The Stupid 365 Project, Day 33: Rethinking Hell
November 3rd, 2010
Hell has gotten a bad rap.
The main problem, as I see it, has been a lack of restraint. You go to Hell, it’s agonizing. You go to hell, it’s eternal.
Where’s the wiggle room?
As we’ve moved toward a more secular frame of mind, all this has begun to feel excessive. Okay, sure, Hitler. Stalin. Pol Pot. Torquemada. Dracula. Eliot Spitzer’s barber. The guy who designed those plastic bubble packages it takes half an hour to cut apart.
But that’s like a handful of people out of the billions who have passed through this vale of woe, and they really, really deserved perpetual immolation in lakes of fire or being gnawed from the knees up by piranha or being passed for all time through one of those machines that slices pastrami so much more thinly than you’d like it to be sliced.
Most bad people just aren’t that bad. You wouldn’t wish an eternity of writhing upon them. And that’s led to a credibility gap for Hell and, not entirely coincidentally, a substantial drop in the profitability of churches that depend on hell to keep people showing up on Sunday. (Crystal Cathedral, anyone?) And Hell no longer packs (for most of us, at any rate) the old I wouldn’t do that if I were you punch that undoubtedly kept millions and millions of not-overly-good people from raping and pillaging over the millennia.
Without Hell, everybody loses.
What we need, I think, is a more measured approach to Hell. First of all, geographically. Okay, we’ve already got the Lake of Fire, the Seven Circles, and all that. What about some suburbs? Places of varying degrees of unpleasantness where you could park people for eternity with a relatively free conscience. The Rush Limbaugh Smoker’s Lounge, the Endless Bad Standup Comedy Club, the Zone of Perpetual Tickling, the High-Volume Commercial-Free Talk Radio Torment, the Tourist-Class Seat over the Endless Ocean With the Baby Behind You, the Headache Behind the Right Eye That Never Gets Bad Enough for Aspirin But Never Goes Away Either, the Kardashian Pinball Gauntlet, the Infinite Mystery Library With All the Final Chapters Torn Out, the Fox News on the Fillings Experience, the Being Siamese Twins With Bill O’Reilly Punishment. I mean, I’m just getting started. Get half a dozen malicious people in a small room with a lot of coffee, and we’d have thousands of them.
And then there’s the issue of time. Who says Hell has to be for eternity? I mean, is it written in stone? And if it is, anybody got a hammer?
Once you build a little give into the notion of Hell, all sorts of possibilities open up. For the moron who habitually leans on his horn when someone actually stops at a stop sign, ten minutes every year of being fired from a cannon head-first into the side of the Queen Mary to acquaint him with the concept of Full Stop. For Lorne Michaels, for the sin of not turning “Saturday Night Live” over to someone who could have kept it funny, a month every century trying to find a way out of the Jerry Lewis Telethon. For Gloria Allred, on general principles, thirty years with her teeth wired together, shackled in front of a live radio microphone. For white guys who wear their baseball caps backwards or white women who say, “You go, girl,” six weeks trapped inside the body of Vanilla Ice.
Work with me on this. Hell still has an upside. All it takes is a fresh perspective.
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15 Responses to “The Stupid 365 Project, Day 33: Rethinking Hell” -
Larissa Says:
November 3rd, 2010 at 2:18 pm
Brilliant! (c: Dante was a bit foreboding with all his Murder and Infidelity and all that jazz…so then for all those people who just cannotmanage to tip their servers at restaurants (or perhaps the jackass who decided 2.15/hour was a fair wage…) they could spend 6 months digging for change on the streets of Azerbaijan to pay their rent…which will continue to increase by 25 dollars a day until they can pay it. (c:
I like the idea of a special little spot in Hell for all the douchebags out there who probably aren’t actually bad people but who seem to forget from time to time how to not suck.
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Eric Stone Says:
November 3rd, 2010 at 2:30 pm
I’m kind of looking forward to hell. I wouldn’t know anyone in heaven and I really loathe harp music. I will almost certainly, for instance, see you there. We can take a dip in the lake of fire together.
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Phil Hanson Says:
November 3rd, 2010 at 2:39 pm
Hell, hell is a trendy place to be; how else are us commoners going to have a chance at rubbing elbows with the rich and famous?
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Suzanna Says:
November 3rd, 2010 at 3:00 pm
This is hysterical, Tim. So lucky to get to check in here and laugh like a crazed hyena in the middle of the day. Thank you!
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Gary Says:
November 3rd, 2010 at 4:36 pm
My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time
To let the punishment fit the crime,
The punishment fit the crime.
And make each prisoner pent
Unwillingly represent
A source of innocent merriment,
Of innocent meriment.
What punishment worse than being forced to watch endless D’Oyly Carte performances of Gilbert and Sullivan?
For eternity.
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Dana King Says:
November 3rd, 2010 at 5:02 pm
I forget who came up with the idea–it was a pre-Onion outlet, either the Lampoon or Mad Magazine–but they thought Heck was a good concept. It was for people who couldn’t get into heaven, but didn’t deserve hell. It was described as being like a southern bus station at 3:00 AM in August.
My idea of hell? Locked for eternity in a million book library made up entirely of cozies and Dan brown.
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Glenn w. Says:
November 3rd, 2010 at 5:09 pm
Where were you when I most needed these clever insights during my squandered years in seminary while studying Barth and Tillich and Augustine? I have the urge to forward your brilliant treatise to the Dean of Academics.
