I'm on the Highway to Hell...
(but which one?)

Dateline: October 28, 1999

It has recently been asked whether or not it is a valid critique of the infamous Pascal's Wager to suggest that there is more than one Hell which requires avoiding. As I have written before, a primary problem with Pascal's proposal was that he did not explain which religion a person should follow. This can be described as the "avoiding the wrong hell" dilemma. If you happen to follow the right religion, you may indeed "...go to heaven and avoid hell." However, if you choose the wrong religion, you'll still go to hell.

Unfortunately, most Christians are like Pascal and simply assume that their religion is the right one and it never occurs to them that they could be avoiding the "wrong" hell. Pointing this out sometimes makes them stop and think, but it has been my experience that they usually deny that the problem exists because they firmly believe that the "right God" is "obvious" for all to see. To me, at least, it is made clear from such statements that there are none so blind as those who won't see.

The question which has recently been raised on the Dicussion Forum is: are there any Hells which are mutually exclusive with the Christian Hell, or is the latter the only one so awful and nasty that we need to avoid it? And is there a Hell which, in order to avoid it, we necessarily must risk the Christian Hell? Okay, you asked for it. I'm going to give you hell...

Islamic Hell

Let's take a look at the Islamic hell first. Islam is in fact a primary "rival" for Christianity because the two tend to be a lot more similar than most people realize. Just about every idea or assertion which appears in Christianity also appears in Islam in some form - and a problem which faces Christians and Muslims is explaining exactly why they accept one but not the other

Personally, I've never gotten much of a satisfactory response to my questions on this topic, but the specific issue under consideration here is Hell - eternal damnation and suffering itself. Several words are used to talk about Hell, and it appears to be a popular topic with Allah.

Quote of the week: It's your god. They're your rules. You go to hell. -seen on the internet

One type of Hell is "Jahannum," a purgatorial type of hell which all Muslims will pass through, regardless of good deeds or strength of faith (except, perhaps, for those who commit suicide as they kill the enemies of Islam, i.e. the suicide bombers we too often hear about in the Middle East. The chance to avoid the Hell that every other Muslim will encounter may help explain the attraction such acts have). The basis for this idea that all Muslims face this fate comes from sura 19:72: "There is not one of you who will not go down to it, that is settled and decided by the Lord."

Contrary to what some have claimed, the Islamic Hell is not simply a destination based upon practice rather than belief. In sura 5:89 we can clearly read: "But those who disbelieve, and cry lies to Our signs - they are the inhabitants of hell." The mistake made by those who assert otherwise may reasonably stem from the an idea repeated throughout the Qur'an that anyone who is a True Believer will do Good as a matter of course. The aforementioned description of what awaits disbelievers is not contrasted with what awaits believers, but instead "good-doers."

Nature of Hell

How long will this Hell last for poor pitiful disbelievers? The Hell awaiting disbelievers (that is, us atheists, in case anyone hasn't figured it out by now) is clearly described as eternal. Quoting sura 9.69:

God has promised the hypocrites, men and women, and the unbelievers, the fire of Gehenna, therein to dwell forever. That is enough for them; God has cursed them; and there awaits them a lasting chastisement.

Again in sura 33:64 we can read: "God has cursed the unbelievers, and prepared for them a Blaze, therein to dwell for ever; they shall find neither protector nor helper."

What is this Hell like? The use of the word "Gehenna" above might tempt some to imagine that, like the traditional Jewish Gehenna, it involves little more than a dreary, empty, wandering existence. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. Coming later in history, Islam borrows from and "improves" upon the conception of the Christian Hell. Christians may have described their Hell in vicious and terrifying terms over the centuries (especially in art - my travels in Europe brought that home), but very little description of that sort actually appears in Christian Scriptures.

Muslim Scriptures (the Qur'an) are not nearly so circumspect. Personally, I can only imagine that it is a sort of "Schadenfreude" which makes describing the horrors befalling others popular among both the religious and the nonreligious. It seems endemic among human beings to take some secret pleasure in the fact that those not like us end up suffering while we and those like us not only escape suffering but in fact are rewarded.

Fire

Numerous terms are employed to describe the fire waiting in Hell for us disbelievers: al-nar, laza, al-hutamah, sair, and saquar. Descriptions of the torments facing us in Hell are quite creative: boiling water, running sores, peeling skin, burning flesh, dissolving bowels, crushing skull, application of hot irons and nasty weapons, and more. And of course always in the background is an everpresent, scorching, unquenchable fire. Nice, huh?

In sura 18:28 we can read:

Say: 'The truth is from your Lord; so let whosoever will believe, and let whosoever will disbelieve.' Surely We have prepared for the evildoers a fire, whose pavilion encompasses them; if they call for succour, they will be succoured with water like molten copper, that shall scald their faces - how evil a potion, and how evil a resting place!

Notice once again the deliberate and none-too-subtle connection between being a disbeliever and being an evil-doer.

As previously stated, this theme is revisited often, for example in sura 40:60 where we read "Not equal are the blind man and the seeing man, those who believe and do deeds of righteousness, and the wrongdoer." I don't think that it is entirely a coincidence that Christians have also described me personally and all atheists as "blind" - anyone who does not see the "Real Truth" is necessarily blind. This same theme is repeated among those who adhere to wild conspiracy ideas. It isn't a purely religious theme and so I can only assume that it is endemic to human nature.

Later in sura 38.55 the Qu'ran states: "...but for the insolent awaits an ill resort, Gehenna, wherein they are roasted - an evil cradling! All this; so let them taste it - boiling water and pus, and other torments of the like kind coupled together."

I think that by now it should be manifestly clear that the Islamic conception of Hell lacks nothing in comparison to the traditional Christian conception of Hell which most Americans are more familiar with. If anything, Mohammad's vehemence if not glee in reporting to everyone what awaits disbelievers is a little shocking when contrasted to Jesus' almost off-hand references to "...outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Now, is it possible to be both a good believing Christian and a good believing Muslim? Not even vaguely. If you believe that Jesus Christ was/is the only begotten Son of God, then you violate some of the most fundamental principles of Islam. If, however, you believe that Mohammad was the Prophet of Allah and Jesus merely an earlier prophet, then you violate some of the most fundamental principles of Christianity. There thus faces everyone a clear and mutually exclusive choice if your primary motivation for religion is to avoid Hell: Christianity or Islam. You can't have both, and if you pick one you necessarily risk visiting the Hell of the other.

Don't miss the other section:

Part 2: Buddhist Hell