Ricochet Off Rock Bottom
Hell was presented to me as a bad thing
Hell was presented to me as a bad thing. If we do not confess our sins and submit our lives to Christ, then God will punish us by sending us to Hell after we physically die. Hell is a place of eternal torment, life in Hell is endless pain, and endless pain is the worst thing imaginable — even worse than death.
The existence of Hell used to bother me philosophically. Why would a loving God choose to create sinful beings and curse those beings to Hell for eternity for being the sinful way that He made them? Why would God choose to bring specific people into existence if He knew in advance that they would sin, never confess their sins, and wind up in Hell? What does God get out of sending anyone to Hell instead of just letting them die in peace? Is God a sadist? Why would God want revenge on humans for enacting the nature that He imbued them with?
I have asked these questions countless times. They have haunted me most of my life. When I was a child, I wanted to love God because I was worried that, if I didn’t love Him, then I would burn in Hell forever. I didn’t want to burn because then I wouldn’t get to be with my family and the animals that I loved more than people after I died. If I could get myself to honestly do the thing that would save me from Hell, then I could stop disappointing everyone in my life with my chronic “doubt” and “lack of faith.”
I didn’t want to go to Hell because then I would never get to see my family members who killed themselves and “went to Heaven” when I was young. Sometimes, I selfishly wished that they were in Hell because then I would get to be with them after I died. Maybe then the endless misery wouldn’t be as bad.
The problem for me was that, no matter how hard I tried or prayed or studied, I couldn’t find a way in my heart to love a God that obviously hated me. I couldn’t perform whatever maneuver of the soul that was apparently required to love a God that would send me to Hell for being the imperfect way that He made me. If God gave me, Marshall McCready, my nature, and my nature is sinful, then God made Marshall sinful, and God is cursing Marshall for being himself.
I could not find any way out of this. I still haven’t, because there isn’t one.
If God plans to send you to Hell for being who you are, and who you are is a sinner, then God regrets creating you, feels ashamed for His mistake, and redirects His shame into a fiery anger that condemns and damns you to endless torment. If your god is a slave master, then your god does not love you and you do not love him. If you think that you love your holy abuser, then you have spiritual Stockholm syndrome.
A childhood memory sticks out in my mind as I dwell on this. I was at a dinner with close and distant relatives. A woman, some kind of cousin I believe, talked to me and my sister the entire meal. I have never seen her since, but, to this day, I remember her warmth and depth and how she treated me and my sister as equals. Shortly after the dinner, I heard something that scarred me. I heard that the incredible mystery woman who touched my heart was going to Hell for being gay. I heard the disgust in the voices of her condemners. I cried for so long that night. I cried because I couldn’t make sense of any of it. I cried longer than I understood why at the time. I cried because a part of me knew that, if I were honest about my attractions, then that disgust would be directed at me as well. God hated me already, so I could not bear to identify with feelings that disgusted Him on a whole new level.
I left the church when I was a teenager because I was exhausted of trying to figure out how to love a God who regretted creating me. People’s sympathy toward my “doubt” sickened me. They looked down on me with pity for my “faithlessness,” and I looked up at them with hidden loathing for their weakness. Nothing is weaker than choosing to worship an abuser for life, nothing is more pathetic than intentionally choosing time and again to be a slave.
I called myself an atheist but still couldn’t shake the fear of Hell. I delved into the philosophy of “free will” and agency, trying to find a way to avoid my terrible fate. That is, until things fell apart so completely around me and in me that I lived as a zombie — physically alive, but spiritually dead. I found myself hesitating in the middle of crosswalks, looking down off rooftops in the nighttime, eying prescription bottles, and so on. I became more numb than I had ever been before. It was at this point that I completely lost my fear of Hell, for I had discovered something far worse, anomie.
Anomie is overwhelming anxiety and engulfing shame in the midst of existential chaos. A-nomie, no-norms, normlessness, maximum disorder, pure chaos. It usually follows the experience of domicide, the loss of home. Home can be relational, physical, cultural, ideological — it is often all of these things and more, which is why losing it radically destabilizes people.
The Bible portrays the anomic person as a desperate man stuck in the middle of the ocean. He’s alone in a vast expanse of nothingness, there are no ships in sight, no land in view. When he exasperatedly gets his head above water to gasp in the air, he’s pelted with rain from the dark storm up above. Life thrashes him around so much that he loses all sense of direction as he sinks into the inky black depths. He sinks and spins into the void. Where is up? Where is down? What is good? What is bad? There is nothing here, not even Hell.
What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun?
Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving?
Away from all suns?
Are we not plunging continually?
Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions?
Is there still any up or down?
Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing?
Do we not feel the breath of empty space?
Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us?
Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning?
Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God?
Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition?
Gods, too, decompose.
God is dead.
God remains dead.
And we have killed him.
