The idea of punishment/reward in an afterlife isn't unique to the god/s of the Abrahamic traditions.
Even with Hinduism/Buddhism, they also have afterlife mythologies, their version is reincarnation, and or spirit worship of ancestors.
It is all nonsense in any case once you accept our 4 billion year old planet has had 5 mass extinction events in it's history, and will have a few more before the sun dies and kills all life. When, NOT IF, but when our species goes extinct, and hopefully not by our own hand, but when we go extinct, all our human invented religions and gods and mythologies will die with us.
But in specific the concept of the Abrahamic hell is especially insidious. This version of "hell" is not a corrective measure, like say in prisons, where you are not getting life, and have a chance to get out, many prisons offer you training and education and an opportunity to come out and become a productive person and a second chance.
Hell is basically a concept of revenge. To understand this you have to recognize the context for the times those mythologies were written. Most humans lived under local ruling king states, even in polytheism. Back then loyalty to that ruling family was far more a demand and if you didn't do what that ruling family said, or if you questioned them or betrayed them you'd only be arrested if you were lucky. So it wasn't about just punishing thieves or murderers, it was about loyalty to the state.
It is an authoritarian dictatorial concept having no corrective value at all. "Obey" only means "obey" in this context.
In the modern western world, for example, you don't "obey" traffic laws because someone simply demanded it, we obey traffic laws for safety reasons that are socially agreed on through mutual legislation via consent of the voter. And if we don't like our leaders we can vote them out of office and or change our laws.
"Hell" back then was a literary device to threaten society into blind loyalty to this God. This God is not an elected official, you cannot vote it out of office. It is all powerful and can throw you into eternal torture, and that is orwellian, authoritarian, and hardly humaine as a concept. And it can be a threat merely for not believing. In the real world, in the west there is no demand to be blindly loyal to any religion or andy god.
The thought that my mind is not mine, and is the property of a cosmic security guard watching every waking and sleeping moment is a vile concept to me.
Even with Hinduism/Buddhism, they also have afterlife mythologies, their version is reincarnation, and or spirit worship of ancestors.
It is all nonsense in any case once you accept our 4 billion year old planet has had 5 mass extinction events in it's history, and will have a few more before the sun dies and kills all life. When, NOT IF, but when our species goes extinct, and hopefully not by our own hand, but when we go extinct, all our human invented religions and gods and mythologies will die with us.
But in specific the concept of the Abrahamic hell is especially insidious. This version of "hell" is not a corrective measure, like say in prisons, where you are not getting life, and have a chance to get out, many prisons offer you training and education and an opportunity to come out and become a productive person and a second chance.
Hell is basically a concept of revenge. To understand this you have to recognize the context for the times those mythologies were written. Most humans lived under local ruling king states, even in polytheism. Back then loyalty to that ruling family was far more a demand and if you didn't do what that ruling family said, or if you questioned them or betrayed them you'd only be arrested if you were lucky. So it wasn't about just punishing thieves or murderers, it was about loyalty to the state.
It is an authoritarian dictatorial concept having no corrective value at all. "Obey" only means "obey" in this context.
In the modern western world, for example, you don't "obey" traffic laws because someone simply demanded it, we obey traffic laws for safety reasons that are socially agreed on through mutual legislation via consent of the voter. And if we don't like our leaders we can vote them out of office and or change our laws.
"Hell" back then was a literary device to threaten society into blind loyalty to this God. This God is not an elected official, you cannot vote it out of office. It is all powerful and can throw you into eternal torture, and that is orwellian, authoritarian, and hardly humaine as a concept. And it can be a threat merely for not believing. In the real world, in the west there is no demand to be blindly loyal to any religion or andy god.
The thought that my mind is not mine, and is the property of a cosmic security guard watching every waking and sleeping moment is a vile concept to me.
