Plurationalist (Interbelief Reasoning) Dialogue 297, “Does NOBODY Go to Hell?”

The reasoning theists, atheists, liberals, libertarians, & conservatives of Secular Bible Study, First Minneapolis Circle of Reason, Circle of Ijtihad, & Winnipeg Circle of Reason join Interbelief Conversation Café for our 297th Plurationalist (Interbelief Reasoning) Dialogue by Zoom, “Does NOBODY Go to Hell?"

Much of the early [100-150 AD] Christian writings showed Greek Gnostic influences, but one such influenced text, the apocryphal Revelation of Peter, reportedly very popular with early persecuted Christians for fleshing out the horrors of eternal damnation of the non-elect, was nevertheless left out of the final New Testament because of a different reason: A horrified and merciful Peter reveals that on the Day of Final Judgment, the elect would demonstrate their own righteousness and grace, by asking Jesus to lift their tormentors from eternal punishment to also become saved, and permitted to reside for eternity in the Greek version of heaven, the Elysian Fields.

Were some early Christians (including the rumored Peter himself) indeed so horrified at hearing the severity of judgment for the non-elect (in the Coptic text of Jesus to Peter, "therefore is thine heart troubled”) that they believed their own grace and mercy would be allowed to save even the damned, while other Christians were looking forward to seeing the torments from above (in the same Coptic text, detailed in Jesus’ revelation to Peter)?

What is the nature of Hell in later Christianity & secular history? Dante had his "Inferno," but also his "Purgatorio" – and in his tale, Hell's highest realm even has its own twilit version of heaven, the Elysian Fields, wherein dwells all of the virtuous pagans like Socrates and Plato, and where Jesus presumably had descended to bring his own ancestors, like Adam, Moses, and King David, up to Heaven. There, the virtuous pagans hang out forever in green and fruitful fields, and stare up not only at the stars, but across a vast distance to Heaven itself. In Hindu religious tradition, Hell is one’s karmic destiny for evil doing, and the nature of the torment depends upon the nature of one’s earlier behavior. But in the practice of Buddhism, rather than focusing on any Buddhist worldview of the afterlife, Hell is internal -- caused by one’s own fear and passions, and dooming one to reincarnation to try and try again to live a more perfect life. For atheists and secular humanists, there is no literal Hell, so nobody can literally “go there.” But for the existentialist philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Samuel Beckett, the absence of a literal Hell isn’t the problem...Sartre’s and Beckett’s real problem is that Hell is instead other people – especially when they are abandoned together in a small room with no exit, or in a toxic wasteland doomed to wait for a savior who never comes.

If no one can literally go to Hell, can they go to Hell figuratively? Some modern Abrahamic sects asserting there is no afterlife then see Hell as only possible here on earth -- but see it as real, in the more secular human apocalypses of war, famine, disease, and genocide. In this real world then, the apocryphal salvation for all human beings, prophesied in Peter’s Revelation, must come from a different kind of grace from other human beings -- the grace of choosing to lift up one another to a higher state of simple humanity.

But does humanity want to see that? Within another decade, civilization will be 2,000 years gone from the time when Jesus was supposedly crucified as an apostate by his fellow human beings. Has humanity changed from the early persecuted Christians eager to see eternal damnation of their tormentors? Have we evolved the capacity for grace, forgiveness, and willingness to allow and encourage thoughtful & civil behavior even in those we currently hate? Or are we still a culture transfixed by the notion of "an eye for an eye," and by the punishment of "the wicked," even when we as a culture still can't agree, 2,000 years after Jesus died on the cross, what actually constitutes wickedness vs. saintliness? If we are still so transfixed by Hell and Judgement, is NOBODY going to Hell because EVERYBODY is already THERE?

We'll try to reasoningly share our diverse or even disparate views on whether Hell is “here,” “elsewhere,” or “everywhere” -- or for “us,” “them,” or “everyone” -- at 7-9pm CDT Mon 3/17/25 by Zoom. But our agreements of open-mindedness, acceptance, curiosity, discovery, sincerity, brevity, & confidentiality should help us not torment each other!