The Hell of Heaven

The question of what happens to us after we die is one that has troubled us as a species for thousands of years, and to this day many among us still wrestle daily with our own doubt and confusion over the matter. The posthumously themed wonderings of religious movements and philosophers alike have produced many weird and wonderful ideas filled with fantasy and creativity. The conspicuously man-made nature of the afterlife as displayed in modern religions isn’t something that I feel it would be worthwhile to investigate at great length, mainly because of the fact that it is so palpable that the term “flogging a dead horse” comes to mind. The grubby fingerprints of mankind are present wherever you look.

To give a brief example, I would invite you to call to mind a fundamental belief that many religious people will espouse; specifically the idea that your own immaterial soul (whatever that means) leaves your body to travel onto the afterlife after your body has expired. The religions of our time do not seem to have quite the required imagination to free their minds of the earthly shackles that bind them, and therefore we are left with a post mortem experience which may evoke fear or joy in highly developed primates, but would have no effect on an immaterial soul. The eternal fires of hell proclaimed in the gospels can be extinguished when you realise that a soul has no skin to feel the pain of a burn, and I’m afraid the promised virgins in the Islamic Jannah (paradise) are going to have to remain distinctly unsatisfied for obvious reasons.

Taking part in this everlasting horror show isn’t something that I could possibly wish on my worst enemy, let alone myself.

What the concept of an eternal heaven gives many people is hope of a better existence. By simply doing good on the earth and acting in accordance with the teachings of your chosen celestial leader, you can achieve perfection after you pass away. Leaving aside the implications this has for morality (what would happen without the promise of heaven?), I would like to ask those of you who hope for an afterlife a simple question. Would you enjoy heaven? Whenever I have asked myself this question, the answer is always a resounding no. Heaven would quite simply be hell to me.

What heaven gives us is the offer of a never-ending existence, and personally, I do not wish to exist for eternity. The thought of being trapped behind the bars of being is to me a horrifying one, however great my existence might turn out to be. After all, after my “soul” has spent 20 million years inside the pearly gates, I think it may struggle to find something to do for fun. As If anyone tells you that they wish to exist forever then it is safe to say that infinity is not a concept they have firmly grasped. Otherwise, it must be accepted that they wish to inhabit a realm from which there is no escape, a realm which they desire so strongly that they are willing to pay the measly entry fee of their freedom, surely one of the most important things a “soul” possesses.

Of course this offer that heaven gives you, and that God gives you, is not an offer at all. It is an insistence. An insistence that you must spend your timeless stay endlessly praising and worshiping the ever-watching big brother. Worst of all, alongside the limitless grovelling comes a further requirement – that you must enjoy yourself in the process. This idea, that you have no choice but to have fun whilst you submit completely and selflessly to an unelected dictator, is something that I find indescribably nauseating and very creepy. As Christopher Hitchens so wonderfully puts it, it would be akin to living in a “celestial North Korea”. The difference being of course, as Hitchens himself points out is that “at least you can fucking die and leave North Korea”. Taking part in this everlasting horror show isn’t something that I could possibly wish on my worst enemy, let alone myself.

As I see it, not having an afterlife is by far and away the most attractive option. Living life as if there is nothing more to come is surely the most fulfilling and productive way to live, and even the religious pay attention to this fact. I do not know a religious person that honestly conducts themselves as if this earth is some sort of trial, one big cosmic joke to which the punch line comes in the form of slavery to the almighty God who so graciously gave us life in the first place. Only once you fully realise that this life is the only one that you’re going to get are you able to look upon the face of true freedom and embrace your ultimate independence.