This is going to sound very
harsh, but that's because it concerns an infinitely harsher belief system. Many
Christians,
Muslims, and
practitioners of some other
faiths believe that there is a
God who will send the
sinners among them (or allow said sinners to be sent) to a
Hell. There, it is directed with particularity among many of these sects that the sinner shall
burn in an everlasting
fire. But this does not seem to be sufficient to prevent members of these faiths from sinning. Why is that, why would eternal horrible burning fail to
dissuade the conduct that leads to it? Maybe because the suffering seems so far off or
hypothetical.
I suggest to the members of such faiths,
if you truly believe that the punishment for sin is burning then the one way to keep yourself on
track is to remind yourself how it will feel to burn. This is very simple to do: First, just take a metal spoon and hold it over a
fire, or rest the head of it on a glowing
stove, just for a minute. Be sure to handle it with an oven mitt or a moistened towel, as it's not your fingertips you wish to burn. Second, once the spoon is heated up, take it from the stove or the
flame and immediately press it to your
face, so that you can sear the
flesh of your
cheek,
forehead, maybe your
chin, or an
earlobe. You might ask "why the face? I don't want to
disfigure my face!!" Well that first of all is
vanity, putting your good looks (or imagined good looks) ahead of instilling within yourself
obedience to your God. Anyway, if you don't do this, and you end up in a burning Hell because you fell of the
purity wagon, your whole face and all the rest of you will be burning a lot worse than this, all day every day, so this is nothing in comparison. Third, while you are burning the flesh of your face, repeat this
mantra to yourself:
I believe that this is the the punishment that a just and merciful God will impose upon me eternally if I am a sinner.
Repeat the mantra five times, even if you have to scream through it and are overwhelmed by the pain -- remember, this is just maybe a half of a square inch, not the full-body treatment your faith teaches you'll be getting if you don't do this
right. As a bonus, remember that the smell of burning flesh is pleasing to the
nostrils of your God. Adjust the
declaration as necessary if your belief system is that Hell is not eternal, but merely lasts a few
lifetimes. Perform this ritual once per day, or whenever you feel tempted to sin. Put a
salve and a
bandage on the
burn -- it's going to hurt, probably for weeks.
Now you may be saying, "wait a minute, it's
crazy to burn yourself" -- but if that's what you believe your God may do to sinners like you, even as it
omnisciently feels all of our
pain, aren't you saying your God is crazy? Better
wipe that thought away real fast!! And you may think very quickly into the process that
you don't deserve this sort of pain even as others do, but isn't that just another sinful vanity? And if you are concerned about the money you might spend in recovery, there is yet another thing you are putting ahead of on opportunity to prove your faith in your God. Many Christians particularly, have told me that
all are miserable sinners in the eyes of their God, right? And that all are in fact deserving of exactly this punishment. So, if you believe that then yes, by definition you really do deserve this. Go, do it.
I will henceforth give no credence to anyone who claims that we are all sinners, all deserving of punishment, all deserving to burn, who is not willing to prove the sincerity of that faith by imposing this deserved burning on his own face.
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What -- me? No, I won't be doing anything like this, because I don't believe in such a thing as Hell....