Hell

So. The history channel has, for some reason, a bit on hell. And they have some preacher (recorded) talking to his congregation saying "There's a real place called hell, every one of you deserves to be in it!"

And the congregation cheers.

If you will excuse the expression, what the hell?

First, no, I don't believe in hell. I think quite frankly religion in general is just something for people who have no scientific understanding to try to figure out the world around them, including scaring people into behaving. I'll take science over "Listen to me or you'll burn forever!" any day.

I think it's a ridiculous proposition that "If you don't believe what I say is right, you're burning forever. What did you do to deserve it? YOU EXIST!" If that's the way of your belief, your god - I want nothing to do with that utterly irrational, vindictive, jealous being. And to me, it's worse with those who believe in predestination - "No matter what you do, if I decide not to save you, it doesn't matter how good you were in life, how much better you made life for everyone around you, sacrificed your things for other people - you get to burn and be tortured for eternity!" Really. Yeeahh... right.

But why would people cheer when they're told THEY deserve to be there? I mean, walk up to a crowd and say "You all deserve to have me kick you in the nuts!" Think they'd cheer, or run you out of town?

Frankly... it sounds insane.

I don't have a problem, for what it's worth, with people getting some degree of comfort from a "something higher." If that's your thing, fine - but do you *really* think it all makes sense? Have you really thought it through?