By Kalena Reynolds | Journalist
Growing up in an ultra-religious household, hell and the devil were common themes in family conversations. They would come up to the table, coming home from school and, of course, at church.
Even though it was a casual conversation for my parents, the idea that a menacing evil entity was constantly lurking and waiting to affect my life never sat very well with my overactive mind. As a result, I suffered from parasomnia throughout my childhood and had horrible nightmares that mostly revolved around hell and demonic entities.
Around the age of 12, I remember asking people around me for help in stopping the dreams, and the best answer anyone could come up with was that I needed to pray more, especially before bed. As the nightmares continued, I began to question my beliefs and what I thought about hell and the devil.
The deconstruction of my opinions began with research. I started talking to the few family friends I knew who weren’t Christians. I wasn’t sure of my point of view until I spoke to my mother’s friends, who were Jewish, who told me that hell was not an important topic in their culture; they had a word to describe it but never really discussed it in depth.
It shocked me that this thing that had been such a central point in my life was nothing more than a word to some people. I suddenly began to abandon my strict Christian view and reconstruct my beliefs until I came to the decision that I no longer believed that the “pit of eternal fire” was hell.
If you think about it, the Christian view of hell makes no logical sense. I’ll start by saying that I believe in an afterlife for the simple fact that our essence has to go somewhere once we shed our bodies. I just don’t think this place is hell.
In the Christian religion, hell is presented as a form of physical suffering and a place where a soul will burn for eternity. However, it should be noted that since the soul is not a physical entity, it does not have nerves. Therefore, the “fires” of hell must be interpreted as a metaphor: emotional suffering. Hypothetically, if an all-powerful God really wanted to punish someone for their sins, wouldn’t He do it through some form of emotional torture? Most people would say that emotional torture far outweighs the burden of physical torture in most cases.
I believe that the “fires” of hell should be interpreted as the possible feeling of pain that a soul has caused on Earth. Once a soul feels the deep pain they caused on Earth, they are able to move on to Heaven, for lack of a better word.
The word “hell” is not mentioned in the Old Testament, and there is only one possible place in the New Testament that could be translated as “hell.” In 2 Peter 2:4 he uses “tartarus,” which translates to a temporary place or constraint. The key here is “temporary”.
The idea of eternal punishment insinuates the idea that it is not possible to overcome one’s mistakes. What makes the most sense according to this interpretation is purgatory – a temporary place of purification. A temporary place to learn from mistakes is what can truly give people the opportunity to achieve a justified afterlife.
