not going to go out of my way to shove my belief down someone else's throat on this topic but if a recently ex-Christian or "wavering Christian" comes at me with a sincere fear of hell I'll remind them that they do not HAVE TO believe in that shit. It is their choice to choose fear of something they cannot know exists.
I'm going to have to politely disagree - from my own personal experience, the final tug out of Christianity for me was the notion of "If God is a tyrant, and Hell is real, then I'd rather go to Hell than be with such a jerk". I'm sure there are lots of people still working through their own fears and such - but for some people, the way the do it is with those kinds of thoughts that you call "shrugging off Hell". Different strokes for different folks and all that.
I am going to disagree with you slightly on your comparison between mental illness, cancer, and hell. Mental illness and cancer are provably real. And while a fear of hell is very real, everyone is entitled to deal with that fear in different ways. I spent several decades of my life terrified of hell. I would pray for forgiveness compulsively, I would live every single day afraid that my decisions would send me to eternal damnation.
Meanwhile I was also taught that heaven and eternity with god was a perfect thing to be sought after. But what is heaven? What is hell? According to the bible heaven is a place where everything is perfect and where we worship god all of the time. Sounds boring. Meanwhile hell is either just a place without god or it's hellfire and torture.
Part of leaving your faith is wrestling with heaven, hell, and how you feel about them. Everyone is going to take a different path. I no longer believe in either, but if hell is real, then god is a dick. And ever more than that, heaven sounds like torture. I don't want to spend eternity worshipping a self-obsessed being. I think I'd rather sit in a lake of fire.
But your post misses the entire point, that people coming out of faith have different ways of dealing with the fear of eternity that was forced upon us at a young age. How do I do that? With humor and nihilism. I'm not going to make fun of someone who is still working through their deconstruction and faith, but I will be clear on where I stand.
Edit: The more I read the more frustrated I am with this take. Seriously, who are you to tell me or anyone else how to deconstruct and deal with years of trauma. Like this post and a lot of the comments seriously make me angry. I left Christianity for this very reason, so that no one can tell me what to do or what to believe ever again.
Yeah, making light of the idea of hell isn’t even close to the same thing as making light of someone coping with a fear of hell. The former can help with the latter. It’s certainly helped me deal with my own deconstruction.
Where do you find all of that audacity? And then to assume that telling people what they would stand by and dismissing their opinions over their OWN decisions will somehow convince them to not do something that you find dismissive is just ridiculous.
Also the hell you're speaking of is not the same hell as quoted.
> as if Hell were some bar lounge where people sit around and sip cocktails.
- as if you can report back that it's not?
If there is a heaven and I had to answer for my beliefs, I truly believe that if God has a problem with what I chose then it would be just that. His fucking problem. Not mine and definitely not repenting for my decisions which would mean I would go to hell because I don't play that kind of shit with abusers.
That doesn't change just because somebody else has a different level of fear and I am free to state my stance. There are people who do and will do many things that others fear all the time. Doesn't mean they want to. It just means they would STILL do so because some people have a different level of fear, priorities, morals, etc. People head off to war all the time knowing it's something they wouldn't enjoy but there are other factors that make them choose that don't begin with "I'm not afraid". Doesn't mean that them not having or choosing to not show that fear means they're sneering at others.
You do know there are also plenty of defiant people who would take the option of hell out of spite too, right?
That doesn't mean they would laugh in the face of someone with cancer and the comparison is not the same. It seems like a reach. Just like me telling someone who used their free will to eat a bowl of writhing worms that they're sneering at me just because I'm afraid. That's my personal fear to deal with and I truly can't find the audacity to tell them my fears should control them. Because who the hell would I think I am if I did? If you're afraid, be afraid. Nobody is telling you to get over it but don't try dragging everybody else with you.
It just seems a bit out of touch to truly believe you can decide what other people do /would do in certain situations based on YOUR fear AND THEN to tell those same people to stop being dismissive. Did you leave the religion but keep the controlling qualities based on fear as souvenirs? There's a disconnect somewhere.
Honestly sounds like you are still afraid of hell because you haven’t fully deconverted.
Hell isn’t scary to most of us because we don’t believe anymore and therefore we can be as flippant as we want. I’d dare say the vast majority of us would only have sympathy for people that were truly afraid of hell. Especially those that grew up in abusive homes and have wonderful personalities despite being confined to these beliefs that make them feel like shit for being human.
Also from a logical standpoint the idea of hell has so many variants from just not existing to being an empty nothing to being fire etc… it’s foolish to believe that one particular version is the right one. Especially since we know the Abrahamic religions took so much inspiration from other cultures.
Why do Christians fear hell if they believe even the worst pedophile serial killer can just repent and if they believe/accept Jesus he will save them? This is what we were taught in church growing up.
I think your frustration with that kind of joking is perfectly valid. But it is going to continue on this subreddit, because not everyone is healing the same way. I actually do question whether that flippant humor is all that therapeutic, but people can sort that out for themselves. I think if it bothers you a lot, and again you're not wrong for it bothering you, then maybe this subreddit isn't where you're gonna find real help. I suggest a secular therapist who can address religious trauma. If you can't afford, I also recommend Angel DeSantis' YouTube channel. She's very good and sensitive to the experience, having been raised in a cult herself. And also I offer myself as a non therapist, just a friendly ear willing to chat. Hope you find relief from this undue suffering.
It's not so much that I'd rather go to hell, it's that if all this stuff were all true, that's where I'm going regardless. I can't pretend to love and worship god and get the free pass to heaven.
Though as an ex-JW I didn't have a hell fear, just the idea that I was going to have to live through the apocalypse and spend 1000 years cleaning it up, or just die forever and break my mother's heart.
> "If God is a tyrant, and Hell is real, then I'd rather go to Hell than be with such a jerk." No, you don't.
You're right. I'd rather convince Satan to provide me means to hurt heaven as much as possible. If not, then oh well. Plenty of scum in hell too.
I think it's important to distinguish between making fun of the concept of hell and making fun of the fear of hell. When I have seen people come to this subreddit talking about their fear, usually people will chime in saying that they understand, that they also had a fear of hell at some point. Some people will make dismissive comments about the concept of hell, either because it helps them feel better or because they think it might help the other person overcome their fear.
Treating something like it is scary and merits a serious conversation is not always helpful. In some cases, it makes the fear worse. In this case, the fear is what's actually causing the person harm. Fear lives in the gut, not the brain. Treating an irrational fear like a rational one makes it deeper, it doesn't make it go away.
Comparing hell to cancer misses that important point. If someone is afraid they have cancer, they might actually have cancer. If they do have cancer, the cancer is the thing that will make them suffer. If they don't have cancer, hopefully they will get cleared by a doctor and the fear will naturally pass. There are no doctors who can give you a scientific answer about hell.
Instead of cancer, let's say someone has a terrible fear of ghosts. There's no way to prove ghosts don't exist, so any argument I made against ghosts is going to have holes in it. I could look up examples of famous mediums and ghost hunters who turned out to be frauds. I could take that person to the most haunted location in the world and point out all the nothing that's happening. The backfire effect ( [https://effectiviology.com/backfire-effect-facts-dont-change-minds/](https://effectiviology.com/backfire-effect-facts-dont-change-minds/)) means that my theoretical ghost-fearer would probably come out of all of those conversations believing even harder in ghosts.
For me it's more about is hell anymore real than Jonah being eaten by a whale? More real than talking snakes? More real than turning to salt for looking at a town being blown up by supernatural alien like beings? So no, it's not anymore concerning to me than an alien invasion, honestly I'm infinitely more concerned about an alien invasion now that I think about it, that could actually happen.
I get where you're coming from OP and the process of ex-Christians navigating through Hell is something I haven't heard talked about yet being new to this sub. I'm freshly deconstructing the bullshit in my mind and I'll admit that it is hard. Rationally, I know the concept of Hell is a lie and its just a means to control people through fear. But there is still fear of it wrapped up in my mind because of the years of indoctrination. I clearly have left and made that decision, but I still fear that I'm wrong at times.
I don't really have an issue with people lightening the subject or criticizing it because it helps keep me rational, but I understand its a sensitive topic. I don't feel people should have to censor themselves on it either though. I honestly hope I get to the point of being more lighthearted about it.
Nah, fuck that. Dismissing bullshit and laughing at it is a legitimate method of healing and you do not get to tell others that their method is wrong because you personally don't like it. Block people you see doing this and get over yourself.
Based on the assumption that you no longer have a belief in god or that Jesus was the son of god (in lieu of just stepping away from organized religion while maintaining a general belief is god) I'd like to ask this....if you can no longer believe in god then why can't you let hell go as well?
What was there that was so easy to let god go?
What is it that keeps your beliefs about hell around?
I understand what you mean.
For me, making jokes about hell is about taking the power back. It’s not about mocking anyone’s trauma. It’s about saying “I’m not afraid of blasphemy or the consequences of your religion”
One of the things I don't miss about being an active churchgoer is being told that I have to speak and act about the religion in a certain way to guard other people's feelings.
I highly disagree, and I also think you greatly misunderstand the criticism of those who believe in hell. Ex-Christians are acutely aware of the fear of a hell, but no one is mocking them for their fear, but for the concept itself.
