Heaven is in the sky and hell is under the ground

Go to http://Google.com images and type in the word ‘hell’, go do it now in a separate tab then come back to me….

What did you get?. More than likely you got images of fire, demons, devils, anguish, people screaming out in pain, torment, inferno, brimstone, blood, forks, cannibalism, and quite likely anti-Christ motifs.


Now, go back to that tab and change the word hell to the word heaven.

Now you will see, blue skies, clouds, stairs, landscape, beautiful gardens and rainbows.
Yet were do all these images immerge, and do they contribute to our fear of death?
We are inevitably more likely to fear hell rather than heaven, and the images that you have seen are the exact reasoning for this. Our teaching, our culture, the media , the books we read , the films we watch, and the internet we explore, all conjure up imagery in our minds that simplistically that hell is red and heaven is blue.

For instance if you visit the site http://www.apuritansmind.com, then click on the link ‘Do you hate Jesus’, you will be immediately presented with an image of a man, mouth open screaming in pain and surrounded by flames. This is the message of the internet, that hell is a ‘a place of darkness, where there is weeping and the gnashing of teeth’ , an empty space void of happiness. If this is what we are teaching, then without doubt there is going to be a innate fear of death!. This morbid and dark site presents its viewers with a warning: believe in Christ or this is your fate. This ultimatum, is perhaps orthodox yet I propose very unjust and malevolent. Such sites may have an audience, or even followers, yet I don’t feel their content should be displayed as it is: as truth !!.


I remember once back in primary school, when a rather strange substitute teacher, was discussing death. His shrewd and absurd comment, which I think now, was meant to be funny, sticks in mind. He said ‘ if people don’t want to go to hell, why do they bury themselves six foot close to it ?’. For his sake, I am glad that no other teacher heard it. Yet, it had an impact on me. A few days later, when I was playing with a group of friends in my back garden, I found a hole in the grass, I lifted it up just to see dirt. With my mother not watching, I urged my friends to start digging. They were more than willing. Yet I did not reveal my reasoning, that I was looking for hell!. Over the next half an hour I completely destroyed my garden. Not only was my mother furious, once she had discovered the little tribe of archaeologists, but I was completely dissatisfied that I hadn’t found hell.


What I am trying to say here, is that the things we teach the next generation about life after death could have a profound impact on them. And still to this day after nearly completing a theology degree, when I think of these concepts, I still think of hell under the ground and heaven in the sky. And indeed moreover, it creates a sense of apprehension and fear of death. But then what should we teach children about the afterlife?. Perhaps, we should just bombard them with all such imagery, scare them into religious obedience and hope they grow into mature adults. Or should such imagery be avoided? in order to combat the fear of death.