Okay, kiddies, time to take your annual fear-of-hell test. Gotta keep ya’ll clean of cooties, ya know. So, repeat after me: “If there is
[“If there is…]
“a real place called hell,
[“a real place called hell…]
“Then please, god,
[“Then please, god…]
“Strike me dead on the spot. [SSSStrike …. Meeeee aaaaaarrgghhhh!!!….][covers face in shame]
No, no, no it’s alright. You just need a little more deprogramming, that’s all. Nothing to be ashamed of. Let me show you again how it's done:
“If there is a real place called hell, then please, god, strike me, Athana, dead on the spot.”
Okay, now I’m writing this sentence, so you know I wasn’t stricken dead on the spot.
Now I’m writing another sentence.
‘Nother.
If you like, check back tomorrow to see if I'm still alive and kicking.
___________________
Thnx to DawnAllynn for the foto
13 comments:
Blahaha...
Loved this. Thank you.
I had a *friend* ask me if I wasn't afraid I was going to burn in hell for being a witch. No, I have been deprogrammed.
I told someone I wasn't afraid of hell because I had made a reservation in a whole different heaven.
I believe all Christians will go to hell because they are so obsessed with the place, it's the only thing on thier mind.
I also believe people will go to where ever they believe they will go so again hell is default for christians because of their heavy belief of it.
Heaven and hell are just a carrot-and-a-stick thingie that the people who fabricated the war gods made up. "The better to control you all, my sweets," they used to say.
I was just doing a bit of research on this. Seems the first so-called 'Cradle of Civilization' civilizations -- in the Fertile Crescent -- had neither heaven nor hell. The Egyptians were some of the first to invent heaven. Then I think it was the Persians who finally invented hell.
Lucky us.
I don't mean to pick out little points and ignore main topics, it's just that I'm short on time again -- sorry! =X
I just wanted to say something that's been on my mind for a while:
You paint this picture of starving hallucinating young men starting the war god cults. And then you say
"Heaven and hell are just a carrot-and-a-stick thingie that the people who fabricated the war gods made up. "The better to control you all, my sweets," they used to say."
So what is it? Are they stark-raving boys on the verge of heat stroke and starvation, or are they pointy-bearded men in velvet suits who sit in dark rooms and plot and scheme?
Once the war god cults got a toehold, it was apparent that this was a source of power for some men.
The heaven/hell dichotomy may have started as a product of starving brains, but its advantages were too good to let go of, and as the patriarchy matured(and I use that word advisedly) the idea was developed as a great way of holding and increasing the power base.
This is all just my take on it of course, and written fairly hastily on a Friday morning to boot, so the usual caveats apply.
Love,
Terri in Joburg
What is there about starvation that prompts an idea of heaven and hell, if you've been raised without hearing about the notion?
The extreme stress of it, I would suppose, although I'm nowhere near qualified to do anything other than guess at this answer.
Starvation is directly threatening to the living entity, in a way which many of us today can't quite get our heads around.
I live in Africa, and I see the fallout of starvation all the time.
Some of the effects seem to be increased violence, along with some of the most pious religiosity you could ever hope to behold.
Love,
Terri in JOburg
Aquila ka Hecate’s right, I think. The first war-god peoples (ca 4000 BC) had neither heaven nor hell. As far as we know, it was a later war-god cult among the Egyptians who first conceived of heaven, and an even later Persian war-god cult who came up with hell. As Terri points out, these were “developed as a great way of holding and increasing the power base.”
You're fogetting an important element of the nomadic desert cultures - poppies and hashish. Shamanic traditions have always dealt with symbols of going underground and into an underworld. Some ancient peoples still included their dead in everyday life, going to their tombs to discuss important decisions with the ancestors. All it takes is an empty stomach on a bad trip or a violent interruption of a good one to create a personal hell, and since people back then didn't really individuate the way we do, that could be generalized to the society as a whole.
Poppies and hashish on an empty stomach as the road to the invention of hell! Wow. Fascinating, Morgaine.
I think it sounds a bit far-fetched =P
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