– Frederick Nietzsche, excerpted from The Madman
I killed god, I lost all sense of right and wrong, I hated life so much. My existential dread consumed so much of my energy that I had none left over to actually hate anything specific in life. I couldn’t find enough life in me to hate even the worst things imaginable. Everything was nothing, nothing was anything. This infinite nothing, this empty space, this lost-at-sea-ness, this nihilistic condition, this anomie, this normless state of being is the 0 in the symbol of this blog, for Fighting Anomie and my personal life, ∅. The zero is the force of decay. (It is also the donut in Everything Everywhere All At Once.)
You can call yourself an atheist all day, but you have not truly murdered god until you have existed in the chaotic nothingness of his corpse. You have not killed the divine life force within your being until you have lost all force for life.
Stop pushing yourself at all, stop being pushed from within, lose all desire to push for anything, and yearn to be pushed — preferably, into a bus, and then you will understand what it means to truly kill god.
God is your strength. If you are spiritually strong in this life, if Something drives you to painfully produce growth in any form, then your soul worships God whether you admit it or not. Every time you push yourself, you are pushed. Something pushes you to push. Something presses upon your soul.
You can deny this, but try being a zombie for a while. Check out what it’s like to lie on the floor in despair, dreading every next second. Lay there and wish for a painless death, one that wouldn’t hurt anyone you love. Fantasize about ways of killing yourself that could be fun and make you feel something in the process. Imagine the rush of falling off a tall building, imagine the wind in your hair as you plummet to your escape from this profound numbness, this infinite nothing. Imagine finding a way to fall out of life that wouldn’t hurt anyone else. Lust for isolation, for then you wouldn’t have to worry about the others. Pray for everyone to reject you and stop loving you, for that would make killing yourself so much easier. Then you wouldn’t have to keep living for nothing.
Lay there stuck in your dread and wait for the desire to live to return. When it finally does and you lift yourself up off the floor, inquire into the origin of the ascension. What actually lifted you up just then? Did you, a zombie floating listlessly in a nihilistic vortex where nothing means anything, decide to be pushed up to your feet? No, Something pulled you up out from the depths and set you back down on dry land. Curse that Something, feel the painful meaning of the direction you must now go in life, and then step back into Hell — the Hell that is your life during this dreadful winter.
Being lost at sea is worse than being in Hell because at least in Hell you know where you are. At least you are feeling something in Hell rather than being nothing. I have never had the desire to cut myself with a razor, but during my time as a zombie, I cut myself deeply with thought of sending myself to Hell simply to feel something. Why do people cut themselves? Because Hell is better than anomie, the dark infinite ocean. Cutters hope that putting themselves through Hell will help them chart a path toward Heaven.
If I knew how to fall even harder, if I could figure how to go further down into the depths, if I could see where down even is, then maybe I could ricochet off the rock bottom of this bleak ocean and ascend back above the dark waters. Maybe the sun would be out and reveal a ship or an island that was hidden by the storm. Maybe something would start to mean anything to me. Maybe some order, some direction, some norm, some structure worth conforming to, would present itself like a gift from the universe and save me from this anomie, this lost-at-sea-ness. Maybe I could start to wrap myself like a snake around that precious thing that would make my life worth living and start to grow back into new life, into a new hopeful way of living and being in life.
Hell is not a place you go after you physically die. Hell is suffering in life — the state of your being when you are suffering in life, the “immaterial place” your soul is in when you are suffering in life. Hell is not inaccessibly far away. If you have actually been to Hell, if you have suffered through a seemingly never-ending winter and almost died from the frostbite, then you know what I mean. I have known many people who have been to Hell, they are my fellow travelers. I know people who are there now, they are my friends.
There’s an unresolved paradox in popular Protestantism today. Kierkegaard, who invented the notion of the “leap of faith”, pointed this out to me. (His “leap of faith” has been grotesquely corrupted in the mainstream. Søren turns in his grave almost every time the phrase is uttered.) I believe this unresolved paradox partially explains why Christianity has lost popularity. If you can see through this unresolved paradox, then you can understand Hell for what it really is.
This is going to be somewhat tedious, and many will not understand, but please try to stick with me here. Heaven and Hell are on the line.
As with every paradox, we grasp one thing in our left hand and another in our right. We know that we are stuck in an unresolved paradox when we can’t see what is in both of our hands at the same time. Being paradoxical is not bad in itself. Jesus personified paradox — the existential dialectic of life and death, growth and decay. However, being stuck in an unresolved paradox is usually bad because it is a state of ignorance, of blindness. If you are trapped in an unresolved paradox, then, when you look at what is in your left hand, you lose sight of what is in your right, and vice versa. You are a Cyclops.
I want you to see Heaven and Hell at the same time.
My aim is to force you to look at both hands, for then you will see that you are not actually grasping two things at the same time. Really, when you grasp with the right hand, you let go of what you hold in the left. You think you are holding two things at the same time, but you only think that because you are only looking at one hand at a time. When you look at one hand, what is in the other disappears. Try to look at both hands at once.
