hell

The non-inevitability of hell: Not all “negative” NDEs are all that negative

December 3, 2012 By Nan Bush 48 Comments

As important as I believe it is to poke deeply into the relationship between religion and near-death and similar experiences, as we’ve been doing of late, I’m taking this post to go back to basics. Just what is a “distressing NDE” and does having one inevitably involve an encounter with hell?

What are we talking about? There are psychological events which are experienced as an encounter beyond physical existence. Being close to death is a fairly reliable trigger for this kind of happening, which has led to the term “near-death experience.” In actuality, nearly identical events occur under a wide variety of circumstances, including people who are in no danger of dying. The events may be called spiritually transformative experiences (STE), extraordinary human experiences (EHE), mystical experiences, religious or conversion experiences, or near-death experiences (NDE). however, because of its familiarity, I use the term “NDE” to apply broadly rather than exclusively. Yes, that is, strictly speaking, inaccurate; however, it’s efficient. Bear with me for the sake of word count!

The Christian fantasy of hell: Getting from there to here, or NDEs, Evangelicals, and the demise of hell

November 3, 2012 By Nan Bush 18 Comments

“The New Testament does not describe the torment of Gehenna or portray Satan as the lord of Gehenna. These are later literary accoutrements.” —Anchor Bible Dictionary, S.V. “Hades, Gehenna”

“Theologically, Hell is out of favor now, but it still seems more ‘real’ to most people than Fairyland or Atlantis or Valhalla or other much imagined places.” —Alice K. Turner, A History of Hell

Mind you, I’m a Christian, so if you’re hoping for a skeptical slam at religion or Christianity, this post will be a letdown. (My view of Christianity would be nothing like what you would expect, either, in that case.) On the other hand, it is fair to ask why, if I don’t believe in hell, I keep going on about it. Yawn.

I keep writing about hell because, as the Alice Turner quote above says, so many people are living their lives in terror of it. This is especially true of people who have had a distressing NDE. And the group that may be in the worst fear consists of those who come out of error-ridden fundamentalist Christian teachings.

I’ll tell you why we must question the teaching of hell. The very name and character of God is at stake!

Even if you’re an agnostic or atheist, it’s worth knowing what it is we’re talking about, so read on. Today’s post is mostly for readers who are Evangelical Christians trying to move beyond a no-exit belief in hell.
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What about religion and distressing NDEs?

October 8, 2012 By Nan Bush 18 Comments

Part 1 of 3

The subject of this post results from a small crowd of blog comments and emails following the posts about my conference presentation,“Untangling Hellish Visions,” and the documentary Hellbound? For example, here are quotes from two typical comments:

It’s terrifying that such a god might exist and is actually believed to exist by millions and millions of people. I agree with the other poster who said they pray that religion isn’t real: such a possibility is a nightmare.
I don’t know what to believe any more, and I am so afraid. What is wrong with religion?

The June, 2012 issue of Nature magazine carried an interesting report about the closeness of our genetic relationship with apes. Scientists have known for several years that we share almost 99% of our DNA with chimpanzees, our closest relatives. Now bonobos, the chimps’ sibling species, have joined them in our DNA pool. It seems we share 98.7% of the DNA of both species.

Reading further on the topic, what I find most fascinating is the behavioral complexity of this news. Chimpanzees are known to be aggressive, hostile toward strangers, power-hungry, often violent to the point of murderous. Male dominated, they form attack gangs to roam their territory looking for outsiders to fight and kill; a male will kill unprotected infant chimps not his own.

Bonobos, the siblings from the opposite side of theCongo River, are the only peaceful ape. They are reported to be cooperative, curious rather than hostile toward outsiders, and alpha-female-dominated. Unlike chimps, bonobos share easily, even sharing food with strangers; they do not patrol the borders of their territory or practice infanticide.

It is not that bonobos do not experience conflict; they do. However, saysDuke University researcher Brian Hare, bonobos will bite, but they won’t kill. Primatologists say they are hyper-sexual, preferring to “make love not war” as a way of resolving conflicts. Whereas chimps tend to address conflict with violence, bonobos of both genders prefer to settle scores with (non-procreative, sometimes homosexual) sex. Journalist Andrew Sullivan reports about one laboratory experiment that “at times the chimps were too busy fighting each other to complete tasks. But the sexually hyper-promiscuous bonobos could focus…” How very intriguing. [Read more…] about What about religion and distressing NDEs?