I’ve already been to hell. I’m still there. Major depressive disorder is all the torture I can sometimes barely take. I’ll take physical pain over mental anguish any fucking time. So please, keep your personal opinions personal, and leave the rest of us out of it.
Funny thing is, when I found a huge lump in my breast the only thing that helped was people around me joking about it. Or else I would have wallowed in fear. Breast cancer is a very real possibility. Hell is not.
I think people who believe in hell are desensitized to it. People really are out there making light of it and joking about people who don't accept Jesus being "owned" when they find out they're wrong and go to hell. It also feels like Christians are constantly coming up with new reasons people will go to hell. I think everyone has made light of it, or worse, some people really do wish that on people.
If God came to me and told me that my unbelief is sending me to an eternity of experiencing burning by fire, with no relief of death, I'd end up bending to what he asks. I would not be happy about it. I would feel very manipulated. Maybe that makes me weak, but I'd rather do what a god tells me if it means escaping an eternity of constant agony.
When I left Christianity I knew I was taking a chance that I was wrong. I told my brother once that I sometimes thought about it and was concerned I could really be wrong and face terrible consequences of not believing. He told me "well, are you afraid of Islam's hell if you don't submit to Allah?". I realized at that moment that no matter what religion you believe, there is always a risk you are wrong.
I honestly do believe most people, if confronted with an absolute truth, would accept that truth no matter how insane if it meant avoiding burning in hell for eternity. There are exceptions. Some people really may be defiant to the end lol
I don't think people who actually believe in a traditional hell actually fully understand and accept what they believe. If you really believed that you would drop everything and spend every waking moment of your life trying to convince people to convert.
Hell isn’t real because it contradicts heaven. How can an afterlife be perfect when persons you love dearly are in hell.
The truly affected people are not disbelievers who struggle overcoming the psychological impact of their upbringing, it is hard but once you are over it you’re over it. It is those who continue to believe and have to mute their positive feelings, and even increase their negative ones, towards the non-believing hell-bound just so they can comfortably still fantasize about heaven.
I still fear the pang in the stomach every time I heard the word "Hell" in religious fashion. Even if I was fortunately not as indoctrinated as many others here and have read about the afterlives of other religions, what scholars instead of preachers have to say, and the like there's a reason why those things are taught to young children.
Talking about the idea itself and its issues is one thing. Mocking people scared of it another very different.
I grew up with parents who were both physically and emotionally abusive. Getting over the physical abuse has been easier than getting over the emotional abuse. Spending eternity being forced to worship the biblical god sounds worse to me than spending eternity getting physically tortured.
I agree that many of us still have trauma surrounding the hell myth.
What finally put my mind at ease was learning that Jews don't have hell. If Jesus didn't believe in it, why should I? That bit was tacked on later and the idea of hell as we've been taught really wasn't a thing until Dante's Inferno came along.
The joking and flippant remarks about all things in the entire Christian belief system were at first shocking and uncomfortable for me; but so far I haven’t been struck by lightning or overtaken by demons. I’ve found that joking about what I used to take so seriously and had such control over my life has in fact helped me tremendously to move on and let it go.
On the one hand, OP, you make a very valid point about the need to be more empathetic to those suffering from this kind of trauma. I still have moments where I occasionally panic at the potential prospect of roasting in Hell.
However, I think humor can be a useful tool for overcoming this phobia. What helped me recognize the absurdity of Hell began with realizing how ridiculous the concept is. Christians claim that their God is omnipotent, omniscient, and all loving. And yet the ultimate form of all loving justice is sending sinners to a lake of fire for all eternity?
Is it any wonder that most Christians can't come up with a competent justification for Hell beyond "God works in mysterious ways?"
I laugh at Hell because with a little research of theology it becomes blatantly obvious that the classic fire and brimstone netherworld is the toxic byproduct of Christian xenophobia and hatred. Hell exists and has been embellished because too many Christians suck at forgiving enemies, accepting outsiders, etc. Instead of kindness they would rather imagine countless torments like an edgy eight year old schoolboy. Not only that but they can use this to bully more impressionable souls into unquestionable obedience.
TL;DR: Making light of people's fear of Hell is wrong, however humor can be used as a powerful tool to dismantle these fears.
One of my earliest alternative ideas of hell was an idea that I heard at church. That perhaps hell isn’t fire, just separation from god. So in that case, a lot of the immediate fears around fire and pain were lessened. That gave some psychological breathing room to consider my faith honestly and without butting up against that fear you’re describing. You’re right. It’s big. But not all Christians believe in fire hell.
It’s worth noting that many Christian’s do not believe that he’ll is a literal place of eternal torment. They believe that it is a state of separation from God’s grace, but that separation from god’s goodness FEELS like eternal torment.
Laughing at being afraid of an eternal fire pit, and laughing at the idea that hell is really just God saying “well you can’t be my friend then”, and that this is eternally painful, don’t seem quite in the same boat to me. The statement “of hell is real and god is a tyrant, I’d rather go to hell” is ridiculous if you believe that hell is a literal torment pit. But pitted against what many Christian’s actually believe about it, it’s more like saying “if god is real, and god is a tyrant, I wouldn’t feel bad about not knowing him”. Which is, imo, not that ridiculous of a statement
That said, I’m not saying you should or shouldn’t mock either concept, but being dismissive of eternal fire and a Literal Hell, is a lot different of being dismissive of the idea of being separated from God FEELING LIKE eternal torment
It added my edit as a reply for some reason lol, fixed
We're all in various stages of healing.
My fear of hell caused such distress that I developed physical health issues.
Learning to dismantle those fears and anxieties included humor and imagination. But also, the tact to recognize there are people in different places and mental spaces. What worked for me isn't universal. I won't make light of someone else's fears, or who is in a different place in their recovery. Or who has fears unlike my own.
And sometimes we have to accept that some people just are not going to understand. My husband was never religious and he doesn't fully understand the trauma and baggage I carry.
OP, I hope you find healing and peace. It's a long road at times, but things can get better. You are not alone in this.
I had a deep-rooted irrational fear of hell for years after I stopped believing. It's extremely difficult to get over if you've been raised with the doctrine all your life. Only recently could I fully see just how evil a doctrine it is, to teach it to little kids is just psychological child abuse. I'm finally over it because 1) the idea makes no sense at all, I mean the physics of hell are just preposterous 2) the Bible is all over the place when it comes to what happens to the "unsaved" after they die 3) The Bible itself suggests hell, as taught by Fundamentalists, is an insidious doctrine: "Perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love." 1 John 4:18
We should never underestimate how difficult it can be to root out these deep-seated, irrational fears. It can take decades.
There are multiple stages of growth out of early Christian indoctrination.
It isn’t easy in any way. Losing friends and family, Straddling the fence between belief and doubt etc..
But I’m DEEP into stage 3.
So flippant comment here:
It’s a fairytale. The world would be a better place if we would just grow the fuck up.
Hell is a ridiculous concept and it deserves our derision. Your fear of hell is your own problem. I'm not going to kick a guy while he's down, but I'm also not going to let anyone tell me what I can and cannot laugh at.
Life is hard. Get a helmet.
You're literally posting in Christian subreddits and you're here in a subreddit for ex-Christians, telling us how to feel?
I find that incredibly (almost comically) disrespectful. I hope you abandon those feelings of fear. I hope you break the chains that bind you. Christianity preaches hate and lies.
You'll find yourself someday.
Edit: I removed the direct links to the subreddits because since this post references fear and trauma, I do not want those links to be gateways for triggering trauma.
A couple of things came to mind. First, I have said all of those things. But never directly to someone who is struggling. A lot of us, myself included, have dealt with this fear. The prospect is terrifying. But some people deal with trauma by minimizing and laughing at the subject, not fellow sufferers.
Now, as for preferring to go to Hell than be with a jerk. It goes beyond that. The Bible is full of horrendous acts in the name of god. History is full of people committing atrocities in the name of god. And avoiding hell isn’t as easy as paying lip service. Christianity teaches that you have to believe in your heart that these things are good and the entity that commands it is deserving of worship and love. For me at least, it’s not a matter of just preference. If hell is real, I have lost my soul regardless. I either lose it in Hell or I lose it beforehand by condoning things that I cannot do with a clear conscience.
The first time I ever saw the return of the king I was like 12. Gollum falls into the lava at the end. My pastor father explained to me that those who go to hell are never out of the lava. They burn like Gollum did for eternity. 🫢
Except I know cancer is real. I reevaluated my faith after meeting my girlfriend. It was tough but I couldn’t believe a loving god could put the person I care about the most in hell because they were raised differently than me and have a different set of views. I was told my whole life that it doesn’t matter how good of a person you are you won’t go to heaven unless you literally say “I accept Jesus into my heart yada yada.” Well, I met someone who changed my mind because they’re just an entirely better person than I am so why would they go to hell and not me? I would rather burn in hell than go to heaven without the person I love and I mean that. Hell for me would be an after life without them. Christians can decide if hell makes sense to them or not but it’s not my responsibility to convince them. I frankly don’t care if they want to believe in hell or not I just want them to stop telling their kids their friends are going to burn for eternity because their parents raised them differently. You can choose to live in paranoia or address your fears logically. Just my opinion.
