Apeirophobia is a crippling fear of eternity. Eternity is something that, while most people long for it like a young girl in a corny vampire movie, we never really contemplate. Why, for example, do vampires see their never ending life as a curse, even while so many "mere mortals" see it as something they aspire to?
What Christians and Muslims never consider in the "Threat & Reward" paradigms offered by their religions, is how not everyone sees "eternity" itself as something that actually instills hope or a sense of comfort. For apeirophobics, eternity in either heaven or hell may both be seen to be equally as bad.
In fact, according to research, some people even prefer to deliberately inflict pain upon themselves to alleviate boredom; so maybe hell would be an easier place to inhabit for eternity than heaven. I mean, at least you wont get bored.
In a study that was done with people who were shocked with an electrical device that worked similar to a police Taser gun, people who were left in a room for long periods of time with nothing but the device, would often knowingly electrocute themselves (just to see if they could "take it," probably) rather than simply sit around waiting, with nothing to do at all. And the longer they were left alone, the more often they would "entertain" themselves by electrocuting themselves with the device.
Such findings certainly suggest something about the Garden of Eden and why Adam and Eve may have wanted out of it. (Combine this fact with studies that show people's desire for something increases dramatically when they are prohibited from having it, which is why people tend to gain weight on diets and smoke more after committing to quitting - called "the ironic rebound effect" - and we see why prohibitions like "no sex before marriage" and promises of eternal life can have the exact OPPOSITE effect of what those who sell religion insist such ideas should and will produce.)
So what if hell is everlasting life? Vampires seem to think so.
The flip side of this problem is how the promise for eternal life, coupled with the dire need to do anything within one's ability to avoid eternal suffering, only leads us to do WHATEVER IT TAKES!! and to WHOMEVER WE HAVE TO! To ensure we win one and avoid the other.
Who, then, would not be willing to murder the whole world, just to save their own skin from the eternal torments or Hades, or Shoal, or Gehenna, "where the worm dieth not,"? What moral laws would we willingly break and ignore, if our soul, and the souls of all those we loved, were suspended over an eternal fire pit, and their fate depended entirely on what we were willing to do?
How, then, is such an all or hell scenario not exactly like the horror movie, Saw, where a serial killer puts people into the most hellish situations imaginable, and forces them to engage in the worst suffering and brutality to their fellow human being possible, just to survive?
And if people are willing to engage in such horrors and visit such barbarisms upon each other just to survive in this life, which is so painful, lonely, brutish and short, (as we see so readily in wars for example) how much MORE willing would we be to engage in infinitely worse horrors when all of eternity hangs in the balance?
Indeed, from such a perspective, eternal life may not only be a kind of hell itself, but it may be an idea from which all of human evil may derive.
What Christians and Muslims never consider in the "Threat & Reward" paradigms offered by their religions, is how not everyone sees "eternity" itself as something that actually instills hope or a sense of comfort. For apeirophobics, eternity in either heaven or hell may both be seen to be equally as bad.
In fact, according to research, some people even prefer to deliberately inflict pain upon themselves to alleviate boredom; so maybe hell would be an easier place to inhabit for eternity than heaven. I mean, at least you wont get bored.
In a study that was done with people who were shocked with an electrical device that worked similar to a police Taser gun, people who were left in a room for long periods of time with nothing but the device, would often knowingly electrocute themselves (just to see if they could "take it," probably) rather than simply sit around waiting, with nothing to do at all. And the longer they were left alone, the more often they would "entertain" themselves by electrocuting themselves with the device.
Such findings certainly suggest something about the Garden of Eden and why Adam and Eve may have wanted out of it. (Combine this fact with studies that show people's desire for something increases dramatically when they are prohibited from having it, which is why people tend to gain weight on diets and smoke more after committing to quitting - called "the ironic rebound effect" - and we see why prohibitions like "no sex before marriage" and promises of eternal life can have the exact OPPOSITE effect of what those who sell religion insist such ideas should and will produce.)
So what if hell is everlasting life? Vampires seem to think so.
The flip side of this problem is how the promise for eternal life, coupled with the dire need to do anything within one's ability to avoid eternal suffering, only leads us to do WHATEVER IT TAKES!! and to WHOMEVER WE HAVE TO! To ensure we win one and avoid the other.
Who, then, would not be willing to murder the whole world, just to save their own skin from the eternal torments or Hades, or Shoal, or Gehenna, "where the worm dieth not,"? What moral laws would we willingly break and ignore, if our soul, and the souls of all those we loved, were suspended over an eternal fire pit, and their fate depended entirely on what we were willing to do?
How, then, is such an all or hell scenario not exactly like the horror movie, Saw, where a serial killer puts people into the most hellish situations imaginable, and forces them to engage in the worst suffering and brutality to their fellow human being possible, just to survive?
And if people are willing to engage in such horrors and visit such barbarisms upon each other just to survive in this life, which is so painful, lonely, brutish and short, (as we see so readily in wars for example) how much MORE willing would we be to engage in infinitely worse horrors when all of eternity hangs in the balance?
Indeed, from such a perspective, eternal life may not only be a kind of hell itself, but it may be an idea from which all of human evil may derive.
Comments
Post a Comment