On second thought, they may demand I return my degree. Well, if they do, I’ll just tell them to go to……
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Laren Bright Says:
November 3rd, 2010 at 5:39 pm
I was going to join you on this,. But then I though, “The hell with it.”
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Timothy Hallinan Says:
November 3rd, 2010 at 5:44 pm
Dante was a serious guy, Riss, and in his day Hell was a much more serious proposal, although it says a lot for the literary taste of that presumably devout time that then, as now, pretty much everyone thumbed straight to the Inferno, just as people in the fifties used to thumb through novels to the “bad parts.” My mother was deeply impressed by a library copy of “Peyton Place” that literally sprang open in her hand when she pulled it from the shelf, and not to any finely crafted piece of landscape depiction, either. Azerbaijan offers ALL SORTS of good bits to borrow for Hell’s new suburbs. We should solicit from everyone a type of sinner and a just punishment.
Eric — I’ve already ordered Asbestos Speedos to protect the only part of the anatomy that really worries me. I wonder if they’ll have inner tubes?
Great to hear from you, and I’m reading, I’m reading. (Eric is the extremely talented writer of the Ray Sharp thrillers, set all the hell over Asia. Great stuff.)
Phil what I’m worried about is which rich and famous. I’d choose Heaven over Paris Hilton or Snooki or David Hasselhoff or any of the other major pieces of cheese who seem to interest us these days. Imagine spending eternity shackled to Dina Lohan? Or Joe Biden, who’s allotted a lot of coffee so he literally never stops talking, instead of stopping for the 10-12 minutes of daily silence he observes here?
Suzanna, all crazed hyenas are welcome, but especially crazed hyenas who get my name right and don’t repeatedly order me to get crackin’.
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Larissa Says:
November 3rd, 2010 at 7:21 pm
I think we would find some extremely hilarious punishments are out there waiting, especially if this is the public you tap for ideas. (c:
And yes, Dante was a dreadfully serious guy-though there’s this random chapel in Florence that is attributed to him for no real distinct reason that is probably the most moving place I’ve ever been. Makes no direct sense but I guess things of the spiritual nature really don’t a lot of times.
I’m currently reading The Once and Future King-between TH White and Sir Thomas Mallory, I’m sure a lot of “Nearly Hell” type punishments could be conjured.
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Stephen Cohn Says:
November 3rd, 2010 at 7:49 pm
How about a full hour and a half of listening to Michelle Bachman answer questions?
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Catherine Says:
November 4th, 2010 at 4:32 am
I got a little chill reading Dana’s personal hell…and for some reason I thought maybe a mix of all three, would be particularly hellish – a Vatican cat solving crimes….
Growing up, Mum used to talk to me about Limbo. The way she described (or how I chose to understand…) it was like a holding cell for relatives that we needed to pray for to get them to move on up. Relatives not bad enough for hell, not quite cutting it for instant heaven without some heavy duty prayer and or paid for masses said in their name by the descendants.
I think I read somewhere that Vanilla Ice has his own reality show now….a different type of hell I’m sure.
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Timothy Hallinan Says:
November 4th, 2010 at 11:02 am
Hi, everyone — I was out all day for a medical procedure — don’t ask — so I’m just now catching up with you. And, yes, everything is fine.
Gary – you win the prize for Most Literate Hell Suburb. I’ve long used a taste for Gilbert and Sullivan as one of my criteria for declining further acquaintance. Wouldn’t it be great if life were like Facebook and we could simply take a look at someone’s preferences on, say, the subject of G&S, and simply decline friending? Everything would be so simple.
Come on, Laren. We could use your creativity on new Hell suburbs. PUNishment, for example, where people are subjected to bad puns for eternity. Don’t know why I would think of that while responding to you. It could be next to The School of Hard Knock-Knocks, where people are subjected to knock-knock jokes for eternity.
How come no one’s come up with a punishment involving Tom Jones?
Dana, “Heck” was EXACTLY what I was searching for. Leave it to The Onion to think of it first. By the way, this whole discussion has led me to rethink Heaven, too, and I may blog on that, like, immediately. Or maybe not.
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fairyhedgehog Says:
November 4th, 2010 at 11:27 am
I’m just rereading Good Omens where the authors point out that Hell has all the good musicians.
(I’m also reading The Man With No Time but only when I’m on my pc and not nanoing.)
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Timothy Hallinan Says:
November 4th, 2010 at 6:22 pm
I’m baaaaack. (Wish someone would explain how to italicize or bold words in these replies so I could make that read right.)
Glenn — Your comment reminds me of the famous Woody Allen line about failing metaphysics because the teacher caught him looking into the soul of the student next to him. Just give them your degree — I can’t imagine it opens many employment doors. Almost as useless as a degree in English. Like mine.
Larissa, you raise two things I love — Florence, which is perfect, and THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING, which is pretty close. I read it to my wife, who has an enormous amount of patience, and she also loved it. Tremendous book.
Stephen, isn’t it great that it’s over? Even though it went as it did, it’s over. No more Meg and Carly. Not meaning to pick on female candidates, but God, they were awful. Unfortunately, so are the people who beat them.
Hi, Catherine — Limbo sounds a lot like
Birmingham, Alabama, except in Birmingham you can’t figure out who
bribe. The Chinese, ever practical, burn Hell Money for their departed, giving them the wherewithal to bribe their way out. I love that. Of COURSE, Hell would be corrupt.
FHH, nano away — tomorrow I may take on a woman at Salon Magazine who lifts her ever-so-well-bred nose at the idea of all those . . . unqualified . . . people daring to write a novel. Another twit, although not quite as offensive as Judith Griggs.
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