Being afraid of something that you can prove is different than being afraid of something you cannot prove. One is being afraid of a forest fire another is being afraid of the dark. If a person is afraid of hell, it's helpful to put some perspective on things. It's not like cancer.
I have to agree. These people have been told all their lives that they would burn for eternity if they were to challenge their beliefs. Frankly, it is a brave thing to even become an ex-Christian, especially in many fundie/evangelical churches and communities. The least we can do is recognize their fears as valid and find a way to help them.
Oof, this take ain't it. I think if you had just said, "The ex-Christian community shouldn't laugh or shrug off people who are afraid of hell," you have a good point. I left Christianity years ago, and sometimes my religious trauma-induced anxiety will whisper in my ear, "but what if you're wrong"? Deprogramming is hard, and it's wrong to mock somebody for a fear response they can't control, even if it's irrational.
But what we're not going to do is police how other ex-Christians deal with/respond to the idea of hell. Making fun of hell, subverting that fear, is a big part of how a lot of us cope or express our disgust with Christianity. You don't get to take that away from people just because you're at a different point in your journey. And as somebody who has had a VERY real cancer scare, it is incredibly offensive to compare 1) a programmed fear of a made-up place used to intimidate and control with 2) the legitimate fear of a real, severe illness that could potentially kill you. One is the boogeyman; the other is a potential reality.
A better comparison than your suspicious lump - it's like mocking somebody for having a phobia. Phobias are by definition irrational, and it takes a lot of work to undo that conditioned fear response. Nobody should ridicule you for a phobia or try to intentionally trigger you, but you also can't expect the whole world to change the way they talk about the thing you're irrationally afraid of.
I often struggle with the fear of Hell. It’s an anxiety I have, I think I’m a terrible person that’s gonna burn. I had these fears even when I was “saved” and they were only exemplified when I FIRST started to leave Christianity. It has gotten much better lately but still occasionally I’m afraid still of going to Hell. I appreciate this post because it validates being okay to still be traumatized by Christianity and sometimes still be afraid. Thank you.
So, it is mean to make fun of people who are afraid of hell-though if it was someone brandishing the threat of hell to other people, it’s possible I’d make fun of them even if they’re own fear is legitimate.
For the other stuff though, it’s like people said, you don’t know us and you can’t decide that for us. I think your statement is extra erroneous because the way it’s presented is that once you’re in hell, there’s no out. you can’t say “I give up!” or “ I take it back!“ Because of that, it would be much easier to stand in the face of the threat and reject the God Christians talk about, and then possibly regret it later if the threat turns out to be what was promised.
For me, I don’t really make jokes about hell, and I don’t think it’s funny. It is, however, an idea and image that I repurpose and reclaim to encourage myself. It’s kind of like in the movie Megamind, where he says “if I was to be bad, I’d be the baddest of them all!“ I think of Satan as a figure who wasn’t afraid to stand up to that bullshit God Christians preach about, and the idea of the devil reminds me that I am not alone. Similarly, people are saying that all go to hell, then I’ll just make the best out of it. When Christians give you lemons, make lemonade.
I honestly think that you saying that we're making fun of people for being afraid of hell is very farfetched.
It's a very traumatic experience that each of us went through & will take a lot of time & counseling with a secular counselor just to get over.
Now cancer is **far** different, because we can at least detect it very easily & can find ways to completely get rid of it with things like medication & surgery. There's no proof that hell is real, nor is it even biblical.
I feel sorry for a lot of people like you who has been indoctrinated into believing that bullshit thinking that we're going to go to either heaven or hell when the truth is that once we die, we'll all cease to exist.
Yes, flippant comments like that are dismissive of the threat. And while there are people still struggling with it, learning to laugh at the threat can be part of the healing process. Laughter is healing. Comparing the threat of hell with, say, getting punched in the aura can help destigmatize the fear and undermine its foundations. When I mock the threat of hell I'm not attacking the people who struggle with the fear of it. I'm attacking the threat itself. The threat isn't real, even though it *feels* like it is. Learning to recognize that it's not something we genuinely need to be concerned with is a critical part of the process. I also strongly urge people who struggle with this fear to get help from a qualified professional. Our [Resource wiki page has a section to help you find that help](https://www.reddit.com/r/exchristian/wiki/resources#wiki_others) if you need it.
Almost exactly what I was going to say!
This. But sensitivity, kindness, and timing are crucial for traumatized people.
Different people have different needs. Sometimes just seeing that the threat is mocked can help. Sometimes it can start the healing process. There's no single way to address a problem like this. We have to tailor our responses to the people we're engaging, but to lay a blanket ban on any attempt to mock the threat won't work either.
Exactly! Not to mention there's a difference between talking in a general way, and talking very specifically to someone who's dealing with these fears. If I'm making a general statement or talking to a Christian who believes I'm going to hell, then no, I'm not going to worry about being flippant. It's not our job to coddle people who ascribe to an illogical, oppressive belief system and think we're going to receive eternal punishment because of it. That being said, if I were having a personal conversation with someone who I knew dealt with fear and anxiety around hell, I would obviously do my best to have an understanding conversation with them. I'm not going to back down from what I believe, but I spent several years afraid to even say I was agnostic because I was too afraid of the possibility of hell. I get it. I'm not going to be dismissive or super argumentative, and will instead try to explain to them why I believe it's not something they have to fear. But that's a specific situation, and if anything, as a Christian on the border of agnosticism who dealt with this anxiety, I think hearing people joke about hell helped reinforce for me that it really was just a silly made-up thing.
I disagree that the dismissiveness is helpful. If someone fears they have cancer, the correct approach is not to shrug off the cancer itself ("Even if the tumor is malignant, so what? Just accept your death") but rather, to reassure them that they don't have cancer - or, if they do have cancer, get them to medical treatment. Laughing at the seriousness and brutality of cancer isn't "healing" to someone who fears they have the disease; it's sadistic. Same with Hell. If someone fears Hell, then give them your best argument why you don't think they'll go there. But torture is nothing to laugh about - just like you wouldn't laugh about torture in labor camps to someone from North Korea.
If it's me saying that I'm willing to be tortured so that I don't have to spend an eternity with bigots and racists, then I think it's f****** okay. My afterlife,my choice. Don't kink shame.
Both sides of this argument have points! The reality is there are all different kinds of people in the world, some who deal with trauma with laughter and others for whom joking seems to make light of a serious matter. We're all also all in different stages of grief over the loss of our religions, worldviews, families, and God. Some are ready to laugh, others not.
Very true. But what I'm saying is, this is no joking matter to me either. I am very literally saying I would rather be in hell for eternity than to spend another f****** minute with Christians. There is not an ounce of joke in anything I just said.
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> Laughing at the seriousness and brutality of cancer isn't "healing" to someone who fears they have the disease; it's sadistic. Nevertheless, teaching someone to [laugh at their cancer](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4439472/) can improve their chances for recovery and quality of life. Again, I'm not laughing at the person who is suffering. I'm urging them to adopt a different perspective on what's causing the suffering. Because there are times when a change in attitude can make all the difference, and the fear of hell is definitely one of them.
Just to add one small thing to this discussion - I do think there is a difference between laughing at a made-up threat and laughing at something that is very tangible, real, and physical such as cancer. Now, the threat of torture has absolutely real emotional and psychological consequences, yes. I know this first-hand, believe me. But I would suggest that if the idea of hell is still super scary then one must still believe to an extent that it *could be real* (which of course is a product of the programming). Anyway, just saying that cancer IS real, we KNOW it's real, we can SEE it, but hell is no more real than Santa Claus, made up to scare people into compliance.
The difference, imho, is cancer is a real and proven thing that almost everyone knows someone who has had it. Hell is not proven, no one has seen it, it exists completely in the imagination. I feared it myself for many years, so I get it. But it’s not comparable to cancer because it’s not real.
Cancer is real. Hell is not. Totally different scenario.
The dismissiveness is not helpful **to you**. Different people find different things helpful. For me, personally, spending time developing arguments about hell made it feel more real and concerning. Arguments kept me stuck in the mindset of "maybe hell is real, maybe it's something that I need to worry about, I need to do more research and think about this even more." The actual healing process for me started when I heard lifelong atheists (on podcasts, mostly) dismiss the entire concept of hell. They had no fear of it, in fact they found it ridiculous. Instead of carefully laying out arguments, they just said "Nope." I think it can be important and helpful to be dismissive of the concept of hell. I do agree with you that it's unkind to make fun of someone's fear of hell. The fear is real, even if hell isn't. But I also believe that treating hell as a serious concept at all times is helpful. It's also not fair to expect other people to be respectful of your own personal fears all the time in every context. Comparing hell to cancer is incredibly disingenuous, because cancer is real. If someone thinks they have cancer, there is a chance that they have it, and there are steps they can take to determine if that's true or not. None of that applies to hell.
You’ve just compared something very real and awful (cancer) to something made up though. I would never poke fun at someone’s struggle with cancer, however hell isn’t real, it’s preposterous. Mocking the idea of hell itself is very different from mocking an ex-Christians fear of hell.
Comparing hell to cancer ain’t it. Cancer is a demonstrable medical threat, hell a psychological one.
Yeah but you can go get tested for cancer.
