And to what conclusion, pray tell, have you come to fair lady? Hell does exist.
Hell, in my mind, is a place where people are raped, beaten, abused, hated, manipulated, cajoled, in short, convinced that they are responsible for all the violence and torment in their lives and forced to swallow it all. Hell is being forced to do with your body what you are told to do, not what you want to do. Hell is being told to believe what someone else wants you to believe and if you disagree, you will pay some terrorizing price with your immortal soul. Hell is what we people use to control other people. Hell is a very usefull tool, it prevents the otherwise intelligent individuals from using the reason and imaginations they were born with to be empathetic with other human beings; the idea of hell amputates all possibilities of having an open mind.
I am so very often frustrated by what I percieve to be the close-minded religious fanatiscm deeply embeded in some people's world view. Reading the papers today, people seem to have forgotten that fanaticism is not exclusive to one religion, ideology or country. In the United States the Republican representative Peter King is planning to start hearings this week on the "radicalization" of Islam in the United States.
According to merriam-webster.com, fanatic is "marked by excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion " and radicalize is "to make radical especially in politics". Isn't Rep. King being a fanatic by making religion a political issue, a religion that he does not share? Is he not going against the very essence of the Constitution by persecuting a religious group? Of course radicalization is not in any way exclusive to Islam or to religion to that matter. Rep. King seems to be quite radical in hearings by just limiting the topic to Islam and including other religious groups or militant and hate groups for that matter.
Hell DOES exists and it is full of radicals and the fanatically religious and ideological people who want to make everyone see things the exact same way they seem them. And, from where I stand, hell is where we all currently reside.
