Conflicts Of Interest

The threat of hell and burning in flames for eternity is terrorism. It is the worst form of punishment man could devise and it was aimed at enforcing power and control over empires.

Early kings used heaven and hell to force people to comply with their commands. They used poverty as a leverage to achieve their goals and the most privileged received houses, food and slaves. As you rose in status you moved closer to the royal court and became more favored by the king.

While such rulers were rich beyond measure the ordinary person was poor, hard working and usually undernourished. This was deliberate on the part of the king to protect his empire. To ensure there were always people to do his bidding, protect his realm and fight and die on battlefields people were encouraged to produce large numbers of children. This increased poverty but also led to bigger armies and a richer society.

The Maya people of Mexico left enough symbolism, codices and iconography to demonstrate how this worked. If men joined the army they became privileged and the better they served their king the higher the status they achieved. The same principle worked in Egypt where volunteers strived to build their Pharaohs the best tombs to ensure they were great kings in the after-life.

If a king fell his army fell with him and he could never rule in heaven. The goal of his men was to keep him alive at all costs to ensure their own rewards were secure.

This is why palaces were built to protect him and he resided in the innermost part with guards and security around him at all times. It was more beneficial for his servant to die in place of him and volunteers even tasted his food to ensure it was no poisoned. It was the aim of his opponents to kill him to prevent his taking over the heavenly kingdom.

The king rewarded his most dedicated with high status in heaven but individuals who opposed him would be confined to the worst place imaginable - hell.

Such individuals could also be enslaved and forced to work for those more privileged and to be sacrificed to appease the gods. That meant it was more beneficial for men to volunteer their services to the king. If a man died on the battle field he became like a prince in the after-life and to be blooded with the sword meant one rose in status in life. Self sacrifice was also widely practiced.

It is still the case that religious martyrs believe they go instantly to heaven and those they kill as opponents to their God will go to hell. The problem is no one can find either heaven or hell despite all the space travel, photographs taken from outer space, or by looking through the most powerful lens. All the planets are visible as well as the stars, black holes and so on but nowhere is there a huge oven containing the souls of billions who have supposedly been cast into it.

Of course there is the sun and that burns forever, supposedly. But that is millions of miles from earth and everything that gets close to it is annihilated. So where is hell?

The planets were once thought to be the souls of the departed residing in heaven but we know that is not correct. They are solid bodies like the earth, some hotter some colder. So where are these souls and why can’t we find their hiding place.

For hell to exist it would have to be a mighty big oven with a presence for all things existing are there. If it is not there so it cannot exist. It remains, therefore, nothing but a place in the imagination for those who want to believe in it.

But its not as simple as that. People indoctrinated from birth to believe in it are less likely to overturn it.

The role of hell is terrorism and people who believe the threats made against them by religious fanatics are living there in life. Those who seek to avoid it are slaves to the religion that drives them and they will only be free when they can see the reality of the myth.