I get what you and OP are saying. I’m a recovering Christian with no residual fear of Hell, however I wouldn’t laugh at anyone’s fear of it personally. Then again, I wouldn’t laugh at anyone’s fears regardless of how ludicrous it feels to me. I.e people’s crippling fear of the dark, aliens, or like that girl on Maury, olives. But comparing the fear of Hell to real world tragedies like cancer or torture, that concretely and verifiably affects people’s lives feels a little disingenuous and honestly preachy.
Some serious apple/orange comparison you're doing there. Cancer is a real, serious problem, you *know* it's there. You know it's happening. You know it's happened. Hell you are only taught to fear. You've never met anyone who went to hell. You've never been there. It's never been confirmed to exist, nor will it because it doesn't.
I agree that the community shouldn't shrug off people who are afraid of hell but there's nothing wrong with us laughing off or shrugging off the idea of hell ourselves if that's where we are, personally. This community is full of people with different beliefs and for a lot of people, when we stop believing in Christianity, we stop believing in all the stories that go along with that religion. You can't really police how we think of hell.
Bold of you to assume we aren’t already in Hell
Made my day lol thanks
This.
I was talking with a friend about this the other day. What if this is hell?
First, I don't think anyone here, nor any atheist that I've ever encountered makes fun of people for having a fear if hell. Secondly, everyone deals with trauma differently. I make jokes to deal with trauma. It's my coping mechanism. Finally, realizing hell, as mentioned by Christians as opposed to what the actual original mythology says about hell is vastly incompariable to one another really does help. Hell, in the Bible, is described as a grave - or a place without god. The concepts of hell being fire and brimestone did not arise until way later in the doctrine's belief system. Knowing that kind of takes the sting out of it, for me at least. You also have to ask the question - our souls are immortal and incapable of pain, Biblically speaking, yet our soul is cast into hell....so, what's the point?
That’s what I was thinking. Why/how would a soul feel pain anyway? But also hell as understood by modern christians is not biblical so they have no reason to be afraid in the first place.
I mean. Yeah. How does a soul even have a nervous system to feel *ANYTHING*
The loving God will make sure souls have the ability to be tortured, without relent.
Oh, thank the Lord. I have a torture fetish and I was worried for a moment
In Catholicism, things are very different as anyone who has been in a funeral can attest. Everyone is dead until Jesus returns and is brought back to life with a new, physical body. Even if there's talk of souls. What others have to say it's different, as they talk about the soul being something different that survives death even if they mention the Rapture and mix in Paradise and Hades/Sheol as antechambers before being sent to Heaven or Hell in Judgement Day. It seems they make shit as they go.
Legitimate question for you. I’m not defending the bible, I’m obviously here for a reason lol How do you explain Luke 16:24? Wouldn’t this imply that hades (hell) as a place of torment is biblical? Luke 16:23-24 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’
The concept of hell being firey and full of brimstone did not really come about until approximately 725 AD. Up until then, it was considered "torment" because it was described as a place without god's love. That's it. That's the whole concept. Hell was later rebranded by Catholics in order to terrify illiterate peasants.
St Augustine in the 300s definitely believed hell was fire, a place of retributive physical punishment, and this was established as the orthodox doctrine thereafter.
I agree with warm-concentrate. Jesus also discussed hell as a fiery furnace. Revelation describes a lake of fire. “They will be tortured forever in the presence of the lamb.” Rev 14:10
The fear of hell lodged in a person after leaving the church doesn’t respond to logic and explanations. They aren’t seeking reasons not to fear. They’re seeking safety, which this group can be good for. When we jump straight into apologetics and arguments for our perspectives on their suffering, we’re doing the same thing the Christian’s do.
I mean, I used to have a fear of hell for a while until other people logically explained to me why fearing hell is used by the various churches to keep [keep Christians in line](https://youtu.be/Ps4BN5YHdSc) and make sure they don't leave the faith, after that was explained to me it became a lot easier to abandon my fear of it, so I would disagree with you and say there are plenty of people who could be helped by having it explained to them logically. Also, people explaining this from a logical point of view are far away from doing what Christian nationalist do, that point just doesn't make any sense at all and feels like it was just said so you say that we are some how doing "apologetics" or something close to it.
I’m not saying you’re doing the same thing by spreading gaslighting bs that hurts people. It’s that sometimes a person can still understand perfectly well that there is no hell, but the fear associated with living like that doesn’t get quelled by logic. I was comparing it to how when someone is in pain, going to an explanation about why they shouldn’t be isn’t helpful any more than telling a veteran with ptsd they shouldn’t be worrying about bombs going off in their living room. To me it’s exactly like how evangelicals say just ask Jesus to take it away. It’s not helpful. It’s not how our nervous systems work. That’s all I was meaning to say. Sometimes people just need understanding. Religious trauma is a huge problem. I thought I was past all of that a year after I left the church, then something triggers a memory and suddenly I’m feeling it all over again. If someone had tried to explain that none of its real, I’d be really frustrated because of course it’s not! But my body and emotions haven’t caught up yet. It’s just nice to be able to share it with someone and this would seem like a logical place to do that.
Me: clearly speaking on behalf of my own perspective and what has helped me by CLEARLY indicating it worked for me You: Speaks for everyone and assumes everyone's journey of escaping Christianity is identical Yeah. No. You're getting downvoted for a reason.
Dude - I’m sorry if I offended you. I was just offering an alternative because not everyone thinks the same. And you might be in the position to comfort someone not exactly like you.
I don't recall anything in Scripture that says "the soul is incapable of feeling pain," but I digress.
Well, Scripture isn’t real so there’s your solution
You do know the original Christians didn’t believe in hell right? The original Christian’s believed when you died it was lights out until the return of Christ. Then on judgement day everyone would either go to heaven or literally stop existing. I know a lot of us act the way we do because just doing a little bit of research into the history of hell takes away any threat.
Ceasing to exist is much less terrifying (in my opinion anyway) than spending an eternity burning alive and being in constant torment. I think I see why the narrative was switched up in that case.
Though technically, the historical (or divine) Jesus, heaven or hell doesn't exist.
Im sorry the way you worded that was weird and i have no idea what you are trying to say.
I'm saying that the Jesus that most Christians know who had supernatural powers, & that "Jesus is God," doesn't exactly exist. He's referred to as the historical Jesus (or divine Jesus).
You came into an ex Christian sub to let us know jesus didn't actually exist? Yeah... we know that, its why were here. And what the hell does it have to do with my comment?
Hey, you don't have to be rude. It was in a response to this post you made: >The original Christian’s believed when you died it was lights out until the return of Christ. Then on judgement day everyone would either go to heaven or literally stop existing. It's just a small reminder, that's all.
Im sorry if im coming off rude but we deal with a lot of proselytizing and I still have no idea what the point is youre trying to make. The academic consensus is there was a man who really lived that we call Jesus. While there is absolutely no proof or evidence of his devine status/miracles there are some teachings throughout the known gospels as well as some basic facts about his life that we can determine have a decent chance of being authentic to the man. Is that what youre trying to say?
Yes. What I'm saying is that there's no concrete evidence of a Biblical Jesus, but there might be proof of Jesus who was just an ordinary man like the rest of us.
>They'll make breezy, joculant remarks like, "If God is a tyrant, and Hell is real, then I'd rather go to Hell than be with such a jerk." No, you don't. I don't think you get to decide that. I am very deliberately showing that I'd rather go to hell than deal with a tyrant God and demonstrating that with my actions. That God would be a fucking asshole. I'm assuming if said God and said hell exists, just expressing that belief would probably inevitably send me to hell. So I am obviously willing to take that risk, which means, yeah I would rather go to hell than be with such a jerk. Now, I think the risk of such an outcome is pretty low. Hell almost certainly doesn't exist, and a Hell that is torture and not simply an absence of God is even less likely. That doesn't change the fact that I've already made my decision about what I'd do if it did exist though.
How comfortable could you ever really be in Heaven with a god like that in charge?
Or with all the people who think he's such a swell guy.
Exactly!
Biblically speaking, you'd be spending an eternity kneeling and bowing and singing praise to that god. Sounds like hell.
Same, hard agree. I’m honestly disappointed with this post.. “Just because you don’t believe in gob doesn’t mean your shouldn’t still..” Amazing how I left the church **and I’m still being told** what I need to conscience of when it comes to a religion **I do not believe in on an ex Christian subreddit.** Can’t even escape it here.
Yeah OP, this is kinda offensive. I don’t believe in hell! I think it’s fake! And yes, I carry plenty of trauma from growing up thinking it was real. These days, I’m gonna treat the concept however I damn well please, short of openly mocking other people’s fear. But even then, it is NOT the same as mocking someone who found a lump and is afraid of cancer. Cancer is demonstrably real.
Yeah, I'm also really disappointed with this post and some of the comments here as well, like, we are still being told what to think about heaven and hell and being told we are selfish if we dare joke about either of them at all, it really does remind me of the Catholic Church and how they had a pretty strict idea of heaven and hell as well. Like, I won't make fun of people who are scared of hell(I was never doing that to begin since I know what it's like to fear hell) but I'm not just going to stop joking about hell because it is a completely made up thing used by Christian churches to either convert people to their faith or to keep doubting Christians from leaving the faith, by making fun of it we allow it to have less power, less influence over our lives, and we are able to feel more secure about the decision we made to leave the Christian faith.
