General Conference. Time for counsel from LDS leaders as to how we can avoid going to hell. This is good. Hell isn’t supposed to be pleasant.
One of the things I like about being a Mormon is that our version of hell makes sense. At least it does to me. I’ve never bought into all this stuff about being jabbed with pitchforks while I roast on a spit over an eternal flame.
Mormons don’t really believe in a hell. The afterlife operates more like a time-share sales pitch with the primary exception being that the plan lasts forever. There are no upgrades and no cancellations.
At the very top of Mormon afterlife is the Celestial Kingdom, which is eternal progression and life with Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother. At the bottom — reserved for truly evil people like maybe Hitler and newspaper columnists — is outer darkness.
Exactly what happens there is a mystery. We’re told only that’s where Satan and his angels will dwell. A certain amount of imagination is required to fill in the details.
For me, outer darkness would be spending eternity in a room crammed with people incessantly shouting about the unfairness of … something. It could be anything, really. They’re just peeved and can’t get over whatever.
Not all faiths see a hell so suffocating. Some have rather creative ways for God to punish the wicked, of which most of us are presumed to be. Fire seems to figure into Hades a lot.
In Greek mythology, Prometheus gave fire to humans. For some reason, this annoyed Zeus, who sentenced Prometheus to having his liver eaten by an eagle every morning for the rest of eternity.
That’s right. The liver grows back every night, and every morning it gets scarfed down again. I don’t know if it’s the same eagle, but I’m betting that doesn’t make any difference to Prometheus.
This may be — and I’m not saying it’s even probable — where fire originated in the religious mindset. Fire gets people’s attention. Someone is always hollering about the fires of hell or the damned being sent into flames.
If the way people talk about it is correct, hell is going to be a busy place. Lots of folks are going there for picking the wrong faith or for not being sufficiently diligent in the right one.
During (but not in) the October General Conference of 1903, the Rev. C.R. Neel of Salt Lake City’s First Christian Church preached a sermon titled “If Christ Should Come to Salt Lake City.” The sermon was important enough to be reported by the Salt Lake Telegram.
“The speaker pointed out wherein Christ, should he visit Salt Lake now, would find many steeped in sin and unprepared for his coming. A few faithful and loyal Christians he would also find, but the sins of all who are sinful would be written in letters of fire on their faces.”
Well, that sucks. Personally, I don’t have a face big enough to list all my sins. Either my sins would have to be written so small that they wouldn’t be readable anyway, or I’d need a bigger face.
Here’s the thing: Those who talk so much about people going to hell never concede the possibility that they’ll be among those being sent there. That alone ought to lessen the worry for the rest of us.
