motivation

My beloved Ernst,

So you’re still the old skeptic? There are things even death can’t change.
I’ve met some people who think these letters are kind of creepy. So I thought I’d ask Tilia about her motivations with this blog. The funny thing is she really believes she has made us up. Can you imagine that? But apart from that delusion which she refused to discuss further, she told me that this obsession most fundamentalist Christians have with Hell is extremely ridiculous. She grew up among Christians and only those with rather severe mental disorders were afraid of eternal damnation. She feels sorry for everybody who is so scared about being mortal that he has to cling to a vague promise given 2000 years ago. But inventing scary stories about a torture place where everybody ends who doesn’t share their beliefs is not only pathetic but also deranged.
It’s understandable in a way. Meeting people who don’t share your rather unsubstantiated beliefs is frightening if all your life depends on being right about your own immortality. It’s easier if you can make them share your fears and some people need quite drastic descriptions of the horrors of the afterlife to be impressed.
“I’m afraid of dying and you should be, too!” is a weak argument. It makes you look like the coward you are. It’s so much better to tell stories about eternal damnation and torture(especially to little children, they are easiest to impress and less likely to see the flaws in your story). Now you can look like a hero when you tell your trembling audience about the escape you’ve found, even if this escape was promised to his contemporaries by a simple hillbilly end time preacher who lived 2000 years ago. As long as you can point to an even older myths collection that includes so many inconsistent claims, that you can find a quote for everything, all is fine.
But things have become more difficult lately. I mean, even in our time, the educated people read other books than just these pathetic Bronze Age poems. We slowly learned to accept our own mortality (yeah, we were wrong, apparently, but that’s not the point…), we defeated the fear and focused on the life we had. How much more difficult must it be today when everybody has access to so many different thoughts. Nobody with a little brain has the right to see the world in black and white anymore. Pascal’s wager is useless. There are so many different beliefs which could theoretically be right, that our only chance is that there is no afterlife. Otherwise we’ll most likely be wrong and dedicate our life to the wrong deity or just the wrong interpretation.
I completely agree with Tilia, when she says that obsession with Hell is a sign of the sick and simple minded. We others can focus on living a good life, because we want to and not because we’re afraid of eternal damnation.

I hope you enjoy your present location and keep away from the frightening myths.

In eternal love

Always yours,

Anna