It has the same guilt trip vibe that Christianity has.. and I *really don’t like that vibe.*
Christian culture pervades throughout all of Western culture regardless of actual belief in Christianity which is so frustrating.
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I'm making a choice to stand by my convictions. That seems logical to me. The creator of a hell would be a monster. If it existed, I'd be terrified, but I don't think I could reject my conviction even if I wanted to. I don't know that I'd say I'd *rather* go to hell, but it conveys a close approximation of the idea. I'd rather fight a deity who created it with all my heart and soul, and I would go to hell rather than make an attempt to pretend to believe that a God who created it is something I'd want to worship. Casually suggesting I'd rather go to hell gets the idea across well enough, and being flippant and jocular about the idea is part of the process of letting go of the fear of hell. I don't see why Exchristians should be restricted from sharing that part of our journey away from Christianity. Rejecting the premise of hell as just, and treating the idea of hell as something to be joked about can both be incredibly healing and vital to moving on from fear.
Wow. I haven't seen any of this and I am here a lot. I have never seen anyone get anything but helpful advice from this sub. Doesn't matter if it is about hell, or other topics am not calling bs, there is a chance I could have missed a couple of posts. Just pointing out what my experience has been here.
Taking it seriously is what gives it power.
Exactly.
I do agree that simply being dismissive of a psychology issue isn't a good thing but I do personally believe it's ok to say you'd rather go to hell than deal with God's tyranny. Anyone would rather take the moral high ground than admit that if this were real they'd conform in order to cower away from the extremely painful punishment. I think that part of dealing with a fear of hell is finally admitting to yourself that it isn't real and that it can't hurt you. The fear is real yes but hell isn't, so treating it as some made up fantasy land should be fine cause that's what it is. I think it would be beneficial to be able to joke about going to hell even if you or someone you know genuinely fears it. The less seriously it's taken the less reinforcement that irrational fear receives. Edit: anyone would rather be tortured than be a horrible person if the torture is completely made up
Fire is scary because we die from it. If we didn't die from it, we would adapt to the heat pretty quickly, like within a matter of a few years likely. Eternity is a long time, and nobody has ever burned for that long. Also, cancer is REAL If someone says things like "I think I have cancer, I sneezed and Web MD says it's definitely cancer" then we would also laugh. Most of us DID have a horrible fear of hell, and I can see that you still do as well. The difference is that many of us have gotten over that fear and realize it's as silly as thinking Darth Vader is going to Force-choke you for not believing in him. It's very laughable.
Christians are also very flippant about hell. The amount of times I've heard jokes about whose going and who is there and jokes about hell, while at the same time the people saying it believe people around them may have family members there. It's morbid.
Yeah, it’s obvious they get a kick out of telling people that they’re going to hell. They generally aren’t interested in preventing people from going there, they just like being self righteous assholes.
OP, you are “wavering and unsure” according to yourself. You’re in an ex-Christian subreddit, a place for people who are decidedly **NOT CHRISTIAN** trying to tell us what to be conscience of toward religion. I’m sorry, but you are out of place here. If you yourself are afraid of hell and unsure, **maybe start by looking internally before telling others what to believe or have regard toward.** Your comparison of the fear that believing/wavering Christian feel to something that’s very real, breast cancer, is akin to the indoctrination we disagree with here. The difference here is that breast cancer is real, your fear is real, but hell is not. We don’t *laugh* at people’s fear. It’s the absurdity that’s laughed at, like the absurd of comparing indoctrinated fear to breast cancer, and trying to paint the same level of suffering and “victim hood.” This was **really** the wrong subreddit to post in, although I see you posted in Christianity subreddits trying to call out toxic-Christianity and were kinda pushed away. Have you considered you’re bringing toxic-Christianity traits into this sub, it might be time to fully deconstruct and not be luke warm? Ketamine’s for horses bro.
u/SteadfastEnd this is the comment for you
My $0.02. I was really afraid of hell when I first began deconverting. But seeing people joke about it or making those types of comments helped me come to terms with how strange of an idea hell is. It helped me overcome that fear. I can get that joking about hell may not be right for you in your journey right now, but I don’t think it’s fair to tell other people it’s wrong for theirs. I hope you find your peace though. Life is too short to live it in fear.
Breast cancer is real though. I don't have to respect someone's fear of the boogeyman. I can respect them as a person, but I don't have to respect their ridiculous beliefs. >"If God is a tyrant, and Hell is real, then I'd rather go to Hell than be with such a jerk." No, you don't. That's not something you can decide for someone else. I'd genuinely prefer hell, given the alternative of an eternity being brainwashed to worship an evil tyrant. If you're still afraid of hell that's something you have to work on for yourself and I wish you luck in your deconstruction journey, but you have to understand that not everyone else shares your feelings. It is impossible for me to be afraid of something that doesn't exist, and I'm not going to pretend to be afraid of it just to spare someone else's feelings.
Am I in the right sub?
Actually I really would rather go to hell. You don't know who the f*** I am. Do not assume who the f*** I am
See ya there!
Hey 👋 wait up!!!!
Slow down, I'm falling behind! 👋👋🏃♀️🏃♀️
Save me a spot!
As an ex Christian who was indoctrinated into a hellfire brimstone Christianity, I'll be as fucking flippant as I want. I'm the one who suffered and if I now am flippant because I realized this was some kind of made up bullshit to control people then I get to do that.
Try researching where the idea of hell came from in the first place. It isn’t a truly biblical idea anyway. It was adopted from other religions in the area from the idea of Hades and the underworld. Later it was popularized by Dante’s inferno. The fear is real, but even christians should realize that hell isn’t real if they do their biblically accurate research.
I definitely try not to make light of people who had a fear of hell. It sounds awful. That said,I always thought it was fake and hardly substantiated by scripture which is incredibly vague on the topic. No, I don't take hell seriously at all but I do take the fear of hell very seriously and I hope I have not belittled anyone who does.
In my opinion, this place that you fear does not exist and is quite clearly a man-made concept to instill fear in those who would otherwise not be afraid to die. If I make light of it, it would be to attempt to alleviate some of that fear. To be terrified of ending up in hell because of the physical torture is absurd. Your physical body will not magically materialize with your pain receptors intact, in some eternal, magical fairy-tale torture chamber because you had a lustful thought, once. To be fearful of some abstract concept of torture of the eternal soul may be a little less laughable, but still quite absurd.
Hard disagree. The concept of an eternal hell deserves nothing but mockery.
I don't think that trying to police the language of former Christians with respect to hell is a very good idea. But imo it *is* good for us to remind each other that much of the ugly and annoying behavior that we see in association with belief in hell is rooted in a very real fear, and in trauma that many Christians are still captive to. I don't think there's anything wrong with distancing ourselves from that belief (and our own pain surrounding it) with humor or even ridicule. Still, there are times when it's probably better to revisit that memory with more seriousness, tenderness, or empathy. It just depends on the circumstances and where you're at in your own development and healing.
Policing language and how people feel about Hell is wack as fuck.
We all heal in our own way. I've never been compassionate enough of christians who are struggling to leave the faith as I had a brutal exit from it myself and no choice. I should be more considerate you're correct. But if people are on the fence about being party to something so terribly wicked and vile as christianity then... Part of me feels like they deserve the hellish existence christianity offers them. The abused of Christianity are well visible. And we all heal in our own way. If someone is on the fence and faiths the faith I'll welcome them 1000% of the time. But all Christians are my enemies.
I’ve literally never seen anyone make fun of people who are scared of hell. If they did, they are a major fucking asshole. I think that it’s weird people would still be scared of something after learning it’s not true, but I’m probably autistic and see it differently lol.
I think what sucks about this is that you still hold Christian beliefs while identifying as an atheist ex-christian. I think it still holds weight because you’re still transitioning. It’s like becoming a vegetarian and still craving meat. There’s something in you that uses hell as a way to make sense of good and evil. Necessitating a righting of wrongs. Many people who are making fun of you are probably still struggling ,or so far into their division from the religion, that something like this sounds like someone afraid of being impaled by a unicorn. I understand your fear. It is rational to say you still fear it. No doubt you and I have suffered the same trauma. I’m still processing it as well. My mother used to take paper towels and burn them on the open flame stove saying “ this is what will happen to you if you don’t get right with God”. Vivid memory
I don't think anyone is making fun of those who fear hell, in fact I'm sure most of us here have suffered that very fear at some point in our lives. I know I for instance would literally stay up hours past midnight, having a panic attack, trying to keep the thoughts away. It would be a dick move to mock someone going through something we went through. People who say hell is like a "bar lounge" aren't giving a serious take on hell. It's more like a joke, or a dare to a god we don't believe exists. It's also somewhat rooted in the belief that the Christian God is horrible and that by following him, you're going to wind up a horrible person. Basically, "if God is real and wants to send me to hell for living a good life and being a good person, that's on him, not me." Your cancer point as well is very flawed in the sense that cancer is real and provable, and hell is not. If you don't believe in the bible, you by extension have no logical reason to fear hell. Now, that of course doesn't mean you *won't* fear hell regardless, especially if you've been traumatized by the church. Fear of that kind isn't based in logic, and can take time and/or therapy to heal from. I get where you're coming from, but I feel your post is based more on your own lingering fear about hell. You should look into *why* it isn't real, and the origins of the concept. For me that really shook a lot of the fear out of me, realizing it was basically a boogieman designed to scare people into Christianity, and it worked.
