H. E. Double Toothpicks

Pope Benedict XVI is traveling through South America, denouncing Marxism, Capitalism, abortion, gay marriages, and other affronts to the waning power of the Catholic Church. I don't care what Pope Ratso Rizzo says, but I did see a reference to an earlier speech he gave in March. In that earlier speech, he confirmed that Hell is an actual place. The London Times says the pope stated, "Hell is a place where sinners really do burn in an everlasting fire, and not just a religious symbol designed to galvanize the faithful. He also noted, like Milton does in Paradise Lost, that "God had given men and women free will to choose whether 'spontaneously to accept salvation...the Christian faith is not imposed on anyone, it is a gift, an offer to mankind.'"

Of course, Hell has been used by the Church for centuries to keep the faithful in line. James Joyce uses this for great effect in Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man. Young Stephen Dedalus is awakening to the sexual urges in his body. The priests are well aware of the urges the students are going through, so they take them on a retreat. During the retreat the priests give a sermon on hell. It goes on for many pages. Here is an excerpt just on the smell of hell:

“—The horror of this strait and dark prison is increased by its awful stench. All the filth of the world, all the offal and scum of the world, we are told, shall run there as to a vast reeking sewer when the terrible conflagration of the last day has purged the world. The brimstone, too, which burns there in such prodigious quantity fills all hell with its intolerable stench; and the bodies of the damned themselves exhale such a pestilential odour that, as saint Bonaventure says, one of them alone would suffice to infect the whole world. The very air of this world, that pure element, becomes foul and unbreathable when it has been long enclosed. Consider then what must be the foulness of the air of hell. Imagine some foul and putrid corpse that has lain rotting and decomposing in the grave, a jelly-like mass of liquid corruption. Imagine such a corpse a prey to flames, devoured by the fire of burning brimstone and giving off dense choking fumes of nauseous loathsome decomposition. And then imagine this sickening stench, multiplied a millionfold and a millionfold again from the millions upon millions of fetid carcasses massed together in the reeking darkness, a huge and rotting human fungus. Imagine all this, and you will have some idea of the horror of the stench of hell.”

I have no doubt that in Ratboy's eyes, I am condemned to hell. I do not accept Jesus as my savior and I certainly do not believe in the Catholic Church. Plus I'm for abortion and gay rights. Hey... did someone turn on a heater? Does it feel hot in here?

Of course, the pope isn't the only one to invoke hell. When I went looking for his comments on hell, I found some evangelical websites proclaiming the last pope is in hell because he wasn't evangelical. I used to think Hell would be more fun, y’know, like when Billy Joel sings, "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints. / The Sinner are much more fun." But now I'm thinking hell is filled with all these religious nitwits and there is no heaven. For me, personally, when you die, you finally get to sleep in, and that's all I ever wanted.

If you still feel you might end up in hell, check out other visions of hell:

You're all damned! Damned! Do you ever stop to think what that word means? No, you don't. It means endless, horrifying torment! It means your poor, sinful bodies stretched out on red-hot gridirons, in the nethermost, fiery pit of hell and those demons mocking ye while they waves cooling jellies in front of ye. You know what it's like when you burn your hand, taking a cake out of the oven, or lighting one of them godless cigarettes? And it stings with a fearful pain, aye? And you run to clap a bit of butter on it to take the pain away, aye? Well, I'll tell ye, there'll be no butter in hell! (Amos Starkadder from Cold Comfort Farm)

Now the d and the a and the m and the n and the a and the t and the i-o-n
Lose your face, lose your name / Then get fitted for a suit of flame
(Squirrel Nut Zippers, “Hell”)

Hell
Hell is for hell
Hell is for hell
Hell is for children
(Pat Benatar “Hell is for Children”)

And I leave with a link for a quiz. It tells you what level of Dante's hell you'll end up in. I ended up in the Heretic's City of Dis, the 6th level.