On one hand, death is the worst. If Adam and Eve hadn’t eaten the fruit, then humanity today wouldn’t have to deal with death at all. Adam’s sinful death in the story of The Garden was the worst thing possible because it vicariously cursed all of humanity with death. Death was God’s punishment for man. Death is the worst.
On the other hand, Hell is the worst. It’s maximum torment forever. You’re bound to go to Hell and experience endless pain after you die unless you profess your faith in Christ in this life. If death didn’t mean Hell, then death wouldn’t be so bad. In fact, if death means going to Heaven and uniting with God, then death is actually kind of a good thing. It bridges you to God in His purest form, which is good. It’s not death per se but Hell that’s most worth avoiding. Hell is the worst.
On one hand, death is the worst. On the other hand, Hell is the worst. Sinfulness was bad in The Garden because it led to death, which was the worst because it was God’s punishment. Dying today is bad because it could lead to Hell, which would be the worst.
Look at both hands. Do you see? Which is actually the worst? Pick one, for only one can really be the worst.
Is this not making sense? Let me give you another angle.
On one hand, life is the best. The best thing would have been if Adam had lived instead of died. If Adam wasn’t cursed to die for eating the fruit, if he had continued to live in The Garden, then all of humanity would have been spared the death curse as well. There would be no pain or suffering and all of humanity would be completely united with God their entire lives. If only Adam had chosen life instead of death in The Garden, then none of us would need saving. Life is the best.
On the other hand, Heaven is the best. Heaven means perfect unity with God, which is the best. You can only really get to Heaven after physical death, for then you become pure spirit and merge with God’s Divine Being. Heaven is the best.
On one hand, life is the best. On the other hand, Heaven is the best. Look at both hands. Which one is actually the best? You must choose, for it is impossible for both of them to really be the best.
You probably do not understand what I’m saying and are starting to suspect that I’ve lost touch with reality. Stay with me. Let me try to put your hands together.
Death is the opposite of life, right? And Heaven is the opposite of Hell, correct? These are pairs. Grasp a pair in each hand.
On one hand, death and life.
On the other hand, Hell and Heaven.
Put your hands together. Match the pairs. Take the matched pairs in each hand.
On one hand, you have death and Hell.
On the other hand, you have life and Heaven.
Biblically speaking, death is not physical death, but decay, and life is not physical living, but growth.
On one hand, you have decay and Hell.
On the other hand, you have growth and Heaven.
Biblically speaking, Hell is not a physical place, but timeless suffering, and Heaven is not a physical place, but timeless peace in God.
On one hand, you have decay and timeless suffering.
On the other hand, you have growth and timeless peace in God.
Look at what is in your hands. Look! You are now holding Heaven and Hell.
On one hand, you have Hell. Hell is decay and timeless suffering — it is a winter that feels like it will last forever.
On the other hand, you have Heaven. Heaven is growth and timeless peace in God — it is a summer of love and joy that feels like it flew by in a flash.
Heaven and Hell are not mysterious places we go to after physical death, they are seasons of the soul that people experience in their real lives here and now.
Are you in a season of suffering in your life? Does your spiritual winter feel like it will last forever? Is there no end in sight, no clear time when your suffering will cease? Welcome to Hell.
Are you in a season of growth and peace in God? Are you filled with so much gratitude for life right now that you frequently lose track of time? Have you achieved a temporary peace in life, one that immerses you so much in the present moment that you aren’t even aware of time passing? Welcome to Heaven.
Hell is not a bad thing. If we didn’t have Hell, then we couldn’t have Heaven. If we didn’t suffer during the winter, then we couldn’t look forward to summer.
I’ve suffered far more life than I’ve enjoyed. I’ve spent much of my life in Hell. But I wouldn’t change a thing, for I understand that God created the seasons. He created the seasons for the trees, He created seasons of the soul for mankind. There is no up without down, no good without bad, no Heaven without Hell in this life.
God loves us. He does not curse us to endless torment after physical death. That would obviously not be loving, but vengeful and sadistic. No, God blessed us with our lives. He blessed us with life. He wants us to grow in His Wisdom. We, like seeds, could not grow and bloom anew in our summers if we couldn’t suffer through harsh winters.
You can’t see the world clearly enough to find Heaven, to experience timeless peace in God, if you haven’t first found Hell, timeless suffering in life. Jesus cannot save you from Hell, from timeless suffering, if you are not actually in Hell.
It’s possible that Jesus has already saved you from Hell and that you are in Heaven right now. If so, then you have been losing track of yourself, of time, because you have been so immersed in the joy of life. Your soul is at peace even when you are in the midst of a war in life. You have taken the good in one hand, grasped the bad in the other, and put your hands together in a prayer of thanks to God for life.
Namaste.