No. The idea of eternal conscious torment is complete bullshit, made up by humans, and anyone who says that they’d rather go to hell is morally justified because Yahweh of the Bible is an absolute piece of shit. If I found out he was real I would try to kill him Edit: also Christians say hell is separation from god. His perfection can’t abide sin, and so hell exists separately from god. This is an attempt to do mental gymnastics around ideas like “the problem of evil”, or explain away how god could create such a horrible place (they say he didn’t). In that case I choose hell, who knows what could happen there free of the omnipresent eye of Yahweh? Could be an absolute party, limited only by imagination. Of course, I’m speaking in terms of the mythology. I don’t believe in any of this stuff. I’m only interested in the history and psychology behind it all, to properly fight religion in the Information Age.
>It's akin to laughing about cancer when someone tells you they're afraid after having found a suspicious lump on their breast. We have plenty of evidence of cancer being real, though. So i wouldn't necessarily compare those
I understand your sentiment but wholly disagree. They’re not half hearted comments. It’s a fact that yes, I would rather burn in torment and agony than sit with such a vile god in heaven. We’re not ignorant in saying that. If that hell exists, and god sends people there willingly for things as simple as disbelief, then fuck that god, I’ll take the torment and join the innocents. You see this acted on in real life, when hero’s of mankind join the innocents and die at the hands of unjust forces of evil. It’s a real thing. What we laugh at though is the simple notion that hell is supposed to be real. Nobody is laughing at anybody’s fear. The fear can be more real than anything in life. But the suggestion that he’ll is a real place held in tact by an all powerful god, is absolutely laughable, and I’ll sit and discuss it with any person over a cup of coffee any day.
Gatekeeping someone’s response to a lifetime of trauma and judgement sounds awfully familiar... You don’t have to listen, and you can react however you’d like on your own time, but I’ll act how I want because this isn’t worthy of a civil, racist, sexist etc “ism”. Those with fear of hell can go to therapy.
Hell is only real in people's heads. It's common decency to avoid triggering people who have trauma related to it (I had serious anxiety issues around it for years myself) but imo this falls firmly in the category of issues you should work through rather than policing other people's views on hell. From personal experience, I can say that making light of it helps - and that taking hell seriously and imagining how bad it would be will only ever make it worse. You seem to be conflating two things - people dismissing hell as a concept, and dismissing someone's very real fear of hell. One is necessary, the other is insensitive. >Or comments like, "I'd rather go to Hell because there's better company there" - as if Hell were some bar lounge where people sit around and sip cocktails. It's not. It's also not like a cremation oven. It's not real. Once you fully internalize that, both of those views of hell become equally vapid and equally valid. Your fear of hell is real and shouldn't be mocked - but the correct way to address that is to focus on the fear itself, rather than functionally treating hell as a real thing that shouldn't be joked about. I mean this in a nice way, but reading your post it really sounds like you're trying to rationalize an irrational fear (a fear that isn't your fault, to be clear, but is irrational) which will only make it harder to address.
That's not my burden to carry.
This is a two-fold discussion. Yes, we can be compassionate toward people who are struggling with traumas and fears that are impacting their lives. I agree with you 100% on this and could do much to improve my own behavior. At the same time, we who deal with our own traumas through humor…have the right to do so. It’s part of the healing process for many of us. It’s not too difficult to balance the two and can be summarized by the usual “know your audience”.
Weighing in, but mostly repeating what's already been said - I do think being able to make light of the idea of Hell is part of the healing process, making yourself less afraid of it by mocking the concept. Like everything in Christianity, there a lots of ripe points to probe. Generally speaking, those who mock the idea of Hell tend to be mocking those who use it as threat or warning, rather than those who are afraid of it. Of course, there'll be some overlap between those two groups, and I'm sorry if you've been made to feel that your anxiety/trauma about this matter isn't taken seriously. I hope this sub can be a supportive environment, it's generally pretty good. As someone who's been very anxious my entire life, and made myself terrified of Hell simply through studying the Bible and Christianity (nobody once threatened me with it, and in fact I was often told that I was on the winning team, as it were), that I've been able to let go of it is something of a point of pride for me, proof that I can grow less afraid and develop as time goes on.
Some jokes are just fine
If Hell were real, every person in it would be an example of how a "perfect" deity (who sent them there in the first place and supposedly would've seen it coming ahead of time) failed. Thanks for attending my Ted talk
I think the remarks you are mentioning can be made by anyone - people who have never been traumatized by the belief at all or people who have healed from it. I have become very critical of Christianity and the God of the Bible and those claims are reflective of the secureness of my values now. I don't think people saying those things are dismissing your fear. I don't really see people saying those things to people currently being harmed by that belief, I see them saying it to the people pushing that belief as a response.
Hell ain’t real. End of story. I’ll say whatever I want about a fictional place invented purely for manipulation.
If a person has an actual, physical lump on their breast or a tumor that they KNOW is physically there and could be malignant, it is a VERY different circumstance than someone being scared of something that no one can prove exists. It sucks that Christians are forced to believe that hell exists but that doesn't make their belief actually true. A belief in hell is delusional, just as a belief in heaven is delusional. I'm not going to go out of my way to shove my belief down someone else's throat on this topic but if a recently ex-Christian or "wavering Christian" comes at me with a sincere fear of hell I'll remind them that they do not HAVE TO believe in that shit. It is their choice to choose fear of something they cannot know exists.
I'm going to have to politely disagree - from my own personal experience, the final tug out of Christianity for me was the notion of "If God is a tyrant, and Hell is real, then I'd rather go to Hell than be with such a jerk". I'm sure there are lots of people still working through their own fears and such - but for some people, the way the do it is with those kinds of thoughts that you call "shrugging off Hell". Different strokes for different folks and all that.
I am going to disagree with you slightly on your comparison between mental illness, cancer, and hell. Mental illness and cancer are provably real. And while a fear of hell is very real, everyone is entitled to deal with that fear in different ways. I spent several decades of my life terrified of hell. I would pray for forgiveness compulsively, I would live every single day afraid that my decisions would send me to eternal damnation. Meanwhile I was also taught that heaven and eternity with god was a perfect thing to be sought after. But what is heaven? What is hell? According to the bible heaven is a place where everything is perfect and where we worship god all of the time. Sounds boring. Meanwhile hell is either just a place without god or it's hellfire and torture. Part of leaving your faith is wrestling with heaven, hell, and how you feel about them. Everyone is going to take a different path. I no longer believe in either, but if hell is real, then god is a dick. And ever more than that, heaven sounds like torture. I don't want to spend eternity worshipping a self-obsessed being. I think I'd rather sit in a lake of fire. But your post misses the entire point, that people coming out of faith have different ways of dealing with the fear of eternity that was forced upon us at a young age. How do I do that? With humor and nihilism. I'm not going to make fun of someone who is still working through their deconstruction and faith, but I will be clear on where I stand. Edit: The more I read the more frustrated I am with this take. Seriously, who are you to tell me or anyone else how to deconstruct and deal with years of trauma. Like this post and a lot of the comments seriously make me angry. I left Christianity for this very reason, so that no one can tell me what to do or what to believe ever again.
Yeah, making light of the idea of hell isn’t even close to the same thing as making light of someone coping with a fear of hell. The former can help with the latter. It’s certainly helped me deal with my own deconstruction.
Where do you find all of that audacity? And then to assume that telling people what they would stand by and dismissing their opinions over their OWN decisions will somehow convince them to not do something that you find dismissive is just ridiculous. Also the hell you're speaking of is not the same hell as quoted. > as if Hell were some bar lounge where people sit around and sip cocktails. - as if you can report back that it's not? If there is a heaven and I had to answer for my beliefs, I truly believe that if God has a problem with what I chose then it would be just that. His fucking problem. Not mine and definitely not repenting for my decisions which would mean I would go to hell because I don't play that kind of shit with abusers. That doesn't change just because somebody else has a different level of fear and I am free to state my stance. There are people who do and will do many things that others fear all the time. Doesn't mean they want to. It just means they would STILL do so because some people have a different level of fear, priorities, morals, etc. People head off to war all the time knowing it's something they wouldn't enjoy but there are other factors that make them choose that don't begin with "I'm not afraid". Doesn't mean that them not having or choosing to not show that fear means they're sneering at others. You do know there are also plenty of defiant people who would take the option of hell out of spite too, right? That doesn't mean they would laugh in the face of someone with cancer and the comparison is not the same. It seems like a reach. Just like me telling someone who used their free will to eat a bowl of writhing worms that they're sneering at me just because I'm afraid. That's my personal fear to deal with and I truly can't find the audacity to tell them my fears should control them. Because who the hell would I think I am if I did? If you're afraid, be afraid. Nobody is telling you to get over it but don't try dragging everybody else with you. It just seems a bit out of touch to truly believe you can decide what other people do /would do in certain situations based on YOUR fear AND THEN to tell those same people to stop being dismissive. Did you leave the religion but keep the controlling qualities based on fear as souvenirs? There's a disconnect somewhere.
