I Chose Hell
Taking God and Satan to Family Court
Many years ago Yahweh and Satan were fighting over the eventual custody of my eternal soul. Would I spend eternity in my father’s mansions in heaven or in Satan’s hell? I didn’t take this matter lightly. For it was not just about the place, but a about who runs it. What kind of being did I want to be in charge in my eternal home? Who would be in charge of me? And what price would I pay here on earth for admission to either’s realm?
So I took the matter to court, where my preference would weigh heavily in the final decision.
After examining the evidence presented by both parties, I asked for Satan and hell.
Here’s why.
For All Have Sinned and Fall Short
As my father, Yahweh would never be proud of me. We are all a continual disappointment to him. Created flawed and prone to sin, we all break his commandments and fail in our obligations as his disciples. Thus even as Christians, we are only worthy of forgiveness, never praise.
If we are Catholic or Orthodox, we must regularly confess our sins to be forgiven. If we are Protestant, we only have to do it once — but if we are evangelical we are continually reminded of our shortcomings. For while grace is free and all our sins are wiped clean, we also incur an obligation for discipleship. And it is here where we consistently disappoint.
We can never have enough faith, never tithe enough, never study the Bible enough, never pray enough, never trust god enough, never evangelize enough, and never give god enough control over our hearts and lives.
If we were true disciples of Jesus we would reach the gold standard of faith described in the scriptures — the faith that makes all the Bible promises come true. But we aren’t up to that, so we are continually exhorted to keep fighting against our worldly instincts.
Our sermons and teachings constantly focus on how to be better and do more. If we just use this Bible verse in conjunction with that one, the faith will magically sprout within us, giving us the power to be better disciples. But even if it works and our discipleship advances, we are still not enough. We will never make Yahweh proud. His demands for discipleship are insatiable, always wanting more and more time and devotion from us.
Eventually, we can start to feel guilty for any time spent away from the duties of discipleship. We are ungrateful hypocrites, not giving enough and not suffering enough for the gospel. Even full-time pastors and missionaries confess to being frustrated by “stumbling blocks” in their faith and feeling compelled to keep pushing themselves to be better and do more.
We are never enough.
Human parents who raise their children like this are notorious for their toxicity. Nothing the child does is ever good enough for them. The child’s bed is made, but never well enough. Their paper gets an A, but not an A+. They come in second in a competition. It just proves how inadequate they are and how much they need to push themselves to improve. And even when they do improve they never hear “good job!” or “well done!”
Because they are never enough.
Children of such parents tend to grow up damaged. They may be perfectionists with low self-esteem. They may be obsessed with success and achievement, desperate to finally win their parents’ approval. But it never comes. The standards are deliberately set so high that they will always fall short.
It’s a cruel game that some parents play.
Thou Shalt Have No Gods Before Me
You shall not worship them or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. — Exodus 20:5.
This one should be easy, as few of us worship Apollo or Osiris anymore. But it’s not. Because according to evangelical theology “gods” means anything else in our lives that we value more than our relationship with Jesus. It could be a career, a dream, or even a family member that we prioritize over our discipleship. Does your career take too much time away from your church commitment? Is becoming a champion swimmer more important to you than your service to Yahweh? Is a problematic family member a stumbling block to your faith?
If so, you are violating the first commandment. You are committing idolatry. Jesus himself warns us: Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. — Matthew 10:37
This all-consuming jealousy reminds me a mother who never forgives her son for getting married. How dare he replace her! This woman’s goal in life is to destroy her daughter-in-law and guilt her son into coming back to her. She forces him to play referee — and ultimately to choose — between his mother and his wife.
These mothers don’t love their sons. They do not desire their sons’ happiness and well-being. They only want to own him, to remain the sole object of his worship, and they will destroy his entire family to do it. This includes scarring his children, who take the example of their parents’ destroyed marriage into their psyche— unto the third and fourth generations.
It’s another cruel game some parents play.
Narrow is the Gate
Because narrow is the gate, and narrow is the way that leads unto life, and few there be that find it. — Matthew 7:14
What exactly are the rules? Have we got them right? Is it possible that of all the churches, only one has the correct doctrine and everyone in the others will be rejected from heaven? Or do only certain people in each church have it right, and everyone else is deceived? The instructions are diverse and contradictory enough that every church and every believer can make the case for having gotten it exactly right, leaving everyone else lost in potentially fatal error.
Does Yahweh love us enough to give us clear standards and rules that ensure his forgiveness? Why does he not do it? Is it because all the churches have got it right enough and the differences don’t matter? Or is it because he deliberately wants to keep us off-balance, always stumbling and fighting among ourselves?
It’s as if our father has told each of us a different story as to what his rules and expectations are, and set us up to compete with each other for his acceptance.
Children from these families don’t escape damage. They continue competing with each other well into adulthood, often sacrificing their true selves and their own dreams in order to get ahead of their siblings in the approval game.
It’s yet another cruel game that some parents play.
Yahweh — The Abusive Parent
According to the evidence presented to the court, Yahweh deliberately created us flawed and set us up to fail, will never find anything we accomplish praiseworthy, is violently jealous for our devotion, constantly reminds us of how badly we fail him and how fortunate we are that he will not throw us out of his house, and uses vague and contradictory rules to pit us against each other for his approval. And yet we slavishly cling to him, desperate for any scrap of love or acceptance he may toss our way.
We are like the children of an abusive parent.
I was never abused like that by my human parents. The expectations I had to meet were reasonable. Though I was rebuked and pushed to be better, I was also praised and celebrated. I was never required to serve and worship them to the exclusion of everything and everyone else. I had clear rules and boundaries that made sense and were identical to those for my siblings. We were not told different stories or pitted against each other for their approval.
I was enough.
Sometimes I wonder if this advantage is what enabled me to see through Yahweh and break free of his grasp. Because I knew better. I knew what love is, and what it is not. I could tell the difference between parenting and predation.
Satan’s Orphanage
Satan is not our father. He didn’t create us. He is just another failed creation of Yahweh, exiled from heaven.
Hell is an orphanage for all Yahweh’s rejects — Satan, other fallen angels, and the vast majority of humans.
There is no exclusionary criteria. All comers are welcome.
And what kind of people might I meet in Satan’s orphanage? There are a lot of unknowns and speculations here. We are taught that just being a good person is not a ticket to heaven, so I can assume that there will be good people in hell, along with the evil ones. And according to many Christian leaders, I may also expect to find:
- People who lived before Jesus did,
- People raised in other cultural and religious traditions,
- LGBTQ people,
- Feminists,
- Ex-Christians,
- Christians from other churches who were deceived into false doctrine by Satan, and
- Victims of church sex abuse who were called liars or blamed for their own abuse and consequently lost their faith.
It is said that the source of torment in hell is the sense of total separation from Yahweh. But this separation is exactly what I desire. Having experienced real love from human parents, this god’s “love” would be a big step down for me.
As an ex-vangelical and an agnostic, I don’t claim to have any idea about what lies beyond this mortal realm. But if this god really does have mansions in the sky, I want to be as far away from them as possible.
So I stated my preference for Satan and hell. I expect the judge will be obliging.