Conference presentation: Untangling Hellish Visions

September 15, 2012 By Nan Bush 10 Comments

A written version–not a verbatim transcription–of my 2012 International Association for Near-Death Studies conference presentation, “Untangling Hellish Visions,” has just been added to the Articles page here. Essentially, the article, like the talk, is a quick trip through Western ideas about hell, with a very preliminary suggestion of an alternative view. Lots more to be said in blog posts to come!

The slides that went with the actual presentation were terrific, as you can sample in the article, proving yet again that human beings have no end of ways of scaring themselves blue, not to mention being unspeakably vicious to each other and then blaming it all on God. You can see them on the DVD, which is available, along with other conference talks, at the website, http://iands.org

Before you write to comment that this proves how horrible religions are, you might want to pause to consider a) the uses of secular ideologies such as Marxism and American Exceptionalism and b) what you think might encourage better behavior.

More to come. I do so appreciate your being here!

Heaven, hell, and your home security system

July 20, 2012 By Nan Bush 26 Comments

An intriguing new study suggests how religious belief can have measurable effect on secular society.

In recent years, research findings have indicated that individuals with strong religious faith are happier, have better health outcomes, and show greater flexibility during times of crisis than people without religious practice. But beyond individuals, on a broader social scale, how does religious belief matter?

Well, it turns out there’s a clear indication that the type of belief does make a difference beyond the individual. As reported in the June 2012 issue of PLoS ONE, the online journal of the Public Library of Science, there is a direct relationship between crime rates and the degree to which citizens believe in hell.

Small-scale laboratory testing has shown that people who believe in hell cheat less than those who believe in heaven. At the University of Oregon, psychologist Azim F. Shariff wondered if those beliefs might carry over to influence society at large, and with statistician Mijke Rhemtulla at the University of Kansas he went looking for an answer.

The two analyzed large datasets from 67 countries, with a total of 143,197 people, regarding belief in hell, belief in heaven, belief in God, and religious attendance. The data about belief were analyzed relative to those for the ten crimes for which the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime had reliable statistics: homicide, robbery, rape, kidnapping, assault, theft, drug crime, auto theft, burglary, and human trafficking. Shariff reports,

As predicted, rates of belief in heaven and hell had significant, unique, and opposing effects on crime rates.

Whereas belief in hell predicted lower crime rates, belief in heaven predicted higher crime rates, both at the same level of significance, p<.001.

The report continues: “Controlling for the effect of belief in heaven, a 1 SD [standard deviation, a measure of confidence] increase in belief in hell resulted in an almost 2 SD decrease in national crime rate; conversely, controlling for the effect of hell, a 1 SD increase in belief in heaven resulted in an almost 2 SD increase in national crime rate. Analyzing each crime individually revealed the same significant pattern of effects for 8 of the 10 individual crimes (kidnapping and human trafficking excepted).”

You can read the entire article here, with its detailed description of methodology and statistical findings.

What are we to make of this uncomfortable information? Should it surprise us? Clearly, although this is likely not to be a popular finding except in conservative religious settings, the psychological and moral implications need thought. Will our personal security be at risk as more and more people claim to be “spiritual but not religious”? Is a higher crime rate merely the inconvenient price of a more compassionate spirituality? And just what is the intersection between psychology, sociology, and theology among post-moderns who prefer to focus on individuation as central?

Plenty to think about.

Are these NDEs HELLBOUND?

March 25, 2012 By Nan Bush 11 Comments

Christian or not, we’ve all heard the ‘hell story.’ The question is, is it true? And if so, which version of it? …Evildoers may get away with murder in this life. But in the life to come, there’ll be hell to pay.

The words are from the website of the forthcoming movie Hellbound, due in theaters this September. And in case you’re rolling your eyes, it’s not what you might think.
The website commentary continues:

But the traditional view of hell also presents us with a dilemma: Of course we all want to see the scales of justice balanced. But if God is our pure, all-loving Creator, can he really allow (presumably) billions of people to suffer in hell for eternity? Evil is evil, but doesn’t the traditional view of hell tip the scales too far the other way? To many people, it seems like we can have a good God or we can have the traditional view of hell, but we can’t have both…

The concept of hell is so ancient–and so troubling, and enduring–that we can’t in all honesty ignore it, no matter how postmodern our philosophies.

From the website, this looks like a fascinating exploration. Sorry I couldn’t just embed the trailer for you here; you’ll have to go to the website. Never mind; it’s worth the trip, also. Take a look at the trailer. It may keep you awake until September.

http://www.hellboundthemovie.com/