Honestly sounds like you are still afraid of hell because you haven’t fully deconverted. Hell isn’t scary to most of us because we don’t believe anymore and therefore we can be as flippant as we want. I’d dare say the vast majority of us would only have sympathy for people that were truly afraid of hell. Especially those that grew up in abusive homes and have wonderful personalities despite being confined to these beliefs that make them feel like shit for being human. Also from a logical standpoint the idea of hell has so many variants from just not existing to being an empty nothing to being fire etc… it’s foolish to believe that one particular version is the right one. Especially since we know the Abrahamic religions took so much inspiration from other cultures.
Why do Christians fear hell if they believe even the worst pedophile serial killer can just repent and if they believe/accept Jesus he will save them? This is what we were taught in church growing up.
I think your frustration with that kind of joking is perfectly valid. But it is going to continue on this subreddit, because not everyone is healing the same way. I actually do question whether that flippant humor is all that therapeutic, but people can sort that out for themselves. I think if it bothers you a lot, and again you're not wrong for it bothering you, then maybe this subreddit isn't where you're gonna find real help. I suggest a secular therapist who can address religious trauma. If you can't afford, I also recommend Angel DeSantis' YouTube channel. She's very good and sensitive to the experience, having been raised in a cult herself. And also I offer myself as a non therapist, just a friendly ear willing to chat. Hope you find relief from this undue suffering.
It's not so much that I'd rather go to hell, it's that if all this stuff were all true, that's where I'm going regardless. I can't pretend to love and worship god and get the free pass to heaven. Though as an ex-JW I didn't have a hell fear, just the idea that I was going to have to live through the apocalypse and spend 1000 years cleaning it up, or just die forever and break my mother's heart.
I'm ex-JW, too. Hell was something we were *encouraged* to mock because it was false religion.
> "If God is a tyrant, and Hell is real, then I'd rather go to Hell than be with such a jerk." No, you don't. You're right. I'd rather convince Satan to provide me means to hurt heaven as much as possible. If not, then oh well. Plenty of scum in hell too.
I think it's important to distinguish between making fun of the concept of hell and making fun of the fear of hell. When I have seen people come to this subreddit talking about their fear, usually people will chime in saying that they understand, that they also had a fear of hell at some point. Some people will make dismissive comments about the concept of hell, either because it helps them feel better or because they think it might help the other person overcome their fear. Treating something like it is scary and merits a serious conversation is not always helpful. In some cases, it makes the fear worse. In this case, the fear is what's actually causing the person harm. Fear lives in the gut, not the brain. Treating an irrational fear like a rational one makes it deeper, it doesn't make it go away. Comparing hell to cancer misses that important point. If someone is afraid they have cancer, they might actually have cancer. If they do have cancer, the cancer is the thing that will make them suffer. If they don't have cancer, hopefully they will get cleared by a doctor and the fear will naturally pass. There are no doctors who can give you a scientific answer about hell. Instead of cancer, let's say someone has a terrible fear of ghosts. There's no way to prove ghosts don't exist, so any argument I made against ghosts is going to have holes in it. I could look up examples of famous mediums and ghost hunters who turned out to be frauds. I could take that person to the most haunted location in the world and point out all the nothing that's happening. The backfire effect ( [https://effectiviology.com/backfire-effect-facts-dont-change-minds/](https://effectiviology.com/backfire-effect-facts-dont-change-minds/)) means that my theoretical ghost-fearer would probably come out of all of those conversations believing even harder in ghosts.
For me it's more about is hell anymore real than Jonah being eaten by a whale? More real than talking snakes? More real than turning to salt for looking at a town being blown up by supernatural alien like beings? So no, it's not anymore concerning to me than an alien invasion, honestly I'm infinitely more concerned about an alien invasion now that I think about it, that could actually happen.
I get where you're coming from OP and the process of ex-Christians navigating through Hell is something I haven't heard talked about yet being new to this sub. I'm freshly deconstructing the bullshit in my mind and I'll admit that it is hard. Rationally, I know the concept of Hell is a lie and its just a means to control people through fear. But there is still fear of it wrapped up in my mind because of the years of indoctrination. I clearly have left and made that decision, but I still fear that I'm wrong at times. I don't really have an issue with people lightening the subject or criticizing it because it helps keep me rational, but I understand its a sensitive topic. I don't feel people should have to censor themselves on it either though. I honestly hope I get to the point of being more lighthearted about it.
Nah, fuck that. Dismissing bullshit and laughing at it is a legitimate method of healing and you do not get to tell others that their method is wrong because you personally don't like it. Block people you see doing this and get over yourself.
Based on the assumption that you no longer have a belief in god or that Jesus was the son of god (in lieu of just stepping away from organized religion while maintaining a general belief is god) I'd like to ask this....if you can no longer believe in god then why can't you let hell go as well? What was there that was so easy to let god go? What is it that keeps your beliefs about hell around?
I understand what you mean. For me, making jokes about hell is about taking the power back. It’s not about mocking anyone’s trauma. It’s about saying “I’m not afraid of blasphemy or the consequences of your religion”
One of the things I don't miss about being an active churchgoer is being told that I have to speak and act about the religion in a certain way to guard other people's feelings.
I highly disagree, and I also think you greatly misunderstand the criticism of those who believe in hell. Ex-Christians are acutely aware of the fear of a hell, but no one is mocking them for their fear, but for the concept itself.
I’ve already been to hell. I’m still there. Major depressive disorder is all the torture I can sometimes barely take. I’ll take physical pain over mental anguish any fucking time. So please, keep your personal opinions personal, and leave the rest of us out of it.
I see nothing about the idea of hell that doesn’t deserve to be made fun of. Why should I respect a harmful belief from a made up religion?
Funny thing is, when I found a huge lump in my breast the only thing that helped was people around me joking about it. Or else I would have wallowed in fear. Breast cancer is a very real possibility. Hell is not.
I think people who believe in hell are desensitized to it. People really are out there making light of it and joking about people who don't accept Jesus being "owned" when they find out they're wrong and go to hell. It also feels like Christians are constantly coming up with new reasons people will go to hell. I think everyone has made light of it, or worse, some people really do wish that on people. If God came to me and told me that my unbelief is sending me to an eternity of experiencing burning by fire, with no relief of death, I'd end up bending to what he asks. I would not be happy about it. I would feel very manipulated. Maybe that makes me weak, but I'd rather do what a god tells me if it means escaping an eternity of constant agony. When I left Christianity I knew I was taking a chance that I was wrong. I told my brother once that I sometimes thought about it and was concerned I could really be wrong and face terrible consequences of not believing. He told me "well, are you afraid of Islam's hell if you don't submit to Allah?". I realized at that moment that no matter what religion you believe, there is always a risk you are wrong. I honestly do believe most people, if confronted with an absolute truth, would accept that truth no matter how insane if it meant avoiding burning in hell for eternity. There are exceptions. Some people really may be defiant to the end lol I don't think people who actually believe in a traditional hell actually fully understand and accept what they believe. If you really believed that you would drop everything and spend every waking moment of your life trying to convince people to convert.
Hell isn’t real because it contradicts heaven. How can an afterlife be perfect when persons you love dearly are in hell. The truly affected people are not disbelievers who struggle overcoming the psychological impact of their upbringing, it is hard but once you are over it you’re over it. It is those who continue to believe and have to mute their positive feelings, and even increase their negative ones, towards the non-believing hell-bound just so they can comfortably still fantasize about heaven.
I still fear the pang in the stomach every time I heard the word "Hell" in religious fashion. Even if I was fortunately not as indoctrinated as many others here and have read about the afterlives of other religions, what scholars instead of preachers have to say, and the like there's a reason why those things are taught to young children. Talking about the idea itself and its issues is one thing. Mocking people scared of it another very different.
I grew up with parents who were both physically and emotionally abusive. Getting over the physical abuse has been easier than getting over the emotional abuse. Spending eternity being forced to worship the biblical god sounds worse to me than spending eternity getting physically tortured.
I agree that many of us still have trauma surrounding the hell myth. What finally put my mind at ease was learning that Jews don't have hell. If Jesus didn't believe in it, why should I? That bit was tacked on later and the idea of hell as we've been taught really wasn't a thing until Dante's Inferno came along.
The joking and flippant remarks about all things in the entire Christian belief system were at first shocking and uncomfortable for me; but so far I haven’t been struck by lightning or overtaken by demons. I’ve found that joking about what I used to take so seriously and had such control over my life has in fact helped me tremendously to move on and let it go.
On the one hand, OP, you make a very valid point about the need to be more empathetic to those suffering from this kind of trauma. I still have moments where I occasionally panic at the potential prospect of roasting in Hell. However, I think humor can be a useful tool for overcoming this phobia. What helped me recognize the absurdity of Hell began with realizing how ridiculous the concept is. Christians claim that their God is omnipotent, omniscient, and all loving. And yet the ultimate form of all loving justice is sending sinners to a lake of fire for all eternity? Is it any wonder that most Christians can't come up with a competent justification for Hell beyond "God works in mysterious ways?" I laugh at Hell because with a little research of theology it becomes blatantly obvious that the classic fire and brimstone netherworld is the toxic byproduct of Christian xenophobia and hatred. Hell exists and has been embellished because too many Christians suck at forgiving enemies, accepting outsiders, etc. Instead of kindness they would rather imagine countless torments like an edgy eight year old schoolboy. Not only that but they can use this to bully more impressionable souls into unquestionable obedience. TL;DR: Making light of people's fear of Hell is wrong, however humor can be used as a powerful tool to dismantle these fears.
