Hell or no Hell - Tulsa Sucks

There have some recent events in my life that have made me wonder whether or not it is worth living. I know, I know, this sounds awfully 'goodbye cruel world' or like something that total asshat of a whiner Hamlet claims to have said, but really, there is a valid question in here somewhere. If you don't feel like you have much to look back on fondly, don't get much pleasure out of your daily life and have suspicions about your future happiness and well-being, doesn't at least the contemplation of 'alternative options' make sense?

Of course, one of the things to consider is that there is a very real possibility, if you take several different religions and a few thousand years of human history and literature at face value, that there are penalties for early withdrawal from this mortal coil. This consideration, of course, is one of the reasons that you, dear reader, may still tan your soul on the orangy-glow of my consciousness - via the internet.

Anyway, todayI heard a fascinating story on 'This American Life' about Carlton Pearson, the evangelical minister and head of a once massively popular church in my hometown (Tulsa, Oklahoma) called Higher Dimensions. When I was a kid we usedto make fun of this guy alot (we called it 'Higher Deceptions') because evangelicals are, frankly, assholes. The most minor theological difference is enough to make them scream 'heretic!,' and his brand of snake-handling was just a little too snakey for me. Also, he's black and most Tulsidians are racist garbage (I include my teenage self in the category). As it turns out, Mr. Pearson has come to the conclusion that there is no hell. Apparantly, hell is what we have made of the Earth God has given us. Not only is Jesus not required for salvation, but the answer to all our problems lies not in so much more theological in-fighting, but in combating the shit that leads to weeping and gnashing of teeth on an all too daily basis.

Now, I must digress at this moment and point out something that I find terribly funny. The notion that an evangelical minister would come to the conclusion that this quotidian world is, in fact, hell, and that this man happened to live in Tulsa is just poetically fitting. I doubt that he would have come to this conclusion if he was head of, say, the First Penecostal Church of Zurich or Barbados or something. So, on a purely semantic level I want to revel in the fact that an ordained minister has, in a sense, decreed that TULSA OKLAHOMA IS HELL ITSELF. Okay, so he and I are on the same page here.

But theological problems persist. Question #1 - C.S. Lewis once famously claimed that people like Pearson, whose theology is a bit muddled at best, have to deal with the cold hard reality that the person of Christ must be one of three things. He must be either insane, a fantastically effective liar, or the true son of God. These days I'm starting to wonder if perhaps that isn't a false dilemma fallacy. Must those categories be mutually exclusive? Is it not possible that Christ could have been as crazy as his ardent admirerers (like Mel Gibson), and still be something fantastically divine? I'm just going to assume that He wasn't a liar - if for no other reason than liars on that scale tend to WANT things, and as far as I know Jesus didn't have a harem or a nice car or any of the other accoutrements that tend to signal that one is a bonafide liar. Also, to be fair, most of the really loopy ideas in Christian theology cannot be blamed on Christ. All that bullshit about the Virgin birth and Transubstantiation came later and can be attributed to much more obviously unhinged persons.

At any rate, Pearson's theology seems not to deny the supernatural, but to reject Biblical authority. I guess this means that God can still talk to people (good news for Schizophrenics everywhere!) and miracles and cool magical stuff like healing and what-not are still possible (I still feel cheated that I never, in alll my years as an Evangelical, saw a fucking miracle - not even a crap one like healing of Eczema or levitation or nose-stealing or pulling a quater from someone's ear).

So in the end Peason's theology seems tome like an odd mix of old-fashioned hoo-doo and a large dose of 'it's okay - you aren't going to hell afterall.' My first though was that it's nice to know I won't go to Hell, according to this learned and seemingly sane man. I'm a bit annoyed that God is still 'personal' in his worldview. I wish God would either talk to me directly or leave me the fuck alone - but that's for another entry. Anyway, in a sense I think that there is something valid about this expression of spirituality. People for centuries have believed that the gods could do things and that were supernatural, and hadno need to burden the process with alot of boring theology. If there is a God I'm sure that it can do lots of things that we can't explain, if only because we aren't that bright.

Why do people have to assume that for God to have power It must also have an eternal torture chamber?

The obvious answer is that people really are so horrible that they like the idea of a hell because it gives them a chance for social distinction. Personally, I hope there is a hell for cops who infringe upon one's right to alter one's consciousness with things that grow out of the ground. To me that's a damnable offence. So its a good thing I'm not in a position to make those decisions.

So, to get back to the original question - does belif in a hell make it more or less hard for one to kill onself? If everlasting reward awaits us all- why not head for the gun cabinet and get it overwith? Onthe other hand, if there isno hell, if the world is ourstomake better and sin has nothing to do with any of it, why not stick around and try to fix some of the mess we have created?


Either way - the notion of a God without a Hell isn't that much less absurd than the idea of a God WITH a hell. It's a helluva lot more comforting, but in the end, its still a firm devotion to the idea that an invisible entity knows the thoughts of every person in the world and is personally invested in their lives but is unwilling to actually lift a divine finger and do anything.

Alls I know is that I'm glad I don't live in Tulsa anymore.