"Wouldn't it be nice if souls were merely snuffed out, rather than condemned to eternal torment?" This heresy can lead many down the path to damnation, as they shy away from admitting their guilt.
This video was inspired by Ann Barnhadt's recent post: http://www.barnhardt.biz/2016/10/11/hell-so-much-worse-than-you-can-possibly-imagine/
The image used is from "The Last Judgment" by Fra Angelico: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Judgment_(Fra_Angelico,_Florence)
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This video is about a heresy which is very rampant throughout Western civilization, including the church.
It's the heresy of soul annihilation.
The idea, the idea that the sinner, the the evil, wicked sinner, when they die, their soul is snuffed out, that hell is merely the ending of their existence.
And this heresy is terribly, terribly destructive.
And to illustrate that to you, I'd like to tell you the parable of the nightclub.
There was a young man, a good young man, law-abiding, knew how to handle himself in a fight, but didn't start fights unnecessarily.
Came from a bit of money.
And one night he decided to go he decided to go downtown.
He decided to go to the dive club.
And in that club, the people in that club were a bunch of sinners, whores, thieves, people who would rape pit bulls for fun, with guns and knives and brand new sexual organs that you did not know existed.
And so he went down to this nightclub, and he partied at this nightclub.
He had quite a bit of fun.
There were many loose women.
He made friends with the owner because he wasn't misbehaved like some of them.
He wasn't an out-of-control drunk.
He wasn't an idiot.
He didn't start fights.
He didn't get arrested.
He just went down there and he was partying and he was drinking, not to excess, just a reasonable amount.
And he was having one hell of a time.
The whole time he was in that nightclub, he was protected because he knew not to start fights.
He knew not to get into trouble.
He knew not to screw things up.
He was dressed well.
You know, not the best dressed man in the club.
There were people that were better dressed than him.
But he was dressed well.
Looked like he came from money.
So the guys in the wife beaters, the guys in the cargo shorts, they didn't start it with him.
He stood at the sidelines, watching these idiots fight, knife one another over some whore.
He stood to the sidelines and thought, hey, I'm above it all.
I've got the sense not to get dragged down by all of this.
And then and then the night came to an end.
And he walked outside of the club.
He thought it was maybe 3, 4 a.m., but it turned out it was 7 a.m.
Sun had long risen.
So he stepped out of the club, popped into a diner to get some coffee and to get something to eat to sober up.
He realized something.
You know, maybe he didn't get arrested.
Maybe he didn't, you know, get into a knife fight, maybe he didn't get murdered, maybe he didn't get an STD.
So he kept things in check.
So he sat in that diner, saw all the other people, and they were all looking at him, because his suit, his suit had looked so good in that nightclub.
The lights been shining off it, he looked like a million bucks.
He looked like he knew what was going on.
Because in the nightclub, you couldn't see the cigarette burn on one leg.
The nightclub, he'd spent so much time there, all the sleeves got tattered.
He stank a cigarette smoke and cheap perfume from the whores he'd been associating with.
Yeah, maybe he didn't get an STD, but they left their mark on him.
And he realized that no matter how good he looked in that nightclub, out there in the daylight, he looked like a piece of filth.
That young man is me.
You know, the more the more I try and walk the righteous lifestyle.
Not just talk the talk, like that asshole that I was in the nightclub, but actually walk the walk.
The more I come into the daylight, I realize just how tattered and shabby I am.
Just how much I've wasted the gifts given to me.
And any time I step out into the daylight, and you can see the torn threads, you can see that it's a cheap suit that doesn't fit very well.
It looks great in a club, but in real...
No, I look like garbage in the light.
I look like garbage under the light of truth.
You know, and walking out into that light is absolutely terrifying because I'm still hungover.
My ears are still pounding with that music.
And so if I think I look like garbage when I'm standing in the light, can you imagine what a sober person must think of me?
Somebody whose faculties aren't twisted, aren't bent, aren't affected, somebody that can see me like I actually am?
And part of me wants to run back into that nightclub, back into that place of pounding music and flashing lights, where I can pretend to be cool.
I can pretend to be in control of things.
I can pretend to be better than all these other people in the nightclub.
The beatific vision terrifies me because I've got an inkling.
I've got just an inkling of how pathetic and ragged I actually am.
And I'm pretty sure I'm a lot more pathetic and ragged than that.
I don't want to be in the light.
I don't want all my sins, all of the mistakes, all of the wasted time from my life.
I don't want that to be under a harsh halogen lamp.
Part of me, part of me would much rather wander into that nihilistic abyss and end my soul.
Part of me wants to believe in those lyrics from the MASH theme song that suicide is painless.
You know, I would love, I would just love, wouldn't I, to spend another 10 or 20 or 30 years partying in this nightclub.
And then when my suit really gets ragged, when all the other partygoers in this nightclub and they're beginning to look down on me and I realize that I'm one of the beasts, just swallow that pill, slip those wrists, check out of the whole system.
The beatific vision terrifies me.
God utterly terrifies me because I know I don't deserve his mercy and none of us do.
And the concept of there not being a hell is a very, very tempting black pill for us to all swallow.
So those who say or believe or promote the idea that the saints get the beatific vision, they get life eternal.
They get to go to heaven.
And everybody else just, they disappear into blackness and they stop existing.
That is so, so tempting for so many people.
Spend another 20 years on this planet pursuing physical pleasure, pursuing ego pleasure, pursuing whatever.
And then you die and there's nothing.
Very tempting.
We need the courage to walk into the light.
And people that say there is no hell, priests who say there is no hell, are doing a disservice to their flock.
Because there is a hell.
And if you're honest with yourself, you've seen it.
You've seen it in people's eyes.
You've seen it in the rage and hatred they have for you when you've done something just, when you've done something good.
Maybe, maybe you've even seen it when you yourself felt that rage and hatred.
Soul's your soul.
It's an aspect of yourself, your free will that exists, period.
And when you die, it does not get snuffed out.
Cannot be snuffed out.
It can merely be outside of the presence of God with all the other damned souls where there is nothing but this hatred and envy and contempt and viciousness.
And in hell, another human can torture you just as well as a demon can.
Everybody is equal down there.
So walk out into the light.
Even if you're covered with scars, even if you're stinking of cigarette smoke, if you're covered with sores, no matter what outfit you're wearing, go walk out into the light.
Because it is infinitely better than being trapped down there with the monsters.