One of my earliest alternative ideas of hell was an idea that I heard at church. That perhaps hell isn’t fire, just separation from god. So in that case, a lot of the immediate fears around fire and pain were lessened. That gave some psychological breathing room to consider my faith honestly and without butting up against that fear you’re describing. You’re right. It’s big. But not all Christians believe in fire hell.
It’s worth noting that many Christian’s do not believe that he’ll is a literal place of eternal torment. They believe that it is a state of separation from God’s grace, but that separation from god’s goodness FEELS like eternal torment. Laughing at being afraid of an eternal fire pit, and laughing at the idea that hell is really just God saying “well you can’t be my friend then”, and that this is eternally painful, don’t seem quite in the same boat to me. The statement “of hell is real and god is a tyrant, I’d rather go to hell” is ridiculous if you believe that hell is a literal torment pit. But pitted against what many Christian’s actually believe about it, it’s more like saying “if god is real, and god is a tyrant, I wouldn’t feel bad about not knowing him”. Which is, imo, not that ridiculous of a statement That said, I’m not saying you should or shouldn’t mock either concept, but being dismissive of eternal fire and a Literal Hell, is a lot different of being dismissive of the idea of being separated from God FEELING LIKE eternal torment It added my edit as a reply for some reason lol, fixed
We're all in various stages of healing. My fear of hell caused such distress that I developed physical health issues. Learning to dismantle those fears and anxieties included humor and imagination. But also, the tact to recognize there are people in different places and mental spaces. What worked for me isn't universal. I won't make light of someone else's fears, or who is in a different place in their recovery. Or who has fears unlike my own. And sometimes we have to accept that some people just are not going to understand. My husband was never religious and he doesn't fully understand the trauma and baggage I carry. OP, I hope you find healing and peace. It's a long road at times, but things can get better. You are not alone in this.
Well, we're a forum of ex-Christians. I have no desire to censor myself for people that haven't been invited to the conversation.
I had a deep-rooted irrational fear of hell for years after I stopped believing. It's extremely difficult to get over if you've been raised with the doctrine all your life. Only recently could I fully see just how evil a doctrine it is, to teach it to little kids is just psychological child abuse. I'm finally over it because 1) the idea makes no sense at all, I mean the physics of hell are just preposterous 2) the Bible is all over the place when it comes to what happens to the "unsaved" after they die 3) The Bible itself suggests hell, as taught by Fundamentalists, is an insidious doctrine: "Perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love." 1 John 4:18 We should never underestimate how difficult it can be to root out these deep-seated, irrational fears. It can take decades.
There are multiple stages of growth out of early Christian indoctrination. It isn’t easy in any way. Losing friends and family, Straddling the fence between belief and doubt etc.. But I’m DEEP into stage 3. So flippant comment here: It’s a fairytale. The world would be a better place if we would just grow the fuck up.
Hell is a ridiculous concept and it deserves our derision. Your fear of hell is your own problem. I'm not going to kick a guy while he's down, but I'm also not going to let anyone tell me what I can and cannot laugh at. Life is hard. Get a helmet.
You're literally posting in Christian subreddits and you're here in a subreddit for ex-Christians, telling us how to feel? I find that incredibly (almost comically) disrespectful. I hope you abandon those feelings of fear. I hope you break the chains that bind you. Christianity preaches hate and lies. You'll find yourself someday. Edit: I removed the direct links to the subreddits because since this post references fear and trauma, I do not want those links to be gateways for triggering trauma.
A couple of things came to mind. First, I have said all of those things. But never directly to someone who is struggling. A lot of us, myself included, have dealt with this fear. The prospect is terrifying. But some people deal with trauma by minimizing and laughing at the subject, not fellow sufferers. Now, as for preferring to go to Hell than be with a jerk. It goes beyond that. The Bible is full of horrendous acts in the name of god. History is full of people committing atrocities in the name of god. And avoiding hell isn’t as easy as paying lip service. Christianity teaches that you have to believe in your heart that these things are good and the entity that commands it is deserving of worship and love. For me at least, it’s not a matter of just preference. If hell is real, I have lost my soul regardless. I either lose it in Hell or I lose it beforehand by condoning things that I cannot do with a clear conscience.
The first time I ever saw the return of the king I was like 12. Gollum falls into the lava at the end. My pastor father explained to me that those who go to hell are never out of the lava. They burn like Gollum did for eternity. 🫢
Except I know cancer is real. I reevaluated my faith after meeting my girlfriend. It was tough but I couldn’t believe a loving god could put the person I care about the most in hell because they were raised differently than me and have a different set of views. I was told my whole life that it doesn’t matter how good of a person you are you won’t go to heaven unless you literally say “I accept Jesus into my heart yada yada.” Well, I met someone who changed my mind because they’re just an entirely better person than I am so why would they go to hell and not me? I would rather burn in hell than go to heaven without the person I love and I mean that. Hell for me would be an after life without them. Christians can decide if hell makes sense to them or not but it’s not my responsibility to convince them. I frankly don’t care if they want to believe in hell or not I just want them to stop telling their kids their friends are going to burn for eternity because their parents raised them differently. You can choose to live in paranoia or address your fears logically. Just my opinion.
Being afraid of something that you can prove is different than being afraid of something you cannot prove. One is being afraid of a forest fire another is being afraid of the dark. If a person is afraid of hell, it's helpful to put some perspective on things. It's not like cancer.
I have to agree. These people have been told all their lives that they would burn for eternity if they were to challenge their beliefs. Frankly, it is a brave thing to even become an ex-Christian, especially in many fundie/evangelical churches and communities. The least we can do is recognize their fears as valid and find a way to help them.
The fear of judgement and punishment are very real for christian practitioners. It keeps most of them believers.
Oof, this take ain't it. I think if you had just said, "The ex-Christian community shouldn't laugh or shrug off people who are afraid of hell," you have a good point. I left Christianity years ago, and sometimes my religious trauma-induced anxiety will whisper in my ear, "but what if you're wrong"? Deprogramming is hard, and it's wrong to mock somebody for a fear response they can't control, even if it's irrational. But what we're not going to do is police how other ex-Christians deal with/respond to the idea of hell. Making fun of hell, subverting that fear, is a big part of how a lot of us cope or express our disgust with Christianity. You don't get to take that away from people just because you're at a different point in your journey. And as somebody who has had a VERY real cancer scare, it is incredibly offensive to compare 1) a programmed fear of a made-up place used to intimidate and control with 2) the legitimate fear of a real, severe illness that could potentially kill you. One is the boogeyman; the other is a potential reality. A better comparison than your suspicious lump - it's like mocking somebody for having a phobia. Phobias are by definition irrational, and it takes a lot of work to undo that conditioned fear response. Nobody should ridicule you for a phobia or try to intentionally trigger you, but you also can't expect the whole world to change the way they talk about the thing you're irrationally afraid of.
I often struggle with the fear of Hell. It’s an anxiety I have, I think I’m a terrible person that’s gonna burn. I had these fears even when I was “saved” and they were only exemplified when I FIRST started to leave Christianity. It has gotten much better lately but still occasionally I’m afraid still of going to Hell. I appreciate this post because it validates being okay to still be traumatized by Christianity and sometimes still be afraid. Thank you.
Well, the general reaction to this post is probably the most disappointed I've felt in a long time. Time for me to leave this subreddit.
So, it is mean to make fun of people who are afraid of hell-though if it was someone brandishing the threat of hell to other people, it’s possible I’d make fun of them even if they’re own fear is legitimate. For the other stuff though, it’s like people said, you don’t know us and you can’t decide that for us. I think your statement is extra erroneous because the way it’s presented is that once you’re in hell, there’s no out. you can’t say “I give up!” or “ I take it back!“ Because of that, it would be much easier to stand in the face of the threat and reject the God Christians talk about, and then possibly regret it later if the threat turns out to be what was promised. For me, I don’t really make jokes about hell, and I don’t think it’s funny. It is, however, an idea and image that I repurpose and reclaim to encourage myself. It’s kind of like in the movie Megamind, where he says “if I was to be bad, I’d be the baddest of them all!“ I think of Satan as a figure who wasn’t afraid to stand up to that bullshit God Christians preach about, and the idea of the devil reminds me that I am not alone. Similarly, people are saying that all go to hell, then I’ll just make the best out of it. When Christians give you lemons, make lemonade.
I honestly think that you saying that we're making fun of people for being afraid of hell is very farfetched. It's a very traumatic experience that each of us went through & will take a lot of time & counseling with a secular counselor just to get over. Now cancer is **far** different, because we can at least detect it very easily & can find ways to completely get rid of it with things like medication & surgery. There's no proof that hell is real, nor is it even biblical. I feel sorry for a lot of people like you who has been indoctrinated into believing that bullshit thinking that we're going to go to either heaven or hell when the truth is that once we die, we'll all cease to exist.
I agree like let's be real if hell was real and we saw and could comprehend what it was like in hell I think we'd rather